/ Full archive

Have your say in shaping BU’s RKE strategy

As part of the delivery planning process in 2013, a draft institutional development plan for research and knowledge exchange (RKE) at BU was produced. The aim of the document was to set out a long-term plan for developing and supporting RKE activity to meet the objectives of the BU2018 strategy. The aim is to instigate the plan from early 2014.

The plan has been drafted and has been road tested with UET, URKEC and around 20 academics to date. We are now seeking views from the academic community on the plan as a whole and on specific elements of the plan. Your feedback, comments and ideas will feed into the final version which will be the blueprint for how RKE activity is supported and developed in the long-term.

Feedback and discussion will be facilitated online. Upon accessing the site you will be able to read the plan in its entirety and see the key elements on which we are seeking views and suggestions.

Click on one of the topics and you will be presented with a brief summary of what is being proposed as part of the institutional development plan. Beneath this text you will see the previous comments that have been left by colleagues. You are strongly encouraged to add a reply stating your own views and suggestions. This is especially important and will ensure that the academic community has shaped the support and development mechanism put in place. If you wish to feedback confidentially then please send your comments to Julie Northam.

The aim of this website is to provide a forum to facilitate the discussion of the plan as a whole and the identified key elements. Providing feedback works in the same way as adding a comment to the Research Blog, i.e. you can add a comment and this will be visible to all other viewers. The site is password protected and the password is only available to BU staff from the Staff Intranet.

This feedback exercise will run from 28 November until 10 January. A final version of the plan will be circulated to all staff in early 2014.

The site is password protected to ensure only BU staff are able to contribute.  To access the password please see the story on the Staff Intranet: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/news/news/thismonth/rkefeedbackneeded.php

Events Management students from School of Tourism visit high profile venues at London field visit

The end of the last term saw the first year Events Management students in School of Tourism on a field visit to two high profile event venues in London.  Tours of ExCeL London, including their new Phase II ICC London space were given to the students by: Martin Avard  (Senior Events Manager) and Tom Edwards (Events Manager).  Students also visited the Barbican Centre in the City and had tours and presentations from: Samme Allen (Barbican Head of Sales for Business Events); Nia Edwards (Business Events Executive) and Oliver Hargreaves (Business Development Manager of Business Events for Barbican).

The field visit helped to underpin the first year students’ understanding of the nature, significance, organisation and impact of the events industry in contemporary terms, and also from a national and international perspective.

The first stop being ExCeL London students were divided into two groups and given extensive walking tours of the ExCeL’s vast space, including sections of two of their 4500 square metre exhibition halls. Students heard about the diversity of events including major trade shows and exhibitions such as London Boat show and the World Travel market.  This included the challenges of the venue hosting seven different competitive events as part of the London 2012 Olympics including for example boxing, fencing and wrestling competitions. They also toured the new ICC London (International Convention Centre) space of the venue, where venue hire can be in the region of £20,000 per day.

Their tour guides shared with the students details of their own career paths in their respective events management fields, through to managing the largest exhibition and convention space in the UK.  First year Events Management student Megan Aitchison said of the ExCel tour: “ExCeL is such a dramatic building that even when approaching the building it has a exciting feel about it. The size of the venue instantly made me think that any sort of event would be able to be hosted here without limitations.  We were shown that the versatility of the size and selections of rooms assist ExCeL with many incredible events that they host”.

The second tour on the day at the Barbican began with a staff presentation to the events students in Cinema 1, with a capacity of 280 people.  The students learned about the range and diversity of events hosted at the Barbican from corporate product launches, official AGM’s, the concert hall home of the LSO along with the hard work involved in delivering high end events and performances to its diverse clientele.  The students also had back stage tours of the main concert hall where they were given talks and tours by the Barbican technical team and included insight into:  backstage, main stage and lighting, and acoustics of Concert Hall events.  First year student Davina Gilbert took the following away from her visit there “the Barbican as a venue space was my favourite; immediately I noticed its personal atmosphere and friendliness. The layout was creative and felt like a mini adventure! You could tell the staff were passionate about their jobs and really believed in the space they were showing. Having a venue space that feels comfortable, friendly, creative and professional certainly speaks volumes more than just large spaces and formal settings”.

This industry specific field visit helps the students to contextualise their learning further in their course, and is a complement to content delivered as part of lectures, seminars, guest speakers and case studies more widely.   Content from the field visit continues to be embedded in one unit and across others delivered at level C.

Celebrate your research – send us your photos!

We all know you’re out there doing fantastic research and we want to know about it – more specifically, we want proof through pictures!

One of the aims of this blog is to celebrate the incredible research that you’re doing, so send us some pictures of you ‘getting stuck in’ with your research projects – the crazier the better!

Do you want to see your picture scrolling across the slider at the top of the BU Research Blog homepage??  If so, send all pictures and a brief description to Julia Hastings Taylor.  It’s time to celebrate your research!

PG Researcher Development Workshops – January 2014

PG research

Welcome to 2014!  Don’t forget we have a full programme of PG Researcher Development workshops available to you throughout the coming academic year.  For the month of January, there are still places available on the following workshops:

  • Monday 13th January 2014 – Presentations Skills – only 3 places remaining
  • Tuesday 14th January 2014 – Peer Mentoring Training (For PGRs who wish to develop their skills further there will be the opportunity during the afternoon to explore the use of simple coaching models to structure practical learning conversations)
  • Wednesday 15th January 2014 – Introduction to SPSS (repeat workshop)
  • Monday 27th January 2014 – Managing working relationships (PGRs & Supervisors) with Dr Margaret Collins
  • Tuesday 28th January 2014 – Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

Full details (including information on how to book onto the workshops) can be found on myBU (Graduate School PGR Community).  If you have any problems accessing myBU, please email pgrskillsdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

28th January 2014

25th February 2014

25th March 2014

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

New Year’s Research Resolution #1 – Love your drafts, don’t delete them!

Publishing

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!

Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things, starting with today’s – Love your drafts, don’t delete them, add them to BRIAN!

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE’s consultation on open access and the post-2014 REF closed last week and, although the results are not due out until early this year, it is highly expected that most of the proposals will go ahead.  This is likely to result in significant changes to how research papers are published and the full-text is made freely available.

Key changes likely to happen are:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is likely to be applicable for outputs published from 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message for New Year’s Resolution #1 is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

 

 

Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Profile and Get Your Message to a Wider Audience

Training

Are you interesting in learning about Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Profile and Get Your Message to a Wider Audience?

This session will cover how you can use social media, such as  Twitter, Blogs, social citations, Facebook, and online networking to raise your academic profile. The benefits of doing so include raising your academic profile, finding collaborators, engaging the public with your research and creating pathways to impact.

  • Facilitated by: Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, School of Tourism
  • Aimed at: Academic staff
  • Friday 10th January, 2-4pm in PG22, Ground Floor, Poole House, Talbot Campus. To book a place, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

To learn more about how social media can be a powerful tool for academics, see this article by Kaisa Puutinen and Rosalind Edwards on Who gives a tweet? After 24 hours and 860 downloads, we think quite a few actually do

social media for the terrified

Latest major funding opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

 UK Funders:

  • The AHRC invites expressions of interest to attend a research development workshop addressing the challenges of Disconnection, Division and Exclusion, being held as a part of the cross-Council Connected Communities Programme on 18-20 March 2014 at the Novotel Sheffield Centre Hotel. This is part of the AHRC Connected Communities Programme. The deadline for applications to attend the workshop is 30/01/14.
  •  Action on Hearing Loss and BBSRC have issued a ‘highlight notice’ regarding Lifecourse of the Auditory System. Together they wish to encourage research that will increase our understanding of how the auditory system develops and ages and the processes that lead to age-related hearing loss. They also wish to encourage research that will apply this knowledge to prevent and treat hearing loss to ultimately improve quality of life. Applications are to be submitted by 31/01/14.
  • Network grants are available from the EPSRC to bring together researchers, industry and other groups to develop collaborations through workshops, visits and part-time coordinators. The grant award is not specified and there is no deadline given.
  • The EPSRC has a call for research that will support fundamental research in sensing and imaging targeted specifically at the diagnosis of Dementias and the quantitative measurement of disease progression. The total award is not specified. The closing date is 17/02/14
  • The EPSRC Engineering Theme wishes to develop collaborative projects between researchers from the UK and China in partnership with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in the area of ‘Sustainable Materials for Infrastructure’ under the following themes: Multi-functional materials; Energy efficient buildings; Novel concrete technologies and Materials 5R; Reduce, Recover, Reuse, Recycle and Retain. Registration closes 20/01/14 with proposals due by 19/02/14
  • Reflecting the aims of the National Cyber Security Programme, UK Government and its delivery partners are working to increase the UK’s academic capability in all fields of Cyber Security. Together BIS, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), EPSRC, GCHQ and the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) have developed a joint approach and strategy for reaching this goal. As part of that strategy EPSRC and CPNI are inviting proposals from academic researchers who wish to be part of the Research Institute in Trustworthy Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Submissions to Phase Two must be received by 13/02/14 (it is not a pre-requisite to have submitted to Phase One).
  • End Use Energy Demand (EUED) Research Centres is an RCUK / EPSRC Energy Programme call to encourage researchers who are not in the centres to work with the centres. The proposed research should be on a topic relevant to one or more of the EUED Centres. Two types of proposal are invited: Smaller Standard Research proposals (limited to £300k) for individuals at an early stage of their career to work with the DEMAND centre at Lancaster University and standard Research Proposals (limited to £600k) to work with the other EUED Centres. Expressions of Interest must be submitted by 06/02/14 with full invited proposals to be with the funder by 16/04/14.
  • The Research Seminars Competition 2013-2014, supported by the ESRC, is now open. Funding is available for UK research organisations to hold Research Seminars for groups of academic researchers, postgraduate students and non-academic users from different organisations. Seminar groups meet regularly to exchange information and ideas with the aim of advancing research within their fields. There is a maximum of £30,000 available and proposal must be submitted by 28/01/14.
  • Do you want to have an impact on the future of the UK? The ESRC are inviting full proposals from eligible research organisations across the UK to conduct a study of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. The maximum amount available is £312,500. The deadline for submissions is 06/02/14.
  • ESRC and DFID are pleased to invite applications for Evidence Synthesis Research Awards (ESRA) under the ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research. The five themes are: Research methods, Gender, Children and young people, Governance and Health. Awards are up to £30,000 and must be completed within six months of the start of the award. All awards will commence between 1 April and 1 June 2014. Applications are due on 28/01/14.
  • Biomedical Catalyst: Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) is a £180 million integrated translational funding programme jointly operated by the MRC and the Technology Strategy Board providing responsive and effective support for the best life science opportunities arising in the UK. There are various deadline dates in early 2014 depending on theme – please check website for details.
  • The Alexander Fleming dissemination scheme support the dissemination of MRC and Medical Research Foundation-funded research results beyond the scientific peer reviewed press, to patients, participants, practitioners and policy makers. Up to £30,000 is available and there is no given closing date.
  • The MRC are offering Programme Grants. These provide larger, longer term (five years) and renewable programme funding and aim to help the medical science community to ‘think bigger’ in the themes – Molecular and Cellular Medicine,Infections and Immunity, Population and Systems Medicine Board and Neurosciences and Mental Health. Applications are to be submitted in January 2014. Please check the website for details of each theme.
  • The MRC wishes to understand better the link between research and wider economic and societal impacts, and to use this understanding to improve strategies for the future support of research. As such, there is a call for studies which address all areas if impact, such as economic, societal, cultural, public policy or services, health, or quality of life. Applications must be submitted 27/03/14.
  • Do your research interests consider the impact of the harm caused by alcohol to drinking behaviours? MRC, ESRC and Alcohol Research UK wish to continue making key contributions to this field, in this case through providing authoritative evidence on the link between the specific harms caused directly by a distinct pattern, level and duration of alcohol drinking at key stages in the life-course. Work packages between £750,000 and £1.5m are expected. The closing date is 04/02/14.
  • The MRC and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) invite proposals to the UK-China Stem Cell Partnership Initiative from high quality research teams based in the UK and China. The initiative will provide funding for collaborative research projects, focussed on basic and preclinical research of relevance to the longer term development of stem cell based therapies for human disease and disorders. Up to £2m is available and the closing date is 07/05/14.
  • Natural Resources Wales with support from Welsh Government and the Technology Strategy Board (SBRI) are seeking innovative (Fenceless Fencing Solution) measures to control livestock access around watercourses and riparian zones to reduce the impact of agriculture. The small business research initiative (SBRI) process is being used to find innovative alternatives to traditional wood and wire fencing. Application submissions for Phase One are due on 06/01/14.
  • NERC’s Large Grants support adventurous, large-scale and complex research tackling big environmental science questions that cannot be addressed through other NERC funding opportunities. Grants are available between £1·2m and £3.7m, 100% (Full Economic Cost) with a duration of up to five years. Outline proposals are due by 20/03/14 and full proposals by 11/11/14.
  • Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative is a programme is for scientists who want to develop collaborative research consortia between scientists in sub-Saharan Africa and a research institution in the UK. The overall aim of the scheme is to strengthen the research capacity of universities and research institution in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting the development of sustainable research networks. Up to £1.243m is on offer. Applications are to be submitted by 09/04/14.
  • Have you written a science book which makes your field more accessible to public adult audiences? Then consider the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. The deadline to enter a book is Friday 28 February 2014.
  • The Technology Strategy Board is supporting, with an investment of up to £1.5m, feasibility studies to stimulate innovation in networked intelligent sensor systems, and new applications of them. Proposals must be collaborative and business-led. Applicants must register by 22/01/14 and submit by 29/01/14.
  • The Technology Strategy Board, together with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology are offering UK-China partnerships in sustainable manufacturing. Through this scheme there is investment of up to £3m in collaborative R&D projects that make manufacturing processes more sustainable. Applicants must register by 19/03/14 with the proposal to be submitted by 26/03/14.
  • Are you a postdoctoral scientist who has recently decided to recommence a scientific research career after a continuous break of at least two years? Then The Wellcome Trust may be able to help you with a Career Re-entry Fellowship. It gives such scientists the opportunity to return to high-quality research, with the potential to undertake refresher or further training and is particularly suitable for applicants wishing to return to research after a break for family commitments. Applications must be submitted by 08/05/14.
  • Through The Wellcome Trust, the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships provide a unique opportunity for the most promising newly qualified postdoctoral researchers to make an early start in developing their independent research careers, working in the best laboratories in the UK and overseas. Up to £250,000 is on offer. The Preliminary application deadline is 08/05/14 with the invited full application deadline being 18/07/14.
  • The Wellcome Trust’s Research Career Development Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Science provides an opportunity for postdoctoral scientists from across the remits of the Trust’s funding streams to become independent research scientists and undertake high-quality research in an eligible Republic of Ireland institution. Closing date 16/04/14.
  • The Sir Henry Dale Fellowships, offered via The Wellcome Trust is for outstanding postdoctoral scientists wishing to build their own UK-based independent research career addressing an important biomedical question. The closing date for this call is 16/04/14.
  • The Wellcome Trust is offeringPrincipal Research Fellowships.  This is the most prestigious of our personal awards and provides long-term support for researchers of international standing. Successful candidates will have an established track record in research at the highest level. This award is particularly suitable for exceptional senior research scientists currently based overseas who wish to work in the UK or ROI. There is no closing date given.
  • Biomedical Vacation Scholarships are offered by The Wellcome Trust. These awards provide promising undergraduates with hands-on experience of research during the summer vacation, with the aim of encouraging them to consider a career in research. Scholarship holders in the past have included students of biological sciences (including biology, sports science and pharmacy) and medics, vets, dentists and optometrists. Up to £1,520 is available and the call closes on 14/02/14.
  • Are you working at the edge of your discipline? The Wellcome Trust – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide four years’ support for recently qualified postdoctoral researchers to gain experience of research at the interfaces between biology/medicine and mathematics, engineering, computer, physical or chemical sciences. Closing date 07/07/14.
  • The Welsh Government is supporting research to enable nurses to spend 10% more time with patients in direct value adding care. This is an exciting opportunity for businesses and innovative organisations to work with BCU HB over the next 2/3 years to improve patient care, enabling staff to spend more time with their patients and also to support business to develop innovative technology which will be marketable for the future. This is an open competition and will be run in 2 phases, with businesses able to bid for development contracts of up to £40k in phase 1 (proof of concept) and up to £400k in phase 2 (demonstrator projects). There will be a Briefing Event /Supplier Day on 17/01/4 and submissions are due on 31/01/14.

 

European Funded Research:

  • The Second ERA-CAPS joint call has been pre-announced. In the UK, BBSRC will be the participating agency. For more information please refer to the ERA-CAPS website. The call is expected to be announced on 14/01/14.
  • The ERA-Net `Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research‘ (NEURON) has been established to coordinate the research efforts and funding programmes of European countries, Israel and Canada in the field of disease related neuroscience.The aim of the call is to facilitate multi-national, collaborative research projects that will address important questions relating to neuroinflammation. Closing date 19/03/14.
  • Under the ERA-NET MARTEC Consortium, there is a call for collaborative research projects in different areas of maritime technologies. Please refer to the call website for details of the MARTEC II Call priorities. The call will close on 20/04/14.
  • The principal objective of the ERA-NET BESTF call is to fund public-private projects that de-risk bioenergy technologies at demonstration scale and to encourage further private exploitation. Amongst other conditions, the project must be at an appropriate stage of development to deliver a pre-commercial demonstration during the timescale of the project. Closing date 10/02/14.

 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.

The next post on this topic is expected week commencing 06/01/14.

Finding Partners for Horizon 2020

Now that the calls for Horizon 2020 have been released, I have been asked by several people how to find partners to participate in the calls. I always recommend partnering with at least one person you already know, either through previous projects, publications or simply having met at a conference. The lifespan of a project can be many years and you need to be confident that your approach to work is complementary and that you feel you can trust your partners to deliver.

It’s not always possible to partner up with people you already know and below are some of the resources you can utilise to help for all subject areas:

  • National Contact Points – these figures are the main contacts who can provide guidance, practical information and assistance on all aspects of participation in Horizon 2020 including searching for partners. There is an NCP for each subject area and also one for Marie Curie Fellowships.
  • CORDIS Partner Service – one of the largest databases of partner profiles (self-registered profiles). It has a list of Partnership Requests and you can also launch your own.
  • UKRO– BU subscribes to the UKRO service which is a fantastic information resource and which can help you find partners.
  • Previously awarded bids: all proposals funded under FP7 are available to view on line and have the PI listed. Many people have found emailing the PI from a relevant project to outline their own area of expertise and request a collaboration, very successful.

There are also several subject specific searches, such as:

  • ICT Idealist Partner Search – the service includes advice on creating your profile by your local National Contact Point and there is a quality control of all the published data.
  • Net4Society – this features partner search requests in the socio-economic sciences and humanities
  • Nanosciences and nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production technologies Partner search – this lists those looking for partners and also allows you to launch a partner search
  • Fit for Health – this is a  quality checked database contains expertise profiles of researchers and SMEs acting in the Health / Life sciences sector. The service includes partner search activities advice on all aspects related to a research project, starting with help in first orientation and strategy development to proposal preparation, implementation, exploitation and promotion.
  • Innovative Medicines Initiative Partner Search  – the IMI supports collaborative research projects and builds networks of industrial and academic experts to boost pharmaceutical innovation and this site displays the partner searches which includes SMEs, large organizations and Universities.
  • Enterprise Europe Network Cooperation Opportunities Database – this site publishes an extensive number of innovation and technology profiles from international companies and research organisations to help identify suitable partners for bilateral business, innovation and technology cooperation.

Dr. Anna Feigenbaum Wins AAG Enrichment Grant

Awarded & submitted bids

The Association of American Geographers (AAG) has awarded an annual meeting grant to Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, lecturer in Media and Politics at the Media School. AAG Enrichment Funds “support participation of distinguished non-geographers in the annual meeting,” helping to promote cross-disciplinary knowledge exchange between geography and other fields of study. Dr. Feigenbaum will travel to Tampa, Florida in April 2014 to deliver a presentation on her Tear Gas project in preparation for her monograph on the subject due out with Verso in 2015. She will also participate in the ‘subconference’–a set of meetings within the meeting focused on collaboration and skill-sharing. As part of the ‘Professional and intellectual triage for emerging and early career scholars’ panel, Dr. Feigenbaum will offer guidance on moving through the first years of academia in these times of precarity and change in the HE sector.

Password? Not another one!

Publishing

The increasing volume of academic activity on the internet coupled with a growing obsession about privacy and data protection means for many academics a rapidly expanding number of online accounts and associated passwords. This is, of course, over and above our regular dose of accounts and passwords as citizens of the virtual world. The average adult in the UK must have at least 25 internet accounts, for the bank/building society, supermarkets, phone companies, social media, airlines, trains, insurance companies, eBay, the website of the parents’ council of your children’s school, your electricity provider, the council tax, etc.

I feel as an academic, the burden is even worse. Every single time another scientific journal invites me to review a paper it opens an on-line account for me. Every time I apply for a grant from a funding body to which I have not previously applied, I am required to set up an account with a new password. When you apply for 20-odd grants every year and review manuscripts for a similar number of different journals the number of accounts and passwords add up rapidly. Then there are the other accounts and passwords related to work for sites such as this BU Research Blog, BRIAN, Survey Monkey, for the university for whom you act as external examiner, for Drop Box, the British Library, ORCIC, ACADEMIA.EDU, ResearchGate, Researchfish, Linkedin, and the list goes on.

These last few months I was reminded how non user friendly some systems are. First, I received new secure email account for my part on a REF sub-panel. The account name chosen for me is different from what I would have chosen and what I am used to at Bournemouth University. The importance of confidentiality for the REF work is clear so my password has to be different from anything I use elsewhere. Secondly, a few weeks later I attempted to put my name done for the tri-annual conference of the International Congress of Midwifery in Prague next year. It turns out you cannot join the conference without opening an on-line account first. The account name was automatically chosen for me and so was the password. Unfortunately, both are impossible to remember, neither the account name nor the password (which was case sensitive) were ones I would have selected personally.

There is some hope as some journals allow you to choose your own account name and password. Elsevier has brought most of its journals into one account, with your own email as the account name and all with the same password. Similarly a group of English-language journals in Nepal called Nepal Journals OnLine (NepJOL) use one account name for all participating journals. For the rest of my account names and passwords I can only follow the advice given by Stephen Fry on an episode of QI: “Write it down somewhere on a piece of paper”. The underlying idea is that the people who try to steal your internet account details sit in a bedsit in London or Hong Kong and won’t come to your office or living room to steal a piece of paper with computer addresses. The people who try to break into your house or office are looking for objects with a street value, such as your TV, phone or laptop, they are generally not interested in a piece of paper with some scribbles on it.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Information Days for Horizon 2020 calls!

An information day organised by Defra, BBSRC, NERC and FSA is open for registration – places are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

The day is aimed at academic and business organisations interested in exploring funding opportunities in two key areas of the new European Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme – climate change and society & culture.

The event will feature presentations from the European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation on funding opportunities in the 2014 work programmes for the Societal Challenges; information on the opportunities available in other Horizon 2020 and European Research Area activities, including under the ‘Excellent Science’ and ‘Industrial Leadership’ Pillars; and a presentation by the Technology Strategy Board on European funding sources for business organisations (SME Instrument) and business-academia collaboration opportunities under Horizon 2020.

UK National Contact Points will be available on the day to provide advice and support for business and academic organisations on participation in Horizon 2020.  This event is also an excellent opportunity to network with others interested in EU collaborative projects.

The application form is here: Info Day registration. The deadline for registration is January 14, but as the places are allocated on a first come first served basis, I would submit asap!

Have your say in shaping BU’s RKE strategy

As part of the delivery planning process in 2013, a draft institutional development plan for research and knowledge exchange (RKE) at BU was produced. The aim of the document was to set out a long-term plan for developing and supporting RKE activity to meet the objectives of the BU2018 strategy. The aim is to instigate the plan from early 2014.

The plan has been drafted and has been road tested with UET, URKEC and around 20 academics to date. We are now seeking views from the academic community on the plan as a whole and on specific elements of the plan. Your feedback, comments and ideas will feed into the final version which will be the blueprint for how RKE activity is supported and developed in the long-term.

Feedback and discussion will be facilitated online. Upon accessing the site you will be able to read the plan in its entirety and see the key elements on which we are seeking views and suggestions.

Click on one of the topics and you will be presented with a brief summary of what is being proposed as part of the institutional development plan. Beneath this text you will see the previous comments that have been left by colleagues. You are strongly encouraged to add a reply stating your own views and suggestions. This is especially important and will ensure that the academic community has shaped the support and development mechanism put in place. If you wish to feedback confidentially then please send your comments to Julie Northam.

The aim of this website is to provide a forum to facilitate the discussion of the plan as a whole and the identified key elements. Providing feedback works in the same way as adding a comment to the Research Blog, i.e. you can add a comment and this will be visible to all other viewers. The site is password protected and the password is only available to BU staff from the Staff Intranet.

This feedback exercise will run from 28 November until 10 January. A final version of the plan will be circulated to all staff in early 2014.

The site is password protected to ensure only BU staff are able to contribute.  To access the password please see the story on the Staff Intranet: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/news/news/thismonth/rkefeedbackneeded.php

EC promotes Open Access as part of €15 billion Horizon 2020 fund

This week the European Commission outlined its support for Open Access (OA) as part of its Horizon 2020 fund launch.  Worth more than €15 billion over the first two years, the funding is intended to help boost Europe’s knowledge-driven economy, and tackle issues that will make a difference in people’s lives.

The Horizon 2020 model agreement (p.58, Section 29.2) requires researchers to ensure open access (free of charge, online access for any user) to all peer-reviewed scientific publications.  Researchers must either:-

  1. deposit an electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript in a repository e.g. BURO (Green OA)
  2. ensure open access — via the repository — to the bibliographic metadata that identifies the deposited publication on a publisher website (Gold OA)

There is also a useful Open Access Factsheet which summarises expectations for Green and Gold Open Access and suggests that there will be some kind of mechanism for paying some of the Article Processing Costs (APCs) incurred after the end of a grant.