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The Marginalised Mainstream: Literature, Culture and Popularity – Conference Report.

The Marginalised Mainstream: Literature, Culture and Popularity is an annual event held at the Institute of English Studies in Senate House, University of London, co-organised by Sam Goodman (BU), Emma Grundy-Haigh and Brittain Bright (Goldsmiths). The aim of the initiative is to focus on those areas of popular culture that are critically and academically marginalised, or once popular authors or works that have since fallen into obscurity.

This year’s event took place on the 28th-29th November and featured BU’s Bronwen Thomas (Media School) and Naomi Braithwaite (Nottingham Trent) as its keynote speakers, delivering talks on online fan culture and the social performativity of shoes respectively. The theme of this year’s conference was Disguise, which led to a particularly varied and creative set of submissions, covering topics as diverse as showgirls and burlesque, spy fiction, Ice Road Truckers, confessional poetry, Game of Thrones, Indonesian superheroes, and Raffles the Gentleman Thief. There were also a selection of plenary panels featuring Len Platt (Goldsmiths) on musical theatre of the 1920s, Mariadele Boccardi (UWE) on neo-Victorian novels and science, and Andrew Harvey (Birkbeck) on sport and literature.

Marginalised Mainstream is supported by the Narrative Research Group within the Centre for Journalism and Communication at BU, and regularly attracts speakers and attendees from across the globe; this year’s event featured delegates from North America, India, Australia, China, and Russia, as well as from the UK and Europe. There is an emphasis on attracting early career and PGR delegates as well as established academics, and the delegates reflected a wide spectrum of career stages.

Details of the next event (scheduled for September 2015) will soon be released on the website: www.marginalisedmainstream.com. The theme of next year’s conference will be ‘Play & Performance’, and we welcome any informal enquiries at marginalisedmainstream@gmail.com.

WREN at BU

Academics, researchers and professionals from the Women’s Radio in Europe Network (WREN) came together at Bournemouth University for a two day workshop, on November 14-15. There were thirteen of us, representing the Netherlands, Denmark, Britain, Turkey, Australia and Portugal.

WREN is an international academic research network investigating the history and role of women’s radio in Europe (and beyond). We were joined by Maria Williams, an award-winning radio producer, podcast-maker and media trainer – and the founder of Sound Women  (http://www.soundwomen.co.uk/). Sound Women aims to encourage, promote and support women in today’s UK radio industry, and it was generally acknowledged by all participants how important history is for the current debates around women in the media.

The first day started with short presentations where participants presented current research and interests, and ideas and thoughts for future collaborative research. In the afternoon students and staff were invited to join ‘In Conversation with WREN’, a discussion about WREN research and women’s contribution to radio. Our panel of speakers included Maria Williams (Sound Women), Caroline Mitchell (University of Sunderland), Nazan Haydari (Istanbul Bilgi University) and Carolyn Birdsall (University of Amsterdam). The second day focused on the network’s plans to secure future research funding and how to develop the work of WREN further.

This workshop was made possible through the Fusion Investment Fund (the Staff Mobility and Networking Strand) which supported this first stand-alone meeting of the network. We are delighted to report that the workshop was overall a success, and WREN has now made some concrete plans for the future, so watch this space!

Dr Kristin Skoog (PI) – Lecturer in Media (Broadcasting History) – The Media School

Dr Kate Murphy (CI) – Senior Lecturer in Radio Production – The Media School

EUADS: 1 week left to apply!

The EU Academic Development Scheme (EUADS) is a unique scheme developed to kick start your career in EU research, and is open to all BU academic staff.  The scheme will help you work towards making a submission by providing unlimited 1-2-1 support from an expert EU bid writer, group mentoring and unlimited assistance in actually writing your application over a 12 month period.  In addition to the training, the EUADS scheme also includes an individual fund. Each successful participant will have access to grants up to £3ooo to spend on activities supporting bid development, such as:
• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Pilot research work
• Fieldwork
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
• Preparation of specialist material or data
• Replacement teaching 

You can read more on this scheme in the EUADS Policy Document  and make a submission using the  EUADS Application Form.   

The deadline for applications is Friday 19th December 2014.  Applications and any questions should be submitted to the Funding Development Coordinator, Giles Ashton, gashton@bournemouth.ac.uk

BUDI Orchestra Christmas Concert

Join us as we celebrate this festive season with classics such as ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ performed by members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and local people with dementia and their carers.

When? Friday, 12th December 2014, 11am – 12noon.

Where? The Atrium (by Starbucks), Poole House, Talbot Campus.

We’d love to see you there!

For more information about this event, please contact: lreynolds@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The BUDI Orchestra rehearsing.

The BUDI Orchestra during their final rehearsal.

 

National Contact Points: Kerry Young and Helen Fairclough

 

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 Helen Fairclough and Kerry Young, who are the NCPs for Energy.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.   

Festival of Learning 2015 – What could you do? Limited time but wanting to share?

The Festival of Learning 2015 is a fantastic way to engage public audiences in your research.  Sometimes it’s difficult putting together an event that lasts several hours, so how about an hour lecture on your research? 

 

To engage your audience, could your event be interactive or spark a short debate?  Could it be linked to ideologies within a film that an audience could relate to?  Or perhaps a topical discussion that has had national coverage?  If you have an event idea, think about the intended audience and what would appeal to them.

 

A lecture, seminar, interactive laboratory to name a few could all be run within an hour session, why not try it?

 

The next Festival of Learning will be held during 11th – 17th July 2015.  If you would like to hold an event as part of this Festival, please complete a proposal form.  The deadline for proposals is midday on Friday 19th December.

 

If you have an idea for a Festival of Learning event that you would like to discuss or for general enquiries, please contact Naomi Kay on 61342.

Micheal Faraday Prize-For excellence in communicating science to UK Audiences.

The Royal Society’s medals, awards and prize lectureships provide an opportunity to celebrate outstanding achievement.

 

Nominations for the Michael Faraday Prize are now open. This prize lecture is given by a scientist or engineer whose expertise in communicating scientific ideas in lay terms is exemplary.

 

Previous winners have included Professor Brian Cox and Professor Frank Close.

 

The winner will receive a medal, a personal prize of £2,500 and will get to deliver a lecture at the Royal Society.

 

Nominate a colleague for this lecture

http://newsletters.royalsociety.org/c/1wsN2iY4pgb1Mw1dXQQtUS

 

To download the nomination form and for further details please see http://newsletters.royalsociety.org/c/1wsN8cZLuyexEmSoM7ZKWT

 

The deadline for nominations is Friday 30 January 2015.

 

To contact us for further information please email awards@royalsociety.org

 

 

For more information on our many other awards available for nomination please visit http://newsletters.royalsociety.org/c/1wsNe71szQi3wdJzAp91YU

 

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UKRO visit to BU – last chance to reserve your place!

UK Research OfficeOur UKRO contact, Maribel Glogowski, will be coming to Bournemouth on December 11th.  We benefit from the services, information and support provided by UKRO throughout the year but this is your opportunity to see and speak to our representative in person.  This year Maribel will be making two presentations open for all to attend.

Both presentations address H2020 but rather than just being another overview we’ve asked Maribel to feedback on H2020 so far and then to zoom in on an area we do a lot of work in but which can be difficult to place in H2020 – Social Science and Humanities.  As H2020 has sought (with varying degrees of success) to ‘embed’ elements of Social Science and Humanities across the whole work programme; collaborations across disciplines have become increasingly standard and as impact has moved (particularly in the EU) to the top of the agenda insights into the role of Social Sciences and Humanities in H2020 are pertinent across all disciplines.

The agenda (BG14: Lansdowne) is as follows:

9.30am-10.45am:

      i. Brief introduction and overview of UKRO

     ii. H2020 in action – what’s happened so far and where’s it going?

10.45am-11.15am: Coffee and networking

11.15am-12.30pm: Social Sciences and Humanities in H2020

Please contact Organisational Development by following the link if you wish to attend.

For those unfamiliar with UKRO (The UK Research Office), it is the European office of the UK Research Councils.  UKRO’s mission is to promote effective UK engagement in EU research, innovation and higher education activities, by:

  • Enabling the UK research community to make informed decisions about participation in EU programmes and to maximise the opportunities available to them;
  • Supporting UK input into European research policy development and implementation through informing and interfacing with the appropriate bodies; and
  • Developing and maintaining a suite of quality services that meet the evolving needs of sponsors and subscribers.

Bournemouth subscribes to the information and assistance services of UKRO. For many years UKRO have been providing us with the latest EU information on funding calls, policy and providing advice on how to make a great application.  UKRO are also the national contact point for the UK in relation to Marie Curie actions and the ERC (European Research Council).

Research Professional upgrade

Please note that Research Professional are updating their site with a new version of the Rodman Indes, which is the discipline thesaurus that they use.  This may mean that the site is unavailable between 9am and 11am on Wednesday, 10th December.

All of the old discipline terms have been mapped to the new Rodman Index, and all of your pre-existing funding searches will be transitioned to the new terms.

News from the Consumer Research Group: The CR@B is dead … long live the CRG!!

 

The newly renamed ‘Consumer Research Group’ (formally known as CR@B (Consumer Research @ Bournemouth) … but now rebranded!) held its second meeting last week which again brought together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University for lively discussions around the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research (over coffee and mince pies!).  The aim of the meeting was to begin to identify themes around which groups or clusters of consumer researchers could discuss potential collaborations and plan activities for the future.  From the meeting seven themes were initially proposed (see diagram above), and whilst these may initially remain fluid, they offer great opportunity for further discussion.  A notable outcome from this meeting was the variety of consumer research areas being explored at BU, and the number of potential linkages that could be made between different groups, across and between these themes, to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

The next meeting for the ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be 2-4pm on Wednesday 28th January in PG19.  Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting.  

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.  If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)