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Pollinator Exchange HEIF project connects practitioners and academics in common pursuit of urban pollinator conservation

Business Engagement, HEIF, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Pollinators are vitally important ecosystem service providers. They have been credited with being responsible for pollinating one-third of the food we eat; indeed many of our crops are wholly or partially dependent on insect pollination. Hence, the decline in pollinator populations has been a cause of concern not just for scientists, but for governments and the public at large. In the UK, this has led to an official government strategy on how to best protect our pollinators: the National Pollinator Strategy (Defra 2014).

Taking into account the growing number of studies that show the vitally important role urban areas can play in pollinator conservation, the strategy recognises pollinator-friendly management across towns and cities as a key component in nationwide efforts to halt their decline. While understanding of urban pollinators’ needs and experience in managing urban green spaces for their benefit is accumulating, it can often be difficult for practitioners to find the practical advice they need to implement the right measures. This was highlighted at a recent meeting co-organised by Defra and the University of Bristol’s Urban Pollinators Project which recommended the establishment of a central repository of information for urban practitioners.

BU’s Pollinator Exchange HEIF project, launched in October 2015 collaboratively between the Faculty of Science and Technology and the Media School, aims to fulfil this role. It will result in an online portal that links practitioners, academics, NGOs, private gardeners, ecological consultants and anyone else with an active interest in urban pollinator conservation. Users are invited to share relevant guidelines, case studies, summaries of peer-reviewed papers and other content that will help urban green space managers make pollinator-friendly choices based on the latest evidence.

The project is supported by Bournemouth Borough Council and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. A stakeholder workshop in May will provide potential users with the opportunity to comment on the portal’s content and usability, ensuring it will be both useful and intuitive when launched in July. For questions or feedback, please contact Project Manager Kathy Hodder (khodder@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Research Assistant Arne Loth (aloth@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Quick guides have been updated

Guidance

Help and support signpostWithin the Research Toolkit (see menu link above), we have several quick guides for applying to various funders and for certain activities.  These have been updated this week and so do check them out.  Added to them are useful links to BU processes, which are only available on our staff intranet.  These are:

These are all essential reading if you are thinking of applying for external funding to carry out your research and knowledge exchange activities.

Research Fellowship bid writing retreat – 19 May 2016

Funding opportunities, Training

Are you looking to apply for your first research Fellowship? Unsure how to frame a research Fellowship application? Come along to the Fellowship bid writing retreat on 19 May and gain some insights into how a Fellowship differs from a research grant application, how you can ensure that you meet their requirements, and have some time to develop your application. You’ll also hear from colleagues who have been awarded Fellowships about their experiences.

You’ll be expected to come along to the day with an idea of which Fellowship scheme to which you wish to apply, and share your ideas about why this is appropriate for you. If you think this might be an ideal opportunity to work on your Fellowship proposal and would like to book onto the event, please contact Dianne Goodman at dgoodman@bournemouth.ac.uk by 13 May 2016. Please direct any queries to Jennifer Roddis, Research Facilitator (jroddis@bournemouth.ac.uk), who will be delivering the event. The event will take place in the EBC, between 9.30am and 4.00pm. For further information about Fellowships, please see http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/research-funders-guide/fellowships/ .

 

Save the Date! Interdisciplinary Research HE Sector Day – 21st June 2016

See more recent blog post for updated information. 

Save the date for REKO’s forthcoming Interdisciplinary Research Sector Day!

interdisciplinary-1It will take place on Tuesday, 21st June 2016 in the Executive Business Centre.

There will be speakers from BU and other organisations plus plenty of opportunity to network with academic and professional research administration colleagues from other universities. Already confirmed are speakers from HEFCE, Sussex, Brunel and BU.

The event will be advertised to colleagues in other institutions so, if you would like to help promote this event to people in your professional network, keep an eye on this blog for further information in the coming weeks. Academic and Research Support staff from the Higher Education research community are welcome to attend this free event. Please share this link with others in your professional network.

For more information before the programme and booking instructions are published, please contact Emily Cieciura in REKO.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.money and cogs

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

The BBSRC has made funds of £5k for BBSRC grant holders as part of the International Scientific Interchange Scheme to establish new contacts with international counterparts.  Closing Date Open

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Applications are welcomed for access to super-computing time  (>100,000 kAU or 6666667 core-hours on ARCHER) up to 24 months as part of the ARCHER Leadership Project or as part of the Resource Allocation Panel (>1,000kAUs or >66,667 ARCHER core hours) for 12 months for research that falls within the remit of the EPSRC or NERC.  Closing Date 13/6/16  

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance

The Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance is accepting applications for a maximum of €50k, for projects lasting 6-12 months for the creation of Transnational Networks/Working Groups in the following areas:

  1. Guidelines on use (Human & Veterinary) – Affordable stewardship
  2. Surveillance in primary care
  3. New anti-infective/ New adjuvant therapies / Alternative approaches
  4. Evaluation of risk for generation of resistance in human setting
  5. Rapid diagnostic tests
  6. Role of environmental factors
  7. Infrastructures/Biobanks available relevant to infection and AMR

Each working group must include at least three partners from the following countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK and Canada.  Closing Date 6/6/16

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust have made available the Small Arts Awards (small- to medium-sized projects – up to and including £40k) to support new project ideas or ways of working, investigate and experiment with new methods of engagement through the arts or the final production costs of new work. Closing Date 1/6/16

As part of the Development Awards, up to £10k is available for ideas for TV, radio, games or film projects in collaboration with scientists and researchers. Closing Date 27/7/16

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

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer.

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.

Royal Society launches stories from its Parent Carer Scientist project

The Royal Society’s Parent Carer Scientist project aims to increases the visibility of people in the UK combining a career in science with a family life, and to encourage and inRoyal Societyspire current and future talented scientists to succeed regardless of non-work commitments. Stories from mothers, fathers and carers about their efforts to balance a career in science with family life can be found at https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/diversity-in-science/parent-carer-scientist/ – the stories are being launched in small groups so more will be added over the coming months.

Congratulations to New Physio Staff member Osman Ahmed

Congratulations to our newest Physio staff member Osman Ahmed on his recent publication. Having been employed for just a few weeks he already has a publication in the name of BU.

A picture tells a thousand words. A content analysis of concussion related images online, published in Physical Therapy in Sport.

http://www.physicaltherapyinsport.com/article/S1466-853X(16)00030-4/abstract

Hopefully the start of many more publications for Osman.

FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 27 April 2016

Communicating Research

FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 2015-16

The Faculty of Media and Communication at BU

Venue: W240, Weymouth House, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB

Wednesday 27 April 2016, 3pm, W240

A Journalism Research Group Guest Lecture

Paul Bradshaw, Birmingham City University

Chilling Effect: Regional Journalists’ Source Protection and Information Security Practice in the Wake of the Snowden & RIPA Revelations

Two years after Edward Snowden revealed widespread interception of communications by the UK government, and 12 months after revelations that police were accessing journalists’ communications data to identify sources, this paper finds that regional journalistic practices, ethics and self-understandings have been largely unaffected by the emergence of surveillance society.

Based on face-to-face surveys of over 75 regional journalists at a number of publications within five newspaper groups in the UK, 10 in-depth interviews, and analysis of policy documents, journalists show few signs of adapting source protection and information security practices to reflect new legal and technological threats, and there is widespread ignorance of what their employers are doing to protect networked systems of production.

The paper argues that the ‘reactive’ approach to source protection, that seeks to build a legal defence if required, is a particular challenge for journalists in protecting their sources and data, and there is a significant need to reflect on these challenges. Specifically it argues these approaches are no longer adequate in the context of workforce monitoring, and that publishers need to update their policies and practice to address ongoing change in the environment for journalists and sources. In the process it also highlights security issues for researchers seeking to protect their own sources in researching surveillance and security practices in journalism.

Wednesday 27 April 2016, 4pm, W240

A Narrative Research Group Guest Lecture

Martin Barker, Aberystwyth University

Catching Dragons in Flight”: Tracking the Changing Place of ‘Fantasy’ in Contemporary Culture

In the last twenty years, huge changes have occurred in the way ‘fantasy’ is made, received and understood, particularly (but not only) within European and American societies. From being simply dismissed as infantile, or traduced as a mark of disturbance, fantasy has moved to take on strong political overtones: witness the adoption of masks from V For Vendetta by the ‘Occupy’ movement, the adoption of Avatar’s blue colouring by environmental protestors, and the banning in Thailand of the three-finger salute from The Hunger Games after its adoption by protest movements. But equally, witness the waves of unease greeting the success among women of Fifty Shades of Grey. By happenstance I took on studying fantasy’s audiences in two enormous international projects, just as this change crystallised with Peter Jackson’s film trilogies of The Lord of the Rings, and then of The Hobbit. In this presentation, I will try to throw some general light on the changes that are taking place, and what light in particular audience research can throw on what is happening.

Martin Barker is Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University. Across a long research career, he has explored a wide range of issues and topics, including: contemporary British racism; comic books; media controversies, and scares about ‘violence’; a range of films, from The Last of the Mohicans, to Crash, to Judge Dredd, to the cycle of Iraq War films. In the last 25 years, he has focused in particular on film audiences, and how to study them. In 2006 he was contracted by the British Board of Film Classification to research audience responses to screened sexual violence. In 2003, and again in 2014, he led international audience research projects into responses to the film trilogies of The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit.

About the series

This new seminar series showcases current research across different disciplines and approaches within the Faculty of Media and Communication at BU. The research seminars include invited speakers in the fields of journalism, politics, narrative studies, media, communication and marketing studies. The aim is to celebrate the diversity of research across departments in the faculty and also generate dialogue and discussion between those areas of research.

Contributions include speakers on behalf of

The Centre for Politics and Media Research

The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community

Promotional Cultures & Communication Centre

Public Relations Research Centre

Narrative Research Group

Journalism Research Group

Advances in Media Management Research Group

Determinants of bank profitability in transition countries: What matters most? – Download and read this article while you can!!

open access, Publishing

Res publicationDr. Khurshid Djalilov and Professor Jenny Piesse recently published with the Research in International Business and Finance on ‘Determinants of bank profitability in transition countries: What matters most?’.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of bank profitability in the early transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and in the late transition countries of the former USSR. We apply a GMM technique for the period covering 2000–2013. The results show that profitability persists and the determinants of bank profitability vary across transition countries. Particularly, the banking sector of early transition countries is more competitive. However, the impact of credit risk on bank profitability is positive in early transition countries, but negative in late transition countries. Government spending and monetary freedom negatively influence bank profitability only in late transition countries. Moreover, better capitalised banks are more profitable in early transition countries implying that these banking sectors are more robust. A range of possible approaches that governments can take to further develop banking sectors are discussed.

The full article is currently open for access and download for a short period of time through this link – http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SvF0~fX5-j4z so please make use of this temporary open access opportunity to read/or download the paper for your own use.

Future of the Je-S system

Je-S logoThe Research Councils have informed us that they will be upgrading their electronic grants submission service in 2017.  The Je-S system has come to a natural end and they plan to design a smarter, simpler more user friendly service in line with the latest digital standards. Work is already underway to design the new awards service. This work is based on extensive user research and BU will nominate a primary coordinator (from RKEO) to engage with RCUK about this project.

What sort of improvements can you expect?

As an applicant, peer reviewer or research office administrator, you will no longer use the Je-S system to apply for grants, submit reviews or manage your research organisations grants activities. There will be an entirely new external portal. In future the whole grant application form will be digitised, which means in the majority of cases no more uploading of attachments; and there are other improvements such as in-built formatting for font size and word count, improved dashboards to help you manage your grant activities as well as guidance relevant to a particular funding opportunity close at hand, all on the one screen, while you are applying. This is just some of the functionality being developed and iterated through user testing and feedback.

When will the new system go live?

The ambition is to start to run a small number of funding opportunities through the new system by March 2017 to test that everything is working as it should be. After March 2017, there will be parallel running of the new awards service and Je-S, which will be gradually phased out throughout 2017. We expect the full transition from Je-S to the new awards service to be completed by May 2018.

How you can keep up to date with what’s happening?

This is an important programme of work and RCUK are keen to keep you informed of progress. You can receive regular updates about this project by subscribing to their mailing list at http://rcuk.us13.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=ad56e1b1044a6f3fab9f61fb8&id=bf29a1fd1a

For updates about news and changes to Research Councils grants service more generally,  you can sign up to their quarterly grants newsletter at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=RCUKSSC-GRANTS&A=1

Committee inquiries: open calls for evidence

Below is a list of committee inquiries with current open calls for evidence. Please contact Emma Bambury-Whitton if you would like to discuss submitting evidence.

Commons Select Committee inquiries

Joint Committee inquiries

HE Policy Update

Anti-lobbying clause

A controversial piece of legislation that would have seen publicly-funded organisations prevented from lobbying the UK government and parliament has been revised to exclude academics and researchers. You can view Jo Johnson’s statement here.

Leaked document

Notes for a Number 10 meeting caught on camera reveal ministers believe there is a “problem” that some universities are charging the highest tuition fees rate despite not proving their worth. Top universities not good enough to charge £9,000, ministers believe, according to leaked document (The Telegraph).

Impact

A new discussion paper sets out to determine what works and what doesn’t when researchers seek to make an impact on policy. The paper gives tips for engaging with policy-makers including a suggestion to “capture your audience mid-morning or after lunch, when some office workers are active on social networks”. You can view the report here.

HE White Paper

The White Paper is thought to have reached the stage of a “write round” – a consultation process in which Cabinet ministers are asked to give the views of their departments on potential legislation and grant clearance for it to go ahead. White Paper could kill off Hefce quality plans. (THE). 

Social work

The Frontline social work training programme’s shift to in-house rather than university-led education could harm the research base that underpins the profession, the Commons education committee was told. MPs told to keep social work training in universities. (Research Professional).

Office for Fair Access

The Office for Fair Access, which oversees progress in ensuring students from non-traditional backgrounds succeed at English universities, is to have its office staff cut from 18 to 6, according to Paul Blomfield, Labour MP for Sheffield Central, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Students. The plans are reportedly contained in a confidential document entitled “BIS 2020 – Finance and Headcount outline”. Office for Fair Access to be cut. (Research Professional).

NUS

Students at the University of Oxford are threatening to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students following the election of Malia Bouattia as its president. Oxford threatens to dump student union in antisemitism row (The Times).

EU Referendum

A House of Lords report has conceded that the UK science community draws vital benefits from EU membership and could lose influence in the event of Brexit. Concern over Brexit’s impact on science (BBC).

 A blog post on Global BUzz looks into the impact of leaving the EU for higher education. What would be the impact of a vote to leave on Higher Education?

Bournemouth Natural Science Society Event – May

Date: Tuesday 24 May

Time:  7.30pm

Location:  Bournemouth Natural Science Society 39 Christchurch Road BH1 3NS

Event information: “Life inside a Deep-sea Canyon”

Dr Laetitia Gunton will talk about her research at the renowned National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton. Submarine canyons are deep incisions in the continental shelf and slope and are considered to be deep-sea biodiversity “hotspots”. This talk will dive into the Whittard in the NE Atlantic. Come and find out which creatures live in this fascinating environment.

New comparative paper India-Nepal

international, Publishing

India-NepalThis week saw the publication of a new paper co-written by BU staff in the Sociological Bulletin.  This is the first paper comparing Indian and Nepali Maoist rebels providing health services and health promotion to the communities under their influence.  It presents the key provisions either made by rebel health workers themselves or by putting political pressure on government health workers to deliver better services in the areas controlled by rebels. Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen’s co-authors are based in India and Nepal.  Prof. Gaurang R. Sahay is based at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, whilst Bhimsen Devkota is Professor in Health Education, Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

This sociological paper is based on a mixed-method approach comprising 15 interviews and a questionnaire survey with 197 Nepalese Maoist health workers and a secondary analysis of policy documents and other published materials on the Maoist health services of India. The paper suggests that rebel health services in India and Nepal followed a fairly similar approach to what and how they offered health care services to local populations. Maoists becoming a government party changed the political landscape for the rebel health workers in Nepal. However, not incorporating the Maoist rebel health workers into the government health system was a missed opportunity. There are lessons that India and Nepal can learn from each other. Should the Maoist rebels and the Government of India come to an agreement, potential for rebel health workers to be integrated in the official health care system should at least be considered.

The paper benefitted from an earlier review through eBU: Online Journal.  The feedback from the eBU: Online Journal’s reviewers helped shape and polish the paper before submission to the Sociological Bulletin.services-ebu-logo

 

Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1. Sahay, G., Devkota, B., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2016) Rebel Health Services in South Asia: Comparing Maoist-led Conflicts in India & Nepal, Sociological Bulletin 65(1):19-39.