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Erasmus Mundus Funding Available

 The Erasmus Mundus 2013 call for proposals is now open!  Full details of the call can be found here and please note that this year’s call is for Action 2 and 3 proposals only.

The British Council plans to hold an Erasmus Mundus Information Day on 8 February 2012 in order to support institutions who are currently participating in Erasmus Mundus projects and those who are interested in submitting proposals under the current call. Further details of how to register for this event will be circulated in the near future….

Sunday Evening

News from the PVC

The house is quiet, tea has been had, the week’s ironing done and I am sitting at my computer reviewing studentship proposals ahead of next Friday’s panel meeting.  I have never liked Sunday evenings – the prospect of the week ahead, the lost weekend and the sense of time passed.  In fact it is safe to say that until my late teens Sunday evenings were always grim since school was something of a challenge.  These day’s Sunday evenings – and today’s is no exception – are full of work displaced from the week before.  It brings back memories of last minute homework panics!  My mood this evening, however, is also not helped because the studentship applications in front of me are not great.

First up the scheme is under-subscribed with just 28 match-funded proposals against 45 possible studentships, although the fully funded proposals are better 11 against 5.  But the real issue for me is that there are few good ones in the pile despite a lot of external funding.  Some School’s appear to have barely bothered; just one application from the School of Tourism for example and just three from the Media School.  DEC has a total of 16 applications which is more impressive and tops the list, while the Business School has 8, although disappointing that there are none with external match-funding.  Aside from these rather disheartening figures, the quality of the proposals is not what it was last year and there are proposals from some very senior Professors in the pile which are not well written.  There are a few proposals from less experienced staff, who are perhaps learning their trade, but these are not the majority.  It is sad to say that many of those with match funding will need to be returned for revision before they can be funded.

Writing a studentship proposal – any short proposal for that matter – is an art and takes thought and effort.  It is certainly not something that can be dashed off in five minutes on a Sunday evening!  There is nothing in my book more insulting than someone who blatantly takes an internal funding call for granted.  They provide the opportunity to hone ones skills in a safe environment, to perfect ones technique for when it matters externally, to impress your colleagues with your skill!  With the exception of a couple in the full-funded pile, where the quality is better generally, I am singularly unimpressed!  I have posted before about the art of the short application – the Weetabix Tie Breaker – and the skills are those of a good journalist who is able to hook the reader in via the first few lines and draw them in to the case.  The art of persuasive writing is in fact an art.  The hook must be followed by a compelling case with a clear rationale and a statement of method that demonstrates that the project is tractable, but above all else the case needs to demonstrate that the project will provide fantastic doctoral training and a launch pad for a student’s career.  Proposals that start with a statement of clumsy aims, with no hook or context, or simply try to bombard the reader with facts to bludgeon them into thinking that this must be important don’t meet the mark.  Proposals that fail to provide the context or make clear how the proposed research will impact on the stated problem also miss the point.  There are one or two good examples of the art of the hook; a couple for example start with some well-posed and provocative questions, but don’t follow through to link the questions to the research that follows and in one case the impact is lost through the use of some appalling syntax.  Others proposals have a mix of listed methods and techniques but no real central hypothesis or question, while in complete contrast some run out of space for any method!  While I am on a roll I will also tackle the problem of the words ‘novel’ and  ‘innovative’ nice adjectives but without any justification for why something is innovative or novel they are completely hollow!  In fact unsupported statements like that are red rag to this bull.  My final point is that other proposals seem unable to look beyond the needs of the match-funder to provide a wider context for the work leaving a depressing prospect for any doctoral student.

A proposal needs to be compelling – hook the reader in the first couple of lines, be clear about what the research will deliver, how it is original and will address the stated problem, why it is societally important, why it is timely and must be done now, how it will be done and what the student will gain by doing the research.  This is all easy to say, but hard to do.  There is more development work to be done here not just in helping individuals develop the skills to seek match-funding, which might help explain the low numbers of proposals, but also to sharpen the skills of the proposal writer.  I have been talking to Staff Development recently about such a programme aimed specifically helping staff to seek match-funding and then to ensuring that it is not wasted.  A bit late for the current round but for next year we will start a programme of support from April onwards.

It is time now to call it a day – warm milk, a book and my bed are calling.  Not a great Sunday evening but what’s new.

Erasmus Conference in May

A key conference on Erasmus is taking place in Poland during May and will feature information on what will be in the Erasmus programme under Horizon 2020.

Anyone with an interest in the Erasmus Programme can attend or present at ERACON 2013 which features delegates from universities and industry across Europe.

UK specialists welcome launch of ORCID as tool to identify researchers

Guidance, Publishing

Jisc joins organisations from across the UK higher education network to welcome the launch of the Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID).

There are more academic articles being published than ever before and more authors working together. In order to be able to identify an author correctly a unique identifier is needed that can then link to each author’s publications. ORCID provides this link and if widely used would:

• Ensure researchers get credit for their own work • Ensure researchers and learners looking for information will be able to find academic papers more accurately • Enable better management of researcher publication records, making it easier for them to create CVs, reduce form filling and improve reporting to funders • Create a means of linking information between institutions and systems internationally • Enable researchers to keep track of their own work with funders, publishers and institutions around the world.

It also provides researchers with their own ORCID. Researchers are able to control how much information it holds about them and who that is shared with. The adoption of ORCID is a solution to the current challenges of being able to search for work accurately. By researchers volunteering to adopt its usage it could improve discoverability and accurate referencing.

Neil Jacobs, programme director, Jisc comments: “We welcome the consensus that has been achieved on this issue, which should pave the way for a better research system, less work for researchers re-keying details, and more efficient operations across the sector. We recognise that this is only the start and that work needs to be done to implement ORCID in the UK. However, we have a solid beginning and we look forward to working with our partners across the sector to build on it.”

Alongside Jisc, the organisations below are encouraging the adoption of ORCID:

• The Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) • The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) • The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) • Research Councils UK (RCUK) • The Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) • The Wellcome Trust.

Find out more about the benefits of ORCID on Jisc’s website.  <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/di_researchmanagement/researchinformation/orcid.aspx>

Read Jisc programme director, Neil Jacobs opinion piece in Research Information <http://www.researchinformation.info/news/news_story.php?news_id=1029>

Erasmus Intensive Programme funding available

Erasmus Intensive Programmes (IP) are short programmes of study which bring together students and teaching staff from higher education institutions of at least three participating countries. They can last from 10 continuous full days to 6 weeks of subject related work.

The application for this funding can be found on the British Council webpage which also has guidance for completing this. The deadline for applications is 8 March 2013. Should you have any queries on completing your application contact the Erasmus Helpdesk .

 

HEFCE consultation on research integrity concordat – have your say

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) have proposed that higher education institutions (HEIs) eligible to receive public funding for research through HEFCE should comply with a research integrity concordat published earlier this year. A consultation is currently underway inviting comments on whether compliance should become a mandatory requirement for HEIs, and how this might best be monitored.

BU is seeking your views on the two consultation questions:

  1. Do you agree that compliance with the research integrity concordat should be a condition of HEFCE grant?
  2. Do you agree with the proposal that demonstrating compliance with the research integrity concordat should be integrated into HEFCE’s existing reporting requirements, and that this represents a proportionate and reasonable way to ensure compliance?

The requirements of the research integrity concordat are summarised in the briefing paper. You can either respond to the consultation individually by noon on Friday 8 March 2013 or submit any views/comments that you would like to be considered for inclusion in BU’s institutional response to Colette Cherry, Policy Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor  by noon on Friday 22 February 2013.

The Concordat to Support Research Integrity

Research integrity concordat briefing paper

WORSKHOP: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Hello everybody,

Paolo D’Alsemi from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in Italy, specialized in Corporate Social Responsibility and author of Values and Stakeholders in an Era of Social Responsibility published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011 is going to visit the Media School on Thursday next week.

Part of his visit is also a workshop about new approaches to CSR.

When: Thursday, January 17
Time: 9:30-10:30
Where: CG01

Please do let Georgiana Grigore ggrigore@bournemouth.ac.uk know if you plan to attend by January 15.

Below is more information about Paolo and his book.

“In this striking new book, Paolo D’Anselmi provides an entirely novel and refreshing look at the basic ideas of Corporate Social Responsibility – an area that is desperately in need of new perspective. Broadening the concept, he takes the view that all organizations should be accountable for their social responsibility – and then inquires about how this new social accountability can best be constructed for different kind of organizations. Introducing the concept of “competition” – both within and across industries and sectors – he argues thoughtfully and provocatively that best way forward is to use the knife of competition to hone the social performance of all organizations. This book provides the most searching reformulation of how to think about CSR to appear in decades”

Professor Herman Dutch Leonard, Harvard Business School

PAOLO D’ANSELMI, has been a practitioner of management consultancy and policy analysis since 1981. He teaches Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. He is a graduate in Electrical Engineering (Roma Sapienza) and in Public Policy (Harvard). Since 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and throughout the 90’s, he has been a small entrepreneur in the publishing business, with ten editions of a handbook of the Italian public sector. He has also worked for McKinsey in Europe and the USA. He is now working on a new book “Making Peace with Ourselves and with Capitalism”.

Sport and Human Rights

Fusion

The Leisure and Recreation Theme starts its 2013 Seminar series with a session by Dr Andrew Adams on sport and human rights.  Recently Andrew has published on topics including:

Sport and leisure ethics, rights and relationships and, Do the Olympics help in securing or removing human rights? An exploration of the Olympic Game’s role as a catalyst for political change and human rights enhancement.

This promises to be a lively and thought provoking session with refreshments!

Wednesday 30th January at 2.00pm. TAG 01 

Do you have an interest in internal marketing?

Research themes

Within the Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth BU research theme we have recently formed a small group looking at internal marketing.

Internal marketing is essentially inward facing marketing that engages with employees rather than external audiences such as customers. It is about treating staff as internal customers so that they understand and contribute to the vision and goals of the firm. Internal marketing is two-way communication process that can increase staff motivation, improve customer service and contribute the overall success of a firm. Internal marketing can also help with improving communication in all parts of the organisation and so improving overall brand values and resultant communication externally. Naturally, this theme involves the business disciplines of Marketing and HR, but we are also interested to hear from anyone who has an interest or expertise in this area who would like to get involved with this group.

If you are interested in joining this group or learning more about our plans then feel free to contact any of the group members: Julie Robson, Yasmin Sekhon, Lois Farquharson and Fabian Homberg.

PGR Development Programme – New arrangements for the Library Workshops on 16th January 2013

PG research

Due to high demand, we need to change the venue and time for both library sessions on Wednesday 16th January 2013.  The new arrangements are as follows:

Time: 9 am – 10.15 am:
Finding information and Using Researcher Tools
Outline: The session will include an introduction to advanced searching skills, using citations smartly and analytical tools
Facilitator: Chris Wentzell

Time: 10.30 am – 12 noon
Managing your citations using Endnote and Endnote Web (Repeat workshop)
Outline: The session will include an introduction to Endnote and Endnote Web, exporting from databases, Cite While You Write tool
Facilitator: Emma Crowley

Venue: S102 – Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

 If you haven’t reserved a place and would like to come along please email gsbookings@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Developing a working paper at BU

Fusion, PG research, Publishing, Research themes

I would like to make you aware of an exciting development at BU.

A multi-disciplinary group of BU academics has been meeting over the last 6 months in order to design a online journal that is capable of acting as a central focus for the dissemination of the high quality research and scholarly outputs from UG and PG dissertations, post graduate researchers, early career researchers and established academic staff. The group has designed a developmental working paper online journal that will support ‘would be’ authors and their potential publications. Although particular emphasis has been given to maximising high quality outputs of UG and PG students and early career academics, this online journal will be capable of supporting the potential of all those engaged in research and scholarship at BU.

Below are a series of Q & As:

 

What’s the name of the working paper?

The provisional title is eBU: Working Papers Online

 

How is the working paper structured?

The working paper will not be limited to any one discipline or allied to any one particular methodology, but will aim to publish articles driven by the key BU Research Themes: (Creative and Digital Economies, Culture and Society, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth, Environmental Change and Biodiversity, Green Economy and Sustainability, Health, Wellbeing and Ageing, Leisure and Recreation, Technology and Design). Apart from the build-up to launch, the working paper will have no deadlines or specific calls for papers. Instead, the working paper will work on a rolling submission process.

A set of author guidelines and details about formats are currently being considered and written. However, the guidelines are likely to accommodate a wide range of formats.

 

What are the submission processes for staff and students?

It is envisaged that staff will act as gatekeepers and encourage undergraduate and master’s students to submit high quality work into a format this is publishable. Post-graduate researchers and academic members of staff will be able to submit papers on their own accord.

After a short review from the editorial board, two designated BU academics will provide an initial quality check. The paper will then be uploaded to the internal intranet working paper site. This will allow any member of staff or student to read and offer feedback. However, within a few weeks the two designed reviewers will then provide a more comprehensive and detailed critical review. All reviews will take place in a safe, secure and INTERNAL environment. After a detailed review, students will then be encouraged to make any recommended changes and submit to external publication/or make their work available to be published on external working paper website.

This working paper is set to go live in March.

 

Further information

If anyone is interested in becoming involved in helping to create this online journal, and/or at an editorial level please get in touch with Andrew Harding (aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk), Andrew Adams (aadams@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Fiona Knight (fknight@bournemouth.ac.uk).