/ Full archive

Upgrading BRIAN

Guidance

In line with our commitment to provide applications that meet users’ and the University’s needs, we will be upgrading BRIAN next month.

The upgrade is scheduled for 23rd September 13.  The upgrade contains a number of improvements.  These include:

–       New, more intuitive look and feel

–       Users can upload their own photos

Importantly for the University, the upgrade includes enhancements that are required for the REF submission due in November.

The upgrade of BRIAN is linked to a new version of the external staff profile pages.  More information on this will be available shortly.

The BRIAN team are managing the upgrade.  If you would like to know more, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

We will keep you posted on the upgrade and how it impacts users in the coming weeks.

Latest BU REF Highlight Report now available

Research assessment

The latest BU REF Highlight Report (#15) is now available for BU staff to download. It covers the period from February 2013 to August 2013.

Features in this report include information about:

  • the Spring 2013 Full Mock Exercise
  • the processes involved in the provisional staff selection for inclusion in the BU REF2014 assessment;
  • Impact assessment panel
  • UOA merger decision
  • the REF Submission system
  • Links to the latest official REF documents.

You can access your copy of the report from the following location on the I-drive (just copy and paste the following into Windows Explorer): I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\REF\REF preparations\REF highlight reports.

1 Oct is just around the corner – don’t forget to complete the research ethics e-module!

Research Ethics

The research ethics e-module is available on myBU for all academic staff and for those who supervise students. If you are a PGR and you would like early access to the e-module, please email Julia Hastings Taylor. Please note that the preferred browser to view the course/quiz is either Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

Why are research ethics important?

It is important to conduct research in line with ethical standards for a number of reasons:

• In order to respect and cause no harm to the participants
• As a sign of respect for other researchers and those who will use the research
• It is a professional requirement particularly in some disciplines and failure to do so may result in disciplinary procedures.
• It is a requirement to obtain funding.
• Failing to conduct research ethically could be embarrassing or result in research (or the researcher) being dismissed or rejected by the research community.
• Research involving human beings, including using questionnaires and focus groups, must be passed by an Ethics Committee whose job it is to confirm that the research conforms to a set of ethical guidelines.

If ethics are considered, this should make sure that the work is acceptable to the research community and other users of the research results.

BU researcher in most-cited lists of world’s top two journalism journals

Media School scholar, Dr An Nguyen, has been featured among the most-cited authors in both of the world’s top journals in journalism studies, according to the latest data from Google Scholar Metrics. 

 Dr Nguyen has two sole-authored articles — both on the diffusion and impact of of online news — that are among the most cited papers of Journalism Studies and  Journalism, the only two journalism journals in Google Scholar’s top 20 communication journals.

 Google Scholar Metrics, which aims to help scholars to assess the visibility of journals and to consider where to publish, ranks journals according to their recent citations. The 2013 data were based on citations during the five full years between 2008 and 2012. 

 They cover eight broad areas of research: Business, Economics & Management; Chemical & Material Sciences, Engineering & Computing Science; Health & Medical Sciences; Humanities, Literature and Arts; Life Sciences and Earth Sciences; Physics & Mathematics; and Social Sciences. Each broad area is divided into a good number of sub-categories, each featured with its top 20 journals. 

 Journalism Studies and Journalism ranks 6th and 16th in the sub-category of Communication Studies. The former also stands at 12th in the broad field of Humanities, Literature & Arts. 

 An Nguyen joined BU in 2011 from the University of Sussex, where he headed its journalism programmes. His main research interests include online journalism, news audiences and citizenship,  science journalism, and the globalisation of news. 

 For further information on Google Scholar Metrics, visit http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/metrics.html.

Enabling access to UK HE research equipment

Guidance

What is equipment.data?

The development of equipment.data is funded by EPSRC in response to the need to improve visibility and utilisation of UK HE research equipment.

equipment.data has been established to provide a ‘shop window’ for all UK HE research equipment, supporting the need for greater accessibility and efficiency in the sector. So, if your research requires a mass spectrometer, rather than request funding for a new one, you can search the equipment.data database for a university near to you that has one and discuss options for its use.  This has the ultimate aim of fostering further research collaboration.

The database harvests published equipment datasets from institutions that have agreed to share their equipment data (under an open publishing license). It currently displays over 2500 items, both facilities and equipment, from 10 institutions, which includes BU.

A very easy to follow guide has been produced on how to use the equipment.data.ac.uk website. This provides simple steps on both accessing and contributing to the equipment and facilities database.

OK, how do I contribute?

If you want to add equipment to the database, please contact your DDRE in the first instance.  They will advise on what format needs to be used so that you can provide the information in order for it to be uploaded centrally.

Commitment to the future

By adopting a linked open data approach to data management and publishing, it is creating an infrastructure enabling greater opportunities for added value data aggregations in the future.

Developments are being shared with RCUK’s Gateway to Research team and the DCC with a view to exploring mutual benefits of data publishing, aggregation and standardising of publishing profiles in data management planning. Harmonised standards in open data will present many wider benefits moving forward, including the ability to very easily link information on large equipment items or facilities to their publications and grant details – think measuring impact for REF! It enables the creation of data rich informative web pages or informative apps without the need to create whole new datasets.

Following the signing of the Open Data Charter on 18 June 2013 by G8 leaders, members identified 14 high-value areas, including education, from which they will release data. With this commitment to open data there is a greater need to consider open publication of datasets and how best to publish in a way that will enable value to be achieved from it.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

  • BBSRC have announced their Japan Partnering Awards. Maximum funding up to £50,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • BBSRC have also announced their Brazil Partnering Awards. Maximum award £100,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • BBSRC are supporting India Partnering Awards up to £25,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • US Partnering Awards are also available from BBSRC. Maximum grant up to £50,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • To stimulate joint working in topics important to BBSRC’s strategy, applications are invited for its international workshops scheme. Maximum award £10,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • The British Academy intends, through their scheme of Mid-Career Fellowships, both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences. Awards up to £160,000. Closing date: 18/09/13
  • The MRC and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine invite applications from West Africans and European Union nationals only for three prestigious global health research fellowships. Closing date: 09/10/13
  • NERC is inviting research proposals to its International Opportunities Fund (IOF). Up to £50,000 is available. Closing date: 17/10/13
  • NERC is providing funding for small pilot/development in the use of the very latest, class-leading technologies via their 2013-14 Pilot Project Grants Competition. Maximum grant £6,000. Closing date: 27/09/13
  • NERC invites expressions of interest for its Technology Proof of Concept programme with grants of up to £150,000 available. Closing date for EoIs: 16/09/13 and full proposal closing date: 03/10/13

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.

Capturing a yawn: initial observations – Dr Simon Thompson

Fusion, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research themes

Yawning presents scientists and clinicians with an intriguing phenomenon. There is continued uncertainty over its neuroanatomical origin, the neuro-chemicals involved, mechanisms involved, and its reasons of functionality. Apart from being able to visually (and aurally) observe a person yawning, it has been difficult to quantify until now.

Researchers suggest that yawning may play an important role in the protection of our immune system, by regulating hormones, and particular reflexes, when we are exposed to psychological or physical stress or fatigue (Thompson, & Zisa, 2012).

The stress hormone, cortisol may be a part of this complex response because of its involvement in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (Wikipedia, 2013). Cortisol, known systematically as 11-beta-11, 17, 21-trihydroxypregn-4-ene-3, 20-dione (IUPAC, 2013), is measured reliably in saliva as well as in the blood. The exact relationship between cortisol and yawning is thought to be either as a precursor to the yawn or as a result of yawning since, curiously, cortisol is found to be elevated after yawning (Thompson, & Bishop, 2012).

The yawn is produced by stretching the muscles along the jaw-line; however, the extent of stretch and volume of yawn varies between people. Measuring the level of electrical muscle activity using electromyography (EMG) at the muscle site during the yawn phase is in the region of millionths of a volt and may be sustained for several seconds.

Male and female volunteers aged between 18-53 years were exposed to conditions that provoked a yawning response in a randomised controlled trial here at Bournemouth University. For the first time, the yawn was quantified and a profile of EMG data (sine wave) was obtained.

Initial observations find that of a sample of yawners and non-yawners, induced by presentation of yawning stimuli, the people who yawned had elevated nerve activity from 50 (at rest) to 175 (after stimuli presentation and yawning) (see Photo) compared with those who did not yawn who exhibited 10 (at rest) to 80 (after stimuli presentation). Yawners generally had higher level of electrical muscular jaw activity both before and after yawning.

Further research is continuing into the “yawning envelope” (EMG wave) with the hope that, together with cortisol measurement, this new information may form part of a potential diagnostic tool to identify untoward early neurological sequelae that are indicative of neurological disease.

IUPAC – International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry., 2013. www.iupac.org/home/about.html, Accessed 18.08.2013

Thompson, S.B.N., & Bishop, P., 2012. Born to yawn? Understanding yawning as a warning of the rise in cortisol levels: randomized trial. Interactive Journal of Medical Research 1(5);e4:1-9. Doi: 10.2196/ijmr.2241

Thompson SBN, Zisa L., 2012. Ill-health, stress, cortisol levels and yawning. In SBN Thompson (Ed.), Psychology of trauma: clinical reviews, case histories, research. Portsmouth: Blackwell-Harvard-Academic: 125-132

Wikipedia, 2013b. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary%E2%80%93adrenal_axis, Accessed: 18.08.2013

 

 

 

You CAN access eBU off campus

Publishing, Research themes

 

you can now unlock BU research on eBU from the comfort of your own home

Staff and students are able to access eBU: Online Journal when off campus. Users have to log in via ‘View’. If you already have ‘View’ installed on your home computer, log in via ‘View’ and simply access eBU as you would on campus (the easiest way to do this is to type ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar).

If you have not got ‘View’ installed on your home computer, please follow this link – https://view.bournemouth.ac.uk – and follow the instructions to install ‘View’. ‘View’ allows you to access a university computer, from home, as if you were on the university network. This means your H and I drive are mapped, you can use the full outlook mail client as per usual and you can access, upload and comment on articles on eBU.

The portrayal of childbirth in the mass media

Fusion

Marilyn Cash from HSC’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health recently delivered a paper on the Portrayal of Childbirth in the Mass Media, at the Reimagining Birth International Research Symposium held at the Humanities Institute University College Dublin, Ireland.  The research symposium brought together academics, medics and artists from around the world to explore how childbirth has been portrayed/represented/imagined in the worlds of art and medicine. 

The symposium provided an opportunity for contemporary critical debates into the visual culture of childbirth.  This was a unique opportunity for researchers and practitioners to explore/discuss the visual and sensorial culture of birth, and to contribute to our reimagining of this fundamental personal life experience for mother and child.  Central to the vision of the symposium is the ambition to build connections between interested parties, providing a forum for transcending current knowledge silos and contributing to innovative change in this important personal/cultural domain of human experience.

The paper is part of an ongoing collaboration between academics in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health and the Media School and the University of Stirling, exploring the medicalisation of childbirth.  As a direct result of the symposium academics from the group have been invited to present at the Perinatal Care Online Conference to be held in November 2013. For further information please contact a member of the Media and Childbirth research team (which includes: Prof Vanora Hundley: vhundley@bournemouth.ac.uk, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen: evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk, Dr Ann Luce: aluce@bournemouth.ac.uk, Dr Marilyn Cash: mcash@bournemouth.ac.uk , Prof Helen Cheyne: h.l.cheyne@stir.ac.uk, Dr Catherine Angell: cangell@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

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

  • As part of the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wish to commission new, multi-disciplinary and innovative research projects to develop greater understanding of how questions of ethics and rights play out in a security environment, with a focus on governance. The total investment for this Call is £2 million – £2.5 million. A Town Hall meeting is scheduled for 23/09/13. Closing date: 21/10/13
  • The ESRC are offering c. 50 Training Bursaries to improve the standards of research methods and to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses in research methods across the UK social science community. Bursaries are up to £1,000.
  • A three month secondment opportunity to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is open to EPSRC funded PhD students. Closing date: 04/10/13
  • The US National Institutes of Health have opened their R01 (Research Project Grant) scheme. Closing date: 05/10/13
  • NERC have opened their Standard Research Grant call. There are special grants available for new investigators. Grants from £65,000 to £1.2m. Closing date: 21/01/14 with another date in July 2014.
  • Industry Fellowships are available from The Royal Society (with support from BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC and BP Ltd). Closing date 04/10/13
  • The Medical Research Council is inviting applications to their Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP) PhD studentship scheme. Closing date: 20/11/13
  • The Royal Society is also offering University Research Fellowships. There are c.35 fellowships are available with a length of tenure of five years in the first instance, which may be extended for a further three years. Closing date: 17/09/13
  • The Technology Strategy Board is offering funding to support Unlocking the Hydrocarbon Energy Market. The aim of this competition is to support business-led innovation that leads to supply chain opportunities for hydrogen energy technologies and that addresses key market barriers to the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. The total cost of projects is expected to range in size from £250k to £1m. A briefing event for potential applicants will be held on 23/09/13. Applicants must register by noon on 23/10/13 and the deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 30/10/13. 
  • The Wellcome Trust is inviting applications to their Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowships for Clinicians. The total cost of a Fellowship would not normally exceed £350 000. Closing date: 15/11/13

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.

 

New submission to eBU

Publishing

Dr Philip Long, Associate Dean, from the School of Tourism has submitted a paper to eBU.

The abstract is as follows:

This paper suggests that there may be insufficient recognition of critical ideas, professional and cultural practices associated with the ‘creative industries’ among tourism destination management researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in England. The paper considers the relationships between academic and practitioner knowledge and practice that potentially connect tourism destination management with creativity and the arts. The paper argues that more research is needed on the contrasting backgrounds, education and occupational discourses of tourism and arts / creative practitioners and how these may be addressed in the curriculum at postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD) levels. The article suggests that there is a need for destination managers to explore contrasting agendas, knowledge needs and interests, and occupational discourses among creative industry practitioners and likewise for creative industry practitioners concerning tourism and destination management.

This paper can be viewed, reviewed and commented on by following this link – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/11 – alternatively when on campus just type in ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar.

KTP associate attends conferences to promote her research

Dr Celia Beckett, Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) research associate at BU and Five Rivers Child Care Ltd attended the KTP Associates’ Conference at Brighton University on 13th June. She presented a paper on the pilot stage of her project “Improving the care of children in residential units: assessment and interventions”. The conference, which is a Brighton University initiative supported by the Centre for Collaboration and Partnership, was well attended and there were 10 paper presentations and 8 posters. Topics ranged from roller blinds to leak repair additives for coolant systems! A recurring theme at the conference was the role of the KTP in working to effect change in organisations that result in improved commercial outcomes as well as the challenges and rewards of this role.

There are c. 800 KTP associates currently working on projects throughout the UK, ensuring that there is an exchange of knowledge between Universities and private / public companies, making a real difference to all those organisations involved in KTPs. It is one of the largest graduate schemes in the UK. More information about BU’s KTPs can be found at the newly relaunched Business Pages.

Celia will also be presenting a poster at the forthcoming  Recovery-focused conference: Engagement in Life: Promoting Wellbeing and Mental Health, hosted by BU on 6th September 2013.

HSC student wins Santander Travel Grant to go to Yale

PG research, Post-award, Training

Mrs. Anita Immanuel has just been awarded a travel award from Santander to visit the Yale Cancer Centre in the USA. Anita studies the quality of lives of adults in Dorset who have survived cancer of the blood or immune system. Cancer is a devastating disease and with the advances in treatment patients are living longer, however left with debilitating side effects which can negatively affect their quality of life.

Anita’s research will identify any unmet needs in this group of patients and will give a better understanding into comprehensive survivorship care thereby maximising quality of life. This study uses a mixed methods approach in examining the quality of lives of these patients who have been treated for a haematological cancer. Data will be collected across three Dorset hospitals: The Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Poole Hospital and Dorset County Hospital.

Dr. Helen McCarthy, Consultant Haematologist at The Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Anita’s clinical supervisor, highlighted: “At Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic, Anita will be introduced to their comprehensive survivorship care programme which can help improve the quality of lives of adults treated with cancer in Dorset.

Dr. Jane Hunt, the lead supervisor and senior lecturer at Bournemouth University’s School of Health & Social Care added: “The survivorship programme at the Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic integrates a multidisciplinary approach for following up patients treated for cancer by leading experts, which differs significantly from our own. I am convinced Anita’s PhD study will benefit from collaborating with the Yale experts.

BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Anita’s third supervisor, commented “We are grateful to Santander for this funding. We know Anita’s research will significantly contribute to the underdeveloped area of research on adult haematological cancer survivors”.

For more about Santander Awards see: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/graduate-school/pgt-santander-mobility-awards/

Burdett Trust for Nursing Grant

‘Delivering Excellence in Nutrition and Dignity in Dementia Care – Empowering Nurses and Care Home Staff to Enhance the Care Environment’.

Dr Jane Murphy and Joanne Holmes from the School of Health & Social Care, working in collaboration with representatives from local council (Partners in Care), the Local Enterprise Partnership, local and national care home organisations have won significant grant income from the Burdett Trust for Nursing to tackle the increasing and yet unresolved problems of nutrition and delivering dignity in dementia. Over a two year period, the project will identify best practice guidelines for delivering nutrition in dementia care by providing a new nutrition education programme based on fundamental principles of self-leadership and nutrition to empower nurses and care home staff. The programme will be easily translated and adopted widely to induce a long-lasting culture change towards excellence in dementia care that is person-centred and upholds dignity.

 

For further details, contact either Jane (jmurphy@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Joanne (holmesj@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

Business School and Media School academics bond on road trip to visit Argos!

On the hottest day of the year so far, academics from the Media School and Business School piled into an alarmingly small people carrier (thank goodness for air conditioning!) and set off on a road trip to visit the well-known high street retailer Argos in Milton Keynes. The purpose of the visit was to establish links with BU and to also receive a tour of their new Digital Studio. 

Despite the 300 mile round trip and 7 hours spent in the car, the visit was extremely useful and further engagement should happen as a result. Argos particularly expressed an interest in KTPs, student placements and bespoke training for their staff.

 Even though it was a long day and a bit of a squeeze in the car, it was acknowledged by the academics that it was a great opportunity to find out what each other’s schools are up to! They welcomed the opportunity to build relationships, which hopefully will now lead to future collaboration between the two.

New submission to eBU

Publishing

Professor of Financial Economics, and Deputy Dean for Research in the Business School, Andy Mullineux has submitted a paper to eBU titled ‘Banking for the Public Good’.

The abstract is as follows:

Bank shareholders cannot be expected to provide good stewardship to banks because there is a conflict of interests between the shareholder owners and a non-mutually owned bank’s depositors; who provide the bulk of the funds in traditional retail banks and are willing to accept a lower return on their savings than shareholders, in return for lower risk exposure.  Regulation is required to protect depositors where deposit insurance schemes are at best partially funded and underwritten by taxpayers, who in turn need to be protected, and to deliver financial stability, a public good.  Once some banks become ‘too big (to be allowed) to fail’ (TBTF), they enjoy additional implicit public (taxpayer) insurance that enables them to fund themselves more cheaply than smaller banks, which gives them a competitive advantage.  The political influence of big banks in the US and the UK is such that they can be regarded as financial oligarchies that have hitherto successfully blocked far reaching structural reform in the wake of the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ and lobbied successfully for the financial sector liberalisation that preceded it. The TBTF problem and associated moral hazard has been worsened by mergers to save failing banks during the crisis and as a result competition within a number of national banking systems, notably the UK, has been significantly reduced.  Solutions alternative to making the banks small enough to be allowed to fail are considered in this paper, but it is difficult to be convinced that they will deliver banks that promote the common or public good.  It is argued that regulating retail banking as a utility and pooling insurance against financial instability using pre-funded deposit insurance schemes, with risk related premiums that can also serve as bank resolution funds, should be pursued; and that capital leverage ratios and/or Financial Activity Taxes might be used to ‘tax’ the size of banks.

This paper can be viewed, reviewed and commented on by following this link – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/10 – alternatively when on campus just type in ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar.