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British Academy launches interdisciplinarity report

BA IDR ReportThe British Academy has today published a report examining the opportunities and barriers to interdisciplinarity, from the point of view of all research career stages and institutional levels.

Crossing paths: interdisciplinary institutions, careers, education and applications considers support for interdisciplinary research (IDR) across the UK’s research and higher education sector, with a focus on university structures, funding, and evaluation. Case studies on interdisciplinarity at the undergraduate level and on how interdisciplinary research can influence public policy are also provided.

Finding broad and deep support for IDR, Crossing paths makes recommendations to allow researchers, including those early in their career, to pursue high quality IDR alongside, or as part of, cultivating an academic home, a secure base from which to carry out IDR.

The report is based on a call for evidence as well as roundtable discussions and visits to interdisciplinary research centres at UK universities.

Professor Roger Kain FBA, VP for Higher Education and Research at the British Academy, said:

“This report tackles an important topic at a turbulent time for the UK’s higher education sector, which is being encouraged to place an even greater emphasis on IDR. The opportunities for IDR are enormous, enabling researchers to unpick some of society’s most complex challenges and bringing greater rigour to our understanding of our own disciplines. Adopting the recommendations in this report would mitigate some of the risks that currently exist to pursuing it.”

The full report is available to download at www.britishacademy.ac.uk/interdisciplinarity

Brexit and the implications for Open Access

BRIAN, open access, PG research, Publishing

Whilst it’s relatively early to predict what Brexit will mean for Open Access in the UK, JISC recently released a blog post outlining the main issues that will arise from the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

The blog post raises issues around the future of EU OA policy and also funding.

At the present time, it appears the main effect of Brexit will be to create greater reliance on Green OA (usually accepted, peer-reviewed versions of outputs) rather than gold paid open access owing to fluctuating financial markets and uncertainty surrounding future European funding.

Library and Learning Support have recently created a OA support video, looking at the benefits of OA and how you can make your research OA through engaging with BRIAN and BURO.

Please contact the BURO team with any queries you may have and we will be happy to help.

Don’t forget our guide Open Access and Depositing your research

£5 million boost for next generation robotics technologies

Funding opportunities, innovation

robot_in_tomorrows_world

Science Minister Jo Johnson has announced a £5 million challenge, to encourage UK companies and academics to develop robotic innovations.

The challenge will encourage UK businesses and academic institutions to work together to develop new and novel uses for robotics and autonomous systems across different industry sectors. The competition has been devised by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Read the news from Innovate UK here.

This competition is not yet live but is due to be launched  around the week commencing 18th July and more details on it will be available then.

Why not bookmark the Live Competition list by clicking on the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/innovation-grants-for-business-apply-for-funding

 

 

 

 

 

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Aerospace research and development projects – funding announced

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities

 

Aircraft engines

£365m funding announced for new UK aerospace research and development projects and major partnership with Boeing to create 2,000 jobs in the UK.

Read the story in full.

To ensure the UK’s continued position at the forefront of global aerospace, a further £365m worth of aerospace R&D projects have been approved. These are jointly funded by industry and government. These are part of the work of the Aerospace Growth Partnership which will publish a new strategy at Farnborough setting out plans to maintain the UK aerospace sector’s leading position. This includes a new supply chain competitiveness charter signed by 11 major companies across the aerospace sector.

For more on the Aerospace Strategy click here.

For more information on innovation grants for business click here.

Digital Families project video

cemp_big_021c-BU ORANGE

CEMP’s project for Samsung is the subject of this video.

The Digital Families project aims to connect families with technology, enhancing digital capability in disadvantaged communities. In this video, we hear from the researchers, teachers, sponsors and families involved with this work, which is the subject of an impact case study for UoA25 at BU.

Introduction to the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework

Knowledge Exchange, Training

We are delighted to announce that the Research and Knowledge Exchange (RKE) development framework will launch in October 2016! launching soon pic

The RKE development framework will offer a new range of opportunities for BU academics  to develop their skills, knowledge and capabilities in relation to research and knowledge exchange.

Consultation with academic colleagues has been key to its development, to ensure that the opportunities to be made available match their needs and wishes. We have created an agile and flexible Framework which we trust will appeal to colleagues undertaking research and knowledge exchange activities across the University.

Look out for more information coming each week on the research blog.

ERC Deadlines

Funding opportunities, international

ercThe deadlines for the European Research Council calls are quickly approaching.

Please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU and International if you intent to apply for:

Why not sign up for ERC email alerts so that you keep up to date with ERC news and events?

 

Call for Gender Experts for Horizon 2020

Women's Academic Network

We have received the following  invitation to join the Database of Gender Experts for European Research and Innovation.

Dr. Ineke Klinge, Chair H2020 Advisory Group on Gender, invites GenPORT members (free to register) to join the H2020 database as gender experts.

Horizon 2020 considers gender as a cross-cutting issue and it shall be adequately integrated in research and innovation content at the level of Work Programmes and projects. Applicants to Horizon 2020 calls are encouraged to include the gender dimension in their proposals. The European Commission is continuously looking for experts with gender expertise in all areas of Horizon 2020 calls to evaluate submitted research proposals.

To find experts with relevant expertise who are willing to evaluate research proposals, the Commission uses an online database. You can register your expertise for gender, and other areas in which you wish to be considered as an expert, in this database on the Participant Portal.

It is very important that you indicate your gender expertise next to your original / main area of training and this has now become much easier than in the past. The Commission therefore encourages you to signal your gender expertise, whether you register for the first time or would like to update your expertise. In the following links you will find:

1) Criteria for gender expertise, as established by the Horizon 2020 Advisory Group on Gender, and

2) Guidance on how to signal your gender expertise in the database prepared by the Gender Sector of DG Research and Innovation.

The European Commission will greatly appreciate your cooperation in increasing the number of experts with gender expertise in its expert database.

If you are keen to know more about gender in funding and participate in this group, please register on GenPORT.

Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework : Pre-Award at BU

Funding opportunities, Training

research_strategyWe have previously posted about the Research and Knowledge Exchange (RKE) Development Framework. Here, we introduce another of the pathways: that focusing on the Pre-Award process when applying for funding. Please see the previous blog posts on the Development Framework for information on the separate  pathways.

The ‘Pre-Award at BU’ pathway will provide details about the information and tools that will aid BU academics applying for funding.  Sessions will include details about ‘Searching for research funding’, ‘Getting started on applying for research funding’, understanding ‘Pre-award finances’  and ‘Intellectual property at pre-award’.  Training will also be provided as part of this pathway for those conducting Quality and Financial approvals.  More events will be added to this pathway in 2017-18 and beyond, with a focus on emerging priorties for BU.

We’ll be populating the the OD website with more information and the booking link over the coming weeks. We’ll also be providing a timetable of all events as soon as possible. In the meantime, updates will be posted on the BU research blog and the Faculty blogs.

RCUK GCRF Call for Evidence

Funding opportunities

RCUKlogoThe Government Spending Review on 25th November 2015 announced “a new £1.5 billion Global Challenges Research Fund, to ensure UK science takes the lead in addressing the problems faced by developing countries, whilst developing our ability to deliver cutting-edge research”. The Global Challenges Research Fund is a BIS initiative which operates across a number of delivery partners, including the Research Councils, National Academies and HEFCE.

The RCUK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) represents the largest portion of this Fund. They have launched a call for evidence to gather your views on the high-level challenges that will form the basis of the funding calls from the GCRF Collective Fund, the information gathered will also be shared with the other delivery partners so that it may inform their own strategies. They would also like your views on the most effective ways of delivering GCRF.

They are seeking inputs from individuals and institutions across all academic disciplines, non-governmental organisation and industrial sectors both in and outside of the UK.

The results from the survey will be reviewed alongside feedback from the Town Meetings. They will share a short summary of evidence they have collected and outline how that has informed their strategy in the autumn.

This call for evidence forms part of a broader programme of strategic engagement activities taking place under the GCRF programme. They will be running focus groups later this year and opening a Call for Ideas early next year to generate priority themes within each challenge.

You can complete the survey by clicking the link below. The survey closes at 16.00 on 22 August:

http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/6LOJI/

Respondents are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the following background information whilst completing the survey:

Presentation PhD student Jib Acharya in Liverpool

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research

Jib LJMU 2016Mr. Jib Acharya (FHSS) gave an interesting presentation yesterday about the qualitative research findings of his PhD at Liverpool John Moores University.  Jib’s PhD research focused on the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of poor women in Nepal about healthy eating and the study also identifies major food barriers.

His mixed-methods approach combines a quantitative questionnaire survey with qualitative research. Jib’s research project is supervised by Dr. Jane Murphy, Dr. Martin Hind and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Some of the preliminary findings of this FHSS thesis have already been published in two scientific journals [1-2].

References:

  1. Acharya, J., van Teijlingen, E., Murphy, J., Hind, M. (2015) Assessment of knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards healthy diet among mothers in Kaski, Nepal, Participation 17(16): 61-72.
  2. Acharya, J., van Teijlingen, E., Murphy, J., Hind, M. (2015) Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal, Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare 1(2): 97-118. http://dspace.chitkara.edu.in/jspui/bitstream/1/560/1/12007_JMRH_Acharya.

Singleimage Workshop – 2 day Finance in Horizon 2020 – 9 & 10 August 2016

2 DAY – FINANCE IN HORIZON 2020 WORKSHOP

9 & 10 August 2016 – Cambridge, UK

Horizon 2020 – the EU’s research and innovation funding programme – has been running for 2 years and projects are now beginning to submit their first financial reports. This finance workshop is an extended version of our one-day finance workshop, and will provide a greater level of detail of the funding rules for the new programme, from budgets to eligible costs and on to cash flow.

The workshop is aimed at finance and administration staff involved in EU research projects, with or without a background in earlier EU programmes. It will consist of lectures and practical exercises, to be carried out in small groups with plenary feedback sessions.

The workshop is designed to be interactive, and questions can be asked at any time. To facilitate this, attendance is limited to 24 participants.

For further information please visit the website at: www.singleimage.co.uk or contact Liz Dixon.  Please also note that the nearest large airport to the workshop venue is London, Stansted.

Visible Students/Invisible Needs: a workshop

Centre for Excellence in Learning

festival of learning 2 (2)Members of the Fair Access Research project would like to invite you all to a workshop exploring issues of widening participation on Monday 11th July.

During the workshop we will engage in debates and participate in group activities as we work together to make visible the invisible needs of all of our students.

There will be a poster exhibition showcasing the variety of widening participation activities happening across the university.

The workshop is open to staff across all faculties and for professional service staff interested in this area. We want to collectively work to make the university and higher education a more equitable, more socially just place for our students, our selves and our society.

Monday 11th July 2016

10:00 -14:00

EBC 202 and 203

Lunch will be provided.

Here is our invitation. To book a place email awardrop@bournemouth.ac.uk

When it comes to impact — a woman’s work is never done

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BU academic and lawyer Andrea Loux Jarman has assisted Geeta Singh, an NHS Physiotherapist in her fight to secure her daughter a full-time school place from the first day of school.

Geeta contacted Andrea after reading media coverage about an Objection Jarman had made against the admissions arrangements of St Mark’s School, Bournemouth,  before the Schools Adjudicator.  That adjudication forced schools across Bournemouth to either provide all pupils with a full-time place from the first day of the September term or make their part-time induction periods optional.  Geeta was preparing to appear before a school complaints panel to ask them to abandon their unlawful part-time induction programme.

By way of assistance, Andrea sent her one of two articles she wrote after her case against St Mark’s.

I have just finished reading your article “Part-time Places for Reception Children”.  When you gave me the advice to “teach” the Governors about the issue and its historical roots, by sending me your article you have literally thrown the means to do this in my lap. Here is an informed piece of work which I can just regurgitate. Thanks so much.

Despite the overwhelming legal authority Geeta cited in her correspondence (with official sources helpfully highlighted in red!), the school and local authority continued to attempt to pass the buck one to the other and evade responsibility for the unlawful induction period.  Finding no joy with her own authority, a civil servant from another local authority wrote to her to confirm that she had correctly understood the law and suggested if her own LA wouldn’t listen to her to ask them to contact the Department for Education.  This information, together with the suggestion of potential legal liability, appears to have finally persuaded the local authority to tell the school follow the law and either make their part-time induction period optional or abandon it altogether.

The Guardian will be covering the story, and Jarman will do a follow-up academic piece highlighting the implications for the rule of law when parents’ remedies for unlawful school policies in practical terms lie solely with tribunals that cannot make legal precedent that binds other schools. The absence of judicial review has meant that three-years’ on, parents are still having to fight for their right for their Reception children to attend school full time from the first day of school.

Book Launch in San Francisco

Fusion

I was delighted to launch my new book ‘Pedro Zamora, Sexuality, and AIDS Education: The Autobiographical Self, Activism and the Real World’ making a presentation at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.  This book is the product of study leave through Fusion funding, that I worked on a little while back.  At the book launch, it was wonderful that despite its been over 22 years since Pedro was last in San Francisco (and he passed a away a few months later) that so many people came to the event, and were  interested in his story, including some that knew Pedro personally.  Also it was flattering that representatives from the AIDS Memorial Grove attended the event that have an academic scholarship in Pedro’s name, and that I was interviewed by two journalists, including Brian Bromberger who published this review in the Bay Area Reporter.9781604979237front

The Springer Compact offset model: update on progress

open access, Publishing

jisclogo

Original post by Mafalda Picarra, JISC – https://scholarlycommunications.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2016/07/06/the-springer-compact-offset-model-update-on-progress/

In this blog post, Jisc Collections provides an update on how the Springer Compact agreement is progressing in the UK.

In March 2015, Jisc Collections announced that it had reached an agreement with Springer for an offset model to contain the costs of publication and subscription access for UK institutions. Six months have passed since the agreement launched in January 2016, with an additional 368 articles published free of charge in the pilot phase between October and December 2015.

The Springer Compact agreement is a flipped model which enables researchers from 91 participating UK institutions to publish their articles immediately as open access in ~1,600 Springer journals as well as to access all content published in ~2,500 Springer journals. In this flipped model, rather than paying a subscription fee and an unknown number of APC charges, the institution pays a set fee for unlimited APCs based on their 2014 APC expenditure with Springer and a top up fee to cover access to all the subscription content – thus containing the total cost of ownership.

This model moves away from the traditional historical print spend model aiming to reduce costand administration barriers to hybrid open access publishing and to increase open access. All UK articles published in eligible Springer Open Choice hybrid journals are made immediately open access upon publication and are automatically compliant with funder requirements.

Since January, 1259 articles have been published by authors from 92% of UK institutions participating in the agreement (Figure 1). In only five months (January to May), 86% of UK institutions have already published open access articles equivalent to or in excess of their total 2014 APC spend. This means that researchers from these institutions are publishing more OA articles than they did in 2014 but the cost to the institutions is capped. If we look at the pro-rata (Jan-May) of the total fee paid to Springer for this year (2014 APC spend and subscription top up fee), 23% of these institutions have already published open access articles to value of the total combined fee.

Figure 1 Articles published by month.

Figure 1 Articles published by month.

In addition, the number of articles published on open access through Springer’s hybrid journals has increased by 25% in the first five months of the agreement when compared to the total number of articles published in 2015 (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Articles published by UK authors in Springer hybrid journals in 2015 (subject to APC payment) and 2016 (under the Springer Compact deal).Figure 2 Articles published by UK authors in Springer hybrid journals in 2015 (subject to APC payment) and 2016 (under the Springer Compact deal).

The subject areas where more articles have been published include Medicine (22%), Biomedical and Life Sciences (18%), Education (9%), Earth and Environmental Science (7%), Chemistry and Materials Science (6.6%), Engineering (6.5%), and Mathematics and Statistics (5.8%) (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Articles published by subject.

Figure 3 Articles published by subject.

Examples of journals with the highest number of publications include Diabetologia (26 articles), Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (22 articles), Synthese (19 articles), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (17 articles), Psychopharmacology (17 articles), and The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (17 articles) (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Journals with the highest number of publications.

Figure 4 Journals with the highest number of publications.

The feedback received from libraries at Jisc’s offsetting workshops[1] suggests that this is a workable and efficient model that other publishers could adopt. The administration has been easier for institutions, for instance, by rationalising the eligibility, approval and payment processes which consequently saves staff time. Institutions have reported that it is relatively easy to determine eligibility and that there is no need for authors to consider different application processes or funding routes. This model is also seen as beneficial for institutions given the fact that there are no fixed limits on the number of articles that authors can publish and authors are not required to use a code or a voucher to pay for APCs.

The Springer Compact agreement also helps researchers to comply with funders and institutions open access mandates. It does so by enabling compliance with the key requirements stated in various research funders open access policies: articles are made immediately available on open access (no embargo periods apply), articles are made openly available under CC BY licences, and a copy of the final peer-reviewed manuscripts will be deposited in repositories via Jisc’s Publications Router.

Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services, said: “The Springer Compact deal is an excellent new model that enables UK authors to achieve Gold open access at no additional cost. As well as the significant financial benefits, it simplifies administration for authors and institutions, and streamlines the process of complying with funders’ open access policies. UCL wholeheartedly supports this model, and hopes to see other publishers following suit.”

Veronika Spinka, Open Access Manager, Springer Nature, added: “Springer Compact is a workable model that reduces the manual effort and workload for authors and institutions. Workflows provide a high-quality service level to accommodate all parties. Based on customer feedback, we continue to make our processes more efficient and reliable so that OA publishing becomes as easy as possible.”

By working with Springer and UK institutions to implement this model we continue to identify a number of areas where further improvements could be made. Some of these are about ensuring consistency in reporting (for example, by ensuring that research funders such as RCUK are acknowledged in the articles), others are about communications with authors and continuing to simplify the administration. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of this agreement over the year and to share findings and recommendations for best practice with institutions and publishers. We also hope that other publishers will be encouraged by our initial evaluation of the Springer Compact model and consider exploring similar flipped models.

Information on the articles published on open access can be consulted on the OpenAPC initiative website.

For more information on how you can make use of this agreement BU has with Springer, please refer to this blog post : http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2016/04/11/you-can-now-publish-open-access-for-free-with-springer-open-choice-journals/

[1] Jisc has been running a series of workshops on ‘Getting the most from open access offsetting deals’ to inform staff in higher education institutions about our negotiated deals to help reduce the costs of publishing open access articles. These workshops have been attended by more than 40 participants from higher education institutions. The next workshop will be held on 25 July 2016 (https://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/getting-the-most-from-open-access-offsetting-deals-25-jul-2016).

Why is Balance critical in Game Design?

We would like to invite you to a guest talk on Games research.McCallum

Title: Why is Balance critical in Game Design?

Speaker: Simon McCallum (Gjøvik University College, Norway)

Date: Friday 22nd July 2016
Time: 1:00PM-2:00PM
Room: Inspire LT, Fusion Building, Talbot Campus

Brief: In this presentation Simon will discuss the role of choice in games and how for meaningful choice to exist the options need to have carefully curated balance.  Options that are too similar become meaningless, as does a single clearly better option.  Creating interesting incomparables is part of the art of game design.  We will also discuss other aspects of balance related to game resources, starting positions, unit power etc.

We hope to see you there.