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ERASMUS+: And so it begins in Valencia

erasmusimage1Last week, Dr Ben Hicks (lecturer in Psychology and an associate of the Ageing and Dementia Institute) and Prof. Wen Tang (Head of Research in the Department of Creative Technology) attended the Kick-Off meeting in Valencia for their recently awarded Erasmus+ project. This two year study is led by Alzheimer’s Valencia and includes partners: Alzheimer’s Slovenia, Alzheimer’s Romania, Alzheimer’s Greece and IBV Valencia. The project aims to explore the use of ‘Serious Games’ for people living with dementia and to exchange best practice knowledge between the various EU countries. As part of the study, the research team will develop an online training platform that will enable people living with dementia and their care partners to access and use a range of ‘Serious Games’ that can support their well-being.

The preliminary meeting was an exciting affair with lively discussions between the partners as they outlined their aspirations for the project. Following a two-day meeting that included an unexpected trip to the Regional Parliament of Valencia to meet a representative of the Valencian Government for the European Union, the partners have been tasked with exploring up to date ‘Serious Games’ that are being used with people with dementia in their countries. The research team will initially compile a list of games and devices that are being used within the dementia community.  Following this, each country will host a series of workshops to assess the perceived impact of the games as well as understand best practice for their implementation. Once this information has been collected, work will begin on designing the e-training platform.

Over the next two years, meetings will be held in each of the four countries to enable the partners to continue to share their knowledge. So bring on Greece in March 2017!erasmusimage6

If you would like more details on the project please contact Ben on bhicks@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Business Consultancy Pop-up store was a great success!

BRIAN, Business Engagement

Business Consultancy pop-up store was a 1-day event, organised to aid SMEs in realising their potential and growing their businesses.

Morning sessions enabled individual attendees to have 1:1 consultancy with four academic experts:

  • Dr Parisa Gilani (leadership)
  • Dr Sara Hourani (dispute resolutions)

    Dr Parisa Gilani consulting businesses regarding the leadership agenda of SMEs

    Dr Parisa Gilani consulting businesses regarding the leadership agenda of SMEs

  • Dr Nasiru Taura (entrepreneurship)
  • Dr Elvira Bolat (digital marketing).

Afternoon sessions included quick-fire talks for all attendees:

  1. Maximising the impact of leadership development for your business – Dr Parisa Gilani
  2. Business failure: real options for finance and running your business – Dr Nasiru Taura
  3. Online dispute resolution: more efficient ways for resolving customer disputes – Dr Sara Hourani
  4. (Re)energising your business with digital: six essential tips – Dr Elvira Bolat.

Both parts of the event were well attended by students, staff and primary local businesses, among which are Creatful, Kindred, Eat Pho Ltd. BU academic experts are now in conversation with individual SME owners to see how BU can further support these businesses in desire to grow. Most businesses are now considering to work with BU’s Student Project Bank to allow students to work on individual assignments that will greatly benefit both businesses and students.

In addition, during the event we have organised tombola. The winning number is 2 and now local Vietnamese restaurant, Eat Pho Ltd, is going to receive 1 hour 1:1 consultancy with all four academic experts.

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Signature dish of Eat Pho, source: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/36/07/20/highly-recommended-our.jpg

Signature dish of Eat Pho, source: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/36/07/20/highly-recommended-our.jpg

Congratulations to Eat Pho Ltd and we are looking forward to making a difference for your truly amazing business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We would like to thank BU Events and RKEO teams as well as BSc Marketing students (Molly Oven, Danielle Hearn, Annaik Mackel, Andrew Herschtal) for supporting the event and organising it to such high standard.

Workshop: working with the press

Knowledge Exchange

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Despite the increasing popularity of online media sources, ‘traditional’ media outlets still tend to be the main way most people consume news.  Working with the media can be a very powerful way of sharing your research findings with the general public or with specialist audiences.  It’s a good way of disseminating your research, which can lead to impact further down the line.

As part of our new Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, we will be running a session about working with the media as one way of sharing your research.  This session is part of the ‘planning for impact and communicating research’ pathway.

This workshop will be led by BU’s PR manager, Nathaniel Hobby, who will take you through the basics of working with the press.

Date & time: Monday 5 December 9:30am – 11:30am

Location: Lansdowne Campus

For further information and to book, see BU’s staff intranet.

Winner of “The strength of young graduates contest”.

PG research, student research

 

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Last Friday a postman knocked at my parent’s house in Italy.

He carried a parchment, from The National Strength and Condition Association.

On it is written that my Master Degree Thesis won “The strength of young graduates contest” as second best Italian research in its field.

The study of 2015, is titled: “THE BIOMECHANICS EVALUATION IN STUDYING THE MOTION – COGNITION RELATIONSHIP” and can be summarised as follow:

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-37-15using a system of 8 QTM cameras and a force plate, I measured the effect of different tasks upon the static balance in 20 young volunteers.

To do so, I asked them to perform four tasks in a randomised order, while I was recording their centre of pressure (with force plate) and centre of mass (with 3D motion capture system).

Tasks were:

  • Open Eyes (OE). The participants were instructed to hold a steady position, standing up with their feet together, for 30s.
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  • Closed Eyes (CE). Same position as OE, but participants were instructed to keep their eyes closed for 30s.
  • Cognitive Dual Task (COGN-DT). Holding the same steady position, I asked them to countdown aloud, backwards in threes from a number that I randomly chose.
  • Motor Dual Task (MOT-DT). Same position, but for this task volunteers were instructed to move their fingers (of the right hand) and touch their thumb alternately, for 30s.

What the result told us was that the COGN-DT was causing more perturbation, followed by the CE task.

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-37-44Special thanks go to the people who helped me at the MotionLab in Naples (Giuseppe Sorrentino, Laura Mandolesi and Pasquale Varriale), and to my current supervisors (Alison McConnell, Tom Wainwright and James Gavin) who believed in me by giving me the opportunity to be here today.

Looking forward, with hope to collect more milestones.

Thanks.

CFP: Special Issue on Gender and Mobility in Tourism

Knowledge Exchange, Women's Academic Network

Call for Papers: Tourism Review
Special Issue on Gender and Mobility in Tourism

Guest Editors:
Jaeyeon Choe, PhD
Centre for Events, Leisure, Society & Culture, Faculty of Management
Bournemouth University, UK

Cristopher Livecchi, PhD
Department of Geography
State University of New York, USA

Gender in/and tourism have been gaining an increasing attention from tourism scholars since the 1990s (e.g., Aitchison, 2005; Figueroa-Domecq et al., 2015; Ferguson, 2011; Ireland, 1993; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000; Munar et al., 2015; Swain, 1995). Despite growing interest and published works, the nexus of tourism and gender has not been thoroughly explored by researchers. Gender and tourism literature is fragmented, with a lack of communication and collaboration across disciplines even though there are overlapping topic areas and discussions. There has not been enough interdisciplinary research work carried out, leading to fragmented literature reviews, theorization processes and methods. Thus, the primary aim of this special issue is to thoroughly review the theories, theorization processes and methods/methodology of gender studies in tourism, by encouraging the incorporation of LGBT, queer studies and ‘White’ feminism concepts and theories.

Secondly, we are interested in exploring how migration and mobility in a globalising world have affected gender issues in relation to tourism, and implications of practices, politics and meanings of mobility for women (Porter, 2011). Migration theory had begun to include feminist theory in the early 1990s (Chant ,1992), and has provided insights into the connections and the mutually constitutive relationship between the construction of masculinities and masculinist ideologies; and migration, (im)mobilities and transnationalism and gender issues. As scholars interested in migration and mobilities work collaboratively and transnationally across different worlds (Yeoh & Ramdas, 2014), papers that address how migration and gender issues influence tourism research and practices are welcome. We also welcome papers that incorporate action research, as well as papers that develop future research directions.

In summary, this special issue, we seek papers related to issues about (im)mobilities, migration, LGBTQ, ‘White’ feminism, action research, social sustainability and the cultural geography of gender and tourism. We invite contributions from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, geography, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, leisure studies, tourism studies and education. We invite you to submit papers on topics that include (but are not limited to):

– Migration and gender (in)equality
– Gender politics, migration and (im)mobilities
– Action research in gender and tourism
– Research methods development
– LGBT/queer studies in tourism field
– ‘White’ feminism/ ‘White’ masculinity
– Cultural geography of gender and tourism
– Social sustainability and gender issues
– Gender and the Sharing Economy
– “Dangerous women” in tourism
– Implications of practices, politics and meanings of mobility for women
– Gender, migration and (im)moralities in developing worlds
– Brexit and its potential impact on immigrant women communities

Each article should be approximately 3000-5500 words long.
Submission Deadlines:

· 500 words abstract due: 20 December 2016
· Full paper due: 20 February 2017

Please send your abstracts/papers to Jaeyeon Choe, PhD (jchoe@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Thrivership UK Convention 2017

Student Engagement, student research

Join us for a Q&A session with the founder of Life Changing Events on 6 December to find out more.

In partnership with Life Changing Events, we are inviting staff and students to help shape and run one of the largest cancer survivorship events of 2017 – Thrivership UK Convention.

As part of the Festival of Learning, Bournemouth University will bring together leading organisations representing cancer related charities and survivorship projects, sport and physical activity, NHS and local governments to share best practice, research and innovative ideas to improve the services, experience and outcomes for people living with a cancer diagnosis. This event will also host a health and wellbeing clinic for 200 people living with cancer.

In order to make this event a success, Life Changing Events needs support with:

  • Event development, management, marketing and administration
  • Branding and marketing materials design
  • Website development
  • Social media development and promotion
  • Media capture of event (film/photography)
  • Interviewing participants in the event
  • Event impact evaluation
  • Literature review around improving cancer survivorship
  • Event day support/management

We would like to make these opportunities available to staff and students. This is a great opportunity for BU students to gain real-world project experience, enhance their CVs and contribute to people’s potential to live active and happy lives with and beyond cancer.

Interested in taking part?

Then join us for a Q&A session with the founder of Life Changing Events, Layne Hamerston, on 6 December at 11:00am in the Lawrence Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus.

Please register to attend by Friday 2 December.

Refreshments will be provided.

Research funding in Autumn statement

moneyIn his Autumn Statement on Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP, outlined a new National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF) that will add an extra £2 billion a year for research and development by the end of this Parliament.

Through the NPIF the government will fund:

  • Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund – a new cross-disciplinary fund to support collaborations between business and the UK’s science base, which will set identifiable challenges for UK researchers to tackle. The fund will be managed by Innovate UK and the research councils. Modelled on the USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programme the challenge fund will cover a broad range of technologies, to be decided by an evidence-based process
  • Innovation, applied science and research – additional funding will be allocated to increase research capacity and business innovation, to further support the UK’s world-leading research base and to unlock its full potential. Once established, UKRI will award funding on the basis of national excellence and will include a substantial increase in grant funding through Innovate UK

There are several sector statements issued and you can read them here:

CEMP books – ‘bumper crop’

Publishing, writing

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November / December see the publication of several books authored / edited by CEMP researchers.

Doing Text: Media After the Subject (Julian McDougall, Auteur / Columbia University Press – with Pete Bennett)

Teaching and Learning on Screen: Mediated Pedagogies (Mark Readman, Palgrave MacMillan)

Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth: Hard Times Today (Julian McDougall, Routledge – with Pete Bennett)

Also forthcoming this academic year –

Digital Media, Culture and Education: Theorising Third Space Literacies (Julian McDougall, Palgrave MacMillan, with John Potter)

The Routledge International Handbook of Media Literacy Education (Julian McDougall, Routledge, with Belinha de Abreu, Alice Lee, Paul Mihaildis and Jad Melki)

Doing Theory on Education: Using Popular Culture to Explore Key Debates (Julian McDougall, Routledge, with Andy Cramp).

Calling all RCUK PIs and Students!

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

RCUKlogoWe’ve been informed by RCUK that the next Researchfish submission period will run in February/March 2017. The key dates and policies for the 2017 exercise are detailed below…

 

Next Submission Period dates

Image sourced from The Academy of Medical SciencesPIs will need to log on to researchfish® and submit a return between the 6 February and 4pm on 16 March 2017 to confirm that their outcomes information is accurate and complete at that time. Students will once again be asked to submit their outcomes then too. It is important to note that this time there will not be a blanket extension given to those who don’t submit by the deadline.

 Studentships outcomes collection

The last Submission Period was the first time that all RCUK-funded Students were asked provide research outcomes from their Studentship awards. After considering the information gathered and the feedback received, RCUK has decided in future only students who are in the third or later year of their studies need to submit their outcomes. For the 2017 submission period this means students whose awards started on or before the 5 February 2015.

Sanctions

As was the case after the 2016 Submission Period, non-compliant PIs will lose eligibility to be either a PI or Co-I on further awards from any Research Council and any current awards will have their payments withheld until such time as the PI becomes compliant. Sanctions will not apply to students who do not comply with the request to submit their outcomes.

 

VeggiEat Project – Free lunch for people over 65 years old

PG research

For an EU funded project around healthy eating, we are seeking to recruit people aged 65+ who would like to come to the University and join members of the research team for a free lunch on Wednesday 21st December 2016.

To participate is very easy:

*   Book a place by sending an email at  vmellorodrigues@bournemouth.ac.uk or calling Dr Vanessa Mello Rodrigues on 07478501713
*   Choose the most suitable time: 12.00 or 13.10h

*   Invite a friend or relatives who are also 65+ (if you wish!)

On the 21st December:

Come to Bournemouth University Talbot Campus (The Fusion building); choose among three hot dishes which will be available for lunch, enjoy your lunch and answer a questionnaire about your experience.

Limited places available. Please, book soon if you wish to guarantee your place.

 

 

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Money Bear FundingThe following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Follow-on funding for impact and engagement scheme

These support innovative and creative engagements with new audiences and user communities that stimulate pathways to impact within the area of arts and humanities. Grants are worth up to £100,000 over a maximum period of one year. Smaller grants of up to £30,000 may be awarded for shorter or higher risk activities.

Maximum award: £100,000

 Closing date: None open call

Research grants – early-career route

These enable individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research related to the arts and humanities, and support researchers at the start of their careers in gaining experience of managing and leading research projects. Provides grants for projects with a full economic cost (fEC) between £50,000 and £250,000 for a varying duration up to a limit of 60 months.

Maximum award: £200,000

Closing date: None open call

Research grants – standard route

These support research projects by enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research related to the arts and humanities. The standard route provides grants for projects with a full economic cost (fEC) between £50,000 and £1,000,000 for a varying duration up to a limit of 60 months.

Maximum award: £800,000

Closing date: None open call

Economic and Social Research Council

COMING SOON: UK in changing Europe – Brexit priority grants

*** The Economic and Social Research Council will shortly be inviting applications for its UK in changing Europe – Brexit priority grants. Applications are expected to open at the beginning of December and to close on 25 January 2017. Call information will be published when applications open. The following information is subject to change. These grants support additional activity, including research synthesis and potential new short-term research activity, related to the process of the UK leaving the EU. The grants will be between £100,000 and £300,000 (100 per cent fEC, with the ESRC contributing 80 per cent fEC) and for a duration of up to 18 months. The ESRC expects grants to commence on 1 April 2017.

Be aware this is a pre-call and there may be further conditions announced in the full call.

Maximum award: £240,000

Closing date: 25 Jan 17 (forecast)

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Whole energy systems scoping studies

The EPSRC/Energy systems catapult will fund up to eight studies across the six areas identified. Scoping studies are expected to be up to a maximum of nine months in duration and up to £60k (80% FEC) in value. Funding could be used for researcher time, travel, workshops and other engagement activities to further develop consortia and larger programmes of work. Interdisciplinary collaboration and consortia building within applications is strongly encouraged as is partnership and engagement activities with organisations outside of academia e.g. Government, regulators and industry.

Maximum award: £60,000

Closing date: 19 Jan 17

 Medical Research Council

Health systems research initiative fourth call – providing evidence to strengthen health systems in low- and middle income countries

This is the fourth annual call for the Health Systems Research Initiative. Up to £6million is available for funding proposals under this call.  Innovative proposals are sought from across the public health, social and biomedical sciences and must clearly identify what health system challenge is being addressed. Proposals must situate this clearly-defined challenge within an understanding of the broader health system linkages and describe how and why findings from the project have the potential to improve the health of people living in low and middle-income countries. Funding is available for research only; we will not fund the routine delivery of health services.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 24 Jan 17

Improving cross-sector comparisons – beyond QALY

This supports research into the possibility of creating a measure of quality of life or wellbeing, which would have utility across health and social care. Grants may be awarded for any period of up to five years.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

 

Methodological research for health and care systems modelling – identifying and measuring spillover effects

Funding supports research into methodologies for developing models which may enable identification, measurement and understanding of spillover effects in health service and public health systems.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

Methods research to support the use of observational data in clinical decision making – highlight notice

Funding supports the development of innovative methods for identifying, synthesising, interpreting and presenting observational data for use in guidance development and clinical decision-making, both at the national level and for individual patients, and in particular, how one may interpret and rationalise data from different sources.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

Royal Society, GB

Royal Society/Leverhulme Trust senior research fellowships

These enable academic researchers to be relieved of all their teaching and administrative duties and to concentrate on full-time research in all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excluding clinical medicine. A total of seven fellowships are provided each year. The fellow’s employing institution receives reimbursement for the full salary costs for the fellow. Research expenses of up to a maximum of £2,500 are available to cover the cost of consumables, equipment and travel.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 18 Jan 17 (recurring)

Wellcome Trust, GB

Research bursaries

These support individuals working on small- and medium-scale research projects based on library or archive collections supported by the trust. Bursaries are usually worth between £5,000 and £25,000 each, and may contribute towards travel, subsistence and research expenses.

Maximum award: £25,000

Closing date: 31 Mar 17 (recurring)

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Fusion project leads to best paper award

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

Work by BU researchers examining the human aspects of Digital Rights Management has won a best paper award at the Fourth International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and IP Law. This is joint work carried out by Marcella Favale, Neil McDonald, Shamal Faily, and Christos Gatzidis.

This work, which resulted from research carried out during the FIF funded MADRIGAL project, examines the perspective of DRM from the perspective of content creators using qualitative socio-legal analysis.

In addition to this work, we were also invited to write an extended version of this paper for SCRIPTed, which is currently in press.

Well done Marcella and the rest of the MADRIGAL team!