/ Full archive

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)

____________________________________________________________________

 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).

BU sponsors Dorset Business Award for Entrepreneur of the Year 2012

Research themes

Bournemouth University proudly sponsored the Entrepreneur of the Year award for another year. The application and judging process culminated in an awards ceremony and Gala Dinner for 530+ guests at the Lighthouse in Poole on 29th November, hosted by actress and impressionist Debra Stephenson.

The evening had a Bond theme to celebrate the ‘007th’ year that the Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry has organised the awards and the 50th anniversary of the James Bond character.

The Entrepreneur of the Year category attracted one of the highest number of entries. The applicants were diverse and covered a broad and varied range of businesses. The judging panel had the enjoyable, yet extremely challenging, task of narrowing the list down to just three finalists.

The judges were Professor Roger Palmer the Dean of the Business School, Professor Dean Patton the Head of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Mark Painter the Business Development Manager for the Business School.  The three deserving finalists were Phil Whitehurst of Active Research, Duncan Cook of 3 Sided Cube and Paul Woods of Astute. Paul Woods was the eventual worthy winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year award. 

Mark, Roger and Dean were joined at the Gala Dinner by Tim Lee, a non-Executive Director of BU, the three finalists and their guests.

More information regarding the Dorset Business Awards can be found at www.dorsetbusinessawards.co.uk

RDU Small Grant Fund Winner- Update

Post-award, Publishing

In November 2011 I (Joanne Mayoh) was the recipient of one of the first BU Research Development Fund (RDF) Small Grant Scheme prizes. This award gave me the opportunity to travel to Champaign (Illinois) in May 2012 to present a paper at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. The budget covered my travel to Illinois, hotel accommodation, conference fees for the five day event, and sustenance costs during this time. As an early career researcher, who has only started publishing within the last few years, this was an excellent chance for me to receive support to present internationally, and engage in essential networking and profile building.

In addition to the conference paper, this opportunity resulted in targeting networking with a number of influential methodologists, and the submission of two journal articles, and a further (accepted) conference abstract in collaboration with a newly formed contact. This new associate is one of the most experienced mixed methodologists currently publishing within my target journals, and is therefore an invaluable connection for at this stage in my career.

The process of applying for RDF funding was extremely simple and one that I would recommend my colleagues engaging with if they have any need for a small grant. I would definitely apply to this fund in the future to support conference attendance, research support or general networking.  Overall it was a wonderful experience, and I am very grateful for the support from BU and the Research Development Unit.

Its not too late to apply for our 2 great EU internal funding schemes!

The EU Academic Development Scheme (EUADS) is a unique scheme developed to kick start your career in EU research; it’s open to all BU academic staff relatively inexperienced in gaining EU funding.  The EUADS will help you build up to making a submission by providing unlimited 1-2-1 support from an expert EU bid writer, group mentoring and unlimited assistance in actually writing your application over a 12 month period. As if this training wasn’t fantastic in itself, and the supportive culture of being a cohort undertaking the journey of EU funding extremely appealing, the EUADS also includes an individual fund. Each successful participant will be provided with grants as requested totalling up to a whopping £3k each by to spend on activities supporting bid development, such as:
• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Pilot research work
• Fieldwork
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
• Preparation of specialist material or data
• Replacement teaching 

You can read more on this scheme in the EUADS Policy Document  and make a submission using the  EUADS Application Form; the deadline is 18.12.12

The EU Networking Fund (EUNF) is open to any BU academics who want to network across Europe with a view to finding collaborators. We have a pot of money to support this scheme, and the fund will end when the pot is empty.
You can apply for support for a range of activities relating directly to networking, such as:
• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations.

You can read more on this scheme in the EUNF Policy Document and make a submission using the EUNF Application Form; there is no deadline.

There are plenty of EU initiatives to support you here at BU, so don’t miss out!