Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
If you are hoping to apply, then you MUST send us your Intention to Bid for this call by 13 July 2015 with one form per Fellow.
[Form now removed as deadline has passed]
It is essential that you do this so that RKEO can plan for the resources that will be required to support each application.
If you need to find out more about this call before submitting your Intention to Bid, please go to the dedicated website
The Institute Of Physics (IOP) has recently announced its Early Career Physics Communicator Award 2015. This is an amazing opportunity for an early career physicist to be acknowledged as a leader in their field, and also to win £250!
Eligibility:
Applicants do not need to be a member of the IOP, but should be one of the following:
Application:
Submission of a report of their communication activities which should be no more than 1500 words long.
Further details and the application form are available by clicking the ‘Group Prize’ tab here:
Application Deadline:
Monday 5th October 2015
The Prize
The winner of the 2015 IOP Physics Communicators Group award will receive £250 and an award certificate at an event to be held on Monday 23 November. As well as providing recognition of the winner’s work through the prize money, the process will also facilitate networking opportunities for all participants.
Award Ceremony:
Four finalists will present their work at the prize final on Monday 23rd November 2015 at IOP, Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT.
The prize will be awarded by materials scientist, engineer, broadcaster and writer, Mark Miodownik
For more details, please get in contact with the Physics Communicators Group Secretary, Chris Sinclair:
christopher.sinclair@ucl.ac.uk or click here to see a further breakdown of the results from the 2014 Prize Event.
Research impact and public engagement should be core parts of every skilled PhD, academic and researcher’s portfolio. To help you develop your portfolio, jobs.ac.uk is holding a FREE 60-minute live video event via a Google+ Hangout on Air called ‘Research Impact & Public Engagement for Career Success.’
The 60 minute live video event takes place on Wednesday 22nd July at 1pm and lasts 60 minutes. You can find the video online at the jobs.ac.uk’s G+ Events Page.
Attending this will enable you to learn:
What is a Google+ Hangout?
Google+ Hangouts on Air are live online video events of Q&A sessions with a group of expert panellists. As the video is streaming live online you will be able to watch and gain real insights, top tips and also have an opportunity to ask questions.
If you would like to register your place on #JOBSQ lived video hangout, please click here or alternatively click here to find out more information.
Are you presenting at the Festival of Learning?
Add more to your Festival of Learning event by attending our BRAD event hosted by Dr Steve Dorney, Principal Public Engagement Fellow at the University of Southampton, who will be leading this workshop on how to make the most of public engagement, a key part of demonstrating the impact of your research. 
The session runs from 10am to 4pm on Wednesday the 1st of July – can’t attend all day, we urge you to book in and attend for as long as you can as this event won’t be repeated for a while.
Steve is on Southampton’s Engaged University Steering Group and his activities extend to impact enhancement, student employability and outreach, as well as core support for Public Engagement with Research (PER) via a dedicated support unit www.soton.ac.uk/per
He co-ordinates the Bringing Research to Life Roadshow www.soton.ac.uk/roadshow and through this has collaborated previously with BU on public engagement activities.
What to expect from this workshop:
2 things you could bring to the workshop (completely optional but can be helpful):
– Any ideas for engagement projects related to your research that you would like to share/get some feedback on
– An object that is somehow related to your research
The workshop will allow time for you to consider your own research and will include refreshments and a networking lunch.
Book in now through Organisational Development: Public Engagement – Steve Dorney
The Newton Fund will be announcing a number of international opportunities on 13 July 2015. 
These include:
Make sure that you check the blog w/c 13/7/15 for more information as this is released to us.
Why not find out more about the Newton Fund and their current opportunities in preparation for the new calls?
How well do you understand your skills, values and motivations?
The Vitae website has a wealth of personal development resources and advice designed specifically for researchers, including self-assessment tools that allow you to explore your motivations and identify career path options. Visit the VITAE website and register using your BU Login.
Please note that BU BRAD training courses are running this week; there are still places available on most courses including a career trajectory seminar.
This time Dr. Steve McFarland visited us from the University of Tampa. Steve gave us a lot of interesting food for thought – I’d never considered before that maps historically have given more power to those who already have power. For example, city maps often included important landmarks and the houses of the wealthy, but slums were left as blank spaces. He then went on to describe some projects that have tried to redress this balance in the past few years. One project, ‘Queering the map’ , aimed to use maps to construct and affirm identities. Sometimes using maps has resulted in new concepts, such as environmental racism – through the work of Laura Pulido, who showed that toxic waste in LA tended to be released in areas inhabited by people of colour.
He then talked about some of his own work mapping the relative salaries of pthp lecturers in HEAs across America – rates of pay are very different across the country and it turned out that a pthp lecturer at his own university teaching 6 classes per year (as expected of a tenured academic) would just about make minimum wage. We had a very interesting discussion after the formal presentation, about the future of mapping crowdsourced information to help in disaster/crisis management. However, some people can be fearful of taking part in such projects as the maps could be subverted away from their originally intended use. For example, protestors could upload information to be mapped in real time to show where teargas is being deployed, and use this to stay away from police. However, the police could also potentially use these maps to target protesters. In this case however, the police are likely to have helicopter access, so the presence of a crowdsourced map would close the information gap between the two sides.
Ultimately, we discussed whether the growth in the use of maps has outpaced our ability to understand them. Going forwards, spatial literacy is likely to be just as important as numeracy, which is music to the ears of any geographer!
We would like to hear your thoughts on the GeoNet seminar series, please fill in our very short survey on https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HSY29L6
The Newton Fund is actively inviting expressions of interest from senior and early career researchers to expand their pool of panel members for the Newton Fund initiative and, potentially, other British Council programmes.
Looking at the specialisms below, BU has significant expertise in many of these areas.
They are looking for early career researchers who would like to broaden their experience of peer review as a career development opportunity, and for senior researchers who are willing to share and use their experience to support the review panels. Please note that we can only consider researchers based at UK institutions.
By getting involved in funding panels, you will gain invaluable insights into how a funder functions, how they assess applications, build your network, raise your profile in your field and, potentially, give you the opportunity to influence future funding decisions.
For this particular invitation:
Eligibility Senior and early-career researchers. Early-career researcher is defined as being a
PhD holder + up to 10 years. For fields where a PhD is not a usual career requirement, sufficient research experience will be accepted.
Researchers with the following specialisms are eligible to apply:
In particular, the Newton Fund would like to hear from researchers who have the following subject specialisms:
Monday
Graduate Debt
The UK Graduate Careers Survey carried out by High Fliers Research, revealed that students leaving university this summer, who were among the first to pay £9,000-a-year tuition fees can expect much higher debts (an average of more than £30,000) than their predecessors, who had an average debt of £20,400 in 2014, £20,300 in 2013 and £19,400 in 2012. Graduates ‘now £30,000 in debt but more upbeat’ (The Daily Telegraph).
Value For Money
Four in 10 of the first students to pay higher fees do not believe their courses have been good value for money a survey carried out by ComRes reveals. The survey found there were differences of opinion between students doing different types of courses. Two-thirds of those studying science, technology, maths and engineering (subjects that require a lot of practical teaching and staff time) said their courses had been good value. 44% of humanities and social science students, which tend to receive less direct teaching time, said they felt their courses represented good value. Four in 10 students say university not good value – survey (BBC News).
Tuesday
Response to Anthony Seldon
A number of letters have been published in response to an opinion piece from Anthony Seldon (who becomes VC of Buckingham University in September) in the Times on Saturday saying that universities are lazy and ‘an ocean of complacency exists in the sector’. Respondents/defendants include David Willetts and Nicola Dandridge from UUK. Letters: Do UK universities need to raise their game? (The Times).
Wednesday
EU
Both academics and UUK are warning that leaving the EU would mean the UK would lose access to research funding provided by the European Union, and would also make it harder for academics to collaborate on international projects. They have also warned that it could lead to a decline in student numbers, as EU students would be recruited on the same basis as overseas students, leading to a rise in their tuition fees and inclusion in immigration figures. Leaving the EU would ‘damage’ UK universities (The Daily Telegraph).
Teacher Training
University initial teacher training (ITT) providers will be able to recruit as many students as they want under radical new plans being introduced by the government for the next academic year. Teacher training recruitment uncapped for universities (THE).
Thursday
International Students
A new survey commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) reveals that students believe they benefit in many ways from studying alongside people from other countries. However, the benefits are clearer to international students, the survey also suggests that international students work harder than British students. The Daily Telegraph has turned the survey on its head to say that one in three students believe international students detract from learning. Overseas students considered hardest workers, survey finds (THE).
Size of Research Groups
The trend among research funders to give out fewer but larger grants may not be the best use of resources, a study of scientific productivity suggests. Chasing big bang for bucks might be poor use of cash (THE).
Vocational Degree Awards
The government could be poised to rekindle a polytechnic-type model for awarding vocational degrees that could pitch them in direct competition with further education colleges. The plans which are outlined in a government consultation cites the role of the former Council for National Academic Awards, which awarded degrees when post-92 universities were polytechnics. This is said to have grabbed the attention of Jo Johnson, the new Universities and Science Minister, who is set to outline his major priorities for higher education in a speech this week. Polytechnic-type proposals alarm post-92 group (THE).
Friday
Value of HE
A critical article looks at the value of higher education in the Telegraph. It states that amid the austerity of government cuts, higher education is in fact witnessing a boom. Booming universities take taxpayers for a ride (The Daily Telegraph).
Destination of Leavers from Higher Education
HESA has published the first release statistics from the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education study. The top line figures show a slight increase in the numbers of graduates in work/further study six months after graduating.Graduate employment and salaries up, but gender pay gap remains (THE). Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education in the United Kingdom (HESA).
Work on our fusion-funded co-creation and co-production project heats up in July as students get to work with our partners on our project ‘Fusing ecology, engineering and genetics to deliver sustainable river management’.
Working with the Environment Agency, the University of Insubria, Italy, we are investigating how river management strategies in the UK can be more sustainable in relation to river engineering and fishery management. This is important given river management focuses mainly on delivering socio-economic benefits (e.g. via flood defence) that are detrimental to fish communities (e.g. due to habitat loss). These impacts are usually mitigated by releasing (‘stocking’) high numbers of fish reared in captivity. There is, however, little consideration given on the fate and impact of these fish, providing the basis for our work.
Work to date has included our research assistant, Caterina Antognazza, collating samples and information to enable our student teams to run their genetic and ecological analyses, and engineering projects that designed sustainable engineering solutions to restore river habitats. Consequently, teams of placement students will very soon be commencing work in Italy and BU to determine the genetic and ecological impacts of fish stocking, with particular focus on whether the policy of stocking farmed fish has resulted in genetic impacts for fish populations at a regional level. We are also running a workshop very soon to bring together external stakeholders to discuss these issues. Given the expected fast pace of progress in the next five weeks, we’ll report back on our outputs by the end of July so watch this space!!
Caterina prepares the samples for the students.
– Rob Britton, Demetra Andreou, Ben Thomas
Presenting for the first time at this year’s Festival of Learning: the first two Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lectures at Bournemouth University. The inaugural lecture will be given by Professor John Holmwood on Monday 13th July at 18.00. John is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University.
His lecture will centred on ‘The University, Democracy and the Public Interest.’ Following the election of 2010, the nature of the university was dramatically changed following the introduction of tuition fees and the removal of direct public funding from arts, humanities and social science subjects. This reduced public spending on higher education by 82%, shifting the costs on to students with increased revenues going into higher education. The lecture will suggest that the university has shifted from being at the service of democracy to being at the service of markets and their associated inequalities, such that it is now integral to a democratic deficit at the heart of wider public policy.
Tickets for John’s lecture can be booked at no cost here.
The second public lecture will be presented by Professor Judy Wajcman, Anthony Giddens, Professor of Sociology, at the London School of Economics on 16 July, 6-8.30 pm. Her lecture is based on her new book Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism. 
More, better, faster. That’s modern life. And it’s all driven by the very devices that were supposed to make our lives better—our communication devices, which, rather than easing our work and social lives, instead impinge, leaving us no refuge from our responsibilities. But what if it’s not the devices that are to blame? What if we turn that around, and remind ourselves that they’re just tools—and that we can decide how to design and use them. It is only by bringing a social science lens to such issues that we can begin to understand how we have remade time and remade ourselves in digital culture.
Tickets for Judy’s lecture can be booked at no cost here.
The Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lecture Serie is facilitated by BU Professor Ann Brooks.
This week is dementia and music therapy week. Although BUDI doesn’t do music therapy, nor do we or the musicians we work with subscribe to the notion of ‘therapy’ where music is concerned (therapeutic perhaps, but our work is not intending to provide therapy to people with dementia). However this week has allowed the work of the BUDI orchestra to feature in three arenas. First on Monday in a piece in the Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/22/breakthroughs-in-bournemouth-how-the-bso-is-providing-relief-for-people-with-dementia
Second at the Royal College of Nursing annual congress held locally this year at the BIC where we presented the project to a surprisingly full and room (as our session was 5-6pm after a long day for delegates) and met with great enthusiasm. Lastly, following a well received presentation featuring the BUDI orchestra work back in May at a UK collaborative meeting between Universities engaging in social research on dementia we were lucky enough to be invited to a roundtable discussion held at Westminster on Thursday 25 June. This discussion was attended by practitioners, academics, government agencies (e.g. NHS England, Public Health England) and care providers, where we had the opportunity to share our work with colleagues and also to learn more about other music projects; the majority of which largely fall under the umbrella of music therapy, but also a range of other creative initiatives designed to engage and improve the well-being of those living with dementia. The BUDI orchestra remains a unique initiative in that our approach is inclusive (students, musicians, people with dementia at all points in their journey through dementia, and family members working together to learn, rehearse, play and then perform) and designed to provide a social and fun experience for people with dementia living in the community. (By contrast much music therapy is only available in clinical and care settings). If you haven’t seen the BUDI orchestra in action yet we have two performances coming up in the next couple of weeks – 11th and 13th July. Do come along and support our nationally and internationally innovative and unique work!
Don’t miss out – BRAD week begins next week – there is still time to get yourself booked in to one of our BRAD sessions!
Taking place between Monday the 29th of June – Monday the 6th of July
Book into BRAD now – we have a rich variety of events including some new events waiting for you!
We hope to see you soon!
Over the last three years, the Sport & Physical Activity Department has consistently strengthened research and teaching links between the German Sport University Cologne and Bournemouth (e.g. see this blog article)
As part of the research links, Dr Sylvain Laborde, a sport psychology researcher from the German Sport University Cologne, recently visited BU. Amongst other, he gave a talk on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and its uses within sport psychology.
Reflections from Emma Mosley (BU PhD researcher)
Emma, who ventured to Germany for one month in order to receive training at the renown Institute of Psychology last year (see blog article), reflects on Dr Laborde’s visit:
“The talk was extremely informative and insightful for myself as a budding researcher in the area. Later in the day Sylvain also ran a workshop which detailed how to use HRV equipment and how to interpret the data. This consisted of a practical based session to demonstrate the sensitively of the measures to both mental and physical stressors. This involved a mental arithmetic stress test, a physical excursion test and paced breathing – many thanks to Darren Britton for giving his body to science on this particular occasion!”
Reflections from Dr Sylvain Laborde (German Sport University Cologne)
Dr Laborde enjoyed his visit to BU and Bournemouth: “I visited Bournemouth University the first week of June 2015, during an Erasmus+ stay. My first contact with Bournemouth University was a very motivated PhD student, Emma Mosley, coming to me last year for an internship at the German Sport University in Cologne, to learn how to use heart rate variability (HRV) to investigate the role of athletes’ personality when performing under pressure. My goal for this week in Bournemouth was to focus 100% on the writing of a HRV theoretical paper, and I was provided with all the necessary conditions to achieve such goal: a silent office on Talbot Campus accessible 24/7 enabling deep focusing and allowing late evening thinking times; enjoying good food, good beer (always good for inspiration), and energising runs on the beach. I was very warmly welcomed and really appreciated the feedback provided by the multidisciplinary team after my talk on HRV in sport psychology.
I’d like to particularly thank Emma for all her efforts to make my stay as enjoyable and productive as possible, Dr Andrew Callaway for his input regarding HRV and shooting sports; Prof Remco Polman for his input regarding the links between HRV and coping; and finally Prof Alison McConnel for her input regarding HRV and inspiratory muscle training. Many ideas regarding future possible collaborations were born during this week, and I’m definitely looking forward to my next visit in Dorset and its wonderful coast!”
Processed with Moldiv
Grange-over-Sands in Lancashire was once again a beautiful setting from 15th-17th June for one of the most inspirational midwifery research conferences. Attracting a significant international attendance from eminent researchers, clinicians and user representatives from as far afield as Australia, China, Canada, Brazil and across Europe (many regular attendees), the conference is now in its 10th year. Hosted by Professor Soo Downe and her team from UCLAN, it brings together researcher across all maternity professions, to present and debate work primarily relating to physiological birth. Two members of CMMPH were presenting (and tweeting!):
Professor Vanora Hundley discussed ‘Do midwives need to be more media savvy?’, a presentation created with Professor Edwin van Teijlingen and Ann Luce, based on a previous FoL public debate at BU relating to the role media plays in creating fear in childbirth https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/engagement/fear-in-childbirth-are-the-media-responsible/ . She highlighted the need for midwives to be more aware of how to work with the media in order to harness the power to present positive messages, as well as understanding impact on women and health care providers. A paper on this presentation is accessible from: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21600/
Jenny Hall with Maltese midwives and other delegates
Dr Jenny Hall presented as part of a symposium with midwifery colleagues from Malta on an ongoing educational project relating to promotion of physiological birth in Malta. Malta has one of the highest Caesarean section rates in Europe and the team have been working together to develop midwives confidence in facilitating physiological birth as well as supporting them to educate women and families.
All delegates also received a copy of the book ‘Roar behind the silence: why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care’, that includes chapters by two BU authors: Dr Jenny Hall and Consultant midwife, Katherine Gutteridge. ( see http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2015/02/28/stop-the-fear-and-embrace-birth/ for further information)
As usual the conference provided extensive opportunity for networking and developing links for future collaboration in a considerably relaxing environment.
A tweet storify and photographs of the whole conference are available which includes contribution from BU researchers:
https://storify.com/SagefemmeSB/normal-labour-birth-10th-research-conference
https://animoto.com/play/M21BCHDHihSqkH3LdxU0hw
The value of providing undergraduate students with experience of conducting first hand, empirical research is widely recognised. As a social anthropologist, I’ve long been interested enabling students to discover and engage in ethnographic research. I’m presently developing a new taught unit in which for our BA Sociology and BA Sociology and Anthropology students will carry out ethnographic projects developed in collaboration with local community organisations. This endeavour necessarily poses challenges. One of them is time. Undergrad students’ learning is divided into units delivered over semesters, but a semester is very short time frame in which to design, carry out and write up an ethnographic project. The other is the nature of the collaboration with the non-academic partner, whether that be an NGO, community group, local government partner etc. How can this collaboration be shaped in a way which is beneficial to both parties?
IUPUI students visiting a housing redevelopment scheme in a lower income neighbourhood, Indianapolis, February 2015.
This term I have visited IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis), USA. IUPUI is a public university in which dialogue and engagement between faculty and students, on the one hand, and citizens, organisations and businesses, on the other, is a priority for both teaching and research. My visits have provided me with an opportunity to see a diverse range of ways in which this dialogue is promoted and sustained. Here I will summarise some of the strategies I have seen in action at IUPUI which are most pertinent to the kinds of collaborative, community-engaged student ethnographic projects I hope to develop at BU.
1. Investing time
The importance of investing time in developing relationships with local organisations which will have a stake in the research cannot be overstated. Whoever the partner is and whatever the nature of the collaboration, the project is enormously enhanced when both parties make time to talk to each other, arrive at a suitable, realisable aim of the project, and figure out how they are going to achieve it within the fixed timescale. This is of course easy to state and much harder to realise, as it involves all parties investing a very scarce resource, time, into the process. I followed an ethnographic research methods course closely during my visits, a project exploring urban regeneration within a low-income neighbourhood. This made clear the benefits of that early investment of time. Both the academic course leader and management, staff and volunteers at the community development organisation in the local area set aside considerable time in identifying the possibilities and foci of student research projects, long before the teaching proper started. This communication and collaboration also continued throughout the course itself, adjusting to changing and contingent circumstances as the student research projects progressed.
2. Framing the question
Central to the process above is negotiating the research question; what is it that the students will research and why? The question needs to address the interests and priorities of both partners. It must contain the potential for students to formulate their empirical focus and interpret their data in the light of theories and critical questions within their disciplines, and to produce findings which are of some benefit or use to non-academic partners, organisations and citizens. At IUPUI, I found out about series of student projects on urban development issues such as poverty, homelessness, housing, city regeneration strategies, gentrification and food production and consumption, to name some of them. These kinds of topics resulted in findings and interpretations which had both critical value as pieces of academic work and practical value to local people and organisations.
3. Moving teaching to community settings
I closely followed two courses which were taught off-campus in community settings – one in a church / community centre, the other in a women’s correctional facility. The success of any ethnographic project hinges on proximity and familiarity and so establishing this sense of closeness is obviously of enormous value to students. Teaching in a setting within which students will find an immediate mutuality of interest in their engagement with the people and organisations they are going to study helps students think of themselves as ethnographers. It provides the basis for developing relationships, trust, access and cooperation within the community, and for fostering local understanding of what the project is about. This is also a valuable experience that students take with them into their future careers.
4. Finding (new) ways of disseminating the research findings
Academics at IUPUI employed many different means of disseminating their students’ research projects and findings, enabling it to reach audiences within but also well beyond the city itself. Students were strongly encouraged and sometimes financially supported to attend national and international conferences. Funding was raised for publishing pamphlets, books and eBooks about their empirical studies and findings. Time was invested in developing impressive academic blogs and websites about their research. I provide a few links to just some of this fantastic work below.
I have gained many insights, ideas and sense of possibilities from my visits to IUPUI, and I’d like to extend my warm thanks to all colleagues and students whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Special thanks to Professor Susan B. Hyatt, whose scholarship inspired my visits and who made the whole thing possible in a practical sense.
Links to some online examples of IUPUI collaborative student research and scholarship:
– The ‘Neighborhood of Saturdays’. Student research project about urban multi-ethnic neighborhood in Indianapolis.
– ‘Eastside Story: Portrait of a Neighborhood on the Suburban Frontier’: Student project exploring historical change and community identities in a suburban area of Indianapolis.
– ‘Urban Heritage? Archaeology and Homelessness in Indianapolis’. A student project using archaeological methods to explore experiences of homelessness.
– ‘Ransom Place’ project: Collaborative project on culture, consumption and race in an African American neighbourhood in Indianapolis: http://www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/ransom.html
– ‘Archaeology and Material Culture’: blog of Professor Paul Mullins.
https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/author/paulmullins/
The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.
The Department of Health, including NIHR, invites tenders for its small business research initiative call on faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. The call aims to find innovative new products and services to help with faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. Tenderers should address prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management.
Phase 1 shows the technical feasibility of the proposed concept, and Phase 2 contracts are intended to develop and evaluate prototypes or demonstration units from the more promising technologies in Phase 1. Only those projects that have completed Phase 1 successfully will be eligible for Phase 2.
Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project over six months
Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15
NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders for minimising the impact of falling. This competition focuses on minimising the impact of falls and the fear of falling in older people, and should address a range of unmet needs, expressed as ‘what if’ scenarios, that could improve the care that clinicians are able to offer to patients in terms of outcomes, experience and efficiency. Fall prevention services provide assessment, strength and balance training, occupational therapist support, vision assessments and medicines review. Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.
Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.
Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15
NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders to address functional needs in the elderly. This competition aims to find technologies to help address, as well as provide solutions for, functional difficulties associated with patients, particularly the increasingly frail elderly suffering multi-morbidities (defined as suffering two or more chronic conditions). Technologies should be aligned to the three key challenges which are commonly associated with functional difficulties; these are: detecting frailty and monitoring deterioration; activities of daily living (including dressing above and below the waist, grooming, bathing and showering, light housework and preparing meals); and treatment burden, including adhering to disease management plans and lifestyle changes, as well as drug concordance, adherence and compliance. Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.
Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.
Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Newton Fund invite proposals for their collaborative call with China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam on rice research. This aims to build on the combined strengths of academic research groups within China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and the UK to work together on collaborative interdisciplinary and innovative basic, strategic or applied research that contributes to and underpins the long-term sustainable production of rice, and also an understanding that rice production sits alongside the provision of other ecosystem services. Projects of up to three years in duration and addressing the following challenges will be encouraged:
• Greater resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses;
• Improved resource use efficiency, including nitrogen, phosphorous and water;
• Improved quality of rice, including nutritional enhancement and grain quality;
• Novel research tool and technology development supporting the above areas, including systems biology, bioinformatics, screening and characterisation of germplasm for gene and trait discovery.
In addition to the challenges listed above, proposals will also be welcomed in the following areas and countries:
• Improved photosynthetic efficiency in rice (China, Thailand, UK)
• Environmentally sustainable rice cultivation systems (Thailand, Philippines, UK)
• Utilisation of rice by-products (Philippines, Vietnam, UK)
• Sustainably increasing the genetic yield potential of rice (China, UK)
Each proposal must involve at least one applicant based in the UK and one based in either China, the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam. All proposals are required to have a UK principal Investigator, in addition to a PI from one or more of the partner countries.
All applicants must adhere to the national eligibility rules for research proposals.
The total budget from BBSRC and NERC is worth up to £6.5 million, with matched funding from the partner agencies in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Projects may last up to a maximum of up to three years.
Closing date: 16:00, 13/08/15
The Natural and Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) are inviting research proposals under this ‘Understanding and Sustaining Brazilian Biome Resources’ call. This call is supported by the UK through the Newton Fund which forms part of the UK governments Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and is only open to joint UK-Brazil applications.
This call aims to improve the understanding of the role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems, the drivers and impact of change, and management and restoration options in Brazil. The call’s objectives are:
• Improve understanding of the role of biodiversity in major biome biogeochemical cycles at the whole-biome level;
• Explore the spatial correlations between ecosystem function in terms of biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of species of conservation concern, within a range of Brazilian ecosystems including forest and non-forest biomes;
• Critically assess the potential and trade-offs of ecosystem management and policy options to protect both key ecosystem functions and biodiversity and other ecosystem services.
Projects must undertake research at the biome spatial level, and should seek to utilise new or novel technological capability and make use of existing long term data sets that are available from other projects.
UK-based researchers associated with organisations eligible for NERC funding may apply. Brazilian researchers associated to public or non-profit higher education and research organisations in the state of São Paulo may apply.
NERC will provide up to £2 million at 80 per cent full economic cost for UK-based researchers with FAPESP providing matched equivalent effort to Brazilian researchers.
It is expected that two to three project proposals, lasting up to three years, will be funded.
Closing date: 16:00, 02/09/15
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council has extended the closing date for technical assessments and applications for their ARCHER leadership projects.
The previous deadline of 1 September has been extended to 7 September 2015. All other call details remain the same.
These awards provide direct access to the UK’s national supercomputing facility ARCHER for computationally intensive individual projects. Eligible projects may include the following:
• Leadership calculations that push the boundaries of scientific high performance computing;
• Calculations that require a large number of processing cores;
• High-risk, high-reward projects that rely heavily on high performance compute resource and have significant potential for large future impact;
• Substantial computational projects by experienced teams that need large compute resources, but do not rely on additional support by EPSRC or NERC;
• Pre-competitive computational production runs by non-academic research groups within sectors related to the remits of the ARCHER partner research councils.
Applicants should be individuals eligible to hold a full EPSRC or NERC grant, or persons of similar standing in industry or the third sector.
A total of 2m kAU is available, split between EPSRC and NERC remits at the ratio of 77 % EPSRC and 23 % NERC. Each applicant should apply for at least 100,000 kAU for a maximum period of two years.
Closing date: 16:00, 07/09/15
The Centre for Defence Enterprise and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory invite innovative proposals for their themed competition on ‘what’s inside that building’. This supports phase one research projects that aim to develop novel techniques which remotely provide information about the layout and situation inside a building, or underground facility from a range of at least 100 metres. Projects should develop and mature technology readiness level 2 to 3 concepts based on both direct sensing and inference from indirect measurements. In addition, they should address the following technology challenges: novel applications of traditional sensing methods; new technologies and approaches.
Proposals may include technologies that address the following:
• Detecting concealed manufacturing activity;
• Finding out about the internal structure of a building in preparation for entry, including walls, furniture and electrical equipment;
• Identifying illegal storage activities;
• Working out the number of people in a building and what they are doing;
• Detecting people who are hiding or being held against their will;
• Supporting disaster relief, for instance seeing under collapsed buildings.
Preference may be given to projects that produce a technology demonstration as opposed to projects that only deliver a written report.
The total budget for phase one of this competition is worth £650,000. There is no cap on proposals, however MOD is more likely to fund phase one projects worth between £50,000 and £100,000. Successful projects may receive an additional £500,000 for phase two of the competition, in which funding is awarded on a per-project basis. Proposals should focus on a short, sharp, proof of concept phase, typically lasting between 3 to 8 months.
Closing date: 17:00, 10/09/15
Nesta, in collaboration with Innovate UK, invites proposals for the Longitude prize. This rewards the development of a transformative point-of care diagnostic test to revolutionise the delivery of global healthcare and conserve antibiotics for future generations. The test must be accurate, rapid, affordable, easy to use and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. It should be able to identify when antibiotics are needed and, if they are, which ones to use.
Anyone and any organisation may enter. Teams must include a member who has a presence in the UK. The competition is only open to those who have developed a new diagnostic test.
The winner is awarded £8 million. £2m is awarded to support promising entries along the way. The prize money must be used to develop and market the winning solution.
Closing date: 30/09/15
Innovate UK’s IC tomorrow, in collaboration with several partners, invites proposals for its digital innovation contest on games. This supports the development of an innovative commercial prototype service or application across five areas which different areas of the games industry. Proposals should address one of the following challenges:
• Second-screen use in a game, supported by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE);
• Open street map data, supported by Crytek UK;
• New markets and perceptual computing, supported by Intel;
• Wider games distribution on mobile web, supported by Google Chrome;
• Games and cinema, supported by Odeon Cinema and Pinewood Studios.
Businesses based in the UK and EU may apply.
Five companies may receive up to £25,000 each. The total budget is £125,000.
Closing date: 12:00pm, 16/10/15
Follow-on funding from The Natural Environment Research Council
As the name suggests, the Follow-on Fund picks up where research programme and discovery science (responsive mode) grants leave off, and enables their commercial potential to be realised by further developing the research outputs.
Examples of activities funded include technology licensing, launching technology-based products or services, selling know-how based consultancy services, and the commercialisation of NERC-funded datasets.
Researchers who are receiving/have received NERC funding may apply. Proposals must build on the outputs of recent/previous NERC-funded research activity. Applicants are encouraged to seek input from potential commercial stakeholders and end-users before submitting an application. Projects do not have to be based on proprietary, patentable intellectual property, though all proposals must have demonstrable economic potential, and be likely to deliver some form of societal or environmental benefit.
Each proposal may receive up to £100,000 at 80 per cent full economic cost.
Closing date: 22/10/15
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.
Further to the earlier blog giving you the “heads up” on the HEIF interim call. To confirm this is now open. The information is on the research blog and more details can be found on the staff intranet.
This funding has been made available to run from 1 August 2015 to 31 July 2016. This is known as HEIF 5+ and will be used to fund new projects.
The proposal deadline when applications close is Friday 3 July.
For more information please use the link to the information on the staff intranet.
Please feel free to contact Jayne Codling if you have any queries, however I have produced a set of FAQS that I hope will help and save some time if you do have any questions.
BU staff can login below:
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