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International Day of the Disappeared 2013

Dr Melanie Klinkner studies the use of forensic science for investigation and prosecution of atrocities such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Here she talks about the International Day of the Disappeared.

Today serves as a reminder of the number of people around the world who are missing as a result of armed conflicts. We remember the families who face a daily struggle to understand what has happened to their loved one.

Dr Melanie KlinknerEnforced disappearances have been and continue to be used by oppressive regimes in an attempt to dispose of political opponents secretly and to instil fear in the population. Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection for all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006) defines disappearances as ‘the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law’.

The Red Cross work tirelessly to reunite families where possible and organisations such as the International Commission on Missing Person support identification of bodies.

In the aftermath of conflict and gross human rights violations, there is an overwhelming need of the families is to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones and, where the worst has happened, to receive their human remains as an absolute proof of death and to facilitate burial and commemoration rituals.

This need is mirrored in international human rights and international humanitarian law development, which has advanced the recognition of victim rights of national or international crimes and human rights abuses. The Basic Principles encompass the need for victims and their families to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones and demands that the bodies of those disappeared are recovered, identified and buried.

Melanie works alongside Ian Hanson and Paul Cheetham in the School of Applied Sciences, who have developed standard operating procedures for forensic investigation of mass graves. These have been used internationally in judicial and humanitarian contexts, bringing those responsible for atrocity crimes to justice and providing much needed answers to families.

Read more about the Red Cross

Dr Melanie Klinkner’s profile

International Commission on Missing Persons

BFX Final Films 2013

BFX, Bournemouth’s excting new Visual Effects and Animation Festival, has finished after 6 weeks and a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  The 10 competing teams have finished their films – and they are awesome!

You can watch all of the films here: http://www.bfxfestival.com/bfx-final-films-2013/

There has been a great variety of work, completed in such a small period of time and with only 6-7 machines between them to work and render on – so their time keeping had to be spot on.  Most of these students haven’t even graduated yet.

Truly astonishing what they have managed to produce.

If you like what you see, leave a vote on Youtube; for a bit of fun we have a ‘ Best Film – Public Vote’ category.

Once again thanks to all the feedback and mentoring from lecturers at the NCCA, Arts University Bournemouth and artists from Framestore, Double-Negative, The Mill, MPC, Realise Studios, Hibbert Ralph Animation, Outpost VFX and Cinesite.

If your interested in making similar films, or how the creative industries work – check out our September Festival in Bournemouth 

The BFX Festival is organised by the VFX Hub, funded by BU’s HEIF grant.

Money, Money …. Money Makes the World go Around?

News from the PVC

Now even I know that this is a line from a song – we have established previously my lack of musical education I think?  According to Google it is a song in the musical Cabaret and perhaps made famous by Liza Minnelli?  Who knows, but the line chimes (forgive the pun) with a point raised by a colleague in a recent promotion forum I was chairing; why does everything revolve around money?

I have been reflecting on this, as I do about most things, and think it deserves a fuller answer.  The context was that in any senior promotion discussion the amount of money one brings in becomes relevant whether it’s through educational innovation or research and why should this be true?  Why should it be up there with for example producing written output or delivering top quality education?  We have Performance Indicators within BU2018 that focus on money.  For example, we aspire that by 2018: every academic should generate at least £18k of Research and Knowledge Exchange (RKE) income; every Professor should be associated with at least one and half post-docs; and that every academic should supervise at least one PGR student.  As a community we dedicated ourselves as part of BU2018 to maintaining a similar sized student body and to increasing the proportion of postgraduate students to around 40%, something that will require a lot of portfolio innovation.  Let us be honest, all these PI’s revolve around generating income and we all need to play a role in bringing the cash in, so in this context cash does matter and yes it does make our University World spin.

However there is a huge but here; it is not about the income itself but about what it allows you to do that matters.  Some of you will have heard me use the line about ‘being a time lord’ before but, however corny it might be, it is the real justification for why academics need to work together to generate RKE income.  As academics we are limited by time, it is the elephant in the room whenever we talk about work load planning, it stalks us daily in our working lives.  But the way to cheat the clock is to build a team; a team of research students, of post-doc’s or visiting academics.  If you build a team then you cease to be limited by the clock but by inspiration and imagination!  That is why RKE income matters, because it allows you to build that team, to live beyond the clock!  That is why we have income targets around RKE not for the sake of the cash itself.

It is the same with education.  Innovation around new courses, units and delivery models ultimately brings in more students especially in the deregulated parts of the market (e.g. ABB+, international, postgraduate and CPD).  That income allows us to recruit more academics, to invest in better estate and, therefore, a better experience for our staff and students. Check out https://www.ilisters.com/cyprus/property/for-sale/in-troodos for properties in Troodos.  So yes income does matter, but not for the sake of cash itself, but what that cash allows us to do.

By way of example, a few years back I ran a small consultancy operation out of BU in the field of contaminated land.  Not an area that particularly interests me but one in which I could generate income for BU, part of which was invested back into my research.  In fact that income helped finance my work in East Africa, leading to my footprint paper in Science, and ultimately to my current NERC grant which finishes this September.  The income I generated helped me to get promotion and more importantly fulfil one of my most cherished research ambitions.  So yes income does make our University World spin and we all have a role to play.  The Grants Academy is there to help you get started and the staff of the Research Development Unit are there to help, so why not help to make our World spin this coming year?

BU Professor published in 20th Anniversary edition of leading journal

Steve Letza, a Professor in Accounting and Finance within the Business School , has been honoured to feature in the 20th Anniversary issue of Corporate Governance: An International Review; a leading journal at the forefront of research in this area. This special edition consists of articles from the past decade that have had the highest number of citations per year, and thus have been widely used in academic research.

Steve co-authored the article Shareholding Versus Stakeholding: a Critical Review of Corporate Governance alongside Xiuping Sun and James Kirkbride in 2004 and it offers a new perspective on the subject; identifying the need for organisations to adapt to the changing environments they operate in. 

Congratulations Steve!

First Impressions

Guidance, News from the PVC

Let’s face it when BRIAN was launched last year the staff profile pages, which drew information from it and were written in something called VIVO, were less than satisfactory!  Lots of technical problems with the input data from BRIAN and its presentation was not up to BU’s normal standard.  You expressed your concerns in no uncertain terms and we have now put it right.  Working with academic colleagues IT and M&C have worked hard over the summer to construct a completely new interface, not in an obscure computer code but in something we can maintain and evolve easily ourselves.  They have done a brilliant piece of work, so BRIAN has a new set of external clothes and they rock!

After all, first impressions count and the staff pages are a crucial portal through which we present our academic achievements and expertise; and in reverse it is a lens for the world to view and search the wonderful talent that exists here at BU.  The new pages go live at the start of October 2013; they are finished and ready but there is an upgrade to BRIAN due in September which needs to be installed first.

 The improvements include:

 –       A more professional look and feel

–       The opportunity to showcase selected publications

–       Users can upload their own photo (via BRIAN)

–       Improved searching by name, keyword

–       Closer integration with the research themes

–       Fixing the technical problems we have experienced

Since we have developed this interface ourselves here at BU we can develop it further and continue to respond to your feedback.  The BRIAN team are managing the development of the replacement.  If you would like to know more about the project, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

 The staff profile pages will continue to use data drawn from BRIAN so please keep updating your content in BRIAN since a profile is only as good as the input!  There should be no impact on staff during the switch to the new pages, although there may be minor disruption to the availability of the profile pages during the transition.  Let me know what you think of the new pages?

Fusion Investment Fund Supported Exploration to Western China

Fusion

The project supported by BU fusion investment fund has enabled us to establish a strategic partnership between the National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University and the School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Engineering of China (UESTC). The UESTC is located in Chengdu, one of the largest cities in Western China. Such a relationship with a top ranked University in China benefits BU’s international strategy and boosts its influence to China, which is a fast growing market for international student recruitment.

The execution of the project has led to a range of successful networking activities including multi-disciplinary knowledge exchange and strategic meetings on the collaboration of two universities at different levels. Three bi-laterals visits took place: a group of UESTC delegates’ visit to BU led by Prof. Zhiguang Qin from China in January, 2013; Prof. Jian J. Zhang’s visit to UESTC in April, 2013; and Dr. Jian Chang’s visit to UESTC in May, 2013. During the visits, two research workshops were held at BU and UESTC respectively where new ideas were discussed on research collaboration and effective cross-disciplinary knowledge exchange, with focus on computer animation; distribute computing and social network computing.

The activities have been mapped to BU’s strategic international development, in particular to the development of long-term and self-sustainable relationships with universities in China. The initiated activities will further lead to multi-disciplinary research collaboration between both institutions and international student recruitment.

BU REF2014 preparations and BRIAN

Research assessment

The majority of the BU REF2014 Staff Selection was finalised last month, although the review of new and additional outputs is currently still on-going to maximise Bournemouth University’s REF2014 return.

Post BU REF2014 Staff Selection process, the BU REF Team are now currently working on gathering and collating all necessary information to be uploaded onto the external REF Submission System before the deadline of the 29 November 2013.

The University’s publications management system BRIAN is being used to help gather and collate relevant outputs data. If you notice that your REF2014 profile on BRIAN has changed, please don’t be alarmed – this is part of the process in getting all outputs data ready to be uploaded onto the REF Submission System.

If you would like to find out more about the current BU REF2014 progress, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at pengpeng.ooi@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

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

ESRC new award

Awarded & submitted bids

Congratulations to Jens Hölscher from the Business School for his ESRC Festival of Social Science project for ‘Finance for SMEs: The role of assessing credit risk’.

 This funding will contribute to a unique one-day event on 6th November 2013, organised by the Business School, which will bring together practitioners and academics in order to discuss the most pertinent issues of SMEs’ finance and credit risk with a view to setting a research agenda relevant to lenders and regulators.

 Following the recent and continuing credit squeeze, lending to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) remains at the top of the agenda for governments around the world. With various political and economic incentives introduced to support SMEs, it is important not to overlook the practicalities of credit risk assessment, as access to credit is contingent on meeting the risk standards of credit providers, especially in the environment of prudent lending.

 Participants will engage in debate and keynote speakers from academia, government agencies and industry will be invited. Social sciences and social science research will be promoted by drawing on leading researchers and through interaction of speakers and attendees, which will include breakout sessions related to sub-schemes such as micro finance, the role of regional funds and development agencies.

 

BUDI Goes To Colombia!!

Fusion

It was at the age of 23 when I first discovered South America. As an inexperienced backpacker fresh out of university, I decided to spend six months travelling around the continent. I grew my hair, bought some beads and away I went with nothing but a couple of t-shirts and a Lonely Planet guide. The culture, the openness and warmth of the people I met and the beauty of the environment was like nothing I had ever experienced before and it was at this point that I was bitten by the bug (thankfully not malaria). I vowed that by the age of 30 I would return to the continent. I have no idea why I placed this arbitrary figure on my return but it just felt right at the time.

Anyway, thanks to the Santander PGR grant I was able to realise this aspiration and in my 30thyear I spent two weeks over this July and August in Bogota, Colombia. A colleague and I from Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) were provided the opportunity to visit and work with the Universidad del Rosario. The Schedule was hectic and full-on and included four full days of lectures and discussions running from 7am to 5pm (Bogota has no seasons and so it is always light at 6am and always dark by 6pm whatever the time of year) arranged by our hosts Laura and Olga who were Occupational Therapist lecturers at the university. We were invited as expert speakers to enlighten, what is fair to say, a very medically minded audience of neuropsychologists, doctors and medical students on more sociological approaches to understanding dementia. Our lectures were warmly received by the audience and interesting discussions have already begun on how BUDI can work with the Universidad del Rosario to introduce more sociological approaches into their teaching schedules and collaborate on future research. This opportunity, as a relatively early career researcher, was nerve-racking yet enthralling and has certainly provided me with the confidence to present, discuss and defend my research in public arenas.

Outside the Local Government HQ with Joanna and Dr Alvaro Mayorga a neuropsychologist from the Universidad del Rosario

However this was not the highlight of the trip for me. This came in the second week when we were introduced to Dr Ricardo Alvarado who was to accompany us on our visit to Nocaima, a small remote settlement just outside of Bogota. As a relatively reserved English PhD student meeting a senior and well respected academic for the first time, I offered out my hand for the usual formalities only to find it being swept aside by Dr Alvarado and replaced by a huge embrace. At this point I remembered why I loved the Latin American people; there was no pretence with them. Dr Alvarado, was genuinely excited to see us. He had read about my PhD work, which involved working with rural communities of Dorset to set up activity groups for older people with dementia, and was keen to show us the work he was doing in Nocaima creating a healthy municipality.

During the winding three hour drive to Nocaima, and despite the fact that it was 6am, Dr Alvarado bounced around the minivan as he attempted to deliver a standing lecture about the work he had been doing with the rural community. He described the many problems which faced rural settlements in Colombia, as lack of jobs, income, and healthcare coupled with drug trafficking, armed conflict and acts of terrorism forced many people, particularly the young and more mobile, to head for the cities and never return. Consequently, this meant that rural communities were dying out and the populations of major cities, particularly Bogota, were rapidly increasing beyond control leaving many people living in cramped dilapidated housing on the fringes of the city. The ‘Healthy Municipality’ project aimed to develop strategies that promoted the commitment of citizens to individual and community health and in doing this it was hoped that it would encourage people to remain within the rural settlements. The project began in 2001 and since then a number of interventions have been implemented to address the needs of the Nocaima community including: employment generation; The Healthy and Useful Schools initiative; a comprehensive human development program and; a basic care plan support for the population. Dr Alvarado described in great depth the work they were doing to educate the young and working age population of Nocaima around health and well-being and to improve the services and development for the area. However until he was made aware of BUDI’s visit he had not considered introducing any initiatives for the elderly population. Despite this though, the elderly in the town had created their own group called ‘Semillas de Amor’ or ‘Seeds of love.’  All members of the group wore a white t-shirt and regularly met (some walking for over three hours each way) to participate in activities and to socialise at the back of one of the facilities that had been constructed as part of the Healthy and Useful Schools Initiative. Dr Alvarado was aware that dementia may be a concern for some of this population, yet as is the case all over the world, stigma and ill-informed perceptions of the condition presented a huge barrier in the society. Although he had recently begun some preliminary work testing for dementia throughout this population, he was keen ‘to pick our brains’ on ways he could work with the community to break down these barriers and to promote the well-being of the elderly population using more sociological and holistic approaches.  

Dr Alvarado providing us with a more sedate lecture on the work of the Healthy Municipality

As soon as we arrived and stepped off the van we were greeted by two members of the ‘Semillas de Amor’ who placed a bag of Clementines into our hands as a welcoming gift and took us to meet the rest of the group. Around 40 elderly people sat outside playing games, drinking tinto (black coffee) and eating cake. Using a mixture of pigeon Spanish and exaggerated hand gestures, I introduced myself and was warmly received by everyone there. Following a half hour meeting with the group, where I was encouraged to continually stand up and speak in an English accent to the amusement of everyone, we were taken to meet Joanna, a senior member of the local authority. She fully embraced Dr Alvarado’s work and had collaborated closely with him to implement many of the strategies in Nocaima. She was keen to show us the town and the care home where a number of elderly people, some with obvious signs of mental ill health, had been abandoned by their families when they migrated to the cities.

The care home was clean and the residents clearly well looked after which was astounding when I was introduced to the one and only carer working in the home. She was responsible for washing and dressing the 33 residents everyday, addressing any medical concerns they had and then working with the chef (the only other employee in the care home) to prepare the meals. It was an arduous task for this one woman, particularly when one of the residents needed to visit the hospital meaning that the chef was left solely in charge of the other 32 residents. At BUDI we continually promote person-centred care approaches, to understand the person and give time and consideration to their care needs, but the situation I was faced with in the care home put everything into stark reality. The care home existed on small funding pots and donations from the community alone. There was no way that additional carers could be employed and so this one woman was left to do everything on her own. Despite this though, she had developed close relationships with the residents, understood what made them ‘tick’ and went out of her way to address all of their care requirements. For this she truly deserves a medal. In fact Joanna described her as half way to heaven already and I had to agree!

However, what really struck me during my visit to Nocaima was the sense of community and the strong bond between the generations of people. People within the community looked out for others in the community as well as those in the care home. When working with rural populations, the informal support and networks that have developed over years of people living together are invaluable when implementing dementia care strategies. Of course they have the potential to be destructive to a person’s well-being if stigma surrounding dementia is prevalent and continually perpetuated but if these communities can come to see dementia in a different light, through initiatives that attempt to raise awareness and understanding of the condition, then they can offer huge support to these people and the benefits can be enormous.

My first trip to Nocaima and my first meeting with Dr Alvarado is something that I will never forget. I am excited about the future work that I can embark on with the community and Dr Alvarado and even on the drive back I was thinking about my first book-setting up Colombia’s first Dementia Friendly Municipality! Still, for now my feet are having to remain firmly grounded as I undertake the ‘small’ task of finishing my PhD. Gracias Nocaima y hasta pronto!

Still rocking the beads (old habits die hard) with one of the care home residents

Congratulations and Good Luck

News from the PVC

July saw a low level of activity for bids being submitted but we did have more awarded with congratulations due to Schools for winning research grants, consultancy contracts and organising Short Courses.

For Applied Science, congratulations are due to Jonathan Monteith for his four consultancies with North Mead Farm, Merryfield Park Partnership, New Forest National Park Authority and Balfour Beatty Construction, to Kathy Hodder for her consultancy with Fieldwork Ecological Services Ltd, and to Holger Schutkowski for his consultancy with Cellmark Forensic Services.  Good luck to Jonathan Monteith for his consultancy with WPA Consultants, to Adrian Pinder for his consultancy with the Forestry Commission, to Richard Stafford and Roger Herbert for their application to NERC in connection with marine ecosystems, and to Adrian Newton for his application to DfID regarding livelihood and biodiversity benefits from forest transitions in Mesoamerica.

For the Business School, congratulations to Jens Holscher for his ESRC Festival of Social Science project for ‘Finance for Small Firms’.

Good luck to DEC, for Venky Dubey’s application to NIHR researching patient specific advanced epidural simulator to improve patient safety, to Katherine Appleton for her application to NIHR for a pilot study to test implementation of a food-based rewards intervention in secondary schools, and to Sarah Bate for her application to the British Psychology Society to launch the Face Blindness awareness campaign.

For HSC, congratulations are due to Les Todres and Caroline Ellis-Hill for their contract with the Burdett Trust for Nursing, to Keith Brown for his consultancy with Skills for Care, to Grants Academy member Vanora Hundley for her two matched funded PhD contracts and her contract ‘Every reason to SMiLE’ all with Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, to Anthea Innes for her two matched funded PhD contracts with Hamble Heights and Guild Care, and to Sarah Hean, also a Grants Academy member, for her matched funded PhD contract with Legal and General.  Good luck to Sarah Hean for her contract to the British Council, and to Keith Brown for his contract to Mouchel Management Consulting Ltd.

Congratulations to the Media School for Rebecca Jenkins and Mike Molesworth for their consultancy with Work Research Ltd, to Anthony Minto and Peter Truckel for their consultancy with iHeed Institute, and to Grants Academy member Carrie Hodges for her ESRC project ‘Seen but seldom heard, which is together with Wendy Cutts and Lee-Ann Fenge from HSC.  Good luck to Chris Pullen for his Leverhulme application for an interactive Ebook on diversity and family, and to Tom Watson for his contract to the British Council.

For School of Tourism, congratulations to Lisa Stuchberry, Stephen Calver, Anya Chapman, Nicky Pretty and Lauren Thom for their consultancy with Marketing Blackpool, to Dimitrios Buhalis, Philip alford and Alessandro Inversini for their ESRC Festival of Social Science project, Richard Gordon for his short course with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and to Lisa Stuchberry, Jon Hibbert and Lauren Thom for their contract with Christchurch Borough Council to carry out a residents survey.  Good luck to Dimitrios Buhalis and Alessandro Inversini, who is a Grants Academy member, for their application to European Commission.

Best wishes

Matthew

On My To Do List

Do you have an ever growing list of things that you need to do?  Do you keep it written down or like me swirling in your head?  In truth, I have in recent years had to resort to using a list of actions that sits alongside my email and have various jotted notes as well.  Anyway my point is?

 My point is that sitting at the top of my ‘to do’ list this week is to complete the mandatory ethics module for all researchers at BU [Research Ethics].  The clock is ticking and this needs to be completed by the end of September by all academic staff.  This includes all BU employees who supervise students on dissertations/thesis, part-time hourly lecturers who supervise students, academic staff who are not research active and demonstrators/technical staff who assist with dissertation supervision; everyone in fact!  It is also mandatory for all new starters and PGR students.  So why, I hear you ask?

 We all face ethical questions within our research, even those like me that like to work on inanimate rocks!  Should one collect a rock sample, pocket that fossil and what are the implications of doing so?  Ethics impacts on all research and understanding the basic issues and when formal approval is needed and when it is not, is vital for all researchers.  Our Ethics Policy and procedures are still relatively new which reflects our institutional history and the fact that we don’t have a large medical faculty.  However, most of our research does involve people and ethics can’t be ignored.  A year ago we tightened up our procedures around ethics, introducing the online ethics checklist, and are currently revising our ethics codes with the intention of making further changes to procedures this autumn.  This reflects a growing institutional maturity and also, disturbingly for me, a growing body of case law. 

Raising institutional awareness of ethics is therefore both timely and, in my experience over this last year, much needed.  Completing the course ‘Ethics 1: Good Research Practice’ and passing the online test is mandatory for all staff including myself!  There is also a second module ‘Ethics 2: Working with Human Subjects’ that is recommended for those working with human participants (directly or indirectly) in research projects.  You gain access to the modules by logging in to myBU and clicking on ‘Research Ethics’ under the ‘My Communities’ tab. 

I would encourage you all to complete the module, since the draconian bit – yes sorry – is that staff who don’t complete the training will be excluded from applying for BU funding (e.g., Fusion Investment Funding and BU Studentships) and participating on BU development schemes.  So I had better stop writing and get on with doing the module!

 

Dr Tim Breitbarth and a final year Sports Management student win best paper at the Academy of Marketing Conference 2013

Dr Tim Breitbarth and a final year Sports Management student win best paper at the Academy of Marketing Conference 2013

Back in early July Dr Tim Breitbarth attended the Academy of Marketing Conference 2013 hosted by the University of South Wales in Cardiff.

Tim presented the paper “Downstream indirect reciprocity: explaining and measuring consumer reactions to sport clubs’ corporate social responsibility activities” which was co-authored by himself, Dr Stefan Walzel, German Sport University, Cologne and John Bryson, final year Bournemouth University Sports Management student.

The paper won the Best Paper in the Sports Marketing track at the conference. The award was sponsored by Emerald.

The paper presented by Tim forms part of an on-going research project. The international project team for the research, led by Stefan has also just been awarded £15,000 from the prestigious UEFA Research Grant.

Congratulations to Tim, Stefan and John on this achievement.