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SMART awards – Support for innovative SMEs

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

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SMART  is a grant scheme which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge.
The scheme supports SMEs carrying out R&D which offers potentially significant rewards and that could stimulate UK economic growth.
Three types of grant are available:
  • Proof of market
  • Proof of concept
  • Development of prototype.
Any UK SME undertaking research and development may apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis for assessment by independent experts.
 This call closes on 26 November 2015 at 12.00.

European IPR Helpdesk – slides from 30/09/15

Training

Academic and RKEO staff enjoyed the recent webinar regarding IP Management in EU-funded Projects /Horizon 2020, presented by Jörg Scherer, Managing Director of the European Research and Project Office (Eurice)
The webinar covered:

  • The importance of considering Intellectual Property from day oneeurope
  • How to embed IP within the project submission and agreement documents
  • Definitions, ownership and access rights
  • Obligations to disseminate, protect and exploit
  • The IP landscape and implementation

The slides are available to BU staff along with other publications from the European IPR Helpdesk.

Although the slides are instructional, it is not the same experience as attending the webinar. Why not come along to the next events:

02/11/15  IP Management in H2020 – with a special focus on MSCA

02/12/15   Impact and Innovation in H2020 – a Guide for Proposers

16/12/15   Maximising the impact of H2020 projects

They will all take place in the Casterbridge Room, starting promptly at 9:30. Please contact Dianne Goodman to reserve your place.

 

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Software verification

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition has just launched with £580,000 funding available.

Innovate UK and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) are to invest up to £580,000 in technical feasibility studies to stimulate innovation throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) while focusing on the verification and validation* (V&V) of two classes of complex systems: cyber physical systems (CPS) and systems with emergent behaviours.

This competition encourages businesses to develop appropriate ‘links’ between the behaviour of a system in the physical world and the software implementing its planned interactions. It also seeks to stimulate development of new engineering methods for systems in which a machine – rather than a human user or operator – drives the decision- making process. Such systems can be trained to recognise complex patterns and to make intelligent decisions based on existing data. They are starting to be used in sectors such as automated and autonomous vehicles, and robotics and autonomous systems (RAS). Our aim is to ensure that small and micro businesses in the UK further develop their early capabilities in this area.

Projects are open to companies of any size, but must be led by a small or micro company, working in collaboration with one or more business or research partners.

View all details.

Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff – NEW VERSION

I am delighted to share with you the new and improved version of BU’s Code of Practice for the Employment and Development of Research Staff. Research staff in this context are defined as staff with a primary responsibility to undertake research, including pre-and post-doctoral staff on fixed-term and open-ended contracts funded through limited period grants, named fellowships and sometimes institutional funds.

The code provides guidance on the University’s expectations for the recruitment, support, management and development of research staff in line with the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (2008) and the European Charter for Researchers (2005). It is relevant to research staff and their managers as well as to BU staff in general. It has been written by the University’s Research Concordat Steering Group and is one of the objectives from our action plan to further align BU’s policy and practice to the seven principles of the Concordat and to further improve the working environment for research staff at BU.

When launched last autumn this was the first time that BU had had a code of practice specifically for research staff and the document acknowledges the valued contribution made by research staff to the research undertaken at BU. The further recognition of the value of research staff and the development of career opportunities for them are key matters on which we will continue to work.

Access information about BU’s work to embed the principles of the Concordat here: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-concordat/ 

New FMC cross-departmental seminar series: ‘Communicating Research’ 2015-16. Wed. 3-5pm, room PG10

‘Communicating Research’

 FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 2015-16

Venue: Room PG10, Talbot Campus, 

The Faculty of Media and Communication at BU

Time: Wednesdays, 3-5 pm

Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB 

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Speakers :
Dr Sukhpreet Singh, University of Glasgow and Dr John Oliver, Bournemouth University

‘Innovating and trading TV formats through brand management practices’

Television formats form a major cultural export and yet, there is no protection under copyright law. Format copycats or imitators freely develop game, reality and talent shows based on successful format ideas. Despite this, the format industry has developed an ingenious and complex suite of market based practices that are allowing a thriving format industry to appear. This chapter discusses how TV format makers use brand management practices, in the absence of any legal solutions, to innovate and trade in their products. These include a number of practices such as: developing and managing the format brand identity, developing localized brand extensions and leveraging the producers brand reputation.

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

The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community

Advances in Media Management Research Group

Emerging Consumer Cultures Research Group

Public Relations Research Group

New Publication by Bournemouth Professor Candida Yates: ‘The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity’

BRIAN

Yates Politics book imag

Dear colleagues,

I am writing to let you know about the publication of my new book, The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity.

Candida Yates, Professor of Culture and Communication, Bournemouth University

cyates@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity offers a new ‘psycho-cultural’ perspective on the psycho-dynamics of UK political culture and draws on psychoanalysis, cultural and media studies and political sociology to explore the cultural and emotional processes that shape our relationship to politics in the late modern, media age. Against a backdrop of promotional, celebrity culture and personality politics, the book uses the notion of ‘play’ as a metaphor to explore the flirtatious dynamics that are often present in the mediatised, interactive sphere of political culture and the discussion is elaborated upon by discussing different aspects of cultural and political identity, including, gender, class and nation. These themes are explored through selected case studies and examples, including the flirtation of Tony Blair, Joanna Lumley’s Gurkha campaign, Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, David Cameron’s identity as a father and the populist appeal of UKIP politician, Nigel Farage.

Table of contents

1. Introducing Emotion, Identity and the Play of Political Culture
2. Spinning the Unconscious and the Play of Flirtation in Political Culture
3. The Dilemmas of Post-Feminism and the Fantasies of Political Culture
4. Political Culture and the Desire for Emotional Wellbeing
5. The Absent Parent in Political Culture
6. Moving Forward to The Past: Fantasies of Nation Within UK Political Culture
7. Reflections on the Psycho-Cultural Dynamics of Political Culture

Further details can be found at Palgrave Macmillan: 

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-play-of-political-culture–emotion-and-identity-candida-yates/?sf1=barcode&st1=9780230302525

Some reviews

‘Whether she is discussing the political manifestations of a contemporary crisis in masculinity and fatherhood, postmodern feminism, nostalgia, narcissism, play, or therapy culture, Yates’s psychoanalytic lens illuminates, in a nuanced fashion all too rare today, both regressive social trends toward mastery and progressive, creative potentials for change. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the complex interplay of fantasy, emotion, identity, media, and politics in the era of neoliberalism.’ – Lynne Layton, Harvard Medical School, USA

‘Exploring the entanglement of media, politics and emotions, this is a bold and original book that should be read by students and scholars in Sociology and Media Studies,and anyone with an interest in contemporary political life. It articulates a psycho-cultural perspective, moving with verve and insight from election politics to celebrity culture and from Russell Brand to poverty porn, offering a psychoanalytically informed reading of British political life and its structures of feeling. A satisfying and thought-provoking read.’ – Professor Rosalind Gill, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, City University London, UK

‘Through a psychoanalytic critique of the anxieties, fantasies and obsessions that characterise today’s intensely emotional political culture, Candida Yates’ new book makes a powerful case for the argument that Psychosocial Studies is the new Cultural Studies.’ – Sasha Roseneil, Professor of Sociology and Social Theory, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

HE Policy Update

Monday

Postgraduates

HEFCE have advised that a Ucas-style national application system for taught postgraduate courses at UK universities should be adopted. Ucas-style system needed for postgraduate study, universities told (THE).

Tuesday

Labour Conference

At a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference, Paul Blomfield, the MP for Sheffield Central revealed that Labour will continue to look at a graduate tax. Labour’s new shadow higher education minister, Gordon Marsden, warned that the government’s planned Teaching Excellence Framework could create an apartheid between universities that teach and universities that research. Labour party conference 2015: debate focuses on abolition of tuition fees (THE).

Deloitte

Professional services firm Deloitte has changed its selection process so recruiters do not know where candidates went to school or university. This move hopes to prevent “unconscious bias” and tap a more diverse “talent pool”. Firm ‘hides’ university when recruits apply (BBC News).

Wednesday

Employability

A survey conducted by the Research Academy has revealed that nearly three-quarters of prospective and current students would be willing to pay higher fees if it guaranteed them a graduate-level job upon degree completion. Three-quarters of students would pay higher tuition fees for guaranteed job (THE).

Overseas Students

Louise Richardson, the upcoming Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford has claimed that the UK will be impoverished if students from other countries find it too costly, too difficult or too unwelcoming to travel to the UK to attend our universities. Louise Richardson: Reputation of UK universities at risk over policies on overseas students (THE).

Thursday

Employment

HEFCE analysis reveals that four-fifths of UK students who graduated in the 2008 recession are now professionally employed or undertaking further study. Many graduates in professional jobs, figures show. (BBC News).

BIS

A leaked consultation on the future of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills suggests that November’s spending review will be accompanied by a radical overhaul of the research funding system. Sajid Javid’s blueprint for BIS heightens fears for research funding. (The Guardian).

Friday

Labour/Tuition fees

Jeremy Corbyn has shelved a proposal to scrap university tuition fees while he consults the rest of the Labour Party. Scrapping tuition fees was his first major policy statement and helped build support among young left-wingers. It would have been funded by either a 2.5% rise in corporation tax or a 7 per cent increase in National Insurance for those earning more than £50,000 a year. However, a spokesman for Mr Corbyn has since said: “All policy is up for discussion and there is a review of how we will set policy in the future.”  Could Jeremy Corbyn ‘do a Nick Clegg’ on tuition fees? (The Daily Telegraph).

Research Professional visit 3rd Nov and set up your personal account and searches!

Funding opportunities, Info Days

Research-Professional-logoEvery BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. Jordan Graham from Research Professional is visiting BU on the 3rd of November 2015 to demonstrate to academics and staff how to make the most of their Research Professional account.

This will include:

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

Location and the session timings are:

Talbot campus P424

10.15 – 11.15 – Research Professional presentation

11.15 – 11.45 – RKEO interactive session setting up searches

Lansdowne campus S103

13.30 – 14.30 – Research Professional presentation

14.30 – 15.00 – RKEO interactive session setting up searches

After the presentation, the RKEO Funding Development Team will be on hand for an interactive session where they will help you set up your Research Professional account, searches and offer advice from a BU perspective.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about funding opportunities and to meet the Funding Development Team, particularly if you are new to BU.

Please reserve your place now at a BU Campus to suit through Organisational Development

 

New blog pages – Funder guidance

map of scienceThere are many ways to access information on research funding opportunities. BU subscribes to Research Professional, which all academics should have an account for. The RKEO Funding Development Team provides a weekly round-up of the latest funding opportunities on the Research Blog.

RKEO have now gone one step further and have provided a list of external research and knowledge exchange funders which can be found on the Research Toolkit under Research Funder’s Guide.

This contains sections on Research Councils, Charities, UK Government, Horizon 2020 and other Overseas funders’.  The links go directly to the funders’ web pages, including links to their latest funding opportunities, strategic plans, impact reports, etc.  Have a browse and see what you can find.  If there are other links that you would find useful then do let me know: jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk

Paper ahead of its time?

Publishing

Presentation1Sometimes my co-authors and I wonder why a particular paper get more cited after a few years of publication.  Is is because the paper and the research were are ahead of their time?  Or is there simply a lag time between publication and other researchers publishing in the field finding your paper (or stumbling upon it perhaps)?

Take for example the following paper published in 2006 when I was still based in the Department of Public Health at the University of Aberdeen: Promoting physical activity in primary care settings: Health visitors’ and practice nurses’ views and experiences in  the Journal of Advanced Nursing.[1]

 

Published in 2006 our paper was first cited in Scopus in 2007 (just once),three time in the following year (2008), five times in 2009 and then just a few times per year until this year. In 2015 we have six citations already and the year is not even finished.

We really wonder what lies behind that increased popularity of this 2006 paper.

citations JAN

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Douglas, F., van Teijlingen E.R., Torrance, N., Fearn, P., Kerr, A., Meloni, S. (2006) Promoting physical activity in primary care settings: Health visitors’ and practice nurses’ views and experiences Journal of Advanced Nursing, 55(2): 159-168.

FIF supports Department of Psychology project into autism and borderline personality disorder

BU researchers in the Department of Psychology in SciTech have been awarded nearly £20,000 from the Fusion Investment Fund’s Co-Creation & Co-Production strand. In an exciting collaboration with the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, Dorset Healthcare University NHS Trust and Arts University Bournemouth, Dr Nicola Gregory and Dr Helen Bolderston, assisted by four BU student research assistants, will be using eye tracking technology to examine the links between two psychological disorders – autism and borderline personality disorder.

Dr Gregory explained: “Most people are probably aware that people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have difficulties understanding social situations and research shows that people with the condition seem to look less towards the faces of others, and particularly their eyes, than people without the disorder. We can tell a lot about how someone is thinking or feeling by paying attention to their faces and their eyes in particular, and it seems that in ASD, the reduced looking towards faces and difficulties understanding the subtleties of social interactions are probably linked. People with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which is the most common personality disorder, seem almost to be at the other extreme to people with autism in terms of interpreting others thoughts and feelings. BPD, like ASD, affects people’s social interactions, but in BPD, people tend to over-interpret what others are thinking, thinking people will hurt them or abandon them and seem to be on the lookout for the negative thoughts of others a lot of the time. In this project we are aiming to discover if people with BPD and people with autism look at social interactions differently and whether the way they view social situations impacts on how they then think about them. We’ll be creating a series of short videos of social situations and playing them back to people whilst we record where they look. We think that there may be a link between how people understand what is going on in the scenes and how much they look towards the eyes of the actors, and we think we might find opposite behaviour in people with ASD and BPD.

We’re excited to be working with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen at the Autism Research Centre at University of Cambridge on this project. We’re particularly pleased to be able to involve so many students – more than 50 – in the creation and production of this research and that’s in addition to the research participants we’ll be recruiting later in the year. We are looking for current BU and AUB students to act in the scenes in November, no experience necessary! Any interested people should contact ngregory@bournemouth.ac.uk“.

The research will form the basis of an ongoing programme of work with BU, Dorset NHS Trust and the University of Cambridge.

NERC Green Infrastructure Innovation Projects Call

Funding opportunities, innovation

nerc-logo-50th

The Environment Agency has indicated that they would welcome academic partners to work with them on the priorities in their Working with Natural Processes Research Framework. Details are at the foot of the call webpage http://www.nerc.ac.uk/innovation/activities/infrastructure/green-iip-call/

The evidence needs for Defra, Natural England and the JNCC are also available on the web page.

Please note that this call has £150k for short feasibility projects and internships completing before 31 March 2016 as well as for longer term projects of up to £125K at 80% FEC in value.

Closing Date 4pm 22 October 2015.

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.

Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) – latest calls

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

SBRI

 

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) is a well established process to connect public sector challenges with innovative ideas from industry, supporting companies to generate economic growth and enabling improvement in achieving government objectives.

SBRI provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector, leading to better public services and improved efficiency and effectiveness. It generates new business opportunities for companies, provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) a route to market for their ideas and bridges the seed funding gap experienced by many early stage companies. It supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services through the public procurement of research and development (R&D).

The following is the list of recently opened & upcoming SBRI funding competitions.