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Erasmus Mundus mobility to South Caucasus region and Ukraine for students and staff available now! -Deadline 28th February-

Funding opportunities, PG research, Training

BU students and staff have been invited by Georg-August Universität Göttingen to apply for mobility at ALRAKIS II.

ALRAKIS II is one of the awarded Erasmus Mundus action 2 projects that promotes exchange mobility in the South Caucasus region and Ukraine. The beneficiary countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine. Our students and staff would be looking at applying at Target Group 2.

For more information please visit the project website and if you have any queries please contact Eva Papadopoulou at epapadopoulou@bournemouth.ac.uk and 01202 968252

Please note that the deadline for this is 28th February 2013.

FREE workshop for researchers (PGRs and Researchers): Charting an entrepreneurial career: how researchers can control their professional destiny

PG research, Training

Vitae and the Entrepreneurial Institution are pleased to announce two new enterprise workshops on the 5th March in Bristol and on the 7th March in London.

Wherever you are in your research career, whether you are applying for research funding, moving into a new career or starting your own business (commercial or social) this day will enable you to understand your enterprising potential to create impact through research and take your ideas into a business.

During the day, you will:

  • explore your own skills in relation to entrepreneurship
  • explore research impact in relation to grant applications and REF
  • explore different types of enterprise
  • hear from successful entrepreneurs
  • hear about social enterprise, commercialisation and knowledge exchange
  • network and plan next steps

To book your place on the workhops, please visit:

Tuesday 5th March 2013 – www.vitae.ac.uk/enterprise_Bristol
Thursday 7th March 2013 – www.vitae.ac.uk/enterprise_London

FIF SMN strand open for applications

The Fusion Investment Fund Staff Mobility & Networking (SMN) Strand has £45k to award from now until April 1st 2013.

The objectives , eligibility criteria and award limits are exactly as that found in the SMN Policy document found on our  Fusion Investment Fund webpages.

Applications must be on this FIF Application Form and emailed to Natalie Baines when completed; as many people experienced problems with the online form, this format is no longer valid.

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis by the Committee and the fund will close either when the fund expires or on April 1st 2013, whichever occurs first. You are encouraged to discuss your potential application with a member of the Committee to ensure it meets the remit of the scheme.

All vital information including policy documents, FAQs  etc can be found on the SMN webpage.

Applying to the NIHR Info Day – register now!

The NIHR funds NHS related research (including the social sciences and humanities aspect of care) and issued over £200k of grants last year.  The info day being held on April 11th will provide an overview of the NIHR and give grant writing tips as well as having experts on hands to give you more specific info.

This is a free event with limited places so you must register here.

Fusion Investment Fund – BU Research in China

Fusion

Huiping Xian, Davide Secchi (both from Business School) and Yue Meng (Media School) have been awarded Fusion Investment Fund to consolidate an existing relationship with a Chinese university in order to establish a strategic partnership in the long term. The team will travel to Zhe Jiang Gong Shang University (ZJGS), Hangzhou, China, on 28th March, 2013 to engage in a series of intellectual and networking activities. During our 5-day visit, we plan to give 2 guest lectures and hold a research seminar with researchers in ZJGS to showcase research in BS and MS. Moreover, we will also disseminate findings of a recent research project – Business Ethics in Chinese Organisations – in a public workshop. Invitations will be sent to ZJGS’s current MBA students, alumni, local Chinese managers, entrepreneurs, academics and government officials via ZJGS’s network.
The project contributes to both research and education of the Fusion concept. The short-term output of this project includes 2 journal papers from the study (business ethics in China), 2 guest lectures, a research seminar and a public workshop in China. In a longer term, this project will potentially lead to future research collaboration, staff and student exchange, joint PhD supervision, and student recruitment with ZJGS and gradually develop a strategic partner for BU’s internationalisation. Zhejiang Province (where ZJGS is based) is one of the most developed districts and known for having a large number of students studying abroad every year. Located in Hangzhou, China, ZJGS is the 2nd highest ranked university in the province and mainly offers business, management, and economic programmes to UG and PG students.

For more information, please contact Dr Huiping Xian (hxian@bournemouth.ac.uk)

DEC receives successful KTP training session…..

Training

i love KTPAlthough KTPs have been around for over 30 years; for some academics they are still new territory! Bearing this in mind, it was suggested that a training session on KTPs would be welcomed by academics in the School of DEC.

The training session took place at the Talbot Campus last week, and was well received – especially as the session provided the opportunity to meet Neil Grice who is the KTP Advisor for the region.  KTP Advisors play a key role in the setting up of KTPs – they have a broad range of industrial expertise and are on hand to help with the preparation of a KTP proposal.  Then, throughout the life cycle of the KTP, they monitor the progress to ensure that all the partners achieve their goals.

Neil provided an excellent and engaging overview of KTPs, and in addition to his presentation, further project information was delivered by BU colleagues, Emily Cieciura and Norman Stock. They both did a fantastic job of explaining the particulars in bidding for KTPs and what is required post award. The technicalities of a KTP can be quite laborious, so credit goes to Neil, Emily and Norman for delivering a training session which was clear and straightforward!

If you feel you or your school would benefit from a KTP training session, please get in touch! KTP’s are an excellent opportunity for academics to engage with further Research and Development, and in particular they contribute to the REF.  Taking this into consideration, why not take advantage of a training session and find out the value of KTPs?

To find out further information, or to arrange a training session, please email Lucy Rossiter.

EACEA/2007 Call for Experts

    

EACEA Logo 

The Executive Agency Education, Audiovisual and Culture (EACEA) is issuing a call for expressions of interest in order to obtain applications for the establishment of a list of experts. This call is managed by the Agency in conjunction with the European Commission.

The experts’ duties will be to assist the Agency, or, where applicable, the Commission, in the performance of  tasks, with reference to the programme objectives, the priorities and criteria laid down in the calls for proposals, as well as the guides and manuals made available to applicants.

More information on this call can be found here 

 

 

 

Fusion Funding

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

A new Fusion project will shortly be starting in the School of Applied Sciences run by Dan Franklin and Genoveva Esteban. Concentrating on cyanobacteria (‘blue-green algae’) the team will attempt to isolate out new strains of cyanobacteria into culture at BU. Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that can turn freshwater ecosystems a vivid green colour. Cyanobacteria growth in reservoirs and lakes already causes substantial economic losses and amenity problems and the ultimate aim of the project is to investigate the properties of cells such that new management measures can be pioneered. The team will make multiple isolations of cyanobacteria from local lakes in order to establish new laboratory strains of cyanobacteria, including toxic species such as Microcystis. These will then be used to facilitate experiments on ways to inhibit cyanobacteria growth.                                                   

For more information please contact dfranklin@bournemouth.ac.uk

Images BU culture of Microcystis:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture credit: Ian Chapman, BU

Microcystis growth in nature:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See glerl.noaa.gov

Need help with Knowledge Transfer Partnerships or Innovation Vouchers?

Do you require further advice or guidance on Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP)  or other funding initiatives such as Innovation Vouchers?  Well, hopefully I can be of help!

My name is Lucy Rossiter and I have recently started working at BU – I am the new Knowledge Exchange Officer within the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development team.  My focus will be on promoting and marketing BU expertise and services to external organisations to secure new business for the university. 

Perhaps you have links with organisations that would benefit from a KTP or use of an Innovation Voucher? If so, I will happily engage with the organisation and offer necessary guidance, or I can help develop any project ideas which you may have.

Over the coming weeks I will post further information on the benefits of KTP’s and Innovation Vouchers, but in the meantime please get in touch if you require any help or guidance regarding these funding initiatives.  

Please contact me by email , or should you wish to meet – I am based in Melbury House on the 4th Floor in the R&KE office.

I will look forward to working with you!

Latest BU REF Highlight Report now available

Research assessment

The latest BU REF Highlight Report (#14) is now available for BU staff to download. It covers the period from November 2012 to January 2013.

Features in this report include information about:

  • UOA merger decisions by RASG and new UOA leaderships;
  • BU REF Timetable
  • The REF2014 Module on BRIAN for the Spring 2013 mock exercise
  • Efforts and activities in progressing the environment narrative, impact template and impact case studies
  • 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.

1-2-1 Sessions with an Expert Bid Writer at BU Available!

Training

The RKE Development team have organised a unique experience for BU staff; a 1-2-1 with a leading grant writer. With a career background in both Academia and Industry Dr. Martin Pickard of Grantcraft is a specialist in writing and supporting research grant applications and tenders as well as providing administrative and management support services for ongoing projects. During the last 20 years Martin has worked extensively across Europe with a large number of universities, and research institutes as well as industrial firms, ranging from small SME’s to major international companies.

Martin is providing individual 1-2-1 surgeries with any academic staff member and works individually and confidentiality with each Principal Investigator as the project is structured and prepared in order to optimize the application documentation from every aspect of the Funders perspective; guiding, steering and showing how to optimize the application throughout the bid process.

Academics at BU who have undertaken his guidance have stated his ‘support and direction was invaluable – Martin gave me some pragmatic suggestions which really helped to shape the bid. His eye for detail made the document much easier to read and the message much clearer. I was very grateful for his input’ Assoc. Prof Heather Hartwell, School of Tourism.

In this highly competitive environment, many strong applications pass the threshold but fail to reach the funding level not because of their science or what they say, but because of their structure and what they omit to say.  The science and art of Martin’s assistance directly addresses this major hurdle to success from innumerably perspectives; enabling demonstrated significantly higher success rates. Even experienced staff at BU who have utilized his services, have called Martin’s approach, ‘refreshing and helpful and renewed my energies in the arduous search for funding. He has had a major influence on the structure and presentation of my recent bids’ Prof Barry Richards, Media School.

Martin will work with you through a process of successive discussions and iterations of the application document, identifying and optimising as many of the weaker aspects as possible, starting with your 1-2-1 session. Identifying these weaknesses is important and takes considerable experience to be fully encompassing but the unique aspect of this approach is the direct provision of solutions and alternatives assembled from a lifetime career involvement, understanding and practise.  This way, not only are you made aware of the problem but given a direct improvement solution It is only at the latter stages that effective grant-writing becomes evident with tweaks to phrases and styles as well as implementation of key/typical standards and texts. Results confirm that without this build of research structure behind and throughout the application success is always limited. This unique experience is valued by academics who have undertaken this process with him ‘Martin makes you think differently about approaching bid writing, constructing a bid and how to build up an argument throughout the various boxes; without changing the actual content he makes you think how to make key points jump out at the reviewer’, Dr Darren Lilleker, Media School.

The process, although labour intensive, works; with a proven historical average success rates of close to 1 in 2 against norms of 1 in 8 to 1 in 10. You can take up this unique and valuable experience, by booking a session now. 

Appointments are approx 45 minutes long and you can book multiple sessions. You will also have unlimited telephone and email support to progress your application after meeting with Martin and you can discuss several applications with him. 

Martin is at BU on the following dates and times and sessions must be booked through Dianne Goodman

Upcoming dates:

  • 27th March 2013, 1:15-5pm (Talbot Campus) now full

Newly available dates (please note – limited availability):

  • 15th April 2013, 9-11am and 2-5pm (Lansdowne Campus) now full
  • 16th April 2013, 16:15-5pm (Lansdowne Campus) now full
  • 16th May 2013, 9:15am- 5pm (Talbot Campus) now full
  • 10th July 2013, 9:15am- 5pm (Talbot Campus)
  • 4th September 2013, 9:15- 5 (TBA)

 

Grant to develop trans-national partnerships for Cyberpsychology education and research

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

I was delighted to be awarded a FIF Staff Networking and Mobility grant to develop international links with staff and students in Canada, Australia and Malta in the three areas of e-learning, employability and Cyberpsychology. During the visits I will set-up cross-University online discussions, for students to discuss how psychology theory and methods can be used to understand online behaviour. This will not only develop students’ global awareness and key technological skills, but the activity will also generate research data to inform cross-cultural understanding of online phenomena. Also during the visits, I’m looking forward to learning more about the work of Australian academics into the concept of ‘Psychological literacy’ to bring this into my own employability teaching. Finally, I have been invited to disseminate my own work on psychology teaching and learning through guest talks and staff workshops at each University and I will also be coordinating a Symposium during the International Conference on Teaching of Psychology in Vancouver. A longer term aim is to develop links with these universities to explore psychology student placements. This is going to be a busy 6 months;-)

Need A Fully Funded Research Fellow ???

Funding opportunities, Training

  

 The Prize

These schemes provide strong financial support for a Research Fellow in your department for a period of 12 – 24 months on any research topic.

The Catch

The Research Fellow must come from another European Country or International Base worldwide. It is joint application with you and the fellowship candidate – so they must be identified. (If the fellow is already in the UK they must have been working here for less than 1 year in the last 3.)

The Deadline

Deadline for application is August 2013 – but the forms are relatively easy & straight forward – although moderately time consuming.Fellowships will start in early 2014 but this start date could be extended to early 2015.

Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)                  Deadline  Mid August 2013

International Incoming Fellowships (IIF)       Deadline  Mid August 2013

Note: For people already at the University there is a similar outgoing international Fellowship scheme to enable research periods in other , non European, Labs and Research Centres.

These fellowships are prestigious and highly sought after, especially as they pay very well. There is a difference in emphasis between the two schemes but the overriding criteria is candidate, and host, excellence with respect to the justification of the project rationale. This is all derived from the candidates cv and thus please discuss initially with Martin Pickard who can advise on suitability and fit.

These fellowships are an excellent, and often overlooked, way to expand and compliment a research team. Initial advice is imperative as, again, project structure and rationale with respect to the candidate are very important in determining success and need to be argued and justified around the actual science and project.

Requirements.

One University (Host) and one applicant, of any nationality, other than from than the UK. (candidates may already be in the UK but must have spent less than 12 months of the past 36 in the UK)

The higher the quality of the cv, rated against age and experience, the more likelihood of funding success. Each prospective fellow can only apply for one fellowship but any host can have as many fellows as they want applying to work with the same PI.

The Grant

Typical project period – Minimum 12 months — Maximum 24 months

Fellow income: In excess of 80,000 Euro per year.

University Income: Minimum of 18,000 Euro per year.

Help Needed ??

If you have a research Fellow in Mind (or can find one through networking or your colleague links) the application will not take a lot of time – but a clearly defined and specific approach is required. Guidance notes will be available as well as direct one to one support from our proposal writing specialist Dr. Martin Pickard. 

To assist further we have also arranged a series of 2 morning information sessions to be held on the Wednesday 27th of March and repeated again on the Tuesday 16th of April 2013 

Information Session 1 –  09:00am – 10:00am

A Brief Introduction to the Marie Curie Fellowship Schemes – for those of general interest.  

In addition to the general European topic specific calls under the cooperation programme there are a number of explicit opportunities arising through other schemes – some of which are far more easily accessible and have the advantage of being open to literally any research idea/topic. Several of these arise through the People programme under the Marie Curie calls and this 40 minute plus Q&A information session seeks to highlight some of these opportunities and identify their pro’s and cons so that a clear strategy can be developed to avoid missing these significant, and relatively easy, opportunities.

Information Session 2 – 10:15am – 12:15pm

How to Approach and Structure your Marie Curie Fellowship Application –  for those possibly intending to submit a bid.

The structure of any bid (partner interactions, methodology synergy etc.) is critical to the success of an application and forward planning is a key element of winning proposals.

If you are thinking of applying this August this session will illustrate the basic approach requirements for success and show how to structure and present your research application in the correct form of “Brusselese”.  A brief, 2 hour, guide to the Marie Curie application process.

Please note: If you are already intending to submit a bid this August then Session 1 will provide very little additional information. Also Grants Academy members who have already attended our Grants Academy 2 Day Bid Writing Workshop will not need to attend Session 1 as this has already been covered in your workshop so we would recommend you book into and attend Session 2 only.

If these are a potential interest to you – don’t miss this exceptional opportunity. Please book in ASAP via Staff Development Booking Link to reserve your space as we anticipate these sessions will be very popular.