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4th International Conference on Social Responsibility, Ethics and Sustainable Business

Academics in CMC at the Media School are organizing the 4th International Conference on Social Responsibility, Ethics and Sustainable Business to be held at the American College of Greece, Athens, Greece on 8-9 October 2015. The purpose of the conference is to create a networking opportunity for both researchers and practitioners to discuss recent insights on socially responsible practices in various industries and profit or non-for profit sectors. Although academic in nature, representatives in the business environment will deliver case studies on sustainability practices and will reflect on the challenges and opportunities that corporate social responsibility brings to different industries.

The main topics of the conference, but not limited to these, are:
• CSR and Sustainability,
• CSR and Business Ethics,
• CSR and Social Media,
• CSR and Education,
• CSR and Reputation,
• CSR and Crisis Management,
• Communicating CSR in the digital age,
• CSR initiatives/strategies,
• Corporate Governance,
• NGO Marketing,
• Ethical Stakeholder Engagement

If you want to participate to this conference, please send an abstract of 300 words in a Word document format via email to Dr Georgiana Grigore by 15 June 2015. No more than two papers will be accepted from any author.

Abstracts registration: 15 June 2015 (extended deadline)
Full paper deadline: 1 September 2015

You can find more information about the event on the conference website.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, GB

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, together with the Medical Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, invites outline proposals for its Diet and Health Research Industry Club. Funding enables UK universities and institutes to carry out research that will enhance understanding and facilitate the development of products with health and nutrition benefits, and help address diet-related health issues in the longer term. Research proposals must address at least one of the challenges: Understanding the relationship between food processing and nutrition; designing foods to maintain and improve health; understanding food choice and eating behaviour to improve health through diet. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 01/07/15 for outline proposals. Full proposals are by invitation.

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

The Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) invite applications for their Healthy Urban Living call and the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus, under the Newton Fund. For the Healthy Urban Living stream, all proposals must address the theme of health inequalities and justice and one or more of the following areas: urban design, planning housing and infrastructure; communities, culture and heritage; leadership, governance and institutions. The total fund from the Research Councils is £2.5m, with matched equivalent for Brazilian partners. For the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus stream, proposals should clearly identify one or more of these themes as the focus of the research project and demonstrate how it will be applied to the development of the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus: Measuring, modelling and understanding the Nexus; innovation for sustainable transformations; the political economy and governance of the Nexus; human welfare, development and the Nexus. The total fund from the Research Councils is £1.25m, with matched equivalent for Brazilian partners. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 02/07/15.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, GB

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Innovate UK invite expressions of interest to attend their state of the art in simulation and design workshop. This aims to identify the state of the art in fundamental simulation and modelling techniques that can help improve the design process within engineering design, and to enable users to progress in their use of these tools and determine key areas of need not currently being addressed by research programmes. The workshop will be held on 16 July 2015. The workshop will focus on the areas of optimisation, multiphysics, materials modelling and multiscale, with challenges identified in the sectors of automotive, aerospace, energy, built environment, healthcare technologies, electronics, and the process industries of chemicals and food.Awards cover reasonable travel and subsistence costs, including accommodation, refreshments and meal costs. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 10/06/15.

Innovate UK, GB

Innovate UK, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council invite expressions of interest for the fourth round of their Early-stage Translation studies, under the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst. This supports research and development for the processing and production of materials, chemicals and bioenergy through the sustainable exploitation of biological resources, including tissues, enzymes, and genes from organisms that include algae, marine life, fungi, microorganisms and plants, and accelerate commercialisation. Projects must be pre-competitive and academic-led. Funding is only available to academics in line with the standard BBSRC and EPSRC eligibility rules. Total project costs should be between £2m and £5m and projects should last between three and five years. Maximum award: £5m. Closing date: 12pm, 05/08/15 for expressions of interest.

Medical Research Council, GB

The Medical Research Council, together with the Economic and Social Research Council, the Brazilian Council of State Funding Agencies and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, invite proposals for the UK-Brazil Neglected Infectious Diseases Partnership. The initiative will provide funding for collaborative research projects, focussed on neglected infectious diseases in Brazil. Proposals may focus on Dengue Fever and other vector-borne diseases, Leishmaniasis, Chagas Disease, Leprosy, Schistosomiasis, Omtestinal Helminth Infectious, Rotaviruses and emerging viruses. Projects should last between two and three years. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 01/06/15.

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

The Natural Environment Research Council invites applications for its Industrial CASE Studentships. This scheme promotes collaboration between the research community and the end users of research. Applicants must demonstrate excellent science research along with the potential for societal or economic impact through strong collaboration with the non-academic partners and the provision of high quality training in research skills. The CASE partner must be an end user organisation that can use the outputs of research in developing business, technology, regulation, policy or social and environmental enterprise, within the public, private or third sector. The CASE partner must have a base in the UK.  Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 08/07/15.

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.

 

Seminar on political violence today

The Politics and Media Research Group in FMC has a very stimulating guest speaker lined up for this afternoon (Monday). Dr. Jeffrey Murer is Lecturer on Collective Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in the School of International Relations. He is unusual for an IR specialist in that he draws deeply on ideas from psychoanalysis in his studies of violent political conflict. The title of his talk is “The Politics of Splitting: Anxiety, Loss and the Anti-Semitic, Anti-Roma Violence of Contemporary Hungary”. While focussing on the situation in Hungary, his talk will illustrate how an interdisciplinary, psycho-social approach can be applied to generate insights into violence in many other contexts.

The talk will be in P406. It will start at 5.00 and be followed, until 6.30, by questions and discussion.

All staff and students are welcome.

HSS Sharing Research Experiences day 18 May 2015

You are invited to a day of sharing research experiences from staff across HSS. Sessions will consist of 20 mins presentation about an individual’s experiences of a particular funder, followed by 20 mins for questions and discussion. An opportunity to share your research ideas with colleagues from HSS and RKEO, and receive feedback, will be provided over lunch.

The day starts at 9am in EB206. Please find the timetable of the day here. This is a drop in day – there is no need for people to commit to the whole day.

Speakers include:

  • Ann Hemingway – EU funding
  • Zoe Sheppard – Case studying the submission and successful award of a Research for Patient Benefit grant
  • Caroline Ellis-Hill – NIHR Research for Patient Benefit
  • Edwin van Teijlingen – Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET)
  • Jane Murphy – Burdett Trust for Nursing
  • Jonathan Parker – British Council
  • Kip Jones – ESRC 
  • Claire Gordon – NIHR PhD studentship
  • Vanora Hundley – Wellbeing of Women

Please email Lisa Gale-Andrews to confirm your attendance.

 

Catch award-winning RUFUS STONE this Thursday 2 pm in Kimmeridge

As part of BU’s Interdisciplinary Reserch Week, Kip Jones will be showing the short award-winning biopic RUFUS STONE in Marconi Theatre in Kimmeridge at 2:00 pm on Thursday, 14 May.

If you haven’t seen it before, please do come along! Or come see it for a second time! We will be showing it on a very large screen in blu-ray with a fab sound system, the best way to view this poetic rendering of a researched story. Lots of time for questions following the screening too. Media’s Trevor Hearing will moderate.

And there’s cake and coffee!

Get your tickets here

Watch the Trailer here

Paper by BU academics used as example in Dutch university newsletter

Publishing, Research Integritiy

The March 2015 newsletter of the Dutch University of Groningen’s School for Behavioural & Cognitive Neurosciences dedicated two pages to the question: ‘How to pick the right journal?’    The author of the English-language newsletter contribution, Liwen Zhang, offer its readers a brief introduction on journal selection for a scientific manuscript.  The newsletter piece is based on two papers which both share their submission stories and suggestions of journal selection.  We were pleased to see that one of these two papers is by two Bournemouth University professors: Hundley and van Teijlingen.  Their paper which gives advice on one specific aspect of academic publishing is called ‘Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper’ [1].  It was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing in 2002.

 

 

Reference:

  1.  vanTeijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.

ESRC NCRM International Visitor Exchange Scheme launched

Funding opportunities

The National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) has launched its International Visitor Exchange Scheme (IVES). This will fund visits of between one and three months to or from experts at the forefront of key methodological developments. The scheme aims to enable “UK social scientists to engage with methods development internationally, in order to stimulate debate and develop ideas (with associated outputs) in relation to methodological innovation in the social sciences.” Awards can begin from 1 January 2016, with a deadline for submissions of 25 September 2015. Up to 6 awards of £5000 are expected to be available.

For more information, please see http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/research/IVES/ and, if you are interested in applying, please contact a member of the Funding Development Team.

A de facto Conservative majority – what next for universities?

The following highlights are taken from a WonkHE article by Mark Leach, Martin McQuillan and Graeme Wise. Read it in full here: http://www.wonkhe.com/blogs/general-election-what-next-for-universities/

EU referendum in 2017 – this would have real implications for universities given their reliance on international student numbers and European Union research funding.

Whitehall – there will be a new Business Secretary, and possibly a new HE minister. Where HE sits is uncertain – there could be a BIS and DCMS merger or HE might be moved into the Department for Education. If it remains, BIS may need to find £4-5bn in savings which could affect funding for initiatives such as widening participation. There’s also a potential for tuition fees to increase further to offset departmental cuts.

Immigration – the government stance on immigration is likely to tighten. The Conservative manifesto outlines plans for immigration that would affect universities, such as reforming the student visa system (including a review of the sponsor system for visas), the clamping down on the number of so-called ‘satellite campuses’ opened in London by universities located elsewhere in the UK and including students in the net migration calculation.

Bournemouth University Students in Santander 60 Second Pitch!

Business Engagement

The Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to announce that Bournemouth University student Alice Parlett’s Bumblebee Nest business idea – called Cub-Bee-Hole – and Peter Ramsey’s student website – Move’m – have been short-listed as two of the 10 most outstanding business ideas for the Santander 60 Second Pitch.  Vote for your favourite Student Business

 

 

 

 

 

Alice, a final year Industrial Design student at BU, recently attended the CfE’s Business Ideas Generator Hackathon and successfully pitched to our Dragon’s Den-style event for a small amount of funding to investigate an early prototype of her product.  Alice’s business idea is conservation and stunning design beautifully interwoven with current market trends. The Cub-Bee-Hole is an aesthetically pleasing hive for bees that adheres to your window, allowing you to view the bees in action whilst encouraging nesting and reproduction in a safe, nurturing home for the bees.

Essential to our ecosystem, bumblebees are dying out.  Yet, bumblebees pollinate 1/3 of our food!  Alice’s product is a woven wicker bee home that sticks to your window, with a design that allows you to see the bees nesting and at work, whilst preventing the bees from being disturbed by you.

Targeting conservationists, gardeners, farmers, parents, this product is a registered design and could be seen at the Flower Shows, Chelsea stores and garden stores nationwide soon… with your help.

Stunning aesthetics – on trend – conservation-minded – raising awareness – educational – fun.

Alice is pitching for £1500 to create a prototype that she can use to launch her business.

Move’m are also a Bournemouth University student business who have set up a website that helps student find out about rental properties from other students reviews before starting a tenancy.

Have you ever moved in to a property to find that there is mould on the bathroom ceiling, the roof is leaking and the landlord isn’t answering his phone…ever!? These are things that were certainly not mentioned on the viewing, yet when you take the tenancy, it is too late.

 

Have you ever moved in to a property to find that there is mould on the bathroom ceiling, the roof is leaking and the landlord isn’t answering his phone…ever!? These are things that were certainly not mentioned on the viewing, yet when you take the tenancy, it is too late.

Move’m has created a website where any student can review his/ her experience so that the next tenant can be confident in the property that they are moving into.

Searching for the right student accommodation has never been easier… and Move’m need £1,500 to help them develop their business further to help more students

 

 

 

 

 

***At the time of going to press, Alice’s bumblebee Nest Concept business is in 2nd place with 109 votes to Ulster University’s Little Creation’s 171 votes. Move’m is currently in 8th place with 30 votes.***

Do you have time to vote for one of the student businesses? Registering is as simple as inserting your email address and password and you have just one vote, so please make it count by voting for your favourite student entrepreneurs – Vote for your favourite Student Business 

We wish both businesses all the best of luck! #BUPROUD