/ Full archive

Final 3 Minute presentation (3MP) event for the 2015/16 academic year

Dear all,

3MP is back for the final time for this academic year. This event challenges postgraduate researchers to talk about their research in 3 minutes and is designed to expose the audience to a variety of ideas from different disciplines in a bitesize way. There will be plenty opportunities to meet like-minded individuals and to create new connections among staff and colleagues across the University.

Just to give you a small sample of what to expect we have talks about:

  • Midwifery
  • Diabetes & lifestyle
  • Hacking & Gaming Technology
  • Corporate governance
  • Nature Conservation
  • and much more!!

The event will commence on Thursday 19th May from 18:00 on Talbot Campus.

To attend – book your 3MP ticket here

We hope to see you there!

3MP May promo

Opportunity to receive updates on knowledge exchange and innovation (AURIL Membership)

AURIL

 

Association for University and Research Links  (AURIL) is the professional association representing all practitioners involved in knowledge creation, development and exchange in the UK and Ireland who work to ensure that new ideas, technologies and innovations flow from their institution into the market place. AURIL has more than 1600 members from universities and public sector research establishments across Europe.

The Association enjoys widespread international recognition through its success in influencing UK government policy. It has strong working relations with the Confederation of British Industry, Universities UK, the UKIPO, the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), HM Treasury and Higher Education Funding Councils.

Bournemouth University is a member of this association with a number of academic and professional services support staff members of AURIL.

A number of events are co-ordinated by AURIL during the year including the annual conference – a good way of keeping up-to-date with  what is happening within the sector aswell as a chance to network and meet industry contacts. For more information on this association click here.

You can also opt in to receive regular updates on topics such as EU funding, Local Economic Partnerships (LEP), Student Enterprise & Employability, CPD, Knowledge Exchange. To check out the full list of topics and to be added or to  update your current listing please contact Jayne Codling in RKEO.

The next series of updates will be sent by the end of the month so get your request in soon!

Brownsea Marine and Coastal Observatory

In the pioneering spirit that has characterised previous endeavours on Brownsea Island, a group of seven BU Environmental Science students and staff have been carrying out surveys and studies that will contribute to the creation of a Marine and Coastal Observatory for Poole Harbour. In a partnership that includes the National Trust, Dorset Wildlife Trust and Poole Harbour Study Group, the observatory will create a fusion of coastal research and teaching and provide student placement opportunities.

During this past week, students have been carrying out plankton surveys with Dr Dan Franklin, establishing intertidal monitoring stations and recording nesting bird behaviour on the lagoon with Dr Roger Herbert and Dr Rick Stafford and fieldwork linked to coastal sediment movements and cliff erosion with BU geomorphologists Andy Ford and Dr Luciana Esteves. We were grateful for excellent accommodation at the Dorset Wildlife Trust ‘Villa’ and boat and equipment logistics and transportation using the National Trust vessel Enterprise.   bvuvguer

bvhofsw

 

Students on board Sea Rush sampling plankton with BU marine biologists Dr. Dan Franklin and visiting Prof. John Humphreys (jhc Research and Poole Port Commissioner).

 

Examining the catch in the National Trust ‘Sail Loft’.

vfesko

View down the microscope showing copepods. On hand was BU Alumni and local plankton expert Andrew Powell from Poole Harbour Study Group.

bfhwerlbvwel

Surveying beach profiles on the south-west coast.

Important aims of the Observatory are to create a web-based an inventory of marine life of the harbour and to publish reports and papers that record and interpret environmental change.

For further information contact Dr. Roger Herbert, Department of Life and Environmental Sciences.

rherbert@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research Councils publish Delivery Plans for 2016-2020

RCUKlogoThe UK Research Councils have published their Delivery Plans for the period 2016-2020.

The plans outline how the Research Councils individually and collectively will use their allocations from the Science and Research Budget announced in March to meet their strategic aims and to support the research base to benefit the economy and wider society.

Each Research Council plan is available on their individual websites:

The RCUK Executive Directorate has published a Delivery Plan for the first time which is available here . The Executive Directorate was established a year ago from the former RCUK Strategy Unit to give leadership for the collective activities across the Research Councils and to support the individual Councils to focus on their disciplines and communities. The Directorate’s Delivery Plan outlines future plans for policy and analysis, international, communications and public engagement, the Global Challenges Research Fund and the RCUK Change Programme.

In addition to outlining individual priorities for this period the Research Council Delivery Plans provide information on collective commitments to reform of the Research Councils, equality and diversity, partnership with Innovate UK and the Global Challenges Research Fund.

A helpful summary of each councils delivery plan is provided by Research Professional.

Business networking session – virtual and augmented reality

impact wordle 2

A networking session will take place on 23 May as part of “Impact Week, with the aim of to taking  a closer look at how research can have an impact and make a difference beyond academia, and the ways in which this can be achieved. Developing relationships with external organisations in order to form partnerships and collaborations are just one such way in which to recognise potential “need” for  research.

This is a themed networking session: H2H – bringing research to life (Human2Human). A business networking event on the topic of virtual and augmented reality

Time: 14.30-16.00

Location: PG10 – Talbot campus

Event description:

Virtual and augmented reality offers users new ways of perceiving and interacting with the digital world.  Not limited to the entertainment sectors, this approach can be adopted for both technical and industrial contexts.

This drop in session provides an opportunity to find out more about the topic and approaches currently being undertaken both within and outside the university.  Attendees will have the opportunity to network with academics from BU and local industry partners that may already be involved in projects or are keen to develop collaborations within this area.

Find out more and book now via Eventbrite

 

 

 

 

Lots to celebrate with RUFUS STONE

Excitement as anniversaries loom and RUFUS STONE is involved in all of it!

RUfus with copy 2

  • Excitement as anniversaries loom and RUFUS STONE is involved in all of it! 10th Anniversary of the LGBT tent at Glastonbury this summer where our film will feature.
  • Next, a proposal for a 5th Anniversary of the premiere of RUFUS STONE is in the mix for next November at the Shelley Theatre in Bournemouth.
  • Finally, BBC will be using our research to inform a new BBC Two film marking 50 years since the passage of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act (making homosexuality in the UK no longer punishable as a crime).

Stay tuned for further details about these events!

RUFUS STONE the movie website

New frontiers on tech – big data, the cloud and Internet of Things

Technology in the hands
IT giant, Intel Corporation, is undergoing a massive shift in strategy. While jobs fall by the wayside, Intel has its eye firmly on what analysts are calling ‘new frontiers in technology’, and there are signs that the other tech behemoths are set to follow suit.
Last week, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich outlined his strategy for the chip giant in the years ahead, as it struggles to move away from its dependence on the waning PC market.
The thrust of the new strategy is: ‘transforming Intel from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices’ and this, says Krzanich, encompasses five core beliefs:
• The cloud is the most important trend shaping the future of the smart, connected world – and thus Intel’s future.
• The many “things” that make up the PC Client business and the internet of things are made much more valuable by their connection to the cloud.
• Memory and programmable solutions such as FPGAs will deliver entirely new classes of products for the data centre and the internet of things.
• 5G will become the key technology for access to the cloud  as we move toward an always-connected world.
• Moore’s Law will continue to progress and Intel will continue to lead in delivering its true economic impact.
For companies, these core beliefs form a clear virtuous cycle – the cloud and data center, the internet of things, and memory are all bound together by connectivity and enhanced by the economics of Moore’s Law. (Gordon Moore was an Intel co-founder so Moore’s Law is ingrained in the company’s psyche.)
Key to this is the “internet of things,” every device, sensor and console that has potential to connect to the cloud. This means that everything that a “thing” does can be captured as a piece of data, measured in real-time, and becomes accessible from anywhere. With this, cybersecurity is needed more than ever. Visit sites like https://privacera.com/platform/ for additional guidance or you can check out this site for additional reading on how companies like NetBrain are increasing the efficiency of network operation teams. You may also get expert advice from a crm consultant if you need help with crm cloud service.
Krzanich believes that: “the biggest opportunity in the internet of things is that it encompasses just about everything in our lives today – it’s ubiquitous. For most areas of industry and retail – from our shoes and clothes to our homes and cars – the internet of things is transforming everything and every experience. At Intel, we will focus on autonomous vehicles, industrial and retail as our primary growth drivers of the internet of things.”
In a time when technology is valued not just for the devices it produces, but for the experiences it makes possible, Intel is banking on the fact that a broader focus, and sharper execution will enable the company to take a lead in a smart, connected world.
Several major corporations have already taken the initiative to push frontier technology, such as Google with its Google Cardboard and Apple’s eventual (maybe?) 3D printer. Layoffs are the inevitable result and, in many cases, are already happening, as more and more companies find themselves having to look in new directions.
With Apple’s iPhone production on the decline comes more evidence that companies’ defining products won’t be what sustains them into the future and that Intel and Krzanich’s new focus on experiences rather than the devices that make these possible is the way to go.

Horizon 2020 – Health – 7th & 8th July 2016, Brussels

Health, Demographic Change & Wellbeing

Challenge in Horizon 2020

Do you intend to prepare a proposal for the 2017 call in Horizon 2020 for Health?

On the 8th of July 2016, the European Commission is organizing an Open Info Day dedicated to “Health, Demographic Change & Wellbeing (SC1)” challenge in Horizon 2020 and focusing on the 2017 call.

One day before, on the 7th of July 2016, Health NCP Net 2.0 and Fit for Health 2.0 are organizing a free of charge Partnering event meant to assist you in finding the right partners for the upcoming 2017 calls. The launch of the 2017 call is planned for the 29th of July 2016, having the first deadline on the 4th of October 2016, therefore this would be a good opportunity for your institution to identify the proper consortium partners.

Priority in participation, on 7th July, will be granted to entrepreneurs and research organizations with identified expertise profiles and project applications initiatives. As participation is limited to 2 persons representing the same department/organization, please contact RKEO so that we can co-ordinate registration on this event.

If you are attending both days, separate registration will be needed  As far as we are aware, there is no restriction on numbers from each organisation for the Info Day on 8/7/16.

BROKERAGE EVENT

M2M + Symposium

Find cooperation partners for the upcoming H2020 health calls.

PRESENT YOUR PROJECT

M2M + Symposium

Present your project in a 5 min flash presentation to a highly commited audience

7 July 2016 – Fit for Health 2.0 and Health-NCP-Net 2.0

Horizon 2020 Health Partnering Day

This Partnering event will be dedicated to consortium building. The main part of the day is dedicated to bilateral meetings between persons interested in the same call area.
A surrounding programme will provide information on support measures for Health projects and give researchers and entrepreneurs from the Health and ICT areas a platform to present their project ideas in 5-minute presentations.
Bilateral meetings will be arranged automatically by a sophisticated, user-friendly match-making tool following indication of interests in specific call areas by participants. Additionally, to bilateral meetings among potential project partners, participants will have the option to meet with representatives of support initiatives and members of the organizing projects for personalized support and information.

Focus

This Partnering event will target a wide spectrum of companies, universities and researchers from Europe and beyond interested in sharing new project ideas and finding collaboration partners and will be focused on the following challenge of the Horizon 2020 Health Call.

Main topics

  • Understanding health, well-being & disease
  • Preventing disease
  • Treating and managing diseases
  • Active ageing and self-management of health
  • Methods and data
  • Coordination activities
  • Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in health projects
  • Sustainable food security – health aspects

Why to participate

  • to facilitate the setup of Horizon 2020 project consortia
  • to present, discuss and develop new project ideas on Health at an international level
  • to initiate cross-border contacts

 

 

 

EURAXESS – Marie Skłodowska-Curie

Please see the following announcement just received from EURAXESS:
Euraxess

Dear researchers,

As you know, the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action-Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) call was launched on the 12th April. With the collaboration of SRUK/CERU (Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK), at RUVID we have organised a webinar on Friday 6th May between 9 am and 11 am to present 12 research groups from our Valencian universities as potential host institutions for young researchers and candidates for this MSCA-IF call.

Each of the 12 researchers will give a ten minute presentation on their research group, main research area(s) and the profile of the candidate they are looking for.

These groups cover different fields: Physics, Life Sciences, Information Science & Engineering, and Social Sciences. Please see the detailed programme of the webinar – Webinar Presentation of Host Institutions inValencia_06-05-2016

This is a unique opportunity for you to find your host institution.

If you have completed your PhD or have 4 years full-time experience as a researcher, this webinar is for you.

Don’t miss it and register at: bit.ly/1Y2NvQN

We are also promoting this event on social media, using the following hastags: #MSCA #IF #MarieCurieFellowship

For more information, feel free to contact Joumana at jsweiss@ruvid.org

Dating one of the oldest settlements in the world-new results from WF16, Jordan

Last week saw the publication of a new paper entitled: Dating WF16: Exploring the Chronology of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Settlement in the Southern Levant in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (LondonFigure 4). This was published by BU staff member Emma Jenkins who is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and colleagues from the University of Reading and Oxford Brookes University. This is a significant paper which presents 46 AMS Radiocarbon dates from the site and utilizes Bayesian methods to try and establish a chronology for WF16, one of the earliest settlements in the world which is located in southern Jordan. The excavation was unique in its size and scope for a site of this time period and in the number of AMS dates obtained. This paper makes an important contribution to our understanding of the Neolithic in the Levant-a time and place which saw the transition from mobile hunter-gatherers to settled farming communities. The paper is published Gold Open access and is available here: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/23519/

Innovation awards – Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (PaCCS) – new call to be announced

esrc logo

 

Innovation awards under PaCCS focusing on Conflict and International Development

The ESRC and AHRC will shortly be launching a further call for interdisciplinary innovation awards under the Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (PaCCS) focusing on Conflict and International Development. (Pre-call.)

Find out more information including the proposed call timescale here.

AHRC information.

If you are interested in submitting to this call you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

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

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

‘Meet the Entrepreneur’ – Damien Lee

The Business School and Centre for Entrepreneurship were delighted to welcome Damien Lee to the EBC yesterday for the fourth in our series of ‘Meet the Entrepreneur’ seminars.

Damien Lee, founder of Mr Lee’s Noodles Company Ltd, is an adventurous and focused entrepreneur with a vision to create affordable, healthy fast food options, particularly for young people.

Mark Painter, Business Development Manager for The Business School, said, ‘Damien has founded and run many successful businesses across a diverse range of sectors including oil, leisure and recruitment’, Mark added, ‘It was particularly interesting to hear Damien say that creating a business is ultimately about making money, however, at the same time, Damien believes enterprises should ensure they give something worthwhile back to those societies and communities they serve’.

A cancer survivor – once told “he only had weeks” – and a fervent believer in the role of food in health. Damien is passionate about supporting young people and through Mr Lee’s HEY Foundation aims to raise awareness of the importance of eating good food (Health), provide life coaching (Educate) and encourage young people to get active and set personal goals (Youth).

This was a great opportunity for students and staff to hear about Damien’s personal journey as an entrepreneur and learn more about his own experiences as a business owner and his approach to founding and growing an innovative business.

In recognition of Damien’s support for BU’s enterprise activities, at the end of the seminar Mark Painter invited Damien to join the Centre for Entrepreneurship’s cohort of Entrepreneurs in Residence. Mark Painter said, ‘I’m delighted that Damien is able to join our group of Entrepreneurs in Residence and we very much look forward to seeing Damien at further events in the future.’

More information about Mr Lee’s Noodles Company Ltd can be found at www.mrleesnoodles.com

Details of future events being organised by the Centre for Entrepreneurship can be found at www.bucfe.com

 

 

Seminar by Prof Sue Denham in Cogntive and Computational Neuroscience. Today the 5th of May at 15h, Lawrence Lecture Theatre.

Sue Denham, PhD in Physics holds a Professorship in Cognitive Neuroscience at the department of Psychology in Plymouth University and is director of the Cognition Institute https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/institutes/cognition

Prof Denham has published a series of influential studies in the area of auditory cognition both from empirical and neurocomputational modelling angles. In addition, she has applied these insights in the development of computationally efficient implementations for practical technological applications, and in the creation of novel devices. Sue has been funded multiple times from BBSRC, EPSRC, Leverhulme, Welcome Trust and ERC among other funding agencies; and has been coordinator of three FP7 European projects. Currently she is the coordinator of the EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN-IDP 604764; €4.1m) “CogNovo: Cognitive Innovation” (2013-2017).

The title of her exciting talk is: “What can perceptual multistability tell us about perception?”, in Lawrence Lecture Theatre today, the 5th of May, 15h, in the context of the Psychology Department Seminars organized by Dr Sebastien Miellet, Head of the Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience Research Center.

Abstract: “The phenomenon of perceptual multistability, i.e. qualitative changes in perception in response to an unchanging stimulus, has been known for many years, originally in the form of binocular rivalry. More recently, perceptual switching has also been observed in other visual tasks (e.g. form from motion, visual plaids, Necker cube) and modalities, notably in the two auditory paradigms of auditory streaming and verbal transformations, both of which give rise to multistable states. Perceptual multistability poses many interesting questions for theories and models of sensory perception, and provides ways to explore the neural correlates of differences in (conscious) perceptual awareness without confounds caused by differences in stimulation or individual. In this talk I will discuss the somewhat surprising similarities between visual and auditory perceptual switching data, illustrated through Levelt’s four propositions. These suggest a common modelling strategy which in turn leads to new ideas of what constitutes an auditory object”.

We are all looking forward to her talk which is interesting for many of us at BU since Sue has worked in areas ranging from cognition to neural computation.

Robotics & Autonomous Systems – US leads robotics investment boom

robot_in_tomorrows_world
Rapidly increasing activity in the robotics sphere has led the Financial Times to herald an investment boom time for one of the hottest new markets in tech. And, as robots break free of factory production lines, the US and China are poised to take the lead from Japan and Germany.
After growing at a compound rate of 17 per cent a year, the robot market will be worth $135bn by 2019, according to IDC, a tech research firm. The Asian markets, Japan and China, which is in the early stages of retooling its manufacturing sector, account for 69 per cent of all robot spending. But it’s US investment, which has more than doubled to $587m in 2015, according to CB Insights, that is the major factor in global growth.
Although the amount of cash flowing into the sector is still at a relatively early stage, all the lead indicators of the innovation economy are positive, says the FT: patent filings covering robotics technology have soared, with China alone accounted for 35 per cent in 2015, and venture capital investments more than doubled last year.
“From private equity investors looking to build portfolios of robot investments, to new “incubators” such as Playground, started by former Google robotics chief Andy Rubin, the investment options have been proliferating rapidly.”
“The most interesting things are in Silicon Valley or the US,” Dmitry Grishin, a Russian internet entrepreneur and investor told the FT.
Surging investment in artificial intelligence is giving the US an early advantage in the race to dominate a new era of robotics, say investors and experts. Recent advances, particularly in deep learning, have shifted robotics from its core industrial market into areas such as self-driving cars.
However, as low-cost robots move into more consumer and business uses, such as drones, China’s hardware manufacturing expertise will also make it a more significant player, they believe.
AI, big data and the cloud
The threat from new AI and cloud technologies has also incentivised established players such as Japan’s Fanuc, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots, to up their game. The company plans to start connecting 400,000 installed machines by the end of this year, to collect data about their operations and improve performance and is banking on their proliferation as a means of competing with the likes of Google, in the data sphere at least. Similalry, Germany’s Kuka is building a deep-learning AI network for industrial robots.
While US companies such as Google and Facebook have led  investment in deep learning, Silicon Valley has also seen a wider start-up boom in AI and robotics. A collapse in the price of components, thanks to smartphone growth, has made it cheaper to launch robot companies. But the new entrepreneurs rushing into the field are different from the hardware engineers who historically dominated the field, experts say, and are just as likely not to even use the word “robotics,” with a focus, instead on autonomy and AI.
Complementing this activity, astonishing advances in academia are giving fuel to future visions of what may become possible, with scientists creating living ‘insect-computer hybrid’ robots with user-adjustable speed and gait and exciting innovation in powering the technology, such as ‘ATTO cells’ that will be instrumental in creating intelligent swarms of robots. This nascent technology is expected to enable automation at ten times the speed of the upcoming 5G technology, supporting the deployment of highly-demanding wireless services in domains such as reconfigurable robot factories, intelligent hospitals and flexible offices. Ultimately, individual robots will be able to tap into the computing power of other robots in the swarm and/or local computing power in their immediate environment.
Simplistic machines
But that’s the future and there are plenty of technological and ethical hurdles for robotics to address first. Current goals are infintely more modest: to build single-purpose robots that do one thing very well. If successful, these machines will quickly become part of the fabric of everyday life, much like today’s automated vacuum cleaners or cash machines, say experts.
Another key design feature of many of the early robots is that they will need to operate alongside people, initially at least, making humans more productive rather than replacing them altogether. The limitations of current automation technologies mean that robot companies are thus currently focused on keeping “the human in the loop,” with most experts believing that people will have an important role to play in directing and providing a vital source of learning for the machines for decades to come.
Rapid learning is, in fact, vital for robotics manufacturers’ initial products, according to Grishin. The trick, he says, will be to find a task that relatively simplistic machines are able to handle, then use knowledge gained in the field to rapidly add to their capabilities and usefulness. “First put them in consumers’ hands, then learn from their behaviour.” Thus the machine becomes a minimal vessel for more and more sophisticated software.
It’s a proposition that investors are finding increasingly difficult to resist.

BUDI at Alzheimer’s Disease International Conference in Budapest

Mary O’Malley and Dr. Michelle Heward represented Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) at the 31st Alzheimer’s Disease International Conference in Budapest from 21-24th April 2016.

Mary presented a poster showcasing her PhD research ‘Alzheimer’s disease International (ADI) – “You can get completely disorientated and reason is because all the corridors look the same” – a qualitative study into the orientation experiences and design preferences of older people with memory difficulties living in retirement complexes’. Michelle presented a paper on ‘Fire safety in the home: local lessons – global reach’ as part of a session on dementia friendly communities.

This years conference theme was ‘Dementia: Global Perspective, Local solutions’, with a strong local, national and international presence creating unique synergies and inspiring new ideas in the pursuit of making a difference in the lives of those living with dementia.

image1v2

Whilst at the conference Mary and Michelle caught up with Hilary and Peter Paniccia, from Somerset, who have previously participated in several BUDI projects. Hilary lives with dementia, and is supported by her husband Peter (who is now chief photographer at many national and international dementia events). They have become real advocates of dementia awareness and are both actively involved in numerous groups and projects, including the European Working Group of People with Dementia. They really bring to life the phrase ‘living well with dementia’ – a true inspiration to us all. You can see Hilary and Peter speaking about how they live well with dementia in our ‘living well with dementia’ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWUZFiy2Qy8.

Mary O’Malley and Michelle Heward