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Vice-Chancellor PhD Scholarships

The Graduate School is delighted to announce the launch of the 2014 Vice-Chancellor Doctoral (Fee Waive) Scholarships (VC PhD Scholarships) which will offer support to up to 25 outstanding postgraduate research students (PGRs).

The VC PhD Scholarships will be awarded to candidates who meet the eligibility criteria, have the support of their supervisory teams, are accepted by the relevant Academic School and UET.

Details of the Scholarships:

The VC PhD Scholarships will provide a full fee waive for up to 36 months, and exceptionally to a maximum of 48 months in the case of part-time candidates.  Fees will be charged after 36/48 months respectively.  To be clear about the ‘48 month exception’: this is included so that in some cases a sponsor or employer may continue to provide candidates with part-time employment, effectively releasing them for doctoral study part-time.  Please note these scholarships will only be allocated to part-time candidates in exceptional circumstances.  The Scholarships may NOT be used to support professional doctorates, current BU postgraduate research students, nor may they be used to support BU staff to complete doctoral programmes.

Stipends, to cover living expenses, are NOT included in the scholarship and candidates must demonstrate at application stage that they are able to support themselves as part of the application process.

It is up to the Academic School or Faculty the number of Scholarships allocated.  Please speak to your Deputy Dean for Research & Enterprise for guidance on the number that will be available for your School/Faculty.

For full details about the Scholarships, including Candidate Eligibility, Process and Timetable, please refer to the VC PhD Scholarship 2014 – Policy

Prospective applicants should be directed to: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/pgr/vice-chancellor-phd-scholarships/

 

 

PGR Development Fund – March Deadline

PG research

The PGR Development Fund closes at the end of this month, so if you are planning to attend a conference or research development activity over the coming months, don’t forget to submit an application for financial support to the Graduate School by 31st March.

Awards are available of up to £1,000 and will cover direct costs, such as – travel, subsistence, training or development costs.

Don’t forget you will need to seek the support of your Supervisory Team and Deputy Dean for Research, so please factor this in when submitting your application.  Completed applications should be emailed to gsfunding@bournemouth.ac.uk by 5 pm – 31st March 2014.

Full details can be found on myBU – Graduate School PGR Community – remember you’ll need to log on with your student username and password.

International Women’s Day and Burlesque

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights” Gloria Steinem

8th March was International Women’s Day. First observed in 1911, it is a national holiday in many non-western countries (full history here) and has its roots in the struggle for women’s rights.

International Women’s Day is a day of reflection and celebration.  Women have made considerable advances in contemporary society.  Women now vote, have been and can be Prime Minister. Women now work and have historically unparalleled legislative rights. Indeed so successful have these gains been that it is not uncommon to hear it said that women now ‘can have it all’.  Recently released UCAS  data suggests that applications from UK girls outnumber boys at undergraduate level (and across most areas of study).  Mary Curnock Cook has warned that young men risk becoming a ‘disadvantaged group’.   Yet, to look at these statistics in isolation from the wider context is fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in our society. Numbers of applications may well be declining for young men, but that doesn’t seem to stop men being over represented in the major institutions that dominate our society. Indeed, 88% of MPs in British Parliament are male. 80% of board members of  FTSE 100 companies are men.  86% of UK Vice Chancellors are male. Advances in education are not translated into advances in the corridors of power.

At the same time, in the last week we have seen reports that tell us over half of British women have been physically or sexually assaulted in the workplace .  In the UK, there has been an increase in numbers of rapes of adults and children.  This takes place in a wider educational and political context where the issue of consent is not understood by both politicians and young people alike. There is not yet a legal requirement to discuss consent in  sex education in schools.  This lack of awareness is situated in a wider media and cultural context: Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’, also known as the  ‘rape song’ includes the lines ‘you know you want it, cos you’re a good girl’.  This song has been banned by some politically active student unions around the country, but it is indicative of a wider set of cultural problems endemic in what is increasingly labelled  ‘rape culture’.  And from popular culture to state sponsored violence – rape is still a weapon of warfare which remains largely unprosecuted (Sheppard, 2009).

This handful of examples, suggest that yes,  we do need a day to highlight the importance of women and their interests whatever their ethnicity, class or geographical location.  We also still need to ask questions about the structural disadvantages that women still face.  Women are over represented in (British) educational contexts.  Yet, in 2014 we are still needing to ask why are women and their diverse interests still under represented across the social, political and economic sectors across society? Stopping to reflect on the nature of power, invites us to reflect on ways in which we might challenge it. A central aim of the feminist agenda has been to do just this in a multiplicity of ways. Dissent within and without being part of a healthy dialogue. Feminists are often presented as humourless (perhaps by those who do not wish to have their interests challenged?).  In direct response to that charge, and to the question recently raised at a WAN committee meeting – is it possible to be a feminist and enjoy burlesque? Nadia Kamil provides us with a resounding  humorous and serious ‘yes’.

 

Finding research funding using Research Professional Workshop – training TODAY!

Training

Research Professional is the world’s largest database of funding opportunities. This hands-on session, in a computer lab, will talk you through how to customise your account, to get only the most relevant funding opportunities delivered to you weekly. This includes refinement by award type (fellowship, large grant, travel grant), country of sponsor, start date, etc.

This is the only tool you need for finding funding and once you have customised your account – you need never hunt for funding again.

Book NOW for training on Monday 10th March 2014, 1-2pm, P233, Second Floor, Poole House, Talbot Campus. Facilitated by Emily Cieciura, RKE Support Officer, R&KEO

To secure a place, email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

Thinking about applying for one of the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls under Horizon 2020? Book now for training!

Training

Remember the Marie Curie calls under FP7? Well, they are new and improved under Horizon 2020 and have been renamed and revised…

Dr Martin Pickard, the trainer says: “The new Marie Skłodowska Curie schemes within Horizon 2020 have considerable relaxed rules enabling even greater opportunities for participation; from individual research fellowships to medium term collaboration exchange. Presenting Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie as a whole, the workshop also focuses on the opportunities for individual fellowships to highlight these opportunities and presents how to approach them to ensure a maximum chance of success (typically better than 1 in 3)”.

To learn more about the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls, please book NOW via staff development:

If you are already developing a Marie Skłodowska Curie proposal and would like a one-to-one Dr Martin Pickard after one of the information sessions, please contact Dianne Goodman.

Thinking about other EU schemes? To learn more about Horizon 2020 as a whole, please book NOW via staff development:

And don’t forget that BRAD offers a range of additional training opportunities which are very helpful to developing proposals for EU funding. These include:

Why not come along to all the available training sessions and boost your chances of being successfully funded by the European Union?

– See more at: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=28698&preview=true#sthash.6Y6XdPHK.dpuf

Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR) Refreshes Its Web Presence

Research themes

The Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR), a long-standing resource for research practice and postgraduate learning at BU, has recently undergone a ‘refit’ of its web pages.  Content from the old site has been moved over to the new platform for Bournemouth University groups and centres. The new format now makes it possible to link with work taking place in other Schools and research sites. In addition, Impact, Public Engagement and Postgraduate Research links feature on every page.

CQR is held in high esteem globally for its innovative work and commitment to qualitative research. The refreshed web pages provide an international ‘shop window’ for CQR, School of Health & Social Care and BU more generally in regards to cutting-edge qualitative work. CQR has always engaged across Schools at BU and welcomes new opportunities for collaborate efforts.

The new CQR pages include information, resources and links organised around the following areas of research:

In addition, areas such as Biographic Narrative Interpretive Research, Cut-up Technique and Appreciative Inquiry are covered. A new page outlining the ‘Gay and Pleasant Land? Project and Rufus Stone’ has been added. The recently organised, cross-Schools ARTS in RESEARCH (AiR) collaboration is also featured.

The new web pages include new information and resources, links to further information and even videos for viewing pleasure! Last but not least, a photo has been added as a ‘Featured Image’ highlighting the essence of each page.

Have a look around this interesting site!

ENABLE: Reflections on a Fieldtrip

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

A room with a view

We arrived fairly late in the evening. The roads were dark and seemed more windy and enclosed than during the daytime, and yet the bus driver, somewhat perversely, insisted on overtaking at speed on occluded bends whenever he possibly could!

The barrier to the ‘resort’ was shut when we arrived but our interpreter told the guard that we were indeed going to the Tasik Chini Resort – the only place one can go after passing through the gate. After deliberation, he let us proceed.

The receptionist indicated that tonight we had two rooms rather than the one room we had booked, having asked for two extra beds in the room for the children. One room had a twin bed and a mattress, and the other a single bed, but she said she would sort it all tomorrow. We paid in full after debating three or four times what the actual price was for the stay; a kind of mental gymnastics that pulls the mathematical body into contorted shapes only vaguely resembling the original anatomy from whence it came.

The rooms: interesting that the room with the twin beds and a ‘mattress’ was exactly that; no sheets or blankets just the mattress. The other room, however, looked more promising at first sight. There were in fact two beds there not one. OK, so the toilet ballcock was gone and water was constantly overflowing from the cistern onto the bathroom floor, but TWO beds!

So, we divided the children, given they didn’t want to sleep without an adult, sprayed the rooms with insecticide and prepared for the night. It was then that I (Jonathan) looked at the two beds and saw that whilst one was fine, the second was covered by dead, dying and some struggling ants and assorted insects; and the toilet was still dripping, resonant off the hollow dampness of Derbyshire’s Blue John mines! That bed couldn’t be slept in as I then preceded to spray it.

So, back to plan A with me (Sara) and one of the girls in the bed and one on the mattress. But, just a minute, there’s a mattress but no covers or pillow. No that’s not going to work so three in a bed it is, with some topping and tailing, and me back to the bed in the other room keeping the insects at bay and drowning the noise of the leaking cistern by air conditioning that’s making everything too cold and dry.

Fieldwork is, of course, meant to be a little uncomfortable and sometimes evocative of van Gennep’s ‘rite of passage’, a gaining of one’s socio-anthropological spurs! However, we are staying at what purports to be the premier resort for Tasik Chini. This is important because, until 2004 – (and here I (Jonathan) had to stop writing for a while to scratch that itch that turned out to be a troop of ants seeking solace in my bed) – in 2004 eco- and ethno-tourism (although somewhat contested) was seen as an important means of securing the economy of the area. It seems now, a decade on, that this resort finds anyone staying a rather irritating yet bizarre intrusion into a life that happily runs purposelessly for itself, except for weekend weddings, or as a place for the army cadets to stay and practice manoeuvres through the night. (Manoeuvres punctuated by eerie whistles, commands and shouts!) And, rather perversely, it seems that staff cannot get a single order right, no matter how small or precisely articulated it is: kopi ice O kosong (black iced coffee, without sugar) usually has milk and sugar in it; roti bakar (toast), if it comes at all, takes longer (much longer) than nasi goreng (fried rice)!

It also seems to evoke, more seriously, something that mimics the tragedy happening to the lake in bio-environmental terms and, from a human perspective, to the Orang Asli people living around the lake. It is an intrusion into the ill-thought plans of others or an encumbrance to manage that imposes rather than seeks dialogue!

And still the dripping cistern spits! (Should have consulted ‘Tripadvisor’ first http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/Hotel_Review-g298291-d2213723-Reviews-Lake_Chini_Resort-Pahang.html!)

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Funding Success Stories: Sport Academic Group Strengthens Dutch-German-British Collaboration

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, Fusion, PG research, Publishing

Dr Tim Breitbarth (Sport Academic Group) has been successful with his recent bid for Fusion/EU funding for teaching exchange visits to partner institutions in Groningen, The Netherlands, and Cologne.

At German Sport University Cologne Tim – who is also Programme Leader MSc Sport Management and Coordinator Internationalisation Sport at BU – will teach at their high-profile Masters in Sport Management over four days. The Masters attracts about 200 applications per year from within and outside Germany, but only 30 students are allowed into the course. The visit to Sport’s Erasmus partner institution Hanzehogeschool Groningen will include tutoring of international groups of students who participate in a multi-day management game.

Besides teaching commitments, the trips will help to move along joint research and publication projects with his European colleagues, such as editing the Special Issue on sport and social responsibility of Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society. In addition, they have been cooperating on conference and workshop organization and will once again co-lead a track at this year’s European Association for Sport Management conference.

Also, Tim and his BU colleagues were successful in securing internal funding for the first time in order to take the Sport Management and Sport Management Golf final year cohorts to a four-day intense international student management game in Cologne in late March, which he co-organises.

Hence, collaboration with, arguably, the world’s largest and renown sport university, has been in full swing with also two BU students on study exchange in Germany in semester 2 and PhD student Emma Mosley receiving training at their specialised Institute for Sport Psychology thanks to a Santander award.

Neuroscience@BU seminars next week, Wednesday the 12th and Friday the 14th

Research themes

Dear colleagues,
Next week we will have two thematic research seminars in neuroscience organized by Dr Julie Kirby and me.

-The first of the seminars of this series will take place next Wednesday the 12th of March, 15:00, P302 LT. The invited speaker is Dr Dimitris Pinotsis, http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=DPINO08.
Dr Pintosis obtained his PhD in September 2006 from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) of the University of Cambridge. After an EPRSC Research Fellowship and lectureship in Reading University he moved to UCL where he is working at the Welcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging ; having secured funding from EPSRC and the Wellcome Trust.
Dr Pinotsis has a strong track record and a number of landmark publications in imaging neuroscience modelling; he is also the author of the most advanced versions of the state-of the art models for neuroimaging data, the dynamic causal models. I am familiar with Dimitris work and I very strongly encourage the attendance to researchers both in machine learning and in cognitive psychology.
The title of his exciting talk is “Electrophysiological Data and the Biophysical Modelling of Local Cortical Circuits”. “Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) is a general framework that allows for a formal (Bayesian) analysis of the properties of neuronal populations, based upon realistic biophysical models. In the past few years, a wide variety of such models has been implemented in the DCM framework. In this talk, I will first review some of these recent advances and then focus on models that allow one to infer spatial parameters of cortical infrastructures generating electrophysiological signals (like the extent of lateral connections and the intrinsic conduction speed of signal propagation on the cortex). I will try to highlight the links between different models and address how the experimental hypothesis or question asked might inform the choice of an appropriate model”.

-The second seminar of this series will take place on Friday the 14th of March, at 14:00 in K101. Our guest is Prof. Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives, http://www.sanchez-vives.org/

Maria V. Victoria Sánchez-Vives, M.D., PhD in Neurosciences has been ICREA Research Professor at the IDIBAPS (Institut d’Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer) in Barcelona since 2008, where she is the head of the Systems Neuroscience group. She is currently co-director of the Event Lab (Experimental Virtual Envir onments in Neuroscience and Technology).
After obtaining her PhD at the University of Alicante in Spain, MVSV was postdoctoral fellow/research associate at Rockefeller University (1993-1994) and Yale University (1995-2000). She next established her own laboratory at the Neuroscience Institute of Alicante (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) while being Associate Professor of Physiology. Her independent research has been supported by national and international agencies. She has been funded by Human Frontier Science Program and has been partner in six European Projects. She is currently coordinator of the FET EU project CORTICONIC.
Her main interests include how neuronal and synaptic properties as well as connectivity determine the emergent activity generated by neuronal networks. The integration of the cortical information giving rise to bodily representation and the combination of brain-computer interfaces and virtual reality for understanding these processes is another research line of her group.
She is currently Chief Editor of Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience.
For information see www.sanchez-vives.org
Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives is a renowned neuroscientist which has published a number of highly influential papers in journals like e.g. Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS or Journal of Neuroscience. I strongly encourage not missing the opportunity to attend to this seminar and to discuss perhaps potential synergies.
The title of her talk will be “Emergent oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex”.
“Understanding complex systems like brain networks is a challenge. Cortical networks can perform computations of remarkable complexity, accounting for a large variety of behaviours and cognitive states. At the same time, the same networks can engage in stereotypical patterns of spatio-temporal activation, such as the ones that can be observed during sleep, anaesthesia and in cortical slice. Collective phenomena emerging from activity reverberation in cortical circuits at different spatio-temporal scales results in a rich variety of dynamical states. Slow (around or below 1 Hz) and fast (15-100 Hz) rhythms are spontaneously generated by the cortical network and propagate or synchronize populations across the cortex. This is the case even in isolated pieces of the cortical network, or in vitro maintained cortical slices, where both slow and fast oscillations are also spontaneously generated. The similarity between some of these patterns both in vivo and in vitro suggests that they are somehow a default activity from the cortical network. We understand that these emergent patterns provide information on the structure, dynamics and function of the underlying cortical network and their alterations in neurological diseases reveal the circuits dysfunction”.

If you would like to talk to the guests kindly let me know.
Best wishes, Emili

Emili Balaguer-Ballester, PhD
Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg

Wondering if you could access any of the €70b EU fund for research, but not sure where to start? Sign up NOW for training!

Training

As many readers of this blog will already know, 2014 has seen the start of a new era of EU funding through Horizon 2020, which totals a whopping €70.2 billion. BU has had some great success in receiving EU funding in recent years, so to learn more about how you could access this funding, sign up now for training.

Dr Martin Pickard, the trainer says: “The new Marie Skłodowska Curie schemes within Horizon 2020 have considerably relaxed rules enabling even greater opportunities for participation; from individual research fellowships to medium term collaboration exchange. Presenting Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie as a whole, the workshop also focuses on the opportunities for individual fellowships to highlight these opportunities and presents how to approach them to ensure a maximum chance of success (typically better than 1 in 3)”.

To learn more about the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls, please book NOW via staff development:

If you are already developing a Marie Skłodowska Curie proposal and would like a one-to-one Dr Martin Pickard after one of the information sessions, please contact Dianne Goodman.

If you want to learn more about Horizon 2020 as a whole, then come along to our our session on Horizon 2020 – The New Opportunities and How to Attack Them. Our trainer says: The new Horizon 2020 programme, which will fund over €10 Billion of research each year, has started.  Although, on the face of it, H2020 is similar to the previous Framework 7 programme there are, in fact, numerous significant and important differences. Understanding these differences will enable many increased opportunities and flexibility of approach to funding your research.  There are thus many opportunities. This preparatory workshop introduces H2020, in the context of its remit structure and highlights these exciting new opportunities to discuss the differences in approach and strategy required to present a competitive bid and ensure success.

To learn more, please book NOW via staff development:

And don’t forget that BRAD offers a range of additional training opportunities which are very helpful to developing proposals for EU funding. These include:

Why not come along to all the available training sessions and boost your chances of being successfully funded by the European Union?

ResearchGate Reviewed

Guidance, Publishing

Picture by bschwehn

Recently a number of researchers have been asking about ResearchGate and how it relates to BRIAN.  In November, Jill Evans from the University of Exeter posted a Review of ResearchGate on their blog, this was a comprehensive review which I would recommend reading. However, here are some of the pros, cons and recommendations tailored to BU.

ResearchGate is a networking site for researchers, particularly those engaged in broadly scientific research.

Pros

ResearchGate is free to join and currently has about 3 million users mainly in the sciences.  It offers the following benefits to researchers:

  • Sharing publications
  • Connecting with colleagues
  • Seeking new collaborations
  • Obtaining statistics and metrics on use of uploaded publications
  • Asking questions of researchers around the world that have the same set of interests
  • Job seeking or recruitment

ResearchGate incorporates many elements of familiar social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn such as creating profiles, liking and following researchers and their publications, ability to comment or send feedback and the ability to share news items and updates easily and quickly.

ResearchGate links researchers around selected topics and specialisations – these can be chosen or edited at any time by members.  Members can track and follow the research publications of others in their field.

Members can upload copies of papers (either pre- or post-review) and the associated raw data.  All will be searchable.  Non-peer-reviewed material can be added only through manual file upload.

Researchers are encouraged not only to upload successful results but also those results from failed projects or experiments – the latter are stored in a separate but searchable area.

ResearchGate finds publications for members from a number of major databases, for example, PubMed, arXiv, IEEE, RePEC and CiteSeer enabling automatic creation of a publications list.  Lists can also be created or added to manually or importing from a reference management database such as EndNote.  It also appears to trawl University web sites and repositories so that if you have papers in the Bournemouths repository, BURO, it is very easy to create profiles and publication lists.  Members will be asked to accept or decline publications (as is the case with BRIAN, for example).

Members are automatically subscribed to a co-author’s feed, so that they can see work from and connect with their co-authors’ co-authors.

ResearchGate offers the ability to search and filter on a variety of topics: author, institution, journal, publication, and so on.

Members can request a copy of a paper from the author if it is not freely available.

Full text publications uploaded to ResearchGate are indexed by Google.

ResearchGate contains useful information about journals, such as impact factors, metrics and some details of open access policy – in this respect it is useful for bringing information together into one place.

Cons

ResearchGate claims to have 3 million users but it is not clear how many of these are active accounts that are maintained and updated regularly.

A quick look of Bournemouth members shows that many profiles contain only a small number of publications and many appear not to have been updated for some time.

Some members have complained about unwanted email spamming.  To avoid receiving several emails a day, unwanted updates or followers, be sure to manage your Notifications and Privacy settings both of which can be accessed through Account Settings.

Many of the publications that are available through ResearchGate are actually uploaded illegally in terms of publisher open access policy.

Putting a copy of your paper on ResearchGate will not mean that you are compliant with funder policy.  On the contrary, you may be in breach of publisher policy.  You will still need to upload a copy of your paper to BURO via BRIAN if you are funded by any of the UK Research Councils, Leverhulme, NIHR and Horizon 2020.

Recommendations

The more effort you put into maintaining and regularly updating your profile, the more you will get out of ResearchGate.

ResearchGate is not a replacement for depositing a copy of your research in BURO.  It is recommended that you deposit the legal copy of your paper in BURO via BRIAN and then link to that on networking sites such as ResearchGate.

It is worth noting that when you upload your paper to BURO the Editors (BURO@bournemouth.ac.uk) will check for you that it is a legal copy and will be in touch if there is any reason why the item cannot be hosted in BURO.

The extent to which ResearchGate will be useful to individual researchers depends on the researcher’s aims.  If the aim is to promote work then ResearchGate alone will probably not suffice.  Consider using ResearchGate in conjunction with other sites such as Academia.edu, Mendeley, Google Scholar or figshare.  Activity and membership varies from one site to another and from one discipline to another, so researchers will need to investigate for themselves in order to evaluate potential value.

If you do use a variety of sites, this is where the advantage of having your paper in a single, freely available place, i.e., BURO, will come into play as you can simply link to the paper and know that anyone anywhere can get secure, long-term and free access.  There will be no need to undertake multiple publication upload.  Please note that all BURO repository content is indexed by Google and Google Scholar and typically appears at or near the top of search results.

The University of Utrecht has produced a very useful guide to increasing the visibility and impact of research and the use of metrics to track impact.  Although written for Utrecht researchers, there is a great deal of generic advice that can be applied to any discipline.

Enhancing research collaborations and PhD student training with Zhejiang University

Fusion

Supported by the University’s Fusion Investment Fund, Dr . Lihua You will pay a visit to the State Key Lab of CAD & CG, Zhejiang University, China.

Zhejiang University is the second largest university in China. It has become China no. 1 university in Chinese university ranking 2011 (http://edu.qq.com/a/20110505/000133.htm), 2012 (http://edu.qq.com/zt2011/2012dxph/), and 2013 (http://edu.sina.com.cn/gaokao/2012utop/).  The State Key Lab of CAD & CG at Zhejiang University is a world-leading research organization and most prestigious and largest research community in computer aided design and computer graphics in China. It is a unique state laboratory in the field established by Ministry of Science and Technology of China in 1989.  Prof. Jin is a leading researcher in the Lab. He has secured over 40 projects funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China etc. including 31 projects with him as a PI, co-authored three books, and published more than 160 papers including over 60 high quality papers in international journals such as ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH) and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Prof. Jin has previously collaborated with Prof. Jian J. Zhang and Dr. You. They have already completed a project jointly funded by the Royal Society and National Natural Science Foundation of China. Through completing the project, they have co-authored over 10 papers including some papers published in leading international journals.

The University’s Fusion Investment Fund will enable Dr You’s to visit Prof. Jin late 2014 and have half a month to work with Prof Jin on some funding application proposal, develop new partners for funding bids, identify various funding opportunities and new research topics, plan joint research activities, and discuss co-supervision of their PhD students.

 

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

The BBSRC Visualising Research competition for designers, graphic artists, software developers, programmers and anyone with an interest in data visualisation is now open. The purpose of this challenge is to develop visualisations of the Gateway to Research data that can be easily understood by the public. Displaying these data in an accessible way will also have benefits for a range of sectors, stakeholders including policy makers, other funding bodies and the media. A prize of £2,000 will be awared on 28/4/14. The closing date for application is 21/03/14.

The EPSRC‘s Centre for Power Electronics is pleased to announce an external call for proposals for funding to carry out Feasibility Studies which align or deliver to the Centre’s vision. Central to this call is the need for submissions to deliver to the vision of the Centre in supporting innovation in the UK power electronics sector. Up to £70,000 per project is available. The closing date is 15:00 on 10/04/14.

In addtion, the EPSRC are support Cross-Cutting Topic Projects (scroll down on page for this call). Up to £300,000 is avaialble per proejct. The closing date for this call is also 15:00 on 10/04/14. 

Through the EPSRC, the RCUK Energy Programme invites expressions of interest from those willing to attend a workshop in Oxford to develop Phase 3 of the UK-India civil nuclear research programmes. The EoI must be submiited by 04/04/14. The workshop is expected to take place 10/06/14 to 12/06/14.

The MOD’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) (part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)), seeks applications regarding Novel electro-optic infrared technology. There will  be a webinar for this competition on Thursday 6 March 2014. The closing date is 08/04/14.

The NERC  Standard Research Grants  is an open competition for curiosity-motivated basic, strategic or applied research in the environmental sciences. Proposals are assessed on their scientific excellence. A minimum of £65,000 to a maximum of £1.2m is awarded. The next round will close on 22/07/14.

Through NERC, the ESPA-2014 Grants call is for ‘blue skies’ research projects designed to significantly advance global understanding on the way that ecosystem services contribute to poverty alleviation, with specific emphasis on generating new understanding that can benefit poor people in low-income countries (LICs). Research funded under ESPA-2014 is expected to inform thinking and practice over, at least, the next decade, representing a step-change in the knowledge and evidence that will underpin future activities in ESPA’s sphere of activity. Awards of up to £150,000 are available. The closing date is 16:00 on 14/05/14.

 NERC is inviting applications to host workshops. One of the activities that helps integration and interaction across the Biodiveristy and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) projects and extends BESS science into the wider community is through NERC’s programme of workshops and working groups. BESS has internal funds for supporting this activity which can be applied for at any time. Up to £8,000 can be awarded for each workshop, which could include travel for up to two international participants.

The Wellcome Trust invites application from PhD student or junior fellows, funded through the Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities (MH) programme, to undertake a three-month fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). The Fellowship allows unique access to a parliamentary and policy-making setting, thereby facilitating the real-world application of policy relevant research in medical humanities. Applications should reach the Wellcome Trust by 22/11/014.

The Wellcome Trust has announced the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Fellowship in Society and Ethics. This scheme enables a Wellcome Trust-funded PhD student or junior fellow to undertake a three-month fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). If successful in applying, a fully funded three-month minimum extension to the PhD or fellowship award will be supported, and any maintenance grant will also be paid while based at POST. Travel and accommodation needs will also be considered. Closing date 02/04/14.

 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.

Upcoming event for staff and students: Simon Phelps ‘Starting & Growing a Business’

The Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to host a presentation by Simon Phelps a BU graduate and founder of Fluvial Innovation Ltd. Simon founded Fluvial Innovations Ltd alongside Bournemouth University in 2006. Fluvial Innovations Ltd designed, developed and patented the modular flood barrier – Floodstop.

Floodstop was specifically designed to fill a gap within the market for a functional and rapidly deployable flood barrier and is used throughout the UK, US and parts of Europe. Awards for Floodstop include Winner of Climate Week – Best Climate Ready Initiative 2013 and Emergency Planning Society’s Most Innovative Product of the Year 2009. To find out more about Floodstop or Fluvial please visit the website: www.fluvial-innovations.co.uk

Join us to hear more about Simon’s journey from being a Bournemouth University Student to running Fluvial Innovations as a growing and sustainable business. You will get a chance to hear about the steps Simon took along the way and find out about his up and downs on the road to success.

This event is for Bournemouth University Staff and Students only.

To book please visit: bit.ly/1lwiaFV