/ Full archive

SURE BU Conference – join us to celebrate undergraduate research

Events, Research news

Our annual undergraduate research conference – SURE BU – is returning for its second year on 2 March on Talbot Campus.  We’ve had some fantastic submissions, which show how our students are getting involved in research, improving their skills and developing new knowledge.

SURE BU is an excellent way to celebrate research being undertaken by our students, learn more about how their ideas could make a difference and how research is shaping their future careers.  The conference is open to students and staff to attend: you can drop into a session or stay all day.  Attending the conference is a great opportunity to meet with other students, find out about the research going on at BU and support our students as they take their first steps into the world of research.

We’re keen for staff to attend as next year, BU will be playing host to the British Undergraduate Research Conference, which we hope you’ll encourage your students to get involved in.

Students will be presenting throughout the day and prizes will be awarded to the best contributors at a drinks reception in the evening.

The conference will take place on Wednesday 2 March in Kimmeridge House, Talbot Campus.

Tickets can be booked via Eventbrite.

Big Data in Health and Care – ‘Using data to gain new insights’

Business Engagement, conferences, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

Data-science-history

Date: Tuesday 19 April

Location: St. Mary’s Stadium – Britannia Road Southampton, Hampshire SO14 5FP GB – View Map

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm

About the event:

Big Data in healthcare is being used to cure disease, improve quality of life, avoid preventable deaths and more importantly plan primary prevention strategies. With the UK population increasing and all of us living longer, through initiatives such as the Vanguards, models of care are rapidly changing, and many of the decisions behind those changes are being driven by data.

This Big Data conference, chaired by Richard Samuel, (Fareham and Gosport, South-Eastern Hants CEO) will provide an overview of Big Data from experts within the field, as well as practical examples of how Big Data is being used to improve the way that we deliver services. A Big Data expo will be accessible throughout the day and in the afternoon a variety of plenary sessions will gather feedback from participants to help shape future actions.

To register: Click here

If you have any questions or queries regarding the event or any specific access needs please do not hesitate to contact Katie Cheeseman – Digital Health Programme Manager katie.cheeseman@wessexahsn.net                                                                                     

 

RKEO Drop-in session tomorrow

BU research, Guidance

research lifecycleAs previously posted, RKEO will be holding monthly drop-in sessions throughout 2016. The full schedule of sessions can be found here.

The first session will be held on 24 February 2016 between 2-4pm in Bournemouth House Cafe. Anyone can attend with any queries for RKEO. The following RKEO staff will be available for the session:

You don’t need to be from these faculties as staff will help with any queries they have and if they’re not able to answer your query then and there, they’ll ensure you receive a timely response from RKEO. Basically, come along and have a chat. These are also great opportunities for us to gather feedback from you on the service that we deliver to you.

RKEO look forward to seeing you.

Student Health and Wellbeing: staff survey

Uncategorized

hands

This week is Eating Disorder Awareness Week. BU is putting on a series of free events to promote understanding about eating disorders and to encourage open and inclusive discussion.

As part of BU’s programme of Fair Access Research we are examining the how students experience university in different ways. And this includes how paying attention to students’ health and wellbeing.

Student health and wellbeing is a vitally important issue of universities. A recent survey by the NUS found that 78 per cent of students said they experienced mental health issues over the last year. More than half of the students said that they sought no support.

In a report to HEFCE it was found that students with mental health issues and social/communicative impairments (such as autism) have doubled since 2008-09. These significant increases are impacting the structures of support that institutions have in place, including academic support

Living with challenging health and wellbeing issues, and not always seeking support, shapes whether or not you stay and impacts upon attainment. It re-orients (or, perhaps, disorients) your whole student experience.

 We  are surveying academic staff to find out more about how they understand their role in supporting students’ health and wellbeing.

We have developed a short survey for you all to complete. It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and we hope that it will lead us to develop ways to support you support your students.

Many thanks to all those who have completed the survey already (we’ve had a terrific response so far!). The survey will remain open for a few more weeks to enable as many of you as possible to share your experiences and feelings on this really important issue.

To complete they survey click here. Once completed please share with your colleagues. 

If you want any more information about the survey please email Alex on awardrop@bournemouth.ac.uk

For more information about the Fair Access Research project please email the Principal Investigators, Dr Vanessa Heaslip (vheaslip@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr Clive Hunt (chunt@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Reminder of BU’s Bridging Fund Scheme for researchers

Research news

Golden gate Bridge wallpaperIn summer 2015 we launched the new BU Bridging Fund Scheme which aims to provide additional stability to fixed-term researchers who continue to rely heavily on short-term contracts usually linked to external funding. This situation sometimes impacts negatively on continuity of employment and job security and can result in a costly loss of researcher talent for the institution.

The new Bridging Fund Scheme aims to mitigate these circumstances by redeploying the researcher where possible, or where feasible, by providing ‘bridging funding’ for the continuation of employment for a short-term (maximum three months) between research grants. It is intended to permit the temporary employment, in certain circumstances, of researchers between fixed-term contracts at BU, for whom no other source of funding is available, in order to:

(a) encourage the retention of experienced and skilled staff, and sustain research teams and expertise;

(b) aconcordat to support the career development of researchersvoid the break in employment and career which might otherwise be faced by such staff;

(c) maximise the opportunity for such staff to produce high-quality outputs and/or research impact at the end of funded contracts/grants.

To find out more about the scheme, including how to apply for bridging funding, see the scheme guidelines.

This is a great step forward for BU and for BU’s researchers and is an action from our EC HR Excellence in Research Award which aims to increase BU’s alignment with the national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (further information is available here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/).

Challenges in Research Event

Info Days, Research news, Research Training, Training

Challenges in Research

Wednesday 24th February, 12pm-2pm

Second Floor, Executive Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus

Open to all Research Staff from across the Faculties, this event will aim to enlighten you about some of the issues you might encounter as a researcher. There will be two sets of parallel sessions running for 1 hour per session covering the following topics:

  • Predatory publishing/Fake conference and editorial board
    1. Jenny Hall, Emma Crowley and Edwin van Teijlingen will be addressing the exponential growth in commercial (predatory) journals and ‘academic conferences’ over the past few years.
      • They will be highlighting some of the available information/ resources to help the confused researcher in finding the most appropriate journal for their academic paper.
      • The presenters between them have a wealth of experience in academic publishing, editing international journals, reviewing journal submissions as well as advising junior colleagues on developing  their publication strategies.
  • IP and Patents – Traps to avoid
  • Contractual complications
  • Sponsorship  
    1. “How to navigate the BU process and sponsorship” by Jason Edwards
    2. “Lots of people think that sponsorship and funding is the same think” – Laura Purandare will talk about what sponsorship is and the main issues you  might encounter and how to overcome them
  • A Brief Introduction to Open Research Data and Research Data Management by Michael Board. The talk will cover:
    1. Open Research Data – BU researchers are increasingly expected to share their research data with other stakeholders.  Find out about: the benefits of research data sharing, funder RDM requirements and the measures that can be taken to embargo research data if it is ethically or commercially sensitive.
    2. Research Data Management –  BU is in the process of implementing a RDM system to enable its researchers to share their research data.  Find out about: the key components of the RDM system that enables the deposition of research data into a data repository, and the features that make the data outputs accessible.

The sessions will be run by legal services along with library and research staff.

Further information about the timing of particular sessions will be posted closer to the time, as well as emailed out to anyone who has already pre-registered.

To register your place please click here

Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team: How we’ve been flying the KEIT high this month.

BU research, Business Engagement, Festival of Learning, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, Research communication, student research

After a cracking start to 2016 in January, the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) within RKEO have been working hard and continuing with the successes this month.

Public Engagement

The Festival of Learning is fast approaching us (25-29 June) and Naomi and Katie have been busy scheduling in the events that will make up the festival.

Business Engagement

Rising to the challenge of “What will Marty McFly may need in 25 years?” as part of interdisciplinary research week held in January, members of KEIT worked closely with the facilitators to deliver a successful sandpit that involved a number of local businesses including Bournemouth Borough Council, We Are Base, LV= and Barclays Digital eagles. With some great ideas evolving in terms of future collaborations amongst academics and business partners this provided a great networking opportunity for those that attended.

As the current HEIF funding round completes its half way milestone of 12 months funding (1/8/15 – 31/7/16), a number of the 13 projects are beginning to generate potential impact case studies alongside further UK and EU funding proposals. HEIF projects continue to feature in the news with Dr Sarah Bate’s research on super recognisers being published in Scientific American being one of the latest. HEIF projects are also gaining presence on BU’s research website with a project on Roman Britain being the first to go live with more planned.

For the March submission date, we have two potential KTPs.  Both SciTech and the Faculty of Media are working towards each submission, respectively.

NEW – Student Project Bank

We have a new recruit this week within KEIT.  Charlene Steele has joined us from SciTech specifically to work on the new Student Project Bank initiative.  If your students work with organisations as part of the modules they take, please do contact Charlene to find out more about this initiative and how we can help.

Student Engagement with Research

The student engagement page is now live on the Research website, it can be found here. It explains all student facing research activities from the Research Spotlight feature to 14: Live the monthly research talk.

Research Communications

New research project pages are now avaliable on the research website and are a great place for academics to add content about their latest research projects e.g. staff lists, project background and latest news.

Team KEIT (RKEO)

If you’re feeling inspired by this blog post and would like to get involved with some of our projects then feel free to get in touch:

Genna West – Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager

Rachel Bowen – Research Communications Manager

Rachel Clarke – Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP)

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Naomi Kay – Public Engagement Officer

Charlene Steele – Project Co-Ordinator (Student Project Bank)

Katie Breadmore – Public Engagement Event’s Organiser

Oliver Cooke – Student Engagement Coordinator

To find out more about us and what we do, take a look at our team page.

Kites

URA Academic Applications – FINAL CALL

Funding opportunities, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Transfer

The deadline for the Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA) programme is Sunday 21st February.

The application form to apply for funding to recruit a student to work on your research full time for six weeks during the summer can be found here.

The programme is funded by the Fusion Investment Fund and aims to support undergraduates to undertake paid work under the guidance of an experienced academic in a research position that is directly related to their career path and/or academic discipline.

The summer programme is for students to work full-time (37.5 hours per week) for six weeks over the summer. This programme will have the capacity for approximately 20 placements.

If you have any questions relating to the programme, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP) on 01202 961347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk 

CfPs: Emerging Tourism in the Changing World, Chiang Mai Thailand (Nov. 12-13)

Uncategorized

Dear BU Researchers:

My colleagues at Center for Asian Tourism Research, Chiang Mai University is organizing an interesting conference, ‘International Conference on Emerging Tourism in the Changing World’ on November 12-13, 2016. Please see the following link for more details:

http://www.emergingtourism.com/

If you have any questions, please contact: DR. PLOYSRI PORANANOND (EMERGINGTOURISM@GMAIL.COM)

Thank you for your interest in advance.

Jaeyeon

Research Staff Association (RSA) coffee morning 24 Feb EBC Cafe area

Uncategorized

The next Research Staff Association (RSA) coffee morning will be taking place on Wednesday the 24th February, in the café area of the EBC (Lansdowne Campus) from 10 to 11am. This is an informal opportunity to meet other research staff over coffee and cake, discuss your work and share ideas for future collaborations. We would also like to share how our plans for the RSA in 2016 are shaping up – so it’s not to be missed!

For catering purposes please email mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk to confirm your attendance.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Kind regards, Michelle Heward and Marcellus Mbah (RSA Staff Representatives)

BU: Working towards becoming a Dementia-Friendly University

Uncategorized

The number of people living with dementia is set to increase as the population ages. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, a dementia-friendly community is a ‘place where the community acts consciously to ensure that people with dementia (along with all its citizens) are respected, empowered, engaged and embraced into the whole’. Nationally this agenda is being led by the Dementia Action Alliance and the Alzheimer’s Society who have have recently launched a formal dementia-friendly recognition process to ensure that communities are accountable to people affected by dementia.

BU becoming a dementia-friendly university is an essential part of our preparation for an increasingly ageing society. A number of staff and students have already spoken out, in confidence, about concerns for family members, close friends and themselves. Sadly, this is a real welfare concern for staff and students and is likely to develop at a fast pace. BU therefore needs to ensure that all staff and students are aware of dementia, understand what it is like to live with the condition, and know where to turn if they need further advice and guidance about dementia.

A Steering Group made up of staff from across BU has been created to take forwards this work. The Steering Group are working towards an action plan to enable BU to apply for recognition that we are ‘working towards becoming dementia friendly’. To achieve this recognition we are working on four areas:

1. Developing new buildings and refurbishments to take account of dementia-friendly design principles as part of the general accessibility principles guiding new build, lead by Estates.
2. Ensuring that policies and procedures support staff who might be concerned about their memory, or who are caring for family members with dementia, lead by HR.
3. Providing training to raise awareness of dementia and enable staff to accommodate the needs of people affected by the condition, lead by BUDI.
4. Ensuring that communications are dementia-friendly, lead by Marketing and Communications

As part of this work we are running a number of dementia awareness sessions for all staff, please sign up for a session here: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/workingatbu/staffdevelopmentandengagement/ddeevents/budementiaawarenesssession/

We will continue to keep you up to date with our progress, but in the meantime if you have any questions or for more information please contact budi@bournemouth.ac.uk or call 01202 962771.

BU Dementia-Friendly University Steering Group

Online Resources for Principal Investigators

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Research Training, Training

Leadership Development
Not too long ago HEFCE funded a project to provide online resources to help principal investigators develop their skills, these excellent resources are hosted by Vitae. This collaborative project involved colleagues at a number of universities across the UK, RCUK, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, ARMA and Universities UK.

The resources can be found here and include some fantastic sections on:

Reminder, talk by Dr Sarah Collard today, Royal London House, R301, 1-1:50 pm.

Uncategorized

All staff and students welcome,

Please feel free to bring your lunch.

 

How do you exercise with epilepsy? Insights into the psychosocial impact of exercising with epilepsy

Dr Sarah Collard,

Research fellow, FHSS

 

Abstract: Research examining the connection between epilepsy and exercise has seen a surge in recent years, specifically examining the benefits to exercise on seizure control and overall well-being for a person with epilepsy. However, the barriers to exercise and methods of exercising currently employed by people with epilepsy have yet to be explored within depth. This presentation will provide a background to the psychosocial impact of exercising with epilepsy and what barriers stand in the way for people with epilepsy in feeling the benefits of exercise. Discussing findings from an exploratory qualitative study investigating possible barriers and coping strategies already in place for people with epilepsy in regards to their exercise life, this presentation will further our insight into the psychosocial impact of exercising with epilepsy as well as discuss how we might move this research forward in encouraging more people with epilepsy to exercise.

 

For more information on Social Science Seminar Series, please get in touch with Dr Mastoureh Fathi (FHSS).