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Changes to the Freedom of Information Act: A step in the right direction for research?

Guidance

As you may already be aware, under the Freedom of Information Act, Universities are counted as public authorities and therefore need to respond to requests for information. In the age of transparent, open research this should not necessarily be problematic – however, it does raise considerable issues with regards to research in progress. The development of excellent research is dependent on rigorous analysis and peer review; so requests for data that has not been through this process can be problematic. For example, controversial topics such as research on climate change may be misappropriated by media sources, or members of the general public could respond to unverified findings on research relating to public health. It does not take a huge amount of imagination to understand how this could have dire consequences both the individual researcher and their HEI. Thus, Universities UK have highlighted this as an issue and have been campaigning for exemption to unpublished research findings. The opportunity to make changes has arisen through the process of post-legislative scrutiny.

Last week, Vivienne Stern, Head of Political Affairs at Universities UK has recently reported that in response to the Justice Committee:  “The Government has accepted the recommended new exemption for unpublished research”.  Notably, the report states that Government is “minded to explore options for providing that time taken to consider and redact information can be included in reaching the cost limit”. If you are interested in reading further, you can find the full report here

This serves as a timely reminder that research data can be subject to Freedom of Information requests. If you are approached for a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request, you should contact our Legal Services department and see the appropriate webpages here. Jisc also holds useful additional information about the Freedom of Information Act which you can find here.

What this debate also reminds us of is the importance of ensuring that we only go public with research findings when they have been through the rigorous standards assessment and review associated with academic research. Colleagues that have worked with me know that when we are discussing public engagement initiatives, I often ask them some detailed questions about the underpinning research. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the academic engaging with the public to ensure that their statements can be underpinned by appropriate research and is crucial to bear in mind, no matter how tantalising early findings may be! If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact me or Julia Hastings-Taylor, Research Development Officer (Research Conduct).

Royal Society Mullard Award

Funding opportunities

This award is made to individuals whose work has the potential to make a contribution to national prosperity. 

The Royal Society Mullard Award is made biennially for “an individual who has an outstanding academic record in any area of natural science, engineering or technology and whose work is currently making or has the potential to make a contribution to national prosperity in the United Kingdom”. The award is aimed at early to mid career stage scientists, engineers and technologists.

The award was established following a gift by Mullard Limited. It was first awarded in 1967.  The medal is of silver gilt and is accompanied by a gift of £2,000 and a travel grant of £1,500. The winner is called upon to deliver a lecture at the Society. 

Nominations

The 2013 call for nominations is now open and will close on the Friday 8 February 2013.  To submit a nomination (self-nominations are allowed), please download a nomination form  and send it to innovationgrants@royalsociety.org.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. Please direct any enquiries to RKE Ops in the first instance.

 

JSPS Summer Programme opportunity for Researchers

Funding opportunities

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) is the leading research funding agency in Japan, established by the Japanese Government for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science. Our Summer Programme provides the opportunity pre and post-doctoral researchers to receive an orientation on Japanese culture and research systems and to conduct collaborative research activities with leading research groups at Japanese Universities and research institutions over a period of 2 months during the summer.

Value of award: Return international airfare, maintanence allowance (534,000, JPY), domestic research trip allowance (58,500 JPY) and overseas travel and accident insurance policy are provided.

Eligibility: Applicants need to be a UK national or permanent resident and should be of graduate student status (Master or PhD) or be a recent PhD holder (within the last 6 years) and should be based at a UK university or research institution. Eligible research fields are not limited.

Applications should be sent to the British Council Tokyo. Application guidelines and form are available on their website here: http://www.britishcouncil.org/japan-science-research.htm.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. Please direct any enquiries to RKE Ops in the first instance.

Application Deadline: Tuesday, 15th January 2013.  Fellowship to take place during fixed period: 11 June to 21 August 2013

Erasmus Preparatory Visit Applications scheme still open!

Just a reminder that the deadline for this is coming up at the end of December 2012 if colleagues are interested in visiting potential partner universities in Europe.  The main objective of the action is to help higher education institutions (HEI) to establish contacts with prospective partner institutions with a view to establishing:

•             New inter-institutional agreements (not renewals) relating to student and/or staff mobility

•             Erasmus Intensive Programmes;

•             Erasmus student placements;

•             Erasmus networks;

•             Erasmus multilateral projects;

•             Erasmus accompanying measures.

 

The preparatory visit grant may be used to visit:

•             Either one or more prospective partner higher education institutions (the visited HEIs do not need to have an EUC);

•             Or an enterprise or organisation.

Preparatory visit grants may also be used to participate in a partner-finding “contact seminar” organised by a National Agency. In addition, preparatory visit grants may be awarded to enterprises or other organisations for the purpose of helping them to establish consortia for the organisation of Erasmus student placements.  Usually a grant is awarded to just one person per visit, but in exceptional cases two staff from the same institution can be awarded a grant to undertake a visit together.  Only one visit per potential project will be funded. 

  • PV mobilities can take place any time from now up until April 2013
  • The British Council must receive the application 6 weeks prior to the date of departure.
  • Minimum duration – 1 day
  • Maximum Duration – 5 days
  • All activities must end by 30 April 2013 at the latest.
  • Application deadline – 31 December 2012 and 6 weeks before the date of travel

To apply, you need to complete the Erasmus PV Application Form. There is also a Erasmus PV Resource Pack to help you and more information is available on the British Council website . You can send also any queries relating to Preparatory visits by email.

RBS & FIG offer over £100,000 to the UK’s most enterprising students

Funding opportunities

Competitions from RBS and FIG invite enterprising students to enter for cash prizes and investment opportunities

The RBS EnterprisingU competition has launched for the second year, with £40,000 worth of prizes!

The annual competition, created by Find Invest Grow and sponsored by the RBS Group, offers a unique online platform for students to “road-test” their business ideas, while building the framework for a professional business plan at the same time.

It is open to students and graduates of the past 5 years:  they don’t have to be economics grads with business experience – anyone can enter. The platform enables students to explore the viability of their business idea, by asking the right questions and building the appropriate framework.

Investors will be reviewing and judging entrants to decide on the 20 semi-finalists who will be selected to attend the training workshops.  The 10 finalists will be pitching their business ideas to a room full of investors, with the chance of winning prizes of £25,000, £10,000, and £5,000.

The competition is now open, at: http://www.rbsenterprisingu.com

Encourage your students / recent graduates to apply!

The deadline for completed entrants is midnight on 19th July 2013.

Innovation Vouchers – BU joins Universities South West scheme

BU has joined with other institutes in the South West to offer businesses help. Innovation Vouchers are supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) South West Competitiveness Programme 2007 to 2013.  

 

In a nut-shell, an Innovation Voucher provides funding for a business to work with an external expert from a University, College or Public Sector Research Establishment for the first time, gaining new knowledge to help their business innovate, develop and grow.

 

Are you in early conversations with a company with whom you have not worked before? Is the company a start-up, micro, small and medium-sized business (as defined by the EC*) located anywhere in the South West England Competitiveness Area (not Cornwall) with an an innovative idea? Do they trade in an ERDF-eligible sector (i.e. not agri-food, textiles or retail)? Would they benefit from up to 40% support for projects with a total value ranging from £3,000 to £10,000 for the business to buy in external expertise to develop ideas and improve performance? Do they need help during the application period – 1 October 2012 to early in 2015?

If so, Innovation Vouchers may be the way to introduce them to what BU has to offer? More information is available on the USW website.

Within BU, please contact your School’s BRO or Emily Cieciura (ecieciura@bournemouth.ac.uk)

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 N.B. The Innovation Voucher  project is part financed by the Competitiveness European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf.

Science & the Media mini-conference to be held 2 pm Wednesday (12 Dec), CG01

Several Media School colleagues will present their research on Science and The Media Wednesday afternoon. Topics include public perceptions of science, blogging in Antarctica, representations of space on the web, news framing of nanotechnology, and science journalism after the Leveson Inquiry.

Members of the Science and Media research cluster, an emerging group within the Media School, have organised this mini-conference to open a dialogue amongst colleagues across the university regarding the ways in which science and media intersect. The event is intended to be casual, so please come for all or part of the discussion.

The mini-conference will be held from 2-4 pm in CG01 Wednesday (12 Dec); please see the Agenda for more detail.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Shelley Thompson, Stuart Allan or An Nguyen in the Media School.

Release of the beta version of RCUK’s Gateway to Research

Guidance

 Research Councils UK (RCUK) is due to release a beta version of the ‘Gateway to Research’ portal imminently to give the public better access to information about research funded by the Research Councils.

Gateway to Research aims to provide a mechanism for businesses and other interested parties to identify potential partners in universities to develop and commercialise knowledge, and maximise the impact of publicly funded research. It is being developed as part of the BIS Innovation and Research Strategy, published in December 2011.

The beta Gateway to Research contains information such as who, what and where the Research Councils fund, as well as details about the outcomes, outputs and impact from research, linking to already available open access repositories and data catalogues.

The information contained within the Gateway to Research beta version is a fixed snapshot of available information on research. It contains real data from grants across all seven Research Councils, awarded from 2006 onwards, that is already held in data sources such as RCUK’s Research Outcomes System (ROS) (please see the Principles of Use document for more details) and ResearchFish. Therefore the data is not new – Gateway to Research brings the information together in one place. Any updates and additional information about research need to be made in data sources – they cannot be made directly on Gateway to Research.

Updates made in data sources will not update the beta system automatically as this will initially be a manual process and it may take some time. Over the next year, RCUK will be building the infrastructure to ensure that the data will be routinely updated once the final live system is launched at the end of 2013. Updates to output data will then be reflected in Gateway to Research after they have been submitted.

RCUK need your feedback

The beta version has gone through robust technical testing and is close in look, feel and function to how RCUK envisage the final product. However, it is important that they ensure the data it delivers and its functionality meets the needs of its users.

RCUK are therefore calling on people to use and interrogate the beta site and provide feedback to RCUK on their experience to inform the development of Gateway to Research over the next year. They would like to encourage third parties to investigate innovative ways that the data can be used and shared to take it to a broader audience.

You can access the beta Gateway to Research at http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/ . It is currently password protected but it will be publicly available for you to use when it is officially released within the next few days (on or around 12 December 2012).

Please email your feedback to gateway@rcuk.ac.uk .

Updating information about your research

Colleagues within BU are aware of the process for updating information about the outcomes and outputs of their research, through ROS and ResearchFish.  If you require more information then please refer to the ‘Principles of Use’ document above or visit RCUK’s web site to find out what ROS is, how it works, and how it can benefit you.

If you have any further questions, please email gateway@rcuk.ac.uk or contact individual Research Councils for information on specific areas of research.

Environmental Change & Biodiversity Research Theme seminar on Thursday!

The Environmental Change & Biodiversity Research Theme is holding its third and final seminar of the term on Thursday 13 December. The seminar will be held in Christchurch House CG13 at 1200. Tea and coffee and biscuits will be provided.

Kevin Wood will present some results from his PhD on mute swan-plant interactions in the River Frome. The swans are sometimes considered a pest, because when in large numbers can significantly depelte the amount of vegetation in such rivers with potential negetative effects on trout and salmon. The title of his talk is “Go with the flow: seasonal changes in water velocity determine foraging patch choice by mute swans”. The seminar will also be a chance for any new first year PhD students to present a few slides about their PhD, as was done by a few students in a previous seminar. Please let Richard Stillman know if you would like to present at an upcoming seminar.

Please note room change – From suffragettes to 21st century slut walks – women, PR dissent and protest.

Wednesday, 12th December at 4pm in Room CAG01

Heather Yaxley considers the role of women in dissent PR ranging from the suffragettes to the 21st century phenomenon of slut walks.  The position of women outside the dominant social power base suggests a need for radical activism to enable their voices, and causes, to be heard.  Issues relating to sexualisation and other stereotyping are examined in the context of how women over the last century have championed feminist issues.  Finally, reflection on role of women in dissent, activism and protest movements outside the mainstream is contrasted to their increasing dominance of the professional occupation of public relations.

A hybrid academic-educator-practitioner-consultant, Heather Yaxley is researching career strategies in public relations for her PhD at Bournemouth.  Her biography can be found at http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/contributors/heather-yaxley/

RCUK to provide some universities with a block grant for open access publishing costs

Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceWe’ve added posts to the Blog previously about the outcome of the Finch Report (Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications) (access previous posts here) which was published on 18th June 2012 and came out of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Dame Janet Finch. On 16th July 2012 the Government announced that it has accepted the recommendations of the report. The report recommended a balanced programme of action to enable more people to read and use the publications arising from research, and to accelerate the progress towards a fully open access environment, particularly for all government-funded research.

Upon publication, the Report generated some negative reaction from Russell Group institutions concerned about the cost implications given the output of their staff and the high proportion of RCUK funding they receive. The Government has responded to this by providing funding to some institutions to support the costs of OA publishing. This approach so far has been two-fold:

1)    In September 2012 the Government announced funding of £10 million, understood to have come out of budget underspends, to support a number of research-intensive universities to kick-start the transition to OA publishing and setting up funds to meet the costs of APCs (Read the BIS announcement here: http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Government-invests-10-million-to-help-universities-move-to-open-access-67fac.aspx). The funding will support 30 institutions, selected on the basis of their combined QR funding and RCUK income. BU did not meet the threshold and will unfortunately not receive any funding from this initiative.

2)    In November 2012 RCUK announced block grant funding to support selected universities to support open access publishing costs from RCUK-funded grants (read the RCUK announcement here: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/2012news/Pages/121108.aspx). Payments will be made from April 2013 to March 2015, with a mid-term review to assess the system is working. Grants have been calculated for individual universities based on the proportion of direct labour costs awarded on grants that they have received from April 2009 to March 2012. These labour costs have been used as a proxy of research effort leading to the generation of publications. Only universities that are eligible for a block grant of £10k or more will receive funding. RCUK have confirmed that unfortunately BU does not meet the threshold of £10k and will not receive any funding from this initiative.

Although BU has missed out on both block grants we are continuinging to support open access publishing, supported by a central, dedicated budget specifically set up to pay open access publication fees (BU Open Access Publication Fund). This has been live since April 2011; its use will continue to be monitored and the budget increased to cover the increasing demand from BU academics wishing to publish via open access routes.  There is no doubt that this fund will need to grow substantially over the next few years to cater for the changes in train.

Green open access publishing is of course possible using our own institutional repository BURO which is now even more accessible given the new interface provided by BRIAN which tells academics the publisher’s rules on self-archiving for each output when they log into the system; it is hoped this will increase the proportion of full-text articles available in BURO.

BU is encouraging all academics to continue to embrace open access publishing at least as part of the dissemination strategy for all current grants and to ensure that they bid for open access funds as part of future grants as this becomes possible (it is already possible with some funders, including Research Councils).