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Undergraduate Research Assistantship Programme – Summer 2016 Applications

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) will soon be inviting academics to submit an application for the summer round of the Undergraduate Research Assistantship programme (URA).

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.

Summer programme

This placement is for successful students to work full-time (37.5 hours per week) for six weeks between 13th June 2016 and 31st August 2016. This programme will have the capacity for approximately 20 placements.

The URA programme is coordinated through RKEO.

Once applications are open, staff will apply for the funding via an application form. A panel of representatives associated with the University Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee will review all staff applications and decide which applications to continue to the student recruitment stage of the scheme.

Approved academic applications will be advertised as URA positions to students with student applications being received, processed and managed centrally within RKEO and distributed to the relevant academics after the closing date. The academics will be responsible for shortlisting, interviewing and providing interview feedback to their own candidates. Successful students will need to complete monthly timesheets, signed by their supervisor and returned to RKEO for payment.

These URA vacancies will be available to undergraduate BU students only, where URA applicants must be able to work in the UK and be enrolled during the time of their assistantship. Staff can only be named as the Lead Researcher on one URA application at any one time.

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

 

EPSRC seeking new SAN members

EPSRC_logoThe Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has announced that it is inviting nominations for new members of its Strategic Advisory Network (SAN).

The Council is seeking applications from respected industrialists, academics and from individuals working in the third sector and government organisations to join the Network. It hopes to appoint at least ten people and through the recruitment exercise EPSRC holds a particular aspiration to improve the Network’s diversity.

The Strategic Advisory Network provides EPSRC’s Executive with strategic advice to help develop and implement plans, and to make appropriate recommendations to EPSRC Council. The Network is a flexible resource, enabling the Executive to obtain the timely advice it needs, drawing on a range of perspectives from across EPSRC‘s key stakeholder groups including academia, business, third sector and Government.

Professor Philip Nelson EPSRC’s Chief Executive said: “In a world where EPSRC is being pressed to achieve more with less, and where the Research Councils are working closer together, the input from our advisory network will be crucial. We need and value advice that gives us a 360 degree view of the areas we are currently working in or where we plan to make investments. That is why we want to encourage applications from as diverse a group as possible.”

The call for nominations to join the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Network is now open and closes on 07 March 2016 at 16:00.

For full details of the nominations application process, please consult the ‘SAN nominations 2016‘ document.

Resources

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Research-Professional-logoEvery BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fuorth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

23rd February 2016

22nd March 2016

26th April 2016

24th May 2016

28th June 2016

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Careers guidance resources for researchers

career-developmentIn October we launched a suite of careers guidance resources for researchers and their managers. The resources include detailed guidance on how to progress from a research career to an academic career as well as information for PhD students on postdoctoral research positions. There is also information on other career pathways including administration/management within HE and research careers outside of HE. The resources have been enhanced over the past few months and now include a number of case studies for different career pathways.

CEMP Research Awarded EPSRC Extension Grant

student research

EPSRC_logocemp-logo

CEMP Researcher Phil Wilkinson has been awarded a grant by the EPSRC to develop further impact of CEMP’s Digital Capabilities project with Samsung. The grant will fund digital engagement activities with community outreach practitioners, educators, and academics with a focus on ‘Digital Families’.  The seminars will also be live-streamed online through G-Hangouts.

Phil worked with Julian McDougall and Mark Readman on the CEMP / Samsung project and his broader ‘Researcher in Residence’ work at IPACA forms part of his doctoral research in BU’s Centre for Digital Entertainment.

 

 

Launch of the TEL Toolkit

Centre for Excellence in Learning

We are delighted to announce the launch of BU’s TEL Toolkit.

The toolkit – created by academics, for academics – has been developed to support you in the application of TEL, including information on ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘who’ to approach for more information.

To find out more about how the TEL Toolkit can help enhance your teaching and your students’ learning experience, come along to one of our launch events, taking place during the week commencing Monday 1 February.

Launch Event Dates

Tuesday 2 February, 11am to 1pm – Atrium, Poole House

Thursday 4 February, 11am to 1pm– Ground Floor, EBC

Friday 5 February, 11am to 1pm – Ground Floor, Bournemouth House

TEL Video

Take at look at our video which explains our vision for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) at BU

We look forward to seeing you there and please encourage your colleagues to attend too.

New paper by Dr. Sarah Collard in Psychology of Sport & Exercise

Publishing, writing

Collard + Marlow 2016Dr. Sarah Collard (based in FHSS) had her article “It’s such a vicious cycle”: Narrative accounts of the sportsperson with epilepsy accepted in the scientific journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise. [1]  The paper, co-authored with Caroline Marlow, addresses the issues of the psychosocial barriers and benefits of exercising for the sportsperson/people with epilepsy (SWE). Her qualitative research presents the narratives of SWE over time and as a result, offers a deeper understanding of the psychosocial impact of exercising with epilepsy.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

Collard, S.S., Marlow, C. (2016) “It’s such a vicious cycle”: Narrative accounts of the sportsperson with epilepsy, Psychology of Sport and Exercise 24: 56-64.

  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1469029216300073

FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 2015-16

Communicating Research
FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 2015-16

The Faculty of Media and Communication at BU

Venue: CG11, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB

Wednesday 3 February 2016, 3pm-4pm, CG11

Dr Iñaki Garcia-Blanco, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Saving Refugees or Policing the Seas? How the national press of five EU member states frame news coverage of migration

Migration from the Middle East and Africa to Europe has increasingly hit the headlines in recent years as the unprecedented scale of deaths at sea has gradually been recognised as a newsworthy and politically important story. This seminar presents findings from a research project commissioned by UNHCR to measure how the issue of migration to Europe is currently framed in the news media across the EU. We compare the 2014-15 national press coverage of 5 member states: UK, Sweden, Germany, Spain and Italy, examining in particular the main themes of news coverage, how migrants are labelled, which actors have a voice in migration news, and the reasons for and responses to migration outlined. With an evidence base informing our understanding of how the news media as a key site (re)producing dominant public discourses currently articulates migration as an issue, the aim is to better inform the humanitarian interventions of UNCHR and other agencies in media and policy debates.

Dr Iñaki Garcia-Blanco is a lecturer at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Iñaki is a media scholar interested in the study of the relationships and interplays between media, politics and citizenship. His research appears in international, peer-reviewed journals such as Media, Culture & Society, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice or Feminist Media Studies. He is the director of Cardiff University’s BA Journalism and Communications, and of its BA Journalism, Communication and Politics (launching in 2016). Iñaki teaches BA modules on journalism, new media and politics, and MA modules on political communication and social research methods.

Wednesday 3 February 2016, 4pm-5pm, CG11

Benedetta Cappellini and Vicki Harman, Royal Holloway, University of London

Disciplining mothers: a Foucauldian approach to unpacking power and classed resistance in children’s packed lunches

Vicki Harman is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Royal Holloway, University of London where she teaches courses on sociology of the family, social problems and social policy, social identities and consumption. Vicki’s research interests include family life in contemporary Britain, gender, social class and ethnicity. Recent projects have focused on families and food, including children’s lunchboxes and feeding the family in times of austerity. With Benedetta Cappellini (Royal Holloway) Vicki is the author of ‘Mothers on Display: Lunchboxes, Social Class and Moral Accountability’ published in Sociology. Vicki’s doctoral thesis (2007) explored the experiences and support networks of lone white mothers of mixed-parentage children. Her writing in this area has examined mothers’ social capital, their experiences of racism, social work practice and the identification and social positioning of young people of mixed-parentage. With Ravinder Barn (Royal Holloway) Vicki is the co-editor of Mothering, Mixed Families and Racialised Boundaries (Routledge, 2014).

Benedetta Cappellini is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research interests are in food consumption, material culture, family consumption and motherhood and consumption. She has published widely on these issues in a number of academic journals including Sociology, The Sociological Review, Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Behaviour and Advances in Consumer Research. With Elizabeth Parsons (University of Liverpool) and David Marshall (University of Edinburgh) she is the co-editor of The Practice of the Meal: Families, food and the market place (Routledge, forthcoming).

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

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

Lords Select Committee inquiries

Joint Committee inquiries

Public Bill Committees

 

Policy Update

Monday

Refugees

A senior lecturer has suggested that universities should consider focusing on targeted support for refugee students, through policies such as fee waivers, scholarships and schemes to pair refugees with host students. UK universities ‘should provide targeted support for refugee students’ (THE).

Tuesday

Green Paper

The University of Cambridge has said the Green Paper could cause considerable damage to the sector and its international reputa­­tion. University of Cambridge: Green Paper plans risk ‘considerable damage’. (THE).

FOI

Proposals by ministers to exempt universities from revealing information in the public interest will be rejected by the commission reviewing the legislation, it has been indicated. FOI commission ‘will not propose exempting universities from law’ despite proposals from ministers (The Telegraph).

Wednesday

Gender Pay Gap

The Women and Equalities Committee has heard that strong commitment to social justice has helped to diminish discrepancies in earnings between men and women working in higher education. Gender pay gap narrows. (Research Professional).

Widening Participation

Higher education institutions should focus on developing talent from a young age in order to encourage more children from disadvantaged backgrounds into university, an education expert has claimed. Universities should ‘nurture pupils from primary school’ (The Telegraph).

Thursday

Ucas

Ucas has urged parents and teachers to be more aware of other options for getting into university, as rising numbers of students apply to university without the traditional three A-levels. A-levels are not the only route to university, says Ucas. (BBC News).

Student Number Controls

The removal of SNCs has led some English universities to increase their student intake by more than 20 percent in a year, while others have recorded drops of up to 10 per cent according to new UCAS figures. Several London post-92s see falls in battle for students (THE).

Friday

OECD

A new study from the OECD argues that students who are struggling with literacy and numeracy should not be able to go to university. Students with poor literacy and numeracy skills should not attend university, study suggests (The Telegraph).

An Introduction to Exhibition Design training course

Knowledge Transfer

The Royal Society of Biology are holding An Introduction to Exhibition Design training course on 10th March 2016, 10:00- 17:30 at The Royal Society of Biology, Charles Darwin House, 12 Roger Street, London, WC1N 2JU.

This is a practical day course for biologists involved in public engagement and outreach.

Who is it for?:

This practical course is suitable for those who may need to create a small display, for example:

– science communicators

– scientists working in public engagement & outreach

Creating an exhibition or small display can be a daunting task: they are a complex, multimedia format. How do you make sure your ideas are conveyed clearly? What is the best visual representation for this idea? What exhibits should I select? Using case studies and exercises, this course will introduce participants to exhibition making from the development of an exhibition concept to the final product.

Further information:

Dr Rachel Souhami has over 18 years’ experience of exhibition development, working with national and regional museums, independent organisations and exhibition design companies. Rachel has trained budding exhibition developers for ten years, and has lectured in science studies, museum studies and exhibition development at Imperial College, The University of Manchester and Westminster University. Rachel’s knowledge as a practitioner is enhanced by her research, which examines the working practices and design processes that lead to the successful implementation of an exhibition concept.

This event has been approved by the Royal Society of Biology for the purposes of CPD and can count as 18 CPD points.

For further information and to register your place at: https://www.rsb.org.uk/events/event_anintroductiontoexhibitiondesign

 

SPARCing up the heart in flies…

The heart of a fly. Two cells wide and capable of beatign 5 times per second. Genes controlling the hearts contractile function are conserved in humans.

The heart of a fly. Two cells wide and capable of beating five times per second, the fly heart is helping us unlock the secrets governing our own heart’s function.

Research funded by the British Heart Foundation and conducted both here and at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discover Institute near San Diego in California, is to be published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.

The work identified a genetic pathway linking cardiac function with expression of a protein called SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine). In humans, increases in SPARC accompany cardiac ageing, inflammatory disease, obesity and cancer. As a consequence SPARC is a potentially very important therapeutic target in a wide range of important clinical settings. Our work, which utilised the fly Drosophila, demonstrated that heart dysfunction (cardiomyopathy) could be cured by reducing SPARC gene expression. Establishing this link allows us to ascertain the mechanism by which SPARC contributes to cardiac function in humans. Whilst the human heart is significantly more complex than that of a fly, their early development and function are controlled by similar genetic pathways; evolution may have added to the human heart but it has not changed its fundamentals. Hence, we’re able to learn a lot about ourselves by studying this simple, yet very sophisticated, little insect.

Editorial by Dr. Way in top journal highlights midwifery education

Fusion, international, Publishing

Way editorial 2016The forthcoming editorial in Midwifery (Elsevier) by FHSS’s Dr Susan Way highlights the importance of midwifery education and its educators.[1]  This editorial makes reference to the recent series on midwifery in The Lancet.[2]  Of course, midwifery plays a vital role in improving the quality of care of women and infants globally. Dr. Way reminds us that consistent, high-quality midwifery care has a vital role to play in the reduction of maternal and newborn mortality. Outcomes are enhanced when care is led by midwives who are educated, licensed, regulated, integrated in the health system, and working in interdisciplinary teams, with ready access to specialised care when needed.

Midwifery one of the leading academic journals globally in the field of midwifery and maternity care.  Dr.Way is based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health in FHSS at the Lansdowne Campus.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Way, S. (2015) Consistent, quality midwifery care: How midwifery education and the role of the midwife teacher are important contributions to the Lancet Series, Midwifery (online first) see: http://www.midwiferyjournal.com/article/S0266-6138(16)00021-8/abstract
  2. Renfrew, M.J., McFadden, A., Bastos, M.H. et al. (2014) Midwifery and quality care: findings from a new evidence-informed framework for maternal and newborn care. the Lancet. 384:1129–1145.

Research Photography Competition

The Research Photography Competition is run annually and gives academics and postgraduate research students the chance to work alongside undergraduates to tell the story of their research in an image.

Voting is nearly over for the this Competition! We have had some great entries this years competition, ranging from images of Nepal to microscopic organisms.

If you would like to have your say on who wins, then you can either vote on the research website or on Facebook.

Please feel free to come along to the awards event which be will held on the 4th of February from 2pm till 3pm, where the winners will be announced by John Fletcher. (P.S There will be free food and drink!). All entries will be kept on display in the Atrium Art Gallery from the 4th of February for two weeks

If you would like to view the entries from last years competition, you can view them here.

If you have any questions about the competition or the exhibition, please contact Oliver Cooke.

pomphMonsoon Nepal 2015 smaller version

European IPR Helpdesk Webinars

European IPR webinarsThe European IPR Helpdesk is running a number of webinars over the next few months and RKEO are promoting those relevant to EU Horizon 2020 activities.

The next webinars on Intellectual Property Rights in H2020 will be on:

10/2/16    9:30 AM     Introduction to IP        Location: TAG 03 – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

2/3/16        9:30 AM     IP in EU funded projects / H2020        Location:  TAG 32 – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

23/3/16     9:30 AM     Technology Transfer        Location:  TAG 30 – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

4/5/16     9:30 AM     IP Management in H2020 with a special focus on Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions        Location:  P402 – Poole House Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

Please arrive at 9:15am for a prompt 9:30 start with the webinar duration being one hour. We have the room booked for a longer time so that we can have a post-webinar discussion afterwards, if appropriate. Please only register on the European IPR Helpdesk link if you will be joining the webinar(s) from your own desk rather than joining us. You can also check the European IPR Helpdesk Calendar for all their events.

If you would like to attend any of these, please email Dianne Goodman stating which webinars you will attend. If they prove very popular, we may need to change the room, so pre-booking is essential.