Dr Akudjedu, Associate Professor in Clinical Imaging at Bournemouth University, was named the first winner of the EFRS Research Awards, which aim to recognise research achievements in the field of radiography.
His work explores radiography and healthcare research, neuroimaging and clinical neuroscience, and general clinical imaging research.
The EFRS aims to represent, promote and develop the profession of radiography in Europe, representing more than 100,000 radiographers and 8,000 radiography students across the continent.
Dr Akudjedu said: “It is really exciting and yet humbling that my research programme and activities in radiography practice and education from Bournemouth University’s Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation has been recognised by our European-wide professional organisation.
“This is a culmination of years of research together with numerous collaborators and students.”
Hot off the press is this paper exploring the role of disc degeneration and intervertebral motion in neck pain. The research was led by Dr Jonny Branney of the Department of Nursing Science alongside Dr Alex Breen, BU Visiting Associate, Dr Alister du Rose, AECC University College, Philip Mowlem, University Hospitals Dorset, and Professor Alan Breen, Professor of Musculoskeletal Research. The project was made possible through an Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Royal College of Chiropractors and joint funded by BU.
Key findings were…..Do check it out via the QR code above or via this link!
PhD student Hina Tariq, currently undertaking the Clinical Academic Doctorate program at the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work (SSSW), published a new paper titled, “The Delphi of ORACLE: An Expert Consensus Survey for the Development of the Observational Risk Assessment of Contractures (Longitudinal Evaluation)” Open Access in the journal of Clinical Rehabilitation.
This paper is co-authored by her academic supervisors, Professor Sam Porter and Dr Kathryn Collins, her former academic supervisor, Dr Desiree Tait and her clinical supervisor, Joel Dunn (Dorset Healthcare University Foundation NHS Trust).
Summary: This paper used the Delphi method to provide expert consensus on items to be included in a contracture risk assessment tool (ORACLE). The items were related to factors associated with joint contractures, appropriate preventive care interventions, and potentially relevant contextual factors associated with care home settings. The promise of a risk assessment tool that includes these items has the capacity to reduce the risk of contracture development or progression and to trigger timely and appropriate referrals to help prevent further loss of function and independence.
New research into production management in the UK’s TV industry has found that there is a corrosive cultural divide between ‘production’ and ‘editorial’. This distinction between those involved in the ‘creative’ aspects of making tv and those who manage its more logistical aspects is what lies at the heart of much of the discontent experienced by today’s production managers, the research has found.
‘We have known for a long time that production managers lack visibility and feel undervalued’, explains Dr Christa van Raalte, who led the project. ‘When three-quarters of respondents told us last year that they were seriously considering leaving we knew the problem was deeply rooted. The aim of this latest research has been to gain a much clearer understanding of what it is that attracts people into production management roles in the first place and what we could do better to keep them. What’s the point of investing in the recruitment of new production talent if we can’t hang on to the ones we’ve got?’
The new report launched this week, Where have all the PMs gone? Addressing the production management skills gap in UK TV, builds on an earlier survey with in-depth interviews. The result is a detailed and nuanced account of the experience of working in production management. The report makes eleven recommendations for change, from clearer job definitions and more equitable pay rates, to improved training and development.
The report concludes that there is much to be done to ensure that production management is properly recognised and understood both in and beyond the industry, that PMs are treated equitably and respectfully, and that employers are able to recruit and retain the workforce they need. This cannot be achieved without addressing ingrained working culture and practices. The challenge this represents for the wider industry, claims the report, should not be underestimated.
The project’s research team is based at the University’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) and funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.
Manchester University will be hosting the prestigious 2024 European Team-Based Learning Symposium in collaboration with the ETBLC. This event presents a unique opportunity for individuals passionate about Team-Based Learning to showcase their expertise by submitting an abstract. Alternatively, you can join us at the symposium to be a part of an engaging and vibrant learning community.
All the necessary information, including the abstract submission process and deadline, can be found on the conference website. Don’t miss out on this incredible chance to connect with like-minded professionals and expand your knowledge in Team-Based Learning!
This week’s update looks at some ministerial statements, what the OfS has learned from its funded project son mental health and wellbeing, employability and what works, a look at foundation years, who does them, and the outcomes, more on international students and the review of the post-graduate work visa, and the OfS are taking a fresh look at grant funding for universities.
The outlook for research at UK universities
Research Professional held an event recently and had some interesting speakers. They report on a speech by Jessica Corner, the executive chair of Research England:
“It may be that our research and innovation system is beginning to contract a little bit,” Corner told delegates, having spoken about expectations that the sector is likely to be “entering into a more financially constrained few years”.
She said that analysis by UK Research and Innovation, the parent agency of Research England, had shown that the higher education sector is contributing around £5 billion a year to UK research, “which makes universities actually one of the biggest funders of research overall”.
With data suggesting falling numbers of international students, whose fees provide crucial financial support for universities, “there will be less to cover research”, Corner suggested….
Corner suggested that if the UK’s research sector does contract in scale, “that doesn’t mean to say it’s necessarily contracting in what it delivers”. She said that the opportunity offered by artificial intelligence to boost productivity is “huge”. “We need to carry on with the investment that we’ve got, but we’re going to have to be very smart with it,” she said.
At the same event the Science Minister, Andrew Griffith, spoke and amongst other things he addressed the funding point and also suggested that the new UKRI head, when Ottoline Leyser stands down in June 2025, may be from industry rather than the sector
Griffith said he wanted “true diversity, meaning the widest range of backgrounds and experiences”. He said new leadership “could well be from inside the sector, but also they could be from the top of the business world, or someone who has come from a professional services organisation”.
Griffith’s predecessor as science minister, George Freeman, has also recently told Research Professional News that new UKRI leadership “cannot just be traditional academic administration” and that there should be “a more business-like, more focused, accountable, output-orientated delivery culture in UKRI”…
The science minister was also asked about comments made by Donelan at the Lords committee that ministers do not think there is a crisis in university funding. Griffith said “we overuse the word crisis” and that universities are not alone in facing a period of “really intense macro change” affecting many countries. “We should expect that we are going to have some challenges to work through some of that,” he said.
Griffith was vocal about the importance of the UK higher education sector and that the “recipe for success must begin with our universities”, which are an “absolute magnet for the very best in global talent”. “We are, as far as I can possibly tell, the most open and diverse country on the planet in that respect,” he said.
Asked about how the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is engaging with the Home Office about widespread sector concerns about changes to the UK immigration system, Griffith said this was being done “diligently”. He also said the UK must not “talk ourselves down” in terms of attractiveness to international talent, in order to prevent a “self-fulfilling prophecy, which would help nobody”.
Employability
Wonkhe has a blog on work-related experiences that is worth a read with some ideas that can sit alongside placements as a way of building work-relevant experience into courses, especially given the practical difficulties with placements that arise for some students and some sectors. Ideas include:
More integration between employers and universities throughout the curriculum
Using university technical services to develop hands on learning on campus
Ensuring “work-like experience” in the curriculum and finding a different way of talking about what we already do in terms of employment and employer based learning so that students realise what they are getting and its value
Recognising the wider benefits beyond employability through projects in partnership with employers
Acknowledging the practical issues and supporting access to opportunities
Leaning into virtual experiences
Putting the resources in to support delivery
And while we are on the theme of placements, the OIA has published some notes on cases they have heard. There are a lot of good points in here, some are summarised here.
Whatever the context of the placement, it’s important that students are given clear and accurate information about it. Students need to know what’s expected of them and where and how to access support while they’re on placement. It’s also important that providers have processes in place to respond when things go wrong.
Providers will sometimes need to work with placement organisations outside of the local area.
It’s important to manage students’ expectations about the possible location of their placement, for example by explaining what the provider considers to be a reasonable time and/or distance to travel.
For some students there will be considerations to take into account when deciding where to place them, for example accessibility needs, caring responsibilities or transport considerations that might make commuting to a placement more difficult.
Providers can usefully signpost students to any sources of financial support, either at the provider or elsewhere, that may be available to help with any costs associated with the placement. Where it’s not possible to offer a placement within the expected area, the provider may want to consider whether it would be reasonable to support the student with any additional expenses they may incur as a result of being offered an out of area placement.
It’s also important to tell students in good time what placement they have been allocated so that they have time to make any arrangements they may need to.
It’s important that students know in advance where they can go for advice and support whilst on placement.
It is good practice for providers to ensure that students have a named staff member at the provider that they can liaise with, as well as a named mentor at the placement organisation.
Some students may need additional support during the placement, for example because they are disabled or have caring responsibilities. The provider should explore in advance how those support needs might be met, and whether the provider or the placement organisation will be responsible for meeting them. …
And much more…
Mental health and wellbeing
The OfS funded a set of projects and they have now been evaluated. There’s a report and all sorts of analysis, but the one page summary sets out a set of effective practice for addressing barriers to support for a set of target groups and also some conclusions:
Co-creation with students is critical for support to strongly align to need.
Tailored outreach was the most effective method to reach targeted groups supplemented through ‘snowball’ techniques with students.
Describing services with positive framing and avoiding over medicalised descriptions in language tailored to targeted audiences was vital.
Developing strategic, multi-agency partnerships internal and external to lead institutions is a key enabler of delivery success.
Evaluation of delivery should be embedded across all project activities using clear logic model and mixed method approaches to ensure data collected accounted for failure. A designated evaluation lead is key.
Foundation years
The government and the OfS have some concerns about foundation years. One of the recently published quality assessments by the OfS referred to a provider not ensuring insufficient academic support for foundation year students once they progressed onto the main programme – support should have continued for these students at higher levels. This article from Wonkhe in October noted that:
To be fair, you would imagine that students that struggled at level 3 for reasons other than ability (and thus would be likely FY candidates) would continue to struggle when in higher education for the same reasons – poverty, lack of social capital, other responsibilities – that they had faced previously.
A foundation year is not the same as a foundation degree. A foundation year is integrated with an undergraduate course, whereas a foundation degree is a standalone qualification. We all get a bit confused about how the regulatory conditions apply: continuation is defined as year 1 to year 2: in this case that means foundation year to year 1 undergraduate. Completion means completion of the undergraduate programme (for foundation year students that means 4 years, without a placement year, 5 with a placement).
You will recall that the government is worried about the cost and value add of foundation years. The House of Commons library research briefing on student number controls from August 2023 describes the upcoming cap on fees for some foundation years from the 2025/26 academic year: we are awaiting a consultation on the detail of this.
Although the report is not due until May, and recommendations may not be implemented for the start of the 24/25 academic year, this is likely to have a further chilling effect on international recruitment in September. It is possible though that the government want steps to be taken before the election, the timetable means there will be no time for a call for evidence.
Initial data from the MAC annual report shows that the proportion of international students studying at lower tariff institutions has risen to 32% in 2021/22, while the number of [international] postgraduate students attending institutions with the lowest UCAS tariff quartiles has increased by over 250% between 2018 and 2022.
We are keen to understand the drivers behind this, including whether it is because people are using these courses as a long-term route to work in the UK. An international student can spend relatively little on fees for a one-year course and gain access to two years with no job requirement on the Graduate route, followed by four years access to a discounted salary threshold on the Skilled Worker route. This means international graduates are able to access the UK labour market with salaries significantly below the requirement imposed on the majority of migrant skilled workers. The Government is already taking steps to change the general salary threshold for the Skilled Worker Visa from £26,200 to £38,700, which will increase the requisite salary in order to switch routes, including with the applied discount.
Early data suggests that only 23% of students switching from the Graduate route to the Skilled Worker route in 2023 went into graduate level jobs. In 2023, 32% of international graduates switching into work routes earned a salary above the general threshold at the time (£26,200), with just 16% earning over £30,000 – meaning that the vast majority of those completing the Graduate route go into work earning less than the median wage of other graduates. Initial data shows that the majority of international students switching from the Graduate route into the Skilled Worker route go into care work. This is clearly not what the Government intended in the 2019 Manifesto when it pledged to establish the Graduate route to attract the best and brightest students to study in the UK.
In this context, the QAA has also announced a review of pre-entry courses for international students.
This review will compare the admissions requirements between foundation programmes for domestic students and international students, assess the standards of the courses being offered to international students as both foundation programmes and international year one programmes, and assess whether these standards are being achieved and maintained in practice.
QAA will publish the findings of this review by the end of Spring 2024.
And if you are not sure what these pathways for international students are or how much they are used, the Nous Group have a report out.
In-person delivery at a relevant university campus: this is the most common mode in the UK where many UK universities host a pathway provider building on one of their campuses.
In-person delivery at a pathway provider campus in the destination country: some pathway providers have study centres in the country in which students wish to study that are independent of a university campus.
In-person delivery at a partner university in the source country: foundation programmes offered by destination universities are often delivered via a partnership with an in-market university.
In-person delivery at a study centre partner of a pathway provider in the source country: not all pathway providers deliver education directly. Some partner with study centres across source countries to deliver pathway programmes designed and assessed by the provider.
Online delivery via the pathway provider learning platform: the expansion of providers into online delivery was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now multiple providers offer fully online foundation courses with guaranteed progression to a partner university on successful completion.
OfS funding review
The OfS has announced a consultation on how they fund the sector – not tuition fee funding but grant funding. It closes on 23rd June and we will be considering a BU response.
Our current model of recurrent funding for higher education providers is based on assumptions that some activities cost more to deliver than others. This could relate to particular subjects; to supporting particular groups of students to achieve success; or to reflect the operating models of some types of providers. The two primary types of funding the OfS distributes are:
Course-based: This is a high-cost subject funding allocation – for example, for courses in medicine, or physics – and includes targeted allocations to address specific priority areas – for example degree apprenticeships, and skills at Levels 4 and 5. We do not provide funding for courses in subject areas, such as law and humanities, that are classroom-based and that do not need the same level of specialist facilities to teach.
Student-based: This is a funding allocation to recognise additional support needs of students from disadvantaged groups or groups historically less likely to participate in higher education. Student-based funding also includes funding for Uni Connect.
We want to hear views on the effectiveness of the two primary types of funding the OfS distributes: course-based funding and student-based funding.
First three questions by way of illustration
Question 1: What are your views on OfS course-based funding? We are interested in any views, and below are some prompts for respondents to consider:
• Should the distribution of funding continue to primarily reflect the courses and subjects students are studying? Should we also consider additional factors and/or approaches for course-based funding?
• What should we seek to achieve with course-based funding?
• What activity is currently supported in providers by this funding?
• Are there any areas of important provision that are currently not supported by our funding allocations?
• How should our approach adapt in the future?
• What assessment is currently made by providers of the impact of this funding
Question 2: What are your views on OfS student-based funding? We are interested in any views, and below are some prompts for respondents to consider:
• Should the distribution of funding continue to reflect the characteristics of the student population at individual providers? Should we also consider alternative factors and/or characteristics and/or approaches for student-based funding?
• What should we seek to achieve with student-based funding?
• What activity is currently supported in providers by this funding?
• How best can the OfS use this funding to support access, success and progress for students?
• How should it be targeted?
• What assessment is currently made by providers of the impact of this funding
Question 3: What are your views on OfS capital funding? We are interested in any views, and below are some prompts for respondents to consider:
• What assessment is currently made by providers of the impact of this funding?
• How should we strike an appropriate balance between formula funding and competitive bidding to allocate capital funding?
Is this good, normal practice to review this as it was last reviewed in 2012, or deeply worrying? The suggestion that they might use quality data to determine funding is interesting. And there is no new money, it is just the way it is distributed that it is up for discussion.
This is a very broad call for evidence – in section A for each of the streams detailed above OfS wants to hear what activity is currently supported, what value is added, and whether what OfS tries to achieve with these allocations is the right thing to be aiming at.
.. And then you get to section B, in which OfS suggests that we scrap HESES…. The new proposal (actually an old idea familiar to anyone who has been involved in this debate historically) is to scrap the December allocation entirely and use two year-old data (so the 2021-22 year end data informs the 2023-24 allocation), thus reducing burden for providers in submission and reconciliation…. My suspicion is that rapid changes in student numbers year-on-year (and, increasingly, in year) will make this idea quite a hard sell strategically. But in terms of practicalities, the crashing failure of Data Futures – it genuinely blows my mind that we still (in March 2024) don’t have official 2022-23 student number data – might mean that people are reluctant to let go of the various checks and balances in the current system.
…OfS has been clear that there are no “proposals” in this document, just a starting point for conversation. It’s just an odd time to start the conversation.
…The other (tuition fee) end of the funding system is set up to use information on teaching quality and equality of opportunity – your TEF grade is meant to determine the extent of an annual inflationary uplift in the higher level fee cap, and access to this higher level is still predicated on the existence of a credible plan on access and participation. Building these factors into the old (largely atrophied) teaching grant end too feels like double counting – though there could be a case to link access to grant funding to a minimum level of teaching quality there would need to be a far more robust and widely supported method of determining this to keep OfS out of court.
Wonkhe have a graph of what everyone gets (BU gets nearly £7m). Nottingham University is the top with £49million. There are all sorts of pots in here though, including capital, special projects, student premium, high cost courses, etc. Nottingham’s was nearly all high cost subject funding, as was ours, although we had a relatively large chunk of student premium money too.
You’ll recall that capital allocations recently switched to competitive bidding from an allocation mechanism.
Rishi Sunak is promising to create up to 20,000 more apprenticeships with a series of reforms including fully funding training for young people and cutting red tape for small businesses.
The government will pay the full cost of apprenticeships for people aged 21 or under at small firms from 1 April. To enable this, it is pledging £60m of new investment for next year.
…In a speech to a conference for small businesses in Warwickshire, the prime minister will set out a package of reforms he says will “unlock a tidal wave of opportunity”. As well as funding the cost of apprenticeships, ministers will also raise the amount of funding companies who are paying the apprenticeship levy can pass on to other businesses.
You will recall a deep dive into this in a recent policy update using the DFE’s concept paper. The house of commons library has now issued a briefing paper. It’s a good read, especially if you click through to the full paper, going back over all the history and context. The LLE stuff starts on page 20.
There is a lot more consultation to come
In spring 2024, the Department for Education will launch a technical consultation on the wider expansion of modular funding and lay secondary legislation covering the fee limits for the LLE in Parliament.
In autumn 2024, it will lay the secondary legislation that will set out the rest of the LLE funding system in Parliament.
In spring 2025, the LLE personal account will be launched for learners.
In autumn 2025, the Department for Education will launch the qualification gateway.
The Office for Students (OfS) will consult “in due course” on the development and introduction of a new third registration category for providers offering LLE-funded course and modules.
Free speech
The OfS consultation on free speech complaints panels has now closed and we look forward to the outcomes.
As previously announced, the OfS has confirmed that there will be another consultation before the end of March, on the guidance for the sector and changes to the regulatory guidance.
We expect the proposed guidance to cover two broad areas:
Examples where a provider, constituent institution or students’ union may not have taken steps to secure free speech; and
A non-exhaustive list of steps that it may be reasonably practicable for providers, constituent institutions and students’ unions to take to secure free speech within the law. This includes steps relating to the free speech code of practice.
This is a complex area and an 8 week consultation period is fairly tight.
At BU we promote and celebrate the work done to engage public audiences with our research. The Public Engagement with Research team in Research Development and Support can help promote your event to relevant audiences through our monthly newsletters and via our social media channels.
To be considered for inclusion, your event or activity must be;
Focused on BU research, either solely or as part of a wider programme. Events or activities that do not involve BU research, such as marketing or recruitment events, will not be accepted.
Intended for and open to non-academic audiences, either entirely or as a portion of the audience.
Submitted, at the latest, in the first two weeks of the month preceding the event. For example, an event taking place in June should be submitted via the form any time before 14 May.
Event descriptions may be edited for consistency in style with other content.
Dr Ellie Jennings and Dr Alice Hunter write for The Conversation about the problems that can occur when young people are treated as athletes rather than children…
The problem with seeing young sportspeople as athletes first, children second
A recent report commissioned by Swim England, the national governing body for swimming in England, has found evidence of a “culture of fear” in swimming clubs. The report finds that children involved in competitive swimming can be treated like professional athletes, and the importance of sporting performance held above all else.
Sport can be a positive influence on young people’s wellbeing. Children are encouraged to participate in sport, and the aspiration to become an elite athlete is widely seen as an admirable goal.
Many children will find competitive sport enjoyable and rewarding. But problems can occur when the athletic identity of a young person overshadows their identity as a child. There is a risk that clubs, coaches and parents may treat young people as athletes rather than as children. And this can take place at all levels of sport, from children taking part in sports like swimming at local clubs to those who compete at the highest level.
One participant in the Swim England report said that a focus on swimming performance led to their social and academic life suffering, and that they would frequently push themselves in training to the point of vomiting or collapse to please their coach. “The way in which the sport is delivered to children and hiding under the label of ‘high performance athletes’ is driving people away from the sport they once loved,” they said.
“We’re not here to have fun, we’re here to win!” one parent told a researcher for the Swim England report.
A focus on sporting success above all can compromise children’s wellbeing and safety. Young people may be exposed to environments that are highly pressurised, psychologically demanding and often tolerant of abuse.
Certain practices that take place in youth sports, such as coaches and parents screaming on the sidelines, that would be considered unacceptable in other settings. A teacher would be unable to behave like this towards their charges in a school setting, for instance.
In football academies, child athletes are potential future stars – and money spinners. A business mindset shifts the focus from nurturing children to moulding them into “assets” for potential profit.
Treating children like products rather than unique individuals with their own childhood experiences overshadows children’s vital developmental needs.
Accelerated adulthoods
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp recently spoke about the need to protect young football players, including from media attention, as academy youth players made their debut in senior-level games. “But from tomorrow, leave the boys in the corner, please. And don’t ask: ‘Where are they now? Where are they now? Where are they now?’” he told reporters after Liverpool’s FA cup win over Southampton.
Darts player Luke Littler competed in the World Darts Championships and other major darts tournaments at the age of 16. Littler has received intense levels of public scrutiny that extended beyond the reaches of sport: his private life, including his relationship status, has made headlines.
Attention on the personal life of a minor rushes them towards adulthood but also shows a lack of respect for the privacy of young athletes: a significant safeguarding concern.
Children’s names have even been included in reports about doping. Kamila Valieva, a Russian figure skater, experienced the unwelcome publicity of having her positive test revealed at the age of just 15, causing controversy at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Children have the right to be protected from all forms of harm in sport. This extends to their right to participate in sports within a safe and enjoyable environment. There are evidently distinct challenges that arise when young people compete in elite and often adult-dominated sporting spaces.
The abuse of children in sports is a concern at both community and elite levels. It is essential to address these concerns to ensure that the pursuit of athletic excellence does not come at the cost of the fundamental rights and safety of young people.
When children are treated solely as athletes, the excitement around their potential means that the fact that they are still minors may be forgotten. They must be recognised as children first, especially when their performance in elite sports takes place prior to reaching adulthood.
It is the moral obligation of all adults involved in sport to develop an approach that keeps children in sport safe, even when they are classed as elite athletes.
Congratulations to Drs. Louise Oliver and Orlanda Harvey who had their latest article published in the British Association of Social Workers magazine. The article is titled: The seven-eyed social worker: a tool for critical self-reflection”. This article is about how a supervision model, developed by Hawkins and Shohet, which focuses upon the relationship between the service user/client and the social worker. The two BU academics noted that “This model supports critical reflection, delving into the use of self when working with others. It promotes professional curiosity, which is at the heart of critical reflection”. This gives an alternative lens and approach to social work practice.
BU partners with University of Southampton for second year!
The 22nd annual Festival of Social Science takes place this year 19th October – 9th November, with the theme of ‘Our Digital Lives’. This national festival offers the chance to create an inspiring event which enables you to connect your research in a creative and engaging way with a broad public audience.
For the second year, BU is partnering with the University of Southampton (UoS) and we are particularly keen to hear from researchers who have already established collaborations with UoS colleagues and may wish to run a joint event. This collaboration enables us to run an extended programme of events, broadening our impact reach and expanding our networks across Dorset and Hampshire.
Funding of up to £1,000 per event is available, and BU’s Public Engagement with Research (PER) team offers continuing advice and support on all areas of event development, planning, delivery and evaluation. The deadline for applications is Thursday 16th May 2024.
Find out how to apply at this online information session and hear from BU and UoS about previous festival events. The session will be delivered by BU’s PER team and the Impact Funding Team from UoS.
We want to provide small amounts of funding (up to £500) to help researchers develop and incorporate meaningful, two-way engagement with beneficiaries and research users. The aim is to help support a more engaged research culture across BU and accelerate the impact arising from research.
Who can apply?
The scheme is open to researchers at all career stages, whether or not they have previous public engagement experience.
What are we looking for?
We would like to fund engagement activity that addresses any/all of the following:
reaches a new audience or community, or
tests a pilot activity to evaluate what works, with the aim of developing impact from existing research or securing further external funding, or
develops your own engagement skills and understanding of the value of public engagement with research.
The reviewing panel assesses applications on a rolling basis and aims to respond within one week. The latest we can accept applications for this academic year is 28th June and the application form will no longer be accessible after that date.
Support & information
The relevant staff in the Research Excellence Team will provide support to deliver activities and will manage funds centrally. All activity and spend will need to be completed before 31 July 2024.
(Please note that this funding will not be awarded for attending conferences or networking events where the engagement with stakeholders is speculative.)
RDS Academic & Researcher Induction – Weds 27th March
This event provides an overview of all the practical information staff need to begin developing their research plans at BU, using both internal and external networks; to develop and disseminate research outcomes; and maximising the available funding opportunities.
Objectives
The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level
To provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU
Indicative content
The induction day will be interactive and give you the opportunity to meet your faculty-facing RDS support, as well as those responsible for strategy, outputs, ethics, impact, public engagement and knowledge exchange. The videos will provide:
An overview of research at BU and how RDS can help/support academic staff
The importance of horizon-scanning, signposting relevant internal and external funding opportunities and clarifying the applications process
How to manage an awarded project and the BU processes
How to develop internal and external research networks
Key points on research ethics and developing research outputs
Book your place here under ‘RDS Academic & Researcher Induction 27/03/2024’ in the drop-down menu.
On the 6th March 2024, Bournemouth University hosted a Violence Against Women and Girls Summit.
Background: Drs Louise Oliver and Orlanda Harvey (Senior Lecturers in Social Work, Bournemouth University) in partnership with Soroptimist International Bournemouth and the BCP Community Safety Partnership ran a conference last year on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). A reoccurring conversation at the conference was: what next? How do we stop VAWG happening again?
The need to challenge culture led to the team getting together with the addition of Dorset Womens CIC and the charity Acts Fast, to organise the Summit with the intention of bringing together a range of key decision makers form across all those organisations that are on the frontline, working to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls.
The Summit:
The keynote speakers were Superintendent Emma Sweetzer and Dr Kari Davies. Emma emphasized that her role “involves challenging stereotypes and changing a culture from within the force out to the wider public” and her speech was a call to action and Kari presented her research in this area focusing on the barriers and challenges to police and Crown Prosecution Services joint working on rape and serious sexual offence cases.
The summit delegates were regional professionals who work in different areas, under the umbrella of Violence Against Women and Girls, including police, social services, policy makers and managers of charities and researchers. The summit conversations focused on finding solutions to challenging the culture surrounding violence and abuse, and through bringing people together, to think together, and start to develop new suggestions and challenge the issue head on. How to change culture, with a focus on the need to start early and focus on education was at the heart of the discussions.
ABSTRACT Metaverse is expected to deeply affect the travel and tourism industry and requires a dearth of empirical research. In this investigation, two exploratory qualitative research studies were conducted to fill this gap. The first research explored the potential impacts of Metaverse on the travel and tourism industry by interviewing tourism academics. Findings revealed that Metaverse could be used for marketing, CRM, and HRM by hospitality organisations, while it would be useful for marketing and sustainability of destinations. It could also influence tourist behaviour before, during, and after travel experiences. One of the notable findings was related to the close relationship between Gen Z and virtual events. The second research identified the motivations of Gen Z individuals to attend a concert organised in Metaverse. Accordingly, novelty-seeking, escape, fun and excitement, and socialisation were the most significant push factors to use Metaverse. Metaverse-specific characteristics, accessibility, and availability were the important pull factors to attend a Metaverse concert.
“The most powerful critique of socialist planning and the socialist state”, is how Margaret Thatcher described Friedrich von Hayek’s book, The Road to Serfdom. Published in March 1944 during the Austrian economist’s tenure at the London School of Economics (LSE), the book has been enduringly popular among free-market liberals.
Among its admirers was Winston Churchill, who as prime minister released 1.6 tons of precious war-rationed British government paper to allow additional copies to be printed. More recently Elon Musk tweeted a photo of The Road to Serfdom with the caption “Great Book by Hayek” to his 174 million followers, no doubt bringing Hayek’s work to a new generation.
On the other hand, the Austrian is often seen by the left as an intellectual bogeyman, an enabler of unfettered greed, minimal social responsibility and soaring inequality.
So who was Hayek and why does The Road to Serfdom matter?
How laissez-faire fell out of favour
Born into an upper middle-class Vienna family in 1899, Hayek earned doctorates in law (1921) and political science (1923) at the city’s university. He first made a name for himself in economics in 1928, publishing a report for his research institute employer that predicted the Wall Street crash of 1929 (some critics argue that his achievement gets exaggerated).
Hayek spent 18 years at the LSE (1932-1950), before moving to the University of Chicago (1950-1962). There he worked alongside Milton Friedman, another seminal advocate for free-market principles.
These views were profoundly unfashionable at the time. The social democrat consensus had been shaped by the “robber barron” period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Key industries such as rail and oil had been dominated by cartels and monopolies, leading to massive wealth inequalities.
Then came the Wall Street crash and great depression, prompting a loss of confidence in economists and economic reasoning. Free-market capitalism took much of the blame. Socialism was offered as a realistic and even desirable alternative.
Prominent colleagues of Hayek’s at the LSE, including political scientist Harold Laski and sociologist Karl Mannheim, believed socialist planning was inevitable in the UK. The Labour party explicitly warned in a 1942 pamphlet against a “return to the unplanned competitive world of the inter-war years, in which a privileged few were maintained at the expense of the common good”.
Hayek disagreed. He thought this wave of popular “collectivism” would lead to a repressive regime akin to Nazi Germany.
In The Road to Serfdom, he accepted the need to move beyond the laissez-faire approach of classical economics. But he argued in favour of “planning for competition” rather than the socialists’ “planning against competition” approach. He opposed the state being the sole provider of goods and services, but did think it had a role in facilitating a competitive environment.
In a central theme of the book, Hayek described the difficulties that democratic decision-making would face under central planning. He believed it would lead to policy gridlock and present opportunities for unscrupulous characters to become the key decision-makers.
Hayek’s goal was to show that the British intelligentsia was getting it wrong. Socialist planning, he believed, would see citizens returned to the types of limited freedoms endured by serfs under feudalism.
Hayek and conservatism
The Road was especially popular in the US. This was helped by Reader’s Digest publishing a shortened edition in 1945, introducing Hayek to a non-academic audience of some 9 million households. He was seized upon by conservatives opposing Franklin D Roosevelt’s interventionist New Deal, who feared for the loss of personal freedoms and a drift to totalitarianism.
However, Hayek was concerned his ideas had been oversimplified and misinterpreted. He warned of “the very dangerous tendency of using the term ‘socialism’ for almost any kind of state which you think is silly or you do not like”. By the mid-1950s he had distanced himself from American and European conservatives.
Ultimately, though, after the second world war most western countries adopted a more Keynesian approach. Named after Hayek’s greatest intellectual rival, John Maynard Keynes, this involved using government spending to influence things like employment and economic growth.
Hayek’s work, meanwhile, was mostly ignored until the 1970s, a period during which the UK became mired in stagflation and industrial action. He then became the inspiration for Margaret Thatcher’s policy mix of deregulation, privatisation, lower taxes and a bonfire on state controls of the economy. With the US also facing domestic economic challenges, the then US president, Ronald Reagan, followed suit.
What the critics say
If that was perhaps peak Hayek, he has been heavily criticised from some quarters in recent years. The American economist John Komlos, in his 2016 paper, Another Road to Serfdom, convincingly argues:
Hayek failed to see that any concentration of power is a threat to freedom. The free market that he advocated enabled the concentration of power in the hands of a powerful elite.
Such over-concentration had created the “too big to fail” environment in the financial sector in the run-up the global financial crisis of 2008, and many thought Hayekian deregulation was the culprit.
More recently, the tax-cutting economic policies during Liz Truss’s short stint as UK prime minister were incubated by think tanks who regard themselves as the keepers of the Hayekian flame. Similarly, Argentinian president Javier Milei’s libertarian vision of a minimalist state is said to be influenced by Hayek.
Equally, however, it is easy to fall into that trap of oversimplifying Hayek. It is worth noting, for instance, that in the Road, he also envisaged a substantial role for the state. He saw the state providing a basic minimum income for all. He also argued that “an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition”.
Even Keynes congratulated him on his publication, saying, “morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it”.
In short, while it’s probably fair to say that the world has had to suffer the flaws in Hayek’s ideas, it is important to separate him from his supporters. He was certainly no statist, but his vision for how best to run an economy was not as uncompromising as many would have us believe.
One of the most experienced public engagement trainers in the UK, Dr Jamie Gallagher, is coming to BU to deliver two training sessions on how to evaluate your public engagement activity.
These in-person workshops will highlight how to demonstrate success for funders, record impact, help you improve your processes and give you a better understanding of the people you are connecting with.
Workshop 1 guides you through the best evaluation processes, showing you when, why and how to use evaluation to provide clear, reliable data.
Workshop 2 builds on the learning, taking a more in-depth look at developing evaluation plans for even the most complex topics. You will explore data capture, analysis and reporting and also learn how to write evaluation reports for funders or the REF.
Book on Evaluation of Engagementhereand Advanced Evaluationhere, selecting the appropriate session from the drop down menu. NOTE: This is a two-day evaluation training workshop. Although you can choose to do either of the workshops, we highly recommend you do both – you need to sign up for them separately.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided at both sessions.
Today we received a copy of the book Appreciating Health and Care in the post. This book has a sub-title ‘A practical appreciative inquiry resource for the health and social care sector’ and refers to the work led by Bournemouth University’s Dr. Rachel Arnold. Appreciative Inquiry values people’s expertise and vision and can motivate people to see the world differently and instigate positive change. Rachel been the lead author on several publications around Appreciative Inquiry [1-3].
Bournemouth University (BU) collaborates with the Bournemouth Christchurch Poole (BCP) Council and Cambridge University on modeling traffic congestion propagation. The work, conducted by Dr. Wei Koong Chai and Ph.D. Candidate Assemgul Kozhabek from BU advocates the use of epidemic theory to model the spreading of traffic congestion in cities.
The team proposes a modified Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model that considers the road network structure for a more accurate representation of congestion spreading. Through an N-intertwined modeling framework and analysis using real-world traffic datasets from California and Los Angeles, the study demonstrates improved agreement with actual congestion conditions. The findings offer valuable insights for developing effective traffic congestion mitigation strategies.
Reference:
A. Kozhabek, W. K. Chai and G. Zheng, “Modeling Traffic Congestion Spreading Using a Topology-Based SIR Epidemic Model,” in IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 35813-35826, 2024, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3370474.
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