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Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

Medical Research Council, GB

Neurodegenerative disease research (JPND)

Spanning biomedical, healthcare and social science research, JPND aims to increase coordinated investment between participating countries in research aimed at finding causes, developing cures, and identifying appropriate ways to care for those with neurodegenerative diseases. MRC is leading on JPND activity for the UK and has EU funding of £2 million to support such research activity in the UK. 

Award amount max: Unspecified Closing date: 10/03/2015

Academy of Medical Sciences, GB

Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers offer funding of up to £30,000 to cover the cost of research consumables. The grants allow research-active Clinical Lecturers to gather data to strengthen their bids for longer-term fellowships and funding.

Award amount max: £30,000 Closing date: 16/03/2015

 

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, GB

The BBSRC’s new pathfinder schemeenables potential follow-on funding applicants to secure small amounts of funding to carry out preliminary commercial activities.These activities will help to:

  • Develop a clearer understanding of the commercial potential of the outputs of a research grant
  • Assist with the development of a full follow-on funding application

Award amount max: £10,000 Closing date: No deadline

Wellcome Trust, GB

Seed awards in Society & Ethics, Medical Humanities

Seed Awards in Society & Ethics and Medical Humanities provide flexible, responsive funding, enabling researchers to develop a novel idea to a position where they could be competitive for a larger award from the Wellcome Trust or another funder.

The exploratory nature of Seed Awards gives scope for the use of bold or innovative methodologies, and a broad range of possible activities: from pilot and scoping studies to planning sessions and meetings of collaborative networks. The Trust encourages applicants who wish to use the grant to develop new approaches and collaborations.

Seed Awards support research in any field society and ethics that can enrich understanding of health, medicine and disease.

Award amount max: £50,000 Closing date: 27/02/2015

Translation Fund

The aim of Translation Awards is to develop innovative and ground breaking new technologies in the biomedical area.

Projects must have already demonstrated proof of principle, supported by experimental data. Applications should bridge the funding gap in commercialisation of new technologies in the biomedical area and must plan to take the product, technology or intervention to a stage at which it is sufficiently developed to be attractive to another party.

Award amount max: Unspecified Closing date 15/04/15

Economic & Social Research Council – ESRC, GB

The ESRC is pleased to announce the call for the third round of the ESRC Transformative Research Call. The aim of this call is to provide a stimulus for genuinely transformative research ideas at the frontiers of the social sciences, enabling research which challenges current thinking to be supported and developed.

The Council regards transformative research as that which involves, for example, pioneering theoretical and methodological innovation. The expectation is that the transformative research call will encourage novel developments of social science enquiry, and support research activity that entails an element of risk.

Award amount max: £250,000 Closing date 19/02/15

Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council – EPSRC, GB

The EPSRC’s Information and technologies (ICT) team would like to encourage researchers to pursue an immersive experience in other disciplines and user environments.

Discipline Hopping Awards will provide short-term support to allow researchers from core ICT fields with other disciplines and/or user fields. The aim of this is to foster new interactions, bringing a multidisciplinary and user-driven focus to research. Alternatively, non ICT specialists can apply for funds to bring a technological perspective to their home discipline.

Award amount: Unspecified Closing date: no deadline

Please note that some funders 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.

CIPPM Researchers launch Copyright Resource for A/AS Level Media Studies

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award

Researchers at the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) in collaboration with CREATe, the RCUK Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy at the University of Glasgow have launched an educational web resource aimed at A/AS Level Media Studies. The project, which was carried out during 2013-2014, was funded by RCUK under a contract with CREATe, University of Glasgow (Principal Investigator: Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Co-Director, CIPPM).

The Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University is also part of the collaboration.

The web resource and downloadable PDF forms part of the already established Copyrightuser.org  (initially funded by the Fusion Investment Fund, 2012-2013) and is titled, Contemporary Media Regulation: A Case Study in Copyright Law.

In particular, this educational web resource addresses Critical Perspectives in Media, Section B: Contemporary Media Issues and was approved by Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR) Examination Board at their Annual Conference on 21 March 2014.

The resource was disseminated to a large network of Schools in England and Wales in January 2015 and during 2015-2016, the researchers will map the impact of this educational resource by identifying how many Schools / students have opted to study Copyright Law as part of the Critical Perspectives in Media, Section B: Contemporary Media Issues.

The value of this educational resource has already been identified by the UK Government.  In October 2014, Copyrightuser.org was mentioned by Mike Weatherley MP in his report Copyright Education and Awareness, in which he specifically mentioned this resource as an attempt to introduce copyright law into the AS/A Level Media Studies curriculum in schools in England and Wales. A write-up about it can be found here.

The content is shaped to enable teachers to explain the complexity and importance of copyright in media, and for the students to research copyright regulation and demonstrate their understanding within the Contemporary Media Regulation exam question.

This educational resource provides teachers with simple and straightforward information about copyright law. The focus is to bring together different perspectives on copyright issues. There is a consideration of the historical, contemporary and future copyright issues, with an emphasis on present.

The resource was formally launched in February 2015 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the press release titled ‘What we Should Teach Students about Copyright Law’ can be accessed here.

The educational resource was produced by a team consisting of:

Authors: Ms. Hayleigh Bosher and Dr. Dinusha Mendis (CIPPM)

Illustrations: Mr. Davide Bonazzi

Editor: Professor Ronan Deazley (Professor of Copyright Law, CREATe, University of Glasgow)

Educational Resource Development: Dr. Julian McDougall (CEMP)

Production: Mr. Bartolomeo Meletti (CREATe, University of Glasgow)

Questionnaire Respondents: see here

What is on the agenda in Europe? Info-Europa can help….

 
If you are wanting to get the inside track on what is important within Europe, one source of information is Info-Europa. This newsletter is compiled by Patrick Overy , University of Exeter European Documentation Centre and Eric Davies of Eurojargon Enterprises.

In the January 2015 issue, the following topics are considered:

News – Cross-border legal disputes / GMOs / TTIP / Foreign policy / Transport infrastructure

Draft legislation – Air pollution / Investment Fund / UK fuel tax

EU Legislation – Vehicle emissions

Documents – Living & working conditions / Victims of crime / Terrorism / Illegal immigration / Quality in education / Serbia / Stability & Growth Pact /Employment & social report

Statistics  – Personal money transfers / Air passengers / Tourist accommodation / Year for Development / Current account / Industrial production / Trade in goods / Underemployment / Neighbourhood policy / Short-term indicators

Events – Free resources / UK & human rights

Recommended Sources – 100 Books / Council & European Council

 

You can sign up to receive this newsletter via email direct to your in-box.

 

 

 

RCUK announcement on Pathways to Impact

Guidance

 

RCUK have made an announcement on pathways to impact: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/announcements/150115/ and here http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

The key point is that RCUK has reaffirmed its commitment to Pathways to Impact and will require a clearly thought through and acceptable Pathways to Impact statement as a condition of funding in the future.  This change will take effect for peer review panels which take place after 1st April 2015 – please see the appropriate Research Council website for details.

On Monday, a number of councils also published their 2013-14 impact reports, which are linked below.

EPSRC have updated their guidance on pathways to impact: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/howtoapply/preparing/impactguidance/  and have published an Impact report:  http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/pubs/economicimpactreport1314/ and a note about the next round of Impact Acceleration Accounts:

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/impactaccelerationaccounts/

AHRC impact report: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/News/Pages/AHRC-publishes-report-on-the-impact-of-research.aspx

ESRC impact report: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/announcements/33431/new-report-highlights-our-impact-in-2014.aspx and promoting REF impact case studies from ESRC funded research: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/features-casestudies/case-studies/

BBSRC has published its impact report: http://bbsrc.ac.uk/news/policy/2015/150119-n-bbsrc-publishes-latest-impact-report.aspx

MRC Impact report (published last year): http://www.mrc.ac.uk/news-events/publications/outputs-outcomes-and-impact-of-mrc-research-2013-14/

NERC Impact report: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/latest/news/nerc/impact-report/

STFC impact report: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/files/3269/3269_res_5.pdf

Finally, the overall RCUK impact report: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/150119/

You can also view RKEO advice on producing a pathways to impact document on our blogs ‘research toolkit’: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/je-s-guidance/impact-sections/

National Contact Point: Peter Walters (ICT and FET)

Guidance

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Peter Walters, who is the NCP for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Future and Emerging Technologies (FET).  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

Funding Opportunity: British Medical Association

 

BMA 2015 research grants –  now open for applications

The 2015 British Medical Association research grants are now open and are accepting applications online at bma.org.uk/researchgrants<http://bma.org.uk/researchgrants>.

The grants provide approximately £500,000 of research funding annually across ten different grants. Funding areas range from heart disease to schizophrenia to novel technologies to assist in patient care. Applications are invited from medical practitioners and/or research scientists for research in progress or prospective research.

Details of the grants available in 2015 can be found here<http://bma.org.uk/developing-your-career/portfolio-career/research-grants/research-grants-details>.

For any further information on the BMA Research Grants please see their webpages at bma.org.uk/researchgrants<http://bma.org.uk/researchgrants> or  contact them directly info.sciencegrants@bma.org.uk<file:///\\bma1.bmauk.net\bma1.bmauk.netbmaProfessionalPolicyRESEARCHGRANTSAdvertisingofgrantsExternalorganisationsinfo.sciencegrants@bma.org.uk

or call 020 7383 6755.

Introducing Laura Zisa-Swann, your Project Delivery Officer.

Post-award

I am the Project Officer within the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office covering the Faculty of Science and Technology.

I am responsible for providing professional and specialist advice and support to academic colleagues on all aspects of post-award R&KE activity, including advising on contracts and project deliverables, management of budgets and project management.

Hello, I’m Dean Eatherton – Project Delivery Officer in RDS

Awarded & submitted bids, Coffee Morning, Post-award, R & KE Operations

I joined Bournemouth University as a Project Delivery Officer in August 2014. I provide professional support and advice to academic colleagues on externally funded research and knowledge exchange grant activity.

Prior to this I worked as a project manager and  policy adviser in the public sector, then moved into the product management environment in the private sector.

An esoteric long-term personal interest I have is that of self improvement through the study of oriental martial arts.

Euraxess – new workshops and events

Euraxess UK is a British Council hub, which aids researchers in their career development, supporting mobility and acting as a support mechanism for researchers moving abroad or moving to the UK.

The following items have been highlighted in the current Euraxess Newsletter:

Researcher Links Workshop

Grants are now available for early career researchers to attend a Nutrition Policy to Practice in Pakistan: Exploring the Challenges and Research Opportunities workshop at the Serena Hotel, Islamabad, Pakistan between 8-11 March 2015.

Application forms can be downloaded from the website and the deadline to apply is 30 January 2015. Further eligibility criteria may apply, and applicants should read the Further Information document.

Researcher Links Complex Systems workshop in Brazil

Under the Researcher Links scheme offered by the British Council and FAPESP, there will be a workshop on Complex Systems held at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, Sao Paulo, between 8-13 March 2015. The workshop is being coordinated by Dr Murilo S. Baptista and Prof José R. C. Piqueira, and will have contributions from other leading researchers.

Early Career Researchers from the UK or Brazil are invited to apply to attend this workshop before the deadline for applications, 23 January 2015.

Newton International and Newton Advanced Fellowships- UK/Mexico/Brazil

Scholarships and grants are announced for UK Researchers focusing on Clinical and Patient oriented research from The Academy of Medical Science/CONACYT -Mexico/CONFAP-Brazil. The duration and terms of the awards vary between partners. Further detailed information can be found on specific programmes can be found on the Academy’s website.

You can sign up to receive the British Council – Euraxess alerts direct to your inbox. For more information about Euraxess, please go to the British Council website. For example, read more about FameLab, part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival, which runs from 19 Feb – 1 March 2015.

Opportunity to engage with UK Science Landscape Project for the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology

BU Challenges

The Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology is looking at the UK Science Landscape. The aim of this project is to build a picture of the whole research landscape in the UK and to develop a stronger evidence base. This evidence base will help to inform future strategic decision-making and help the UK to maintain and develop its excellence in research.

As part of this project, the Council for Science and Technology (CST) wish to understand better how the UK’s research community defines itself and the links and interconnections that exist between research disciplines. To help to do this, the UK Knowledge Landscape Tool has been developed and has been designed to gather data from researchers on the disciplines, dependencies and key infrastructure they think make up modern research.

To be part of this and experimental approach, users can log on and create an account on the UK Knowledge Landscape website.

CST are interested in crowd-sourcing a large amount of data which will be analysed for statistically significant patterns across the whole body of responses and then used to produce outputs such as taxonomies or maps. The more responses the tool has, the better the mappings are likely to be, therefore, they would welcome your input.

Athena SWAN: A Dean’s perspective

Women's Academic Network

Speaker: Professor Andrew W. Lloyd

Date and time: 3 Feburary 2015, 15:00-17:00

Location: K101, Kimmeridge House, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University

Event Description: This presentation will outline the challenges and opportunities of developing both the Institutional Athena Swan Bronze Application and the subsequent development of the individual School Applications within the University of Brighton. It will discuss both the methods used to obtain and analyse the various datasets and the approaches adopted in terms of developing an action plan which would build on our existing practices to improve gender equality and develop a more inclusive and progressive culture within the university.

After the presentation there will be the opportunity for individuals to find out more about the Athena SWAN work at BU and take part in a focus group. 

Biography

Professor Andrew W. Lloyd MA (Cantab.) PhD CSci CChem FRSC FBSE FIMMM FHEA
Dean of the College of Life, Health & Physical Sciences, Professor of Biomedical Materials

Andrew Lloyd graduated from Robinson College, University of Cambridge in 1986 with a degree in Natural Sciences, specialising in bioorganic chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology. He completed his PhD in biopharmaceutics and was appointed to the academic staff in the Department of Pharmacy, University of Brighton as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1989, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1993. He was made Reader in Biopharmaceutical Sciences and elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1998 and awarded the chair in Biomedical Materials in 2000.  He was appointed as Joint Head of Research with responsibility for strategic planning in the School of Pharmacy & Biomolecular Sciences in 2000, Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering in 2003 and to his present post as Dean of the College of Life, Health & Physical Sciences in 2014.

Professor Lloyd led the Institution’s Athena Swan Self-Assessment Steering Group which secured the University Bronze Award in 2012 and chairs both the University Athena Swan Steering Group, which presently oversees the development of the School-based Award Applications, and the University Research Concordat Implementation Steering Group.

Event Schedule

15:00 Welcome  from Professor Tiantian Zhang, Head of Graduate School and Chair of BU Athena SWAN institutional self-assessment team

15:05  Talk from Professor Andrew W. Lloyd

16:00 Overview of the BU Athena SWAN submission, Professor  Tiantian Zhang/James Palfreman-Kay

16:10 Group discussions to consider what more should we do:

•         in addressing gender balance at BU?

•         in supporting and advancing women’s careers?

•         in organisation and culture change to enhance gender equality?

•         in supporting flexible working and managing career breaks?

16:55 Closing comments, Professor Tiantian Zhang

17:00 Event closes

Call for Cardiff Science Festival Proposals

Cardiff Science Festival are looking for content for this year’s festival and now is the time to get in your proposals!

2015 FESTIVAL
The fourth Cardiff Science Festival is scheduled to take place between 13th and 19th July 2015. Their showcase for science and technology has loads of events taking place in venues across Cardiff. From hands on workshops, live demonstrations, comedy, talks, discussion forums, performances, lectures, debates, exhibitions, guided tours and panel discussions, there is something for everybody. Cardiff Science Festival is organised by a group of volunteers with the aim of providing as many fun and informative events as possible whilst keeping the costs as low as possible.

Specifically for this years festival they are looking for Proposals which include ideas such as:

  • Talks/Shows
  • Workshops
  • Hands on ‘stall’ type events & busking activities

They are also open to all ideas, so if you would like to find out more information including how to submit your ideas, please click here.

They will be finalising the programme in early May with it being made public at the start of June. You can submit ideas to them any time between now and then but the earlier you can submit, the better chance it has of making the programme.

This is a great opportunity & one you can’t miss!

American Psychology Teaching Conference opens with beautiful sunrise

Knowledge Exchange

Dr. Jacqui Taylor, Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Bournemouth University recently presented and ran a workshop at the ‘National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology’, an annual conference for teachers of psychology to explore new ideas to enhance and broaden their teaching skills.  Below, Dr. Taylor summarises her experience:

 

“I welcomed the New Year by presenting a poster and workshop at the 37th Annual ‘National Institute on the Teaching Of Psychology’ in Florida. The first day dawned with a beautiful sunrise and an early 7:30 am breakfast session!
sunrise
My poster ‘The Evaluation and Assessment of Online Skills Through Online Group Discussion’ stimulated lots of interaction from delegates who were mainly interested in my use of reflection as an assessment tool. Increasingly, much of a psychology student’s learning occurs within electronic environments, however rarely are the new skills they develop in these contexts identified, improved or assessed. Over the past 5 years, I have addressed this important need, and examples from assessed online student discussions were presented in my poster to demonstrate an innovative way to develop and assess online skills. I made some good contacts with other lecturers who were using quite different quantitative rubrics to assess technical skills and I look forward to developing links with them.
Poster J Taylor
My second presentation was under a category called ‘Participant Idea Exchange (referred to as PIEs!)’ and consisted of a one-hour facilitated workshop session. My ‘PIE’ was on ‘Psychological Literacy: A Practical Approach’ and I presented with Dr Carolyn Mair (a past PGR and lecturer at BU). Psychological literacy is a new and important concept in psychology education which encapsulates the knowledge, skills and attributes acquired through the study of psychology and the ability to transfer learning from the academic setting into the real world. Despite an increasing number of academic and professional publications highlighting theoretical concepts and benefits of psychological literacy, there are few practical resources for psychology educators. This PIE addressed this need by discussing our two recent publications commissioned by the UK Higher Education Academy: ‘An Introductory Guide to Psychological Literacy’ (Mair, Taylor & Hulme, 2013) and ‘A Psychological Literacy Compendium’ (Taylor & Hulme, in prep).
Psychological Literacy PIE J Taylor
As the sun set on this year’s conference there were promises from many delegates to collaborate and share their teaching practice throughout 2015 and meet once again at the 38th ‘NITOP’ in 2016.”
Sunset to NITOP

BU’s research website is short listed for an international award

Exciting news – BU’s research website, launched in January 2014, has been short listed in the Best Research Website category in the international eduStyle Awards. These celebrate the best work in college and university websites and aim to recognise the most innovative and exciting developments in key areas of HE web development.

Each award is given as both a People’s Choice and a Judged Award. People’s Choice voting closes this Wednesday (21 January) so please do visit the  eduStyle website and vote for BU! To vote you need to register on the site and then vote on the nominees page (http://www.edustyle.net/awards/2014/nominees.php) using the radio buttons.

BU is the only UK institution to be short listed this year and is up against four other institutions – Yale University, MIT, Columbia University and Biola University.

The winners will be announced on 28 January 2015.

Fusion Investment Fund 2015: The impact of tax avoidance on company value.

We are very pleased to announce that we are receiving funding from the Fusion Investment Fund for a project to examine the impact of tax planning activity or ‘tax avoidance schemes’ on the market value of listed UK companies.  The aim is to extend the UK research that has commenced in the Accounting, Finance and Economics Department through comparative studies in Italy and Germany by collaborating with tax accounting researchers in those countries. 

Tax avoidance has been recognised as a major problem by the G8 Nations and the OECD with the publication of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan in 2013.  In the UK the government has objected to so-called ‘aggressive tax avoidance’ schemes that are technically legal but have arguably little or no commercial substance and the General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) was introduced as part of the Finance Act of 2013 in an attempt to prevent such schemes.  Concerns about the national tax revenues are quite widely publicised and researched but there is very little research devoted to the study of how the value relevance of tax accounting information relates to the extent of corporate tax avoidance activity.  The research is important to users of reported accounting information including investors such as pension funds.  The tax accounting research has policy implications as the related corporate valuation risk impacts the collective investments of individuals such as pension scheme members and equity investors both large and small.

This research is particularly well-timed as there is increasing public interest in tax policy including that relating to anti-avoidance or ‘anti-abuse’ legislation in the UK and other jurisdictions.  The accounting profession is also conscious of the greater need for adequate tax disclosures for complex and risky transactions. 

The research is likely to increase the impact of Bournemouth University’s Faculty of Management on the accounting profession and the business community in the important disciplines of tax and accounting policy.

Dr Alan Kirkpatrick (Principal Investigator) – Dept of Accounting, Finance and Economics – akirkpatrick@bournemouth.ac.uk 

Dr Dragana Radicic – Dept of Accounting, Finance and Economics – dradicic@bournemouth.ac.uk