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Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

BBSRC are supporting the delivery of events to facilitate discussion and improve awareness of knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) of BBSRC-funded research. BBSRC will contribute up to £2,000 in grants towards costs of external speakers, room booking, time spent in organising the event and other reasonable costs. The cost of lunch and refreshments will not be covered. No deadline given.

The RCUK Energy Programme, via EPSRC, invites expressions of interest from those willing to attend a workshop in London to scope a joint call between UK and the Republic of South Korea in civil nuclear research. The workshop will consider issues around decommissioning and radioactive waste treatment and disposal. The workshop will begin at 10:00 on the 7th July and will finish at 16:00pm on the 8th July. There will be a dinner on the night of the 7th July. To attend this workshop, the EoI should be submitted by 16/05/14. Successful applicants will be invited by 06/06/14.

EUREKA  has launched a new call for technological innovation projects. Each project must meet two main elements. First, a project needs to be transnational and involve at least two companies from two different EUREKA member countries. Secondly, the project has to develop high-tech marketable products, technology-based services or methods: any technologies and applications are welcome as long as they have a strong market potential. Applications must be submitted by 01/08/14.

It is vital that the knowledge and expertise arising from science funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is harnessed for the benefit of a wide range of stakeholders. To facilitate this, NERC wishes to fund scientists to apply their knowledge and skills to support decision-makers dealing with the challenge of managing environmental risks to infrastructure. NERC has up to £600k available for this call. NERC would like to fund a range of projects from short term (3-6 month) projects, which explore the value of environmental science to a stakeholder organisation, to longer-term (up to 18 months) projects which develop environmental science into solutions to address the challenge of managing environmental risks to infrastructure. There will be a Brokerage workshop on 20/05/14. Closing date for proposals: 16:00 on 19/06/14.

The Technology Strategy Board is to invest up to £5m in projects that stimulate innovation in the UK location-based services sector. The aim of the competition is to support projects that capitalise on the increasing accuracy, coverage and speed of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) such as GPS and other non-satellite technologies such as iBeacon, Wi-Fi and radio frequency identification (RFID) to build innovative location-based services or improve the user experience of existing services. Proposals must be collaborative and business-led although project partners can include research and non-profit organisations as well as other businesses. They expect to fund mainly industrial research projects in which two or more partners will attract up to 50% public funding for their eligible project costs (60% for SMEs). A briefing event for potential applicants will be held in London on 06/05/14. Register by noon on 11/06/14 with full submission by noon on 18/06/14.

The Technology Strategy Board and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are to invest up to £2m in feasibility studies to encourage the development of innovative technologies for the safe and responsible exploitation of the UK’s shale gas resources. Projects can be collaborative or developed by a single business. The funders  are encouraging projects that involve technology transfer from other sectors, for example from the ICT, digital, space and high value manufacturing sectors. A briefing day and consortium-building event for potential applicants will be held on 09/07/14. Register by noon on 17/09/14 with full applications submitted by noon on 24/09/14.

The Wellcome Trust Translation Award develops innovative and ground breaking new technologies in the biomedical area. The current highlight concerns ‘Restoring the Body’ but projects covering any aspect of technology development from a range of disciplines – including physical, computational and life sciences – will be considered at any time. The deadlines in 2014 are: Concept note: 25/04/14, Preliminary deadline 13/06/14 and invitation to attend an interview for shortlisted candidates in January 2015. There are later dates in 2014 – 24/10/14 and 08/12/14, resepectively, with interviews in July 2015.

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic, which includes forthcoming training dates up to November 2014.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on ResearchProfessional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

More about academic writing

Publishing

Earlier this year (13th Jan. 2014) we wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘Writing about academic publishing’.  We can now add two further contributions this body of work.  The first article in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology offers some advice on how to construct a title for an academic article.  The authors (BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley; BU Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland and Dr. Padam Simkhada and international collaborator Dr. Brijesh Sathian) have a wealth of experience reviewing papers and all have experience as editor board members and/or editors.  The authors are associated the editorial boards of the many journals, including: Birth, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, Medical Science, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, Essentially MIDIRS, Sociological Research Online, Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science, Midwifery and Asian Journal of Health Sciences.  In our joint capacity as reviewers and editors we have seen some great and some awful titles.  The paper in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an attempt to improve the appropriateness and usefulness of titles chosen by budding authors.

Editorial Midwifery 2014

Editorial Midwifery 2014

The second addition is an editorial in the international journal Midwifery published by Elsevier.  Together with HSC Visiting Faculty Prof. Debra Bick we address the question: ‘Who should be an author on your academic paper?’   Still too often we hear about worrying stories from fellow academic s and postgraduate students about inappropriate behaviour related to authorship of academic journal papers.  The Midwifery Editorial advises academics to discuss authorship and authorship order early on in the writing process.  At the same time, it highlights that authorship ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’ can vary between different academic disciplines.  Thus when working in a multidisciplinary team, issues of authorship of any papers which arise out of the study should be discussed before problems or concerns arise.

 

We would like to take this opportunity point our readers to another interesting and useful BU Research Blog written by Shelly Maskell under the title: ‘How to design a completely uninformative title’ (7th Feb. 2014).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.

 

Highest marks for International Fellowship for Midwives research in Nepal

 

In 2013 Wellbeing of Women joined the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to offer the International Fellowship for Midwives (worth £20,000).  Their first ever recipient was BU Lesley Milne with her supporting team.  Lesley is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery based at BU’s Portsmouth Branch Campus and her proposal set out to undertake a research project to explore barriers to facility birth in Nepal.

 

Delivery bed small hospital Nepal

Apart from Lesley herself the BU team comprises Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, and two HSC Visiting Faculty members, namely Dr. Padam Simkhada, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Community Midwife NHS Poole Hospitals.

 

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

At the end of March 2014 we submitted the final report on the research to Well-Being of Women and the RCM and this report gained an ‘A’ in their scoring system.  Last week at the feedback meeting in Well-Being of Women’s office in London Lesley presented some of her key findings which she illustrated with some of her photographs.  The comments from those round the table were that the topic was well researched and that the qualitative research findings could help focus the funders in their future work.

 

Having reached the dissemination stage, we are planning scientific papers as well as a feedback session in Kathmandu (in September this year). Currently we are working on two academic papers, one is in an advanced stage approaching submission and the other is just passed its draft stage.

 

 

Lesley Milne, Vanora Hundley, Jillian Ireland (Visiting Faculty),Edwin van Teijlingen & Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty)

 

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

 


HSC Writing Retreat: Freedom to write

Publishing

Today saw the first of two Writing Retreat workshops organised by HSC.  The intensive writing day was led by Ms. Caroline Brimblecombe.  Caroline is a Norwich-based training consultant and project manager, who leads workshops in the technique of freewriting, as well as on academic writing.  She holds an MA in Public Policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and spent many years as a public sector manager and policy analyst.  She used a combination of exercises based on notions of creative writing and free writing.  The Writing Retreat offered advice and a dedicated space and time to practice academic writing.  Today’s intensive session was attended by the first cohort of HSC academics, who considered some of their challenges to writing and some of the rewards.  Not surprisingly there were more challenges than rewards, and the former included lack of time, high workload and interruptions.   Personal satisfaction and a sense of achievement scored high on the list of rewards.

Caroline suggested the participants considered ‘Serial Writing’.  This is the notion that you write regularly, hence the ‘serial’.  The idea is to create a flow of writing to help you generate content as well as a habit of writing. This will be a valuable tool for workshop participants who have committed to working with a mentor to produce a manuscript for submission by the end of July.

For those motivated staff members who would like to have a go at this.  The next session is planned for the 28th of May and there are still a few free places available.  Please contact Jo Temple if you would like to sign up.

We both participated ourselves and we would highly recommend this Writing Retreat!

 

Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

An Overview of RCUKs Open Access Policy

Awarded & submitted bids, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

We recently received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from a reporter at Research Fortnight asking (in summary) how many of our Research Council (RCUK) outputs were made Open Access in the last year. The request highlighted that there is a lot of confusion about what is required from academics with RCUK grants in terms of Open Access. So, almost a year on from when the policy was published and spurred on from the FOI request I thought it was worth recapping on what the policy is and how we should be adhering to it. The full policy is available on the RCUK website. However, the key elements are as follows:

When

In April 2013, Research Councils UK (RCUK) launched their revised policy on Open Access with more gusto and clearer targets then ever before.

Aim

Current and future research fundamentally relies on access to the findings and ideas that come out of publicly-funded research. Research Councils UK (RCUK) fully support the concept of universal access so that everyone can benefit from this knowledge. Their policy on Open Access aims to achieve immediate, unrestricted, on-line access to peer-reviewed and published research papers, free of any access charge and their vision is for all users to be able to read published research papers in an electronic format and to search for and re-use (including download) the content of published research papers, both manually and using automated tools (such as those for text and data mining), provided that any such re-use is subject to full and proper attribution.

Scope

The policy applies to peer-reviewed research articles (including review articles not commissioned by publishers), which acknowledge Research Council funding, that are submitted for publication from 1st April 2013, and which are published in journals or conference proceedings.

The policy does not (currently) cover monographs, books, critical editions, volumes and catalogues, or forms of non-peer-reviewed material. However, RCUK encourages authors of such material to consider making them Open Access where possible.

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceExpectations of Researchers

Such works should be published in academic journals that comply with the policy. A Journal may comply with the policy through two routes:

  •  Gold Route

It must make the work immediately and freely accessible online under a CC-BY licence. An ‘Article Processing Charge’ (APC) may be payable. BU has a central fund to cover these costs – the Open Access Publication Fund.

  •  Green Route

The journal must allow deposit of the full and final text of the work (as accepted for publication including all changes arising from peer review) in a freely accessible online repository and without restriction on non-commercial re-use. An APC will not be payable. BU encourages researchers to deposit all articles upon acceptance in our instititional repository BURO via BRIAN.

The choice of route to Open Access remains with the researchers and BU, both ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to Open Access are acceptable. However, the policy preference is for immediate Open Access with the maximum opportunity for reuse (i.e. ‘gold’).

Works covered by the policy must acknowledge the funding source(s) using the standard format . They must also, if applicable, include a statement on how the underlying research materials – such as data, samples or models – can be accessed.

Implementation & Compliance

RCUK recognises that the journey to full Open Access is a process and not a single event and therefore expect compliance to grow over a transition period anticipated to be five years. The expectation is that:

  • In Year 1 (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014), research organisations ensure that a minimum of 45% of their research papers (arising from the RCUK research funds) are published Open Access, via either route.
  • In Year 2 (1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015), research organisations ensure that a minimum of 53% of their research papers (arising from the RCUK research funds) are published Open Access, via either route.
  • At the end of the transition period, RCUK expect researchers and institutions to be fully compliant with the policy, and for 100% of research papers arising from the research they fund to be published in journals that are compliant with their policy on Open Access. With 75% of Open Access papers being delivered through immediate, unrestricted, on-line access with maximum opportunities for re-use (‘gold’) .

Using government administrative data for research?

Info Days, Research Ethics

On the 16th May the Welcome Trust will host a seminar exploring the results of the ESRC/ONS joint Dialogue on Data: Exploring the public’s views on using administrative data (government collected data) for research purposes.

During October and November 2013, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) commissioned IPSOS Mori to undertake a public dialogue in seven UK locations to explore views on using government administrative data for research purposes.

The overall objectives were to explore public understanding and views of administrative data and data linking. The dialogue focused on two uses of administrative data, one that is currently being established and one that may go ahead in future:

  • The new ESRC-funded Administrative Data Research Network (ADRN) that was set up in late 2013 
  • The potential use of administrative data linking as one of the options for conducting the 2021 census (alongside an annual survey).

This seminar will present the findings to policy professionals, science communicators and public engagement specialists as well as showcase how they are being used. It will also explore with attendees what further work is needed in this area.

To register for the seminar please email your name, contact number and organisation to events@esrc.ac.uk.

Further information can be found here – Dialogue on Data: Exploring the public’s views on using linked administrative data for research purposes (PDF, 3Mb)

 

Compassion in Action with Professor Belinda Dewar

Wednesday 21st May 2014 between 1 – 1.50pm at the Executive Business Centre (EB203)

Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes. 

In this presentation Professor Belinda Dewar will discuss the evidence base and policy imperatives for compassion and debate myths and misconceptions of compassion and what we are up against to move forward in this area. She will highlight important work that has already gone on in this area and debate how we can build on this. She will also share with you the development of a model for compassionate relationship centred care and discuss the key domains of this model that support practitioners, in education, practice and research to develop skills in compassionate caring. She will look at specific strategies that bring the model to life including emotional touch points, development of positive caring practices and focusing on compassionate proofing of language.

The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

The AHRC’s  Collaborative Doctoral Awards are intended to encourage and develop collaboration and partnerships between Higher Education Institution (HEI) departments and non-HEI organisations and businesses. These awards provide opportunities for doctoral students to gain first hand experience of work outside the university environment. The support provided by both a university and non-university supervisor enhances the employment-related skills and training a research student gains during the course of their award. Please check the website for AHRC highlight notices. Closing date 09/07/14

BBSRC and National Institute on Aging (NIA) are continuing their collaboration by offering funding to encourage high quality, innovative collaborative research to advance the understanding in the biology of ageing in specific topic areas. Deadlines for the Je-S proforma are 08/05/14 and 05/09/14 and the NIA cycle due dates (closing dates) are: 5 June 2014, 5pm and 5 October 2014, 5pm.

Israel’s National Cyber Bureau (INCB) and Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (MOST), and the UK’s Cabinet Office (CO) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wish to encourage joint research activities in cyber security. As such, through a single, shared process which is managed by EPSRC on behalf of the Agencies, the partners expect to identify and support up to three collaborations, each of which involves leading academic researchers in both the partner countries. While funding for researchers in Israel and UK will ultimately be provided separately by their respective Governments, the key to success in the call will be the identification of a programme of work which is of high scientific quality and truly collaborative. Closing date 24/06/14.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), in partnership with the Future Cities Catapult, invites Expressions of Interest from eligible applicants for a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship. The partners anticipate supporting one Fellow. The maximum amount available for the Fellowship will be £135,000 at 100 per cent of full economic cost (fEC). The Fellow should be able to commence work by October 2014. The EoI must be submitted by 16.00 on 19/05/14.

The EPSRC is running a sandpit in the broad area of assistive and rehabilitative devices in order to try to engender a radical change in the research undertaken in this field in the UK. The sandpit will be focussed on key research challenges within the sphere of intelligent and intentional assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative technologies. The challenges in this field are likely to need highly multidisciplinary solutions, hence we are offering researchers from a wide range of disciplines the opportunity to come together to innovate scientific and technological solutions to identifiable user needs. Call closes 05/06/14.

The Leverhulm Trust is offering up to £15,000 in their Artist in Residence call within UK universities and museums, to foster a new creative collaboration with an artist working in a discipline outside the applicant institution’s usual curriculum. These awards support the residency of an individual artist in a UK university or museum in order to foster a creative collaboration between the artist and the staff and/or students of that institution. The term ‘artist’ encompasses visual artists, creative writers, musicians, poets and other producers of original creative work. The scheme is intended to bring artists into research and study environments where their artistic form or creative art is not part of the normal curriculum or activities of the host department. There must be a distinct contrast between the artist and host department’s expertise (for example, a poet being hosted by a physics department, a composer by a geography department). It is not the objective of the residency to provide additional teaching capacity for the host department. Closing date 4pm on 16/09/14.

The Technology Strategy Boardand the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) are to invest up to £1.1m in exploratory studies into the design of technology-based products and services that will improve learning outcomes with their Design for Impact call. Particularly, they are looking for proposals for products and services that will improve attainment among learners above five years old (from Key Stage 1) and in formal (primary, secondary, higher or further education) or in non-formal learning environments. Partner-finding workshops will run during April and May 2014 and a briefing event will be held in London on 13 May 2014. Register by 02/07/14 with the full application submitted by noon on 09/07/14.

The  Technology Strategy Board and Medical Research Council Biomedical Catalyst programme offers funding to innovative small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and researchers looking to work either individually or in collaboration to develop solutions to healthcare challenges. Early and late stage awards are available. Register by 28/05/14 with full application submitted by noon on 04/06/14.

The Wellcome Trust’s International Engagement Awards support public engagement projects and work that builds capacity for engagement with biomedical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-east Asia and South Asia. The scheme is open to a wide range of people and organisations including scientists, health researchers, NGOs, educators, artists, theatre practitioners and cultural or community organisations. The EoI must be submitted by 21/08/14 with the application deadline being 04/09/14.

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic, which includes forthcoming training dates up to November 2014.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on ResearchProfessional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Appreciative Inquiry Masterclass – Thursday 22nd May

The Centre of Qualitative Research at Bournemouth University is pleased to announce its next Masterclass in Appreciative Inquiry: 22nd May 2014

Venue: Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre, 3rd Floor. Book your place now. This masterclass will focus on the use of Appreciative Action Research as an approach to research and development.

Who should attend: The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

Masterclass facilitated by: Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes.

Schedule: The day will start at 9.30am and finish around 4.15pm. There will be a mixture of seminars with discussions, Q&A sessions and group activities.

Cost: The fees are as follows: External delegates £95, BU staff £80, BU students £50 and Non BU students £75. The price includes lunch and refreshments and all class materials. Accommodation and travel costs are not included.

To book your place, please use our online booking form. Book your place by Monday 19th May 2014.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Best wishes Caroline Ellis-Hill

Masterclass Co-ordinator and Senior Lecturer at BU

A realist evaluation approach to the design and evaluation of complex social interventions.

8 May 12.15-1.15pm, B126 Bournemouth House Lansdowne Campus

All interested in interdisciplinary education research are invited to a seminar hosted by the School of Health and Social Care, Bournemouth University.

This presentation describes the core components of realist evaluation and argues for the integration of the realist evaluation cycle during programme design to ensure that the outcomes collected determine not only if the programme works, but what works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects, and why.

This seminar highlights some of Barbara’s current doctoral study thinking in her US, UK comparison of inter professional clinical education in the UK and USA.  She is a physiotherapist, Professor & University Director of Interprofessional Education & Collaboration at A.T. Still University, Arizona, US.

HE in the news this week…

Monday

Libby Hackett featured in the Guardian over the weekend calling for intelligent reforms of the student loans system. Intelligent reforms of student loans (Guardian)

International

University Alliance’s call for a return to post-study visas is highlighted in a piece in the Guardian. The article looks at the House of Lords report which claims that an “unwelcoming UK” has seen a drop in the number of international students studying STEM subjects. Fewer international science students come to ‘unwelcoming’ UK (Guardian HE)

Employment

Starting salaries for graduate jobs have fallen overall over the past five years, according to new analysis. Research for the Complete University Guide says graduate starting salaries in professional posts dropped 11%, to £21,702 in real terms, in 2007-12.

 

Tuesday

Higher education policy

Students at the recent NUS conference have voted in favour of a policy of free education. No to Ukip and yes to free education: NUS conference votes for surprisingly radical policies (Independent)

Widening participation
We need to ensure there is diversity in HE, to fit the needs and approaches of people from non-traditional student backgrounds, says Alison Wride. ‘Universities remain bastions of middle class culture’ (THE)

Wednesday

Community

Cambridge is becoming increasingly polarised between town and gown as large parts of its university are “cut off” from the public, according to Mary Beard, the classicist and television presenter. Cambridge is a ‘divided city’ as university tightens security and shuts the public out (Times) 

LEPs

Local enterprise partnerships for the North East and Teesside have joined forces in efforts to create a “Jeremie 2” investment programme, potentially ploughing a further £160m into the region’s businesses. North East LEPs come together for £160m ‘Jeremie 2’ plan (Journal)

Research funding

The bias in favour of men in the peer review process ultimately leads to women being turned down for promotion argues an anonymous academic. Securing money for research is hard for everyone – but then there’s the sexism (Guardian HE)

Thursday

The THE’s annual financial health check, looking at university finances in 2012-13 using figures by accountancy firm Grant Thornton, points to possible emerging trends in the first year of the new fees regime. University financial health check 2014 (THE) 

Quality

A report has revealed which universities are awarding more first and upper second class degrees than would be expected based on their students’ backgrounds, raising questions about the comparability of exam standards across the sector. ‘Good’ degree awards not always in line with intake (THE)

Postgraduate

NUS’ new vice-president for HE has vowed to put improving access to postgraduate education at the heart of her term of office. New broom to put postgrad study at heart of NUS policy (THE)

Part-time

Introducing part-time degrees delivered over just three years has revived the fortunes of Birkbeck, University of London and could do the same for other institutions, its head has claimed. Study nights: shorter part-time degrees appeal to Generation Y (THE)

Graduate employment

Almost two in five parents expect that a university degree will increase their children’s income earning potential and enable them to get ahead in the workplace, a report by HSBC has shown. Parents expect a university degree to increase their children’s income (Guardian)

Open access

Research Councils UK’s open access policy poses “serious dangers for the international standing of UK research in the humanities”, a report by the British Academy has warned. British Academy fears for humanities in open access world (THE)

Modern foreign languages

The numbers of students studying languages degrees is at its lowest in a decade – universities must make their academic study more pertinent, argues Katrin Kohl. Universities must make languages relevant (THE)

Australian fees policy

Australia’s demand-driven university system has been a success and should be extended to private universities, further education colleges and sub-degree programmes, a government-commissioned review has concluded. Uncapped system: support for expansion in Australia (THE)

 

Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)

Publishing

Last week BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen attended the international conference ’Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)’ [http://optimisebirth.com/] in Brussels, Belgium.  This new conference  in the maternity care field was based on the work of the COST (Co-operation in Science and Technology) Action IS0907.  This Action, over the period 2010-2014, set out to advance scientific knowledge about ways of improving maternity care provision and outcomes for mothers, babies and families across Europe by understanding what works, for who, in what circumstances, and by identifying and learning from the best.

 

As part of this COST Action several academics have spent time over the past three years at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Susanne Grylka-Bäschlin a Swiss midwife studying at Hannover Medical School, Germany, studied cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women in Switzerland and Germany.  See gave an excellent oral presentation of this first ever study to translate and apply the Mother-Generated Index in German. Mother-Generated Index was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Symon who is based at the University of Dundee [http://dundee.academia.edu/AndrewSymon ].

A further BU contribution to the conference involved the work of another European visitor to the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Dr. Ans Luyben, a Dutch midwife working in Switzerland presented a poster based on work in Switzerland at the COST Action conference at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

Additional PGR workshops added to the PG Researcher Programme for June

PG research

Additional PGR workshops have been organised for June:

The Importance of Publishing

Outline: Publishing is an integral part of a researcher’s professional life and this workshop aims to guide you through the process of writing and publishing research papers in journals and conference proceedings.

  • Date: 18 June 2014
  • Time: 09:30 – 12:45
  • Venue: P403 – Poole House
  • Facilitators: see below
  • 09:30 – 10:15  – Introduction to the Importance of Publishing and how it will impact on your future – Professor John Fletcher, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation)
  • 10:15 – 11:30 – How to get a paper published – Dr Feng Tian
  • 11:45 – 12:45 – Meet the Editor(s) – Dr Anne Quinney

Introduction to ‘Observation as social science research method’

Outline:  Observation is a key research methods in academic disciplines such as Anthropology, Sociology, Education, Development Studies, Psychology and Management Studies, to name but a few. This introduction of observation outlines the two methods of observation: participant and non-participant. With participant observation, the researcher becomes a part of the social group being studied in order to get a true understanding of the participants. On the other end of the spectrum, non-participant observation involves a researcher taking a step back and ‘passively’ watching the participants in action.

The session will also address the so-called Hawthorne Effect as well as questions such as: ‘How do you present yourself as the observing researcher?’ and ‘What are the main ethical considerations for someone undertaking observational research?”

  • Date: 25 June 2014
  • Time: 14:00 – 16:00
  • Venue: S217 – Studland House – Lansdowne Campus
  • Facilitator: Prof Edwin van Teijlingen

To sign up, please visit myBU – Graduate School PGR Community and remember to log on with your student username and password

Getting to grips with Creative Commons Licensing

PG research, Publishing

What is it?

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.

“The free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of ‘all rights reserved’ to ‘some rights reserved’.

Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.

Creative Commons offers licenses and tools to the public free of charge and does not require that creators or other rights holders register with CC in order to apply a CC license to a work. This means that CC does not have special knowledge of who uses the licenses and for what purposes, nor does CC have a way to contact creators beyond means generally available to the public. CC has no authority to grant permission on behalf of those persons, nor does CC manage those rights on behalf of others.

If you would like to obtain additional permissions to use the work beyond those granted by the license that has been applied, or if you’re not sure if your intended use is permitted by the license, you should contact the rights holder.” (Creative Commons 2014)

Why do we need it?

New ways of publishing on the internet require different licensing arrangements, so that work can be freely shared and reconfigured to advance research. Creative Commons allows this flexibility.

  • Creators can retain their copyright and allow specified re-use depending on the licence chosen.
  • Users can see immediately what they are allowed to do with a work without the time-consuming need to contact the author for permission.

 

How does this work?

Source: http://foter.com/blog/files/2012/11/Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg

How do I use it in my own work?

Where the RCUK OA block grant is used to pay Article Processing Charges for a paper, the paper must be made Open Access immediately at the time of on-line publication, using the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. Find out more in the RCUK OA Policy.

For all other material: Use the Creative Commons tool to choose your licence.

How do I use it with other people’s work?

When you come across work that uses Creative Commons you will see the distinctive Creative Commons logo (as below) and there will be a link to the licence under which it has been released. This tells you exactly what you are allowed to do with it.

Finding Creative Commons works

The Creative Commons website has a search engine that searches the Web for Creative Commons works, and Google (under its Advanced Search facility) has an option to search for materials that use Creative Commons.  Select usage rights and from drop down menu:  free to share or modify, even commercially.