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BUDI introduces two new dementia PhD studies

The Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) would like to introduce two new dementia PhD studies by Clare Cutler and Ben Hicks.

Clare Cutler, a research assistant in BUDI, has recently started a PhD in the field of dementia. The PhD looks to investigate how experiences of war impact on living with dementia and how understanding such experiences may enhance improvements in knowledge, awareness, care and wellbeing. As experiences of war extend far beyond the battle field, the study aims to look at groups other than veterans and prisoners of war. This is particularly relevant as it will increase understanding and insight into how traumatic experiences affect people with dementia and may help to provide reasons to promote personal and therapeutic care. Clare’s academic background in history and archaeology along with working in the field of dementia provides an interesting collaboration between the two subject areas. For more information on this project please contact Clare on 01202 965163.

Ben Hicks has recently joined the BUDI team to undertake a PhD in collaboration with AgeUK Dorset. Previously he worked as a researcher at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) where he was a member of the health and well-being team. Before moving to BUDI, he managed a research project for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) which informed the development of guidance documentation for carers wishing to implement and use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to improve the well-being of people with dementia.  The current PhD looks to draw upon and advance this work, by exploring the use of computer game technology as a care intervention to improve the well-being of men with dementia in rural areas of Dorset.

Working closely with AgeUK Dorset and other dementia care providers in the local area, Ben will lead consultation groups with dementia experts, care practitioners, men with dementia and their family members to ascertain the most appropriate gaming technology to introduce; this could include the Xbox Kinnect, Nintendo Wii or the Nintendo DS. Having established the technology to be used, he will run a series of care interventions with men with dementia each lasting three months. He will determine the success and sustainability of these interventions by collecting qualitative and quantitative data prior to their introduction, immediately after their conclusion and three months post intervention.

The consultation period is due to commence in early 2013, with the care intervention phase likely to run through late 2013 to early/mid 2014 and the final results and guidance documentation to be published in 2015. For further information on the project please contact Ben on bhicks@bournemouth.ac.uk

Notes from ESRC ARMA WORKSHOP 2012 on challenges and opportunities for the social sciences in the current economic climate

Funding opportunities, Guidance

BU’s Teresa Coffin and Eva Papadopoulou (Research and Knowledge Exchange Operations) attended a training day hosted by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) aimed at discussing the challenges and opportunities for the social sciences in the current climate. The focus of the event included presentations from the main Department Heads who outlined their internal workings, grant application framework and advice for successful applications. They also discussed their amended research agenda, funding opportunities, various partnerships and current strategic priorities. Notes from the day can be found here:

ARMA Notes

Voice your concens about EU research budget cuts

The next summit of the European Union is on November 22nd. It is at this summit the EU research budget for the next seven years will be determined.  Several Member States are demanding severe cuts on the total EU budget and research will have to compete with other policy priorities.

An open letter signed by European Nobel laureates has been published in top European newspapers and a mobilization of the national scientific communities is underway to object to these cuts. To help contribute to this, an online petition coordinated by the Initiative for Science in Europe has been launched which you can sign.

PGR Development Framework Programme – Additional November workshop

PG research

Additional workshops for November:

Social Media Workshop:  Introduction to Twitter, Blogging and LinkedIn
Outline: This workshop will introduce you to the use of Social Media and answer questions such as “Why Twitter?” and how to use it to engage and grow audiences.  The workshop will include practical exercises such as setting up your profile.  The session will also include a look at LinkedIn and blogging
Date: Wednesday 28 November 2012
Time: 14:00 – 16:00
Room: S102, Studland House – Lansdowne
Facilitator: Paul Hughes
Booking: gsbookings@bournemouth.ac.uk

NEW Online Ethics Checklist Launches TODAY!!

Research Ethics

I’m pleased to announce that the new online ethics checklist is live! Click HERE to access the online ethics checklist. Please keep in mind that if you submit a checklist, the person you indicated as you supervisor will receive an email notifying them of your submission.

Our IT developers have done a fantastic job creating an easy, collapsible, web-based form to replace our current paper checklist; the best part is that the form is collapsible, so it is entirely researcher specific. Not only will this online form streamline the submission process across the University, it will also provide a central repository for all approved checklists to facilitate the improvement of compliance within the Schools. The new online ethics checklist will soft launchs today for two months of beta testing and will fully launch on 1 January 2013. This two month period will give us time to beta test the checklist with a handful of student groups across BU to ensure all the technical bugs are sorted out.

Would you like to be involved in the beta testing? If so, please get in touch with me and we’ll set everything up! I’ve already had a handful of volunteers to test the checklist, but please let me know if you’d like to get involved. Additionally, please let me know if you’d like a sneak peek of the online checklist – I’m more than happy to give you a quick tutorial.

The link to the new checklist will be made available on the Research Ethics website.

 

Reminder – BRIAN upgrade

Guidance

BRIAN will be unavailable from 9am to 12noon today due to an upgrade to the system.  Please see yesterdays posting for details of the upgrade.  This will also mean that the external staff profile pages will be unavailable.  These may be unavailable for slightly longer as the information from BRIAN will take time to upload into the web pages.

Thank you for your patience.

Good luck & Congratulations!

Awarded & submitted bids

I would like to offer congratulations to Julie Robson and Chris Chapleo (Business School) for being awarded funding from the TSB Classic KTP, Stephanie Farmer (Media School) for securing a contract with XPRIZE, Jonathan Monteith (ApSci) for his successful application to Anesco.

Congratulations are also due to Karina Gerdau-Radonic (ApSci), Adrian Newton (ApSci), Roger Herbert (ApSci) and Paola Palma (ApSci) for arranging their various short courses.

I would like to wish good luck to Andrew Ford (ApSci) for his application for a NERC Grant, Samuel Nyman (DEC) for his application to EPSRC – EOI, Jonathan Parker and Sara Crabtree for their application for funding from ESRC, Kris Erickson (Media School) for his application to ESRC, Chris Chapleo and Tim Ford, Ke Rong and Donald Nordberg (Business School) for their applications for funding to BA/Leverhulme, Sarah Williams (DEC) for her application for funding to the Bupa Foundation,  Stephanie Farmer (Media School) for her application to Pumpseal UK, Lihua You (Media School) for his application to Royal Academy of Engineering, Ana Adi (Media School) for her application to KidZone Direct, Max Lowestein (Business School) for his application to SLSA, Lindsay Watson (Media School) for her application for funding from Skillset, Adrian Newton (ApSci) for his application to EC FP7 Collaborative Stage 1 (of 2), Jon Williams and Lu Esteves (ApSci) for their application to EC FP7 Collaborative Stage 1 (of 2), David Parham (ApSci) for his application to English Heritage.

Best wishes

Matthew

BRIAN Unavailability due to upgrade – 1/11/12

Guidance

BRIAN is likely to be unavailable between 9am and 12noon on Thursday, 1st November 2012 whilst the system upgrades to a new version.  I say likely as the issues experienced yesterday with the network have put all systems at risk.  I will issue a blog post tomorrow to state whether or not the upgrade will take place and I will also put a warning notice on the log-in screen for BRIAN informing users of when the system will be unavailable.

The upgrade will include a new look user profile page within BRIAN and so your home page will look different, however, all functions will remain the same.  There will be the addition of a ‘Favourites’ tab, which will allow for a separate display of publications that you have flagged as a ‘favourite’ (please note that ‘favourites’ are only available in BRIAN and not replicated in the web based external staff profile pages).

If you choose to make a publication ‘invisible’ (you may choose to do this for publications of a sensitive/controversial nature) then this will be hidden in your external profile page.  However, if you co-author with another BU academic, the publication will only be hidden for the author who has selected to make it ‘invisible’.  Therefore, you will need to discuss with all relevant BU authors whether a publication will be visible externally by one or none of you.

There will be an improved link between Supervisors and PhD students.  When Supervisors add their PhD students to their BRIAN account, this currently creates a false link for the student in the external staff profile pages.  The upgrade will enable a hyperlink within the Supervisors external profile page to the Students external profile page.  More details will follow on this.

The authors for publications will be displayed in the external staff profile pages as ‘BU Authors’ and ‘Other Authors’.  The BU Authors will be hyperlinked so that users can go directly to a BU staff members profile page.

There will be a number of changes to the REF module, which will mainly benefit the RKEDO team.

There are a number of developments still to take place on BRIAN.  This includes the Grants module, which should go live shortly.

Please note that the user guides and videos will contain screen prints of the previous homepage.  These will be updated in due course.

ESRC Festival of Social Science, What Constitutes Evidence for Copyright Policy?

ESRC Festival of Social Science,

What Constitutes Evidence for Copyright Policy?

Thursday 8 November 2012, 10.30 am – 6 pm

Executive Business Centre, Bournemouth University


What the Workshop is about?

This interactive event offers the opportunity for discussion on evidence for copyright policy between social scientists, policy–makers and producers and users of copyright works. The event, which is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, will take the form of panel and round table discussions between policy–makers from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), stakeholders from the creative industries and academics from economics, sociology, law and cultural studies with expertise in copyright. The focus is on what evidence from these fields of study is relevant and useful to policy–makers and those seeking to put their case to them.  For more information see http://www.cippm.org.uk/news/2012/june/ne001-esrc-social-science-festival.html

How I can participate if I cannot attend?

The event will be complemented by digital interaction which will include an effective micro-blogging infrastructure to encourage participation and dissemination of information for those who are unable to attend.  There will also be write-ups following the Workshop detailing the events of the day.

If I am unable to attend, can I ask questions on the day from the expert panel?

Yes, it will be possible by using the hash-tag #cippm2012

There will be an opportunity for chosen ‘virtual questions’ to be raised and answered at the event, which in turn will be published on Twitter.  The tweets on the day will be captured on Storify which will be made available on the CIPPM website http://www.cippm.org.uk/  following the event.

We invite you to ‘tune in’ and join us in the discussion on the 8th November using the Twitter hash-tag #cippm2012

CIPPM associate director quoted in Financial Times

Prof. Ruth SoetendorpProfessor Ruth Soetendorp, Associate Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) in the Business School has been quoted in the Financial Times.  http://search.ft.com/search?queryText=ruth+intellectual+property The article titled ‘Students Need Better Education about Intellectual Property” (IP) goes on to reveal the recent research findings published by the National Union of Students (NUS), the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the Intellectual Property Awareness Network (IPAN).  According to the research, it has been established that “that while 80 per cent of students believe knowledge of IP is important, many students are not even aware of the potential scope of IP education. And even where it does take place, IP education is often restricted to plagiarism. Furthermore whilst 82 per cent of students feel it is important to know about IP to ensure everyone receives recognition for their work and ideas, significantly less make a connection between IP and commercial success”.

Professor Ruth Soetendorp, Head of IPAN’s Education Group is quoted as follows:

“This research highlights shortcomings in student IP understanding and its teaching in Further and Higher Education which have negative implications for the UK economy.  The UK needs to be world class in the creative arts, innovative in its product and systems designs, and pioneering in manufacturing processes.  In a global market these need to be underwritten by a proper understanding of IP embedded in an educated workforce.”

The Full Report can be found here http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12238/2012_NUS_IPO_IPAN_Student_Attitudes_to_Intellectectual_Property.pdf and the IPAN media release, quoted in the Financial Times can be found here http://www.ipaware.net/node/77

Bournemouth University is one of only two universities in the UK to have an innovative IP syllabus for final year law students. The Intellectual Property law unit which is offered to final year law students culminates in a collaborative project which brings together Law students and Design, Engineering and Computing (DEC) students.  The project requires the Law students to provide IP advice to DEC students on their final year ‘inventions’.  The project brings ‘IP law to Life’ and provides the type of IP understanding and commercial awareness that both parties need.

http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/newsandevents/News/2012/july/contentonly_1_7896_7896.html

The IP-DEC Project at Bournemouth University was pioneered by Professor Ruth Soetendorp in 1995.

Wanted: members for RC governing councils

Six research councils are inviting applications to fill governing council vacancies expected to arise in 2013.

Suitably qualified academics and experienced individuals from industry, commerce, government, and the voluntary, creative and cultural sectors, can apply.

The vacancies are at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

The vacancies include some positions with audit committee responsibilities for part-time membership.

Annual honoraria of £6,850 will be paid. The closing date for applications is 19 November.

Want to learn more about how to network effectively?

Networking is crucial in academic life and critical for participation in EU funding. In today’s world, to develop a strong academic career, publications aren’t enough; network relations can play a huge role.  Being well connected and carrying out research in cooperative partnerships significantly increases your chances of attaining a professorship and will allow you to grow your research career by participating in a range of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary projects.

Networking can be daunting and exhausting. To help you identify key players and how best to approach them as well as learning  how to network effectively with a range of stakeholders, expert Dr Martin Pickard of Grantcraft will deliver 3 hours of  fantastic guidance in this session on Talbot campus.  Booking is essential through the Staff Development website.

Environmental Change & Biodiversity Research Theme seminar on Thursday!

The Environmental Change & Biodiversity Research Theme is holding its first seminar of the academic year on Thursday 1 November. The seminar will be held in Kimmeridge House KG03 at 1200. Tea and coffee and biscuits will be provided.

The seminar will be quite informal and will be used as an opportunity to discuss ideas that are in development as well as presenting completed results. Additionally, this will be an opportunity for new PhD students in the theme to give a brief (about 5 min) overview of their PhD, and meet staff with overlapping interests. So far the following people have offered: Farah Al-Shorbaji, Adrian Blake, Katharine Bowgen, Danny Sheath and Ann Thornton. Their PhDs cover a range of subjects including the genetics, behaviour and ecology of fish, the effect of eutrophication of coastal habitats, and the effect of environmental change on birds.

The next Environmental Change & Biodiversity seminars will be held on 22 November in Stevenson Lecture Theatre at 1200 and on 13 December in Christchurch House CG13 at 1200. Richard Stillman is the theme leader, so please let him know if you would like to present at one of the upcoming seminars.

Pool of external bid advisers – nominations sought!

As part of the Grants Academy programme we’re looking to set up a pool of external experts who can provide reviews of drafts of funding proposals for Academy members which will help develop bid writing skills and hopefully increase our chance of winning grants. Dr Martin Pickard (who facilitates the Grants Academy workshops) will provide some of this support, particularly for EC bids, however we are also setting up a pool of external reviewers with experience in different disciplines and of different funders who can be called upon to offer their advice.

I am interested to know whether any BU academics would be willing to nominate any of their external peers to potentially be invited to join the pool of external reviewers.

Nominations should be for senor academics who are experts in their field with significant experience of winning grant funding and/or significant experience of sitting on review panels. To avoid potential conflicts of interest it would be ideal if these people are recently retired or semi-retired, however this is not essential.

If you can think of anyone who would be suitable please could you email me their details.

Research by BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers will appear on ITV Daybreak this Thursday

In a bid to tackle children’s sleep problems, BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers in the School of Design, Engineering and Computing, has been running workshops for parents at Bournemouth primary schools for several years now. The workshops started because staff at Winton Primary School noticed that pupils were struggling to get through the day without falling asleep, and were often difficult to engage because of tiredness. Andrew welcomed the opportunity to work with the school, an activity that reflects the ambition of the university to undertake more public engagement. The success of these workshops have been receiving a great deal of national media attention, with previously reported features in the Daily Mail, TES, and an interview with Talk Radio Europe. To follow on from that, Andrew’s work with children’s sleep at Winton Primary School will feature on ITV Daybreak on Thursday November 1st, as part of a series that the channel is showing across the week. It is due to be aired at around 6.50am. While Andrew welcomes the media attention, he hopes that this will help publicise his ambition to develop a professional online resource for children’s sleep, working in collaboration with some of the leading UK sleep charities.

EU Showcase time is nearly here!

Last year’s event was a tremendous success and this year’s will be even bigger and better so it is little wonder I am very excited for the EU Showcase Event in a couple of weeks time.

We all know the importance of getting involved in EU funding as national funds dwindle, greater importance is placed on international collaborations and of BUs strategic focus on internationalisation. This event will celebrate our successful EU award holders who will share their tips for engaging in EU funding.

We have presentations on schemes to help you start your EU career (Christos Gatzidis on the Leonardo scheme of the Lifelong Learning Programme and Bogdan Gabrys and Rob Britton on Marie Curie schemes) and schemes for those already engaged (Anthea Innes on applying for an FP7 grant and Adrian Newton on being a Partner in an FP7 consortium). We also have top tips on how to network effectively to become involved in EU funding (from the very experienced Dimitrios Buhalis and Cornelius Ncube). Finally I will be launching 3 very exciting internal EU focused funding competitions at this event to help you engage in EU funding and we have presentations from those who won funding through 2 of these schemes last year.

The informal and informative event will be opened by Matthew Bennett in Kimmeridge House  on 14th November. Plenty of coffee, tea, lunch and cake provided and due to the restriction of room size, registration is essential. This takes only 10 seconds on the Staff Development website.

The event will be finished in plenty of time for you to drive/ catch the uni bus to the Executive Business Centre (EBC) to hear the Inaugural Lecture Dementia: personal journey to policy priority by HSC’s Prof. Anthea Innes.

What’s in a star?

News from the PVC

On Thursday I chaired the last of the mock REF panels bringing to close the first of two summative mock exercises we are running in the final year of REF preparation before the big submission a year from now.  In fact in about 12 months it will be all done, game over with nothing to do but wait a year for the results.  In many ways I am looking forward to that point so that we can focus our energies elsewhere, but in the meantime we are in the final push.  It is also this phase of the process that causes most anxiety for staff since it is the year in which ones’ outputs are held up to close scrutiny, graded and selected for final submission.  The processes by which this is done are set out in the BU Codes of Practice for REF.  But one can’t escape from the fact that having ones’ research outputs scrutinized and discussed is not for some a pleasant process.  I share this with you since my own outputs are part of the process to.

Feedback from the mock on an individual’s outputs is being provided by the UoA Leader following the assessment panel and I have heard some cries of annoyance, anguish and anger as that feedback has been given.  I know for a fact that many staff are disappointed to only have outputs graded at 1* or 2* and have taken this as demotivating and in some cases as an insult to all their hard work and endeavour.  I feel for you all, some of my own outputs have been graded no more than 2*.  But it is worth reflecting on just what that actually means.

According to REF-2014 criteria 1* equates to work ‘that is recognized nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour’.  You can’t escape from the fact that to have nationally recognized work is something to be proud of.  Equally the 2* criteria states that the output ‘is recognized internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour’ to have work graded as such should also be no disappointment.  To get something rated at 4* requires it to be ‘world-leading’ and only papers which are literally the ‘best of the best’ are going to get such a grading.  So while it might be disappointing to only have work graded at 1* or 2* no one should be disappointed in such an outcome; easy to say and very much the truth, but I do understand that people may feel disappointed none the less.

I suppose the question that this begs in many peoples minds is what quality threshold will we apply for the submission?  The honest answer is that I don’t know yet and I certainly would not be disclosing our tactics on an open blog!  It is something that our REF Academic Steering Group will consider in detail this year before a decision is made in the spring as set out in the BU Codes of Practice.  There is a trade-off between submitting a small selection of outputs of the highest quality and submitting a wider selection, and consequently more staff, which says something more balanced about our research.  The current funding algorithm only funds the part of our quality profile that is 3* or above, but in truth the funding algorithm which will follow the results of REF-2014 won’t be announced until the spring of 2015 and will be informed by the next compressive spending review in 2014 and the REF-2014 results due out in December of that year.  In short your guess is as good as mine!  I have always said that our submission is about ‘glory not gold’ and is therefore about enhancing our reputation first and foremost rather than about money.

In the meantime don’t be put off by the having outputs rated at 1* or 2* star, be proud to be part of the process, to be publishing and creating new knowledge which is lets face it a fantastic feeling!