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19 September 2013

BUDI works for Internationalising Dementia Education and Research

By Mariela Gaete-Reyes

Thanks to the Fusion Investment Fund, SMN Strand Santander Scholarships 2012-13, I was able to visit Chile and Colombia as a BUDI ambassador this summer. The objective of the visits was to undertake collaborative work with two institutions and to develop networks with other institutions and academics in both countries to explore the possibilities of working collaboratively with them in the future.

In Santiago I did scoping interviews with 8 key actors working in dementia, which explored the social-economic and political situation of people living with dementia in Chile and their families. These interviews are the basis of a research grant proposal for a comparative study (underway), in which I worked with Dr Paulina Osorio at Universidad de Chile; she is an anthropologist with a PhD in Sociology. What was evident from the interviews was the absence of public policy relating to dementia in Chile, and consequently, the scarcity of state support. Although this can be expected in a country where there is not welfare state, it means that families have to arrange, do and/or pay for all the care. Connected to this is the prevalence of a medicalised view of dementia in Chile which is reflected, in part, in the lack of social research around dementia.

I visited Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, and had a meeting with Dr Patricio Fuentes. He is a consultant neurologist and has 20 years of experience working with people with dementia. Dr Fuentes is part of the medical and scientific advisory panel (MSAP) of Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI). In his role, he provides expert advice and acts as the Chilean ambassador for ADI. Dr Fuentes expressed his interest in working collaboratively with us in research.

I got in contact with Corporación Profesional Alzheimer y otras Demencias COPRAD. This is a multidisciplinary organisation constituted by professionals that seek to contribute to the preservation of mental health and the improvement of the quality of life for people living with Alzheimer and other types of dementia, and also their family carers. I had a meeting with the vice-president of this association, Andrea Slachevsky, who is a consultant neurologist and has a PhD in Neuroscience (Paris). Her interests are in public policy and she, together with the corporation and other actors, has been working to put forward a National plan for dementia, this is called: Plan Nacional de Enfermedad de Alzheimer y Otras Demencias.

I had two meetings with the director of Corporación Alzheimer Chile, Nubia Alvarado. This organisation was created by family members of people with dementia and they have several services for individuals with dementia and their families. This organisation subscribes to ADI. Nubia Alvarado also expressed interest in working with us. I also visited the Instituto Nacional de Geriatria, a geriatric hospital, and had a meeting with the Director of the Hospital, Dr. Juana Silva. They have different levels of care for older people: ambulatory, daytime hospitalisation (four hours), this service is provided when somebody needs to be seen by different specialists; the objective is preventing longer periods of hospitalisations; and hospitalisation. Instituto Nacional de Geriatría has a unit which focuses on training, research, dissemination and extension. When I visited they were about to start a course on dementia care. Dr. Juana Silva manifested her interest in working with BUDI.

Instituto Nacional de Geriatría. Photos: Courtesy Instituto Nacional de Geriatría.

There were at least three people who expressed interest in coming to BUDI as visiting scholars at some point. Jean Gajardo, OT, MSc in Social Gerontology, who is doing a PhD in Public Health at Universidad de Chile. Javier Nuñez, who is a GP and works in matters relating to Dementia, and Agnieszka Bozanic a neuropsychologist who has worked with individuals with dementia and their families. Carolina Perez who works at Instituto Nacional de Geriatría is thinking about undertaking a postgraduate course (MSc or PhD) and was interested in hearing what we could offer.

After being in Chile, I went to Colombia and met a colleague from BUDI, Ben Hicks, to undertake an academic exchange in collaboration with Universidad del Rosario. We had a four day activity programme in Bogota and Nocaima. Our activities in Bogota included giving lectures/presentations at the University and MEDERI hospital to medical and OT students about the work we do at BUDI and other dementia related themes. We also participated in discussion panels. We visited Hospital Universitario de Barrios Unidos to observe a session of the programme PERMEA (Programa de Estimulación y Rehabilitación de la Memoria y la Atención), for the stimulation and rehabilitation of the memory for people with dementia and other memory problems.

Mariela Gaete-Reyes giving a talk at Universidad del Rosario.

Ben Hicks giving a talk at Universidad del Rosario.

As part of our academic visit we went to Nocaima a rural community close to Bogota. In Nocaima we were introduced to the Healthy Municipality project and had the opportunity to interact with Semillas de Amor, a group of elderly people. We also visited a care home which depends on the church and on donations of the local community. The care home has 33 residents and only one carer and she manages to do all the care and take them to the GP when needed. Finally, we visited Universidad Nacional de Colombia and held a meeting with the Faculty of Nursing to explore collaborative work in ‘Care for carers’, which is a training programme offered to carers of people with chronic illnesses.

Hopefully from this visit we will be able to continue working in collaboration with the institutions we visited in Chile and Colombia in dementia research and education. So, many thanks again to the Santander Scholarship.

Institutions visited:

Santiago, Chile

Instituto Nacional de Geriatría.
Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Geriatric section.
Corporación Profesional Alzheimer y otras Demencias COPRAD.
Corporación Alzheimer Chile.
Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales.

Bogotá, Colombia

Universidad del Rosario, Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences) and Facultad de Jurisprudencia (Faculty of Law).
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de enfermería (Faculty of Nursing).

19 September 2013

10 innovative ways of getting involved with public engagement!

Public engagement eloring

1. Stand-up comedy?

Have you heard about ‘Bright Club’? The event where university lecturers and researchers come together to do stand-up? If not, please have a listen! Organising an academic stand-up comedy evening not only brings gut-busting laughter but it is also a fantastic way of getting involved with public engagement. Truth is that many members of the public may not think to spend their evening in a lecture, but they will be extremely tempted to head out to a local pub for a comedy night! For the researchers involved, it is a great way of two-way engagement, as the key to successful stand-up is interacting with your audience.

2. Café Scientifique – Why not run your own Café Club?

‘Café Scientifique’ is an event, which for the price of a drink anyone can learn about the latest ideas in science and technology. They take place all over the world, and in Bournemouth a monthly event organised by BU and AECC at Café Boscanova. Organising an event that occurs regularly will engage the public especially; as they will be intrigued as to what new knowledge you can bring to them. Perhaps you could think about your own type of regular café to run, such as a philosophy café?

3. Junk the Jargon

Organised by the University of Manchester, Junk the Jargon is a “competition, challenging early career researchers from all disciplines to communicate their research topic to a general audience in just 3 minutes”. Organising an event like this would be a fantastic opportunity to help researchers communicate their research to the members of the public in an interactive way and will build interest and curiosity. This competition asked researchers in 3 minutes to:

“Engage, inspire or challenge the audience”
“Communicate their research simply and directly”
“Share their research but avoid the jargon”
“Show why their research is important and relevant”

4. Re-create

This event ran by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in partnership with the Manchester Children’s University, Websters Primary School and North Hulme Adventure Playground (NHAP) was aimed to “engage children with the importance of recycling and raise awareness of environmental sustainability and promote community cohesion”. A community art exhibition was displayed made with unrecyclable materials.

Events like this or similar will not only help us to build relationships with the children of the community, but will help influence them and bring them to date with the important issues of today, which will in turn have an impact on their future lives.

5. Ten things you didn’t know about Ice-cream

As part of the University of Cambridge science festival, academics ran an event on ‘Ten things you didn’t know about ice-cream’ which explored the ten different scientific reasons as to why Ice-cream is the world’s coolest desert!

Are there ten things that you feel the public would find exiting about your research? If so, then this is definitely an innovative and imaginative way of getting your research across to the members of the general public!

6) Genetics: Blame your parents

Why do you look, act and behave the way you do? – Genetics, it’s your parents fault!

This exiting and interesting event organised as part of the Glasgow Science Festival is definitely one for inspiration! Your research can interest and fascinate so many members of the public; therefore it is crucial for you to present this in a way that is attractive and amusing.

7) Great Dinosaur Hunt

The Dinosaur Museum, Dorset regularly holds a great dinosaur hunt event, where children search for clues and hints to solve a dinosaur mystery. Holding an event similar to this is extremely engaging and gets the children more involved. For example those who have a research interest in the CSI area could perhaps hold an event for the younger generation (as well as the older) to teach them and allow them to get involved with solving mysteries.

8) Passport to the past

This event as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas this year will allow children to attend a drop-in session whereby they design their own “passport to the past before taking a journey round the ancient world to learn more about our casts?” Organising an event like this relevant to your research will not only be interactive and engaging, but it will be fun and memorable. The children whom you distribute your knowledge to will be equipped with this knowledge and remember this experience for the rest of their lives.

9) Perception

Perception is an interactive exhibition that is also being held at this year’s Cambridge Festival of Ideas. The exhibition will enable the members of the public to find out how illusions can fool their brain and how they perceive the world around them. Why not hold an exhibition that tests people’s perception of things?

10) Professor Hallux Alive!

This interesting and exciting event for children (7-11 years) will definitely be another one to look at for some inspiration! This performance will focus on Professor Hallux, who has been building a body. With the help from his assistant, Nurse Nanobot, “he must check through every component from the brain, heart and lungs to the eyeballs, nails and teeth to work out just what’s gone wrong”. The performance enables children to have the opportunity to meet characters from medicine’s past and present, which encourages them to get involved and understand a bit more about how the body works!

By getting more involved with your research and presenting it in a more creative and interactive way (like a performance) can help publicise your excellent research and also to target and attract a new audience.

A multi-media production is a participative and fun way to teach children those areas that are deemed to be “dull” and “boring” – and it is also great fun for the event holders too!

The NCCPE (National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement) website provides previous examples of successful public engagement events – perhaps you could use these to stimulate creative and imaginative public engagement ideas?

19 September 2013

Upgrading BRIAN on Monday 23rd September

Guidance David Biggins

BRIAN will be upgraded on Monday 23rd September. This upgrade beings a new look and feel to BRIAN with a vibrant red banner to emphasise the many changes and improvements.

This message is for information. There is nothing you need to do. All of the existing data will be transferred as part of the upgrade.

Please do not log into BRIAN on Monday 23rd. In preparation for the upgrade, please do not make any changes to the data in BRIAN after Sunday as doing so may mean your changes are lost.

There are some configuration changes to be made to add the grant component and research areas, and checks to be performed so please do not log into BRIAN until Tuesday 24th.

At the same time as we have been preparing for the BRIAN upgrade, we have been developing the new Staff Profile Page application. This will be a major improvement on what we have today. More on this next week once BRIAN has been updated.

19 September 2013

NERC Standard Research Grants (including New Investigator grants) deadlines announced!

Corrina Lailla Osborne

NERC have announced the deadlines for their competition targeting curiosity-motivated basic, strategic or applied research. The primary criterion for assessment is scientific excellence, with all applications subjected to an Initial Review stage that makes decisions on which proposals should proceed to external review. Moderating Panels meet annually in June and December to grade the applications and make recommendations for funding.

The minimum that can be requested per complete proposal and per component is £65,000 (100% Full Economic Cost) and the maximum for the complete proposal is £1·2 million (100% Full Economic Cost). A validation on the Je-S form will prevent proposals requesting less than £65,000 from being submitted.

For 2014 the actual January closing date will be 21 January at 4pm; don’t forget at BU you will need to submit 5 working days prior to this as it requires Institutional Submission through Je-S and as it is an RCUK funder, it will also need to undergo the RPRS. NERC does have demand management measures in place and therefore the assistance you will receive via this is critical.

You can find out more on the grants on the NERC webpage and don’t forget to let your RKE Operations Officer know if you intend on applying.

18 September 2013

The importance of keeping your job title up to date

Guidance David Biggins

It is important to maintain your job title because this information is used in your external profile page. If you have no job title in the system the external profile page will show ‘n/a’ which is not very helpful. There are 88 profiles that show ‘n/a’ as the job title.

If you do not currently have a job title, please take a moment to add one. If you have changed role recently, please ensure your job title is up to date.

Job titles are maintained using the facility on the intranet home page to ‘Update your contact details’. From here, you can open the Contact Details Editor screen. On the Contact Details Editor screen, the lowest field, ‘Title’, holds your job title. Add a job title or amend the existing entry if required and click on Update.

If you have any queries, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

PS. If your title (eg Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor etc) is incorrect, you will need to email HREnquiries@bournemouth.ac.uk to request a change.

18 September 2013

BU presents at first National Midwifery Conference in Nepal

Edwin van Teijlingen

Lesley Milne, senior lecturer in Midwifery at Bournemouth University, presented this weekend at the First National Midwifery Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal. She is part of a team studying why women in Nepal don’t use health services when giving birth in areas where such facilities are available. After her presentation Lesley (picture first right) was awarded a certificate and token in true Nepali style.

Lesley is currently in Nepal for fieldwork as part of the first International Fellowship for Midwives worth £20,000. Her study uses a mixed-methods approach which comprises observation and interviews with staff. The Fellowship has been awarded by the charity Wellbeing of Women, in association with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), for research into maternity services and women’s health from an international perspective.

The team consists of Prof. Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at BU, and BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Padam Simkhada based at ScHARR, the University of Sheffield.

A second paper with BU input was presented by Joy Kemp Global who is the RCM’s Professional Advisor (Global Midwifery Twinning Project). The presentation ‘A Feasibility Study of Professional Midwives in Nepal’ is based on a paper recently accepted for publication by the international journal Midwifery. This health policy planning paper is led by Swedish midwife Malin Bogren and in collaboration with Prof. Marie Berg (The Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

Professors Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health , HSC.

18 September 2013

All the Fun of the Science Fair, Bestival Science Tent 2013

Public engagement ncapell

A team from Bournemouth University have just returned from Bestival 2013 on the Isle of Wight. We joined colleagues from other universities including Southampton Solent, Southampton, Portsmouth, Keele & the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton in the Science Tent in the Tomorrow’s World Arena. Rebecca Edwards from the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office facilitated this opportunity by working with colleagues across the region to secure a spot in the famous Bestival science tent!

The BU stand was led by the aspireBU programme science outreach team. We took a variety of activities all themed around a traditional British fete.

Our hook-a-duck activity was especially popular; astounding festival goers with some quite interesting facts about alcohol & asking them to think about how many calories they were drinking (from both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks).

We also challenged people to test their reaction times with our splat the rat apparatus and the Stroop test. Our team was joined by Dr Sharon Doherty from the AECC testing people’s perceptions of vertical for the first two days of the Festival.

Our most popular activity, perhaps not surprisingly, was making soap! On the first day alone we made soap with over 500 festival goers. Participants learnt about the composition of soap molecules and how soap cleans away festival grime.

Our large selection of colours, fragrances, shapes (including campervans, tractors, ships, pac-man, space invaders, caterpillars, pigs, ducks & the ever popular dinosaurs) and glitter proved a huge hit with children, teenagers, students, adults & grandparents!

It’s estimated that over the four day festival the Science Tent had over 11,000 visitors! Special thanks to Southampton Solent University & Southampton University for inviting us to participate in the Bestival Science Tent.

The Bournemouth team was made up of BU Student Ambassadors Larissa Turney, Craig Carpenter & Emma Craig, Naomi Kay from R&KEO, Ben Thornes from ApSci and Naomi Capell from aspireBU programme and Dr Sharon Doherty from AECC.

Please note we do not have permission to use these photos for general publication.

If you are interested to taking your public engagement activity to a festival, of any kind, please contact Dr Rebecca Edwards in the Research and Knowledge Exchange office for further opportunities.

17 September 2013

On stage at Bestival

Corrina Lailla Osborne

Written by Josie Pegg

I love festivals; I’d love to have been a rock star, the only problem being that I have minimal musical talent. However I do know a lot about parasites, and this was enough to get me a gig at this year’s Bestival.

Though not quite as rock and roll as the main stage, I was speaking in the Bestiversity tent, in the Tomorrow World area of Bestival. My talk “The parasite saga – a tale of horror, love and mystery” was a fun pop-science look at parasites and how big a part they play in our lives. The Bestiversity tent was rather fabulous. My audience were able to lounge on sofas and giant beanbags, while my retro-styled stage comprised a comfortable armchair and PA system – I’m sure we’d get a few bonus points in the student satisfaction survey, if all lectures were like this. Furthermore I was handed a cold beer as I walked on stage – perhaps maybe something to consider to enhance staff satisfaction!

The experience was a nice break from my less rock-and-roll PhD life, where I am presently trying to write my transfer document concurrent to surviving the busiest period of my field season. Although my Bestival talk was designed to be fun and accessible to anyone it was essentially a version of one of the chapters of my PhD, so writing it proved to be a very useful exercise for me; as Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. It was also a gentle reminder that my PhD is actually really interesting and cool, and more than just a never-ending stream of tissue samples and spreadsheets.

Above all taking part in Bestival was simply a whole lot of fun – there aren’t many chances to use a powerpoint presentation containing slides of Santa, George Clooney and the alien chest-burster. And much to the fulfilment of my rockstar fantasy I was classed as an Artist so I got to walk around with an Artist wristband and travel on the Artist shuttle. Plus I could camp in the Artist campsite with hot showers and real flushing toilets! And I got two tickets so I was also able to enjoy the rest of the festival with my friends once my talk was over.

The best bit of the whole experience for me was late on Thursday night as my friends and I were dancing to some gypsy punk in the polka tent when I was approached by a stranger. “I saw your talk today”, she said, “I didn’t do science but that parasites can do all that is brilliant, thanks for telling me”.

Does that count as a fan? If so, could this have been my best moment ever?!

I’d encourage anyone to apply for next years Bestiversity. If you’d like to know more speak to your agent or Becca Edwards.

17 September 2013

BU establishes Food & Drink Research Group

Delicious links Edwin van Teijlingen

Early September saw the official launch of the recently formed Food & Drink Research Group (at Bournemouth University). This cross-university research group has current membership from all schools, while formally residing under the ‘Leisure, Recreation & Tourism’ theme (See: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/files/2012/10/BU-Research-Themes-information-060913.pdf). The Food & Drink Research Group focuses on a wide-range of food and drink issues ranging from consumers’ food choices to local food and drink production and distribution to healthy eating, to name. Group members have also studied the different meanings people attach to food and eating, for example among students in Dorset and pregnant women in Nepal.

Academics associated with the Food & Drink Research Group are involved with studies focusing on consumers, the hospitality industry, food producers, wholesalers, distributors and the retailing industry. In addition, members have researched food labelling, aspects of nutrition, health promotion and education. The research group aims to act as a hub to all food and drink research activity across the University. In the spirit of Fusion, the group is focusing on student consultancy projects, PhD research, and engagement with industry.

The next meeting of the Food & Drink Research group is scheduled for November 6^th at 10.30 in The Retreat at Talbot Campus.

Anybody member of staff interested in joining the group should contact Rhyannan Hurst (email: rhurst@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

17 September 2013

Fusion Funding: Linking level I & H through Design and Engineering Research

Fusion Nigel Garland

Background:

Through the BSc Design Engineering Level I Design Projects (DP) unit we aim to enhance student understanding of key theory through practical implementation. For their Level H Advanced Technology and Innovation (ATI) unit the students are expected to examine a technical area of engineering, develop their understanding and produce a research paper. This Fusion co-creation project aims to link these activities by implementing Level I DP solutions to solve Level H ATI research problems.

Context:

Level I BSc Design Engineering students were each asked to design a Fatigue Testing machine and, in order to this, they had to develop basic understanding of fatigue and fracture mechanics. These student solutions represent a wide range of designs but can essentially be condensed to two underlying technologies: Pneumatic actuation & Electric motor drive.

By providing the basic building blocks and adaptable elements students can create simple fatigue testing machines to support their ATI research through experience of research lab work yielding research output and practical understanding.

Progress:

The basic design of outline systems and a reference platform have been finalised and part orders generated. This represents specifying 135 component items including structural framework, mechanical drive systems, pneumatics, programmable logic controller (PLC), data acquisition (DAQ), load cell and amplifier, motor controller and motor gearbox unit etc. Hopefully these elements will begin arriving shortly and custom components can be produced in Tolpuddle House before the end of September.

Next step:

The next stage is to build up reference platforms in both Pneumatic and Mechanical configurations. Oh, and learn how to programme a PLC, DAQ software and a SCADA package, doh!

About us:

Dr Nigel Garland is the senior lecturer is Sustainable Design within the School of Design Engineering and Computing.

Dr Zulfiqar Khan is the Director of the Sustainable Design Research Centre.

16 September 2013

Interdisciplinary Seminars on Cyber Security

Shamal Faily

I am delighted to announce that we will shortly be launching a new interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security. Our invited speakers will give interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy. Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.

The seminars will take place at the Executive Business Centre on Tuesdays from around 5pm and will last for approximately an hour. The seminar series will also be an opportunity for like-minded folk to come together and build connections to start tackling the issues discussed. Therefore, after each seminar, we will convene at a nearby pub for more networking and discussion.

We will announce details of our first seminars soon. In the meantime, please get in touch if you have suggestions for possible seminar speakers and topics.

16 September 2013

BU goes to the British Science Festival 2013 in Newcastle

Fusion, Public engagement ncapell

The British Science Festival is one of the largest science festivals in Europe. This year the science outreach team at BU was in attendance! At the beginning of the year we bid for inclusion in the Young People’s Programme offering our My Community: Our Heritage workshops for key stage four pupils. Despite the competitive application process our bid was successful: we were asked to deliver two workshops for each day of the Young People’s Programme at the Festival.

The workshop is based on an archaeology research project called The Stonehenge Riverside Project. Bournemouth University took part in the research project and afterwards developed a virtual project within Google Earth called Seeing Beneath Stonehenge. This can be downloaded for free from the BU website and allows people to explore the virtual landscape of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. Find out more for yourself at:

http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/seeing-beneath-stonehenge/

During the workshop pupils learn about both research projects and have the opportunity to handle real archaeology artefacts. Then participants create their own virtual tour within Google Earth.

For the British Science Festival we taught the pupils to draw 3D models of Newcastle Castle Keep, import this into Google Earth and then create placemarks and video tours to other significant heritage sites in the area.

We had some great feedback from pupils and teachers alike:

Ian from St Bede’s Catholic Comprehensive School & Byron Sixth Form College said ‘It was AMAZING!’

Kitty from The Academy at Shotton said she enjoyed ‘ learning new facts about different landmarks’.

James from James Calvert Spence College said it was ‘fun, useful & educational’.

Our trip to Newcastle was funded by a Fusion application under the staff mobility strand. This enabled us to take a large team up to the Festival to ensure our workshops would run smoothly.

Our team was made up of:

-Second year Applied Geography students Gian-Luc Angiolini & Adam Scammell

-Recent graduate Kirsty Holloway from the School of Applied Sciences

-Outreach & Liaison placement student Leroy-Winston Scott

-STEM Outreach Officer, Naomi Capell

We attended several other sessions at the British Science Festival and met lots of friendly Newcastle University students. We even met Professor Brian Cox outside the Student Union!

The Young People’s Programme was attended by 6,800 pupils in addition to many parents & teachers. It was very exciting to be part of such an important festival and a huge honour to be invited for such a substantial period of time.

This term we intend to use our presence at the British Science Festival to promote our My Community: Our Heritage workshops to a wider range of target secondary schools in Dorset and the surrounding counties. Development of these workshops was initially funded by a Co-Creation and Co-Production Fusion award in Summer 2012. We also plan to deliver a conference for secondary school teachers based on the workshop next Spring.

16 September 2013

BU hosts the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust awards

PG research, Public engagement Vanora Hundley

Tricia Anderson

On Thursday 12^th September the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was host to the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust awards in the Executive Business Centre. Founded in 1983, the Trust supports midwives and student midwives to undertake further education and to carry out projects designed to improve the care of mothers and babies.

Professor Gail Thomas, Dean of HSC, opened the evening and welcomed guests to Bournemouth University (BU). She noted that the event was particularly poignant for midwives in CMMPH, as it marked the final year of the Tricia Anderson award made in the memory of Tricia Anderson, who was a midwife and lecturer at the university.

Alison Taylor

The evening featured presentations by Mary Stewart, who reflected on Tricia’s life and legacy, and updates from the five Tricia Anderson award winners who told the audience about the impact that their awards had made. Presenters included BU’s Alison Taylor, who received the first Tricia Anderson award in 2008. She presented a brief film showing how the award was helping to improve education and practice about breastfeeding.

Professor Lesley Page with award winner Grace Stanford

2013 award winners received their awards and certificates from Professor Lesley Page, President of the Royal College of Midwives. Winners came from the length and breadth of the UK. Among the twelve student and seven midwife award winners was BU student midwife Sean Hill who received funding for his elective placement at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Trustee Professor Billie Hunter and Professor Lesley Page announced a new award for 2014, the Jean Davis Award, which will be available for midwives working to address the impact of social inequalities on the well-being of pregnant women, new mothers and their babies.

Vanora Hundley, Professor of Midwifery at BU and Trustee, closed the event thanking all the presenters and award winners for a fascinating and inspiring evening.

16 September 2013

27 reasons why you should blog about your research

Public engagement nbaines

Check out this blog from Mark Carrigan, originally posted here

It helps you become more clear about your ideas.
It gives you practice at presenting your ideas for a non-specialist audience.
It increases your visibility within academia.
It increases your visibility outside academia and makes it much easier for journalists, campaigners and practitioners to find you.
It increases your visibility more than a static site and allows people who find you to get an overall sense of your academic interests.
It’s a great way of making connections & finding potential collaborators.
It can provide an archive of your thoughts, ideas and reactions which can later be incorporated into more formal work.
It makes it easier for people to find your published work and increases the likelihood they will read and cite it.
Its informality and immediate accessibility can help make writing part of your everyday life rather than being a source of stress and anxiety.
Its a great way to promote events and call for papers. Particularly if you blog regularly and your blog is connected to Twitter.
It helps ensure you can continue to develop strands of thought which, for now, don’t have any practical implications but might at some point in the future.
It encourages you to reflexively interrogate and organise your work, drawing out emergent themes and placing isolated snippets of commentary into shared categories.
It allows you to procrastinate for a further 10 to 20 minutes before going back to NVivo in a useful(ish) way.
It helps you build a community around your ideas and interests – Kath McNiff
It allows you to start a conversation that other researchers can join using comments – Kath McNiff
It’s a tremendous way to access additional relevant information/sources through the connections you make – @drdjwalker
It can also be a great way to increase your sample size by crowd sourcing contributions and through public scrutiny help prepare you for the peer review process when the time comes to publish your work – @drdjwalker
It’s a great way to get international and cross-disciplinary input and reflections on your research – @jess1ecat
It’s a fabulous way to give back to the research community by providing links and resources for other researchers, give and you shall receive – @jess1ecat
Reciprocity through blogging and Twitter shares builds your profile but importantly forges lasting connections to fellow researchers – @jess1ecat
It allows you to publish ideas immediately without waiting two years while things go through peer review and more peer review and wait in a publishing queue – @CelebYouthUK
It’s fun – @CelebYouthUK
It’s a faster way to get your research findings out. Journal/book publishing and the peer-review/editing process can take FOREVER – @ajlusc
Because C Wright Mills would have probably been a blogger. If not, he would at the very least have been a fan – @ajlusc
It is an exercise in disciplined writing. Stuff that doesn’t get used in the bigger thesis project, published papers, and the like, can be glossed for a blog and thrown out for ‘collision’ with others’ ideas. That’s how better ideas get formulated – Ibrar
It makes you a better writer – @drfigtree
It allows raw uncensored ideas to be creatively expressed before stymied by a prolonged peer review process – @DrBenKoh

Any suggestions for more reasons? Put them in the comments box and we’ll forward them to Mark. If you’re on Twitter please include your twitter handle.

16 September 2013

Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2014

Public engagement Sally Gates

The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2014 proposal deadline is fast approaching.

The event is a great opportunity to showcase your research to over 12,000 people throughout the exhibition week. Visitors include members of the public and school children, as well as opinion leaders, policy makers and potential funders for your research.

Interactive exhibitions that engage a wide range of visitors work particularly well. People love to experience the research first hand, or even participate in the research process.

More information on what is expected of exhibitors, the selection process and how to apply can be found on the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition website.

The proposal deadline is Monday 23 September 2013, with results announced in December 2013. The exhibition itself takes place 30 June – 6 July 2014.

If you would like to chat about putting together a proposal then do contact Rebecca Edwards or myself.

15 September 2013

Our next Cafe Scientifique: How nature calms your wired life, Tuesday 1st October, 7.30pm

Public engagement Becca Edwards

I am delighted to announce that Professor Sue Thomas will be our next Cafe Scientifique speaker with the intriguingly titled talk on: “How nature calms your wired life”. Sue will explore: why do we adorn our screens with pictures of forests, waterfalls, animals and beaches? Why are there so many nature metaphors in the language of the internet? She will then argue that the answer lies in biophilia, the innate human attraction to life and life-like processes. Sue Thomas believes that nature can soothe our connected minds and offer unexpected benefits – an improved attention span, a rested mind, and enhanced creativity. So there’s no need to choose between technology and well-being – we can have both! This talk is about the best way to make our digital lives integrated, healthy, and mindful.

Writing on own her blog, Sue reflects: I’m very pleased to be invited to speak at the first anniversary of the Bournemouth Cafe Scientifique. The event will also be part of the Arts-by-the-Sea Festival. It will be the third time I’ve talked at a Cafe Scientifique – I’ve also spoken in Nottingham and Leicester years ago – and I love the concept. If you’ve never been, check out their website – there may be one near you.

The event will take place on Tuesday 1st October at Cafe Boscanova. Doors open at 6.30pm with the talk starting at 7.30pm. As ever, we recommend getting there early to get a seat! There will be a full range of hot and cold drinks for sale, and a ‘special science menu’ – which normally consists of a meat or veggie choice of a delicious Boscanova favourite.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the Cafe Scientifique Bournemouth team. We look forward to welcoming you!

13 September 2013

Are you interested in and want to make a positive difference to people living with Dementia?

Training mobrien

Then you may wish to join BUDI who have invited Mr Ian Sherriff, a Trustee of the Alzheimer Society and Dementia Friends Champion. He will be delivering the Government directed Dementia Friends training to staff at BU on Tuesday 24 September at 1 to 2.30 in PG144. We have a few spaces available so if you are interested then please email mobrien@bournemouth.ac.uk to reserve your place.

13 September 2013

Find out about the Creative, Digital and Cognitive Science research theme

Research themes Julie Northam

As we start the new academic year, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the activities within this theme over the past 12 months and consider how the theme will develop in the future.

We held several meetings with mixed results. On the upside, we introduced ‘elevator pitches’ from staff who had ideas for funding applications/research papers and wanted to work collaboratively with other members of staff. This format worked extremely well with staff being able to cross-pollinate ideas, knowledge and skills in order to get some forward momentum in their projects.

We also held a number of these sessions with the Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth research theme. This proved to be a real winner and ensured that research themes were not seen as silos. On the downside, this theme stills lacks a certain amount of staff engagement to develop real critical mass.

In terms of developing this theme in the future, two opportunities stand out. Earlier this year BU signed a ‘Manifesto for our Creative and Digital Economy’ with local businesses and councils. The aim of this initiative is to enhance the creative and digital economy of Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset. We hope that staff working within this research theme will play a major role in helping to create a thriving international hub driving economic growth. Secondly, this theme has now incorporated the research centres of the School of Design, Engineering & Computing and hopes to integrate research into Design Simulation, Sustainable Design, and Smart technology to name but a few.

We will be running a number of research meetings during the coming academic year, so please come along and make your contribution to a thriving and societally import research theme.

Dr John Oliver

The Media School

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Our next Cafe Scientifique: How nature calms your wired life, Tuesday 1st October, 7.30pm

Are you interested in and want to make a positive difference to people living with Dementia?

Find out about the Creative, Digital and Cognitive Science research theme

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