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Luisa Cescutti-Butler’s Purrrrr-fect PhD

‘Miniature’ cat and my PhD

Luisa Cescutti-Butler, Senior Midwifery Lecturer, Part-time PhD student, School of Health and Social Care

I have two cats but only one of them is the subject of this blog. It is ‘Mini Cat’ who takes centre stage and she is a black moggy. Despite myths and folklore surrounding black cats, Mini is nothing but a delight. She is a voracious killer of birds (I don’t like that characteristic), will eat anything and everything and is very friendly and loving towards her human parents. Why am I blogging about her you may ask, and what has she got to do with my doctoral studies?

I recently had time out from work to catch up on important elements of my research (such as transcribing interviews and getting to grips with NVivo) and would spend all day at my laptop in my study. The photos show Mini sitting beside me whilst I am trying to input data onto NVivo, a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). Ah ‘cute’ you might be thinking! Not so cute when she walks over the keys trying to gain your attention as it’s now ‘three o’ clock human mommy’ and ‘I want feeding’ – “purr purr”. If I ignore her because I’m in the middle of coding and am concentrating and don’t want to lose momentum, she will find other ways of attracting my attention. Her next tactic is to jump up onto the window-sill which is directly behind the laptop and start knocking things off it!  If that doesn’t work, she will jump down and start walking over the laptop again– “purr”, and eventually sit and look at me with her big green eyes and give a little meow! It’s no good now; I give up, go downstairs and feed her and Nutmeg, cat no 1.

On the other hand when Mini’s stomach is full she will often come up to the study, find a comfortable spot and sleep. She keeps me company and I find myself talking aloud to her, there’s nobody else I can share my thoughts with. I am not a sad and mad ‘cat woman’ but my other half is out at work as well. It is said that cats can help with studies, I would love Mini to stop murdering all the delightful birds and instead put those hunting skills to good use, such as helping me to find those elusive themes from all the data I have thus collected, but unfortunately her talents do not extend that far.

She is a nuisance sometimes, demanding my attention either for feeding or stroking but I wouldn’t have it any other way. People always say that cats are aloof but until you have one as a pet you will discover that is not true, they like to be with their owners even if their human mommy is battling with the intricacies of NVivo. However if any other PhD researcher knows of a cat with ‘transcribing skills’ give me a call!!!! I have to end this blog because Mini is hungry, ‘meow, meow’!!!

The Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management explain UK copyright law through animated videos

If somebody creates a parody or spoof based on a popular original work, does the spoof infringe the copyright of the original artist?

These videos explain the current status of expressions such as parody under UK copyright law.  Parodies use elements of an original work to create a new, humorous or critical expression.  Some countries, such as the USA, Australia and France, already allow the creation of parody without the need to obtain permission from the original copyright owner.

Currently, the UK government is considering making some changes to the existing Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA 1988). These videos explore those proposals and the arguments on both sides of the debate.

In 2011, the government initiated an independent review of intellectual property, carried out by Professor Ian Hargreaves: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves.htm
The report recommended adding an exception to copyright for the purposes of parody, which would allow users to create and share parodies without infringing copyright in certain circumstances.

A Bournemouth University report on the proposed copyright exception for Parody, authored by Dr Kris Erickson, Dr Dinusha Mendis, and Professor Martin Kretschmer, will be available in September 2012:
http://www.cippm.org.uk/publications.html

It is hoped that these videos will be helpful to all users of copyright:  teachers, librarians, artists, producers, journalists and members of the public.

The videos were created by research assistant Bartolomeo Meletti, with support from the Department of Law at Bournemouth University. 

Animation and editing by Marco Bagni – http://www.lostconversation.com
Filming, voice over and animation sound design by Nathan Revill @ Creative http://www.dorsetcreative.co.uk
Illustration by Danilo Rečević – http://www.danilor.it/
Music: Progressive — IB Audio
Interviewee: Dr Kris Erickson
Contributors: Professor Martin Kretschmer; Dr Kris Erickson; Dr Dinusha Mendis; Professor Ruth Towse.

Start your EU career with a Leonardo grant!

Funding is available under the Lifelong Learning Programme for Leonardo da Vinci transfer of innovation multilateral projects. The aim of this funding is to improve the quality and attractiveness of vocational education and training in participating countries by transferring existing innovations to new legal, systemic, sector, linguistic, socio-cultural and geographic environments through working with transnational partners. Funding is worth a maximum of €150,000 per year for one to two years, and the closing date is 31.01.13.

Don’t forget from my blogpost last week, that there is an info day in November which will cover the Lifelong Learning Programme and that we also have a successful Leonardo award holder here at BU, who is a great fan of the scheme; read Christos Gatzidis’ first Leonardoblogpost  and second Leonardo blogpost for inspiration!

Stepping stones to the north: ‘citizen science’ reveals that protected areas allow wildlife to spread in response to climate change

Pippa Gillingham from the School of Applied Sciences has co-authored a new study, led by scientists at the University of York, which has shown how birds, butterflies, other insects and spiders have colonised nature reserves and areas protected for wildlife, as they move north in response to climate change and other environmental changes.

Adonis blues can only colonise new sites which already contain horse-shoe vetch, the plant species that their caterpillars eat. These plants are restricted to grassland on chalk and limestone, most of which have been converted into agricultural crops; by S. J. Marshall (http://www.flickr.com/photos/16155010@N04/)

The study of over 250 species is published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS). The conclusions were based on the analysis of millions of records of wildlife species sent in predominantly by members of the public.

The work represents a major new discovery involving collaborators in universities, research institutes, conservation charities, and regional and national government but – crucially – fuelled by ‘citizen science’.

Many species need to spread towards the poles where conditions remain cool enough for them to survive climate warming. But doing this is complicated because many landscapes across the world are dominated by human agriculture and development, which form barriers to the movement of species.  The mainstay of traditional conservation has been to establish protected areas and nature reserves to provide refuges against the loss of habitats and other threats in the surrounding countryside. 

But this method of nature conservation has been questioned in recent years, partly because of continuing degradation of habitats in reserves in some parts of the world.  Increasingly, however, the value of protected areas is being question because climate change is taking place – wildlife sites stay where they are while animal species move in response to changing conditions.

However, the new research shows that protected areas are the places that most animal species colonise as they spread into new regions. “Protected areas are like stepping stones across the landscape, allowing species to set up a succession of new breeding populations as they move northwards,” said lead author Professor Chris Thomas, of the University of York.

Co-author Dr Phillipa Gillingham, now a Lecturer in the School of Applied Sciences at Bournemouth University, calculated that species are on average around four times more likely to colonise nature reserves than might be expected.  “For the seven focal species of birds and butterflies that we studied in greatest detail, 40% of new colonisations occurred in the mere 8.4 per cent of the land that was protected,” she said.  “Similar patterns were observed among more than 250 invertebrate species.”

But the study showed that species vary greatly in how much they need reserves.

“Some species, such as the Dartford Warbler and Silver-Spotted Skipper butterfly, are largely confined to nature reserves,” said Dr David Roy, of the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. “Whereas others like the Nightjar and Stone Curlew are less dependent on these sites.” 

Dr Richard Bradbury, of the RSPB, said: “Sites of importance for wildlife stand out like beacons in otherwise impoverished landscapes. This study shows that the hugely important role they play now will continue undiminished in the future. Protecting these arks, as well as restoring and re-creating new ones where we can, will provide the vital network enabling more species to survive the spectre of climate change.”

 “This study is a great example of how volunteer recorders and national monitoring schemes together provide the information to answer key conservation questions of global importance, such as how we can help wildlife cope with climate change,” said James Pearce-Higgins of the British Trust for Ornithology. “Only through the dedicated effort of so many people can we undertake the scale of long-term monitoring required.”

Assisted Living Innovation Platform (ALIP)

Funding opportunities

Promoting physical activity in older age

Invitation for proposals: The cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme wishes to support research into the physiological effects and behaviours associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the older population.

This nine funding partner call is issued under the auspices of the cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme and is led by the Medical Research Council on behalf of the BBSRC, the ESRC, the EPSRC and the UK health departments: Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates, NIHR, Health and Social Care Research and Development Office, Northern Ireland and the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research, Wales.

Despite wide spread recognition of the physical and mental health benefits of physical activity at all ages, activity levels commonly decline in older age, whilst the prevalence of sedentary behaviour increases. The cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme wishes to support research into the  physiological effects and behaviours associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the older population, which will inform the future development of effective interventions to motivate and sustain activity in this target population.  Approximately £5M is available to support research arising from this call. Applicants may apply for up to £1 million (80% fEC) for a maximum period of three years.

Key dates

   
Call open for applications in Je-S Monday 17th September 2012
Deadline for full proposals 4pm, Thursday18th October 2012
Potential triage of proposals November 2012
Commissioning Panel meeting March 2013
Decisions to applicants By end March 2013

Contact

In addition to this document, applicants should read the MRC Applicant Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions for this call.

Dr Katie Finch

MRC programme Manager for Lifelong Health and Wellbeing, E-mail: llhw@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk, Tel: 01793 416350

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Launch of the National Coastal Tourism Academy

On Tuesday 13 August Eric Pickles, MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced the allocation of a Coastal Communities Fund grant to the National Coastal Tourism Academy. The grant of £2 million will create the world’s only specialist coastal tourism academy, with the aim to turn local expertise into knowledge to share with towns across the country and internationally.

Bournemouth was chosen due to its unique position in the tourism industry. Eric Pickles said: “We want Bournemouth to be a catalyst in development. The town already has the infrastructure and resources like Bournemouth University specialising in tourism for this to be a success and to be able to communicate to struggling towns.”

Under the Bournemouth and Poole Joint Tourism Management Board, the Academy will be a combined project involving Bournemouth University, Bournemouth Borough Council and members of the Poole and Bournemouth Tourism industry. In addition to the economic benefits, Dr Keith Wilkes, Dean of the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University has been celebrating the opportunities the project will bring: “Bournemouth will be host to the first specialist Coastal Tourism Academy anywhere in the world – reflecting Bournemouth’s status as a major coastal tourism destination and the School of Tourism’s national and international reputation as a centre of research excellence and major provider of tourism, hospitality and event management undergraduate and postgraduate education”.

The National Coastal Tourism Academy is a ground breaking knowledge transfer institution, designed to accelerate tourism growth. The project shall be split into three growth initiatives: a Coastal Activity Park, a resort wide visitor experience programme and coastal tourism product research and development programme. Within the next few years, the National Coastal Tourism Academy will provide world-class educational and professional training to coastal tourism businesses, as well as producing a central sharing database and communications link for teams and individuals looking to expand their knowledge or businesses.

Dr Bruce Grant-Braham, member of the Dorset Local Economic Partnership (LEP) and Senior Lecturer in the School of Tourism, said that tourism is the backbone of Bournemouth’s economy, and that there is plenty of potential for development across Britain that coincides with the surge of ‘staycations’ and interest in the UK tourism industry, so now is the right time to be investing in expanding and creating sustainable coastal tourism opportunities with real local significance.

Bournemouth is a lively and modern coastal resort, but the introduction of this unique and innovative academy could raise its status to one of global significance. “Like all good ideas” concluded Eric Pickles, “I’m astonished it hadn’t been thought of before.”

Read the article on the Guardian website here: Bournemouth wins £2m to set up first coastal tourism academy in Europe

Latest journal impact factors

Research assessment

Following the release of the latest Journal Citation Reports® on the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge database, we have compiled a list of the top ranking journals in various fields related to BU research. BU staff can access these lists by going to the designated folder on the I-drive (copy and paste the following path into Windows Explorer and press return): I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Journal Impact Factors 2012.

If there are any additional subject areas that you would like to see included, please leave a comment to this post, below.

Related blog posts that may be of interest:

Fusion Investment Funding/Fund

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

Within the new Fusion Funding prospect here at Bournemouth University, I have just had success for a project examining  teaching practice and the use of media in the classroom.  The specific focus relates bullying, and name calling in school, and how media may be used to educate young learners.  I am very excited about this project, as it extends my foundational research in media representation and sexual diversity, allowing me to consider how teachers might relate issues of minority social identity.  Its very early days, as the project does not officially start until the 1st of October, and to be honest I have never done a blog before, and I (deliberately) have no presence on Facebook, Twitter etc, so the purpose of the blog is to reflect back on my progress for myself, as much as anything else, and if anyone reading this finds some interest, that’s great!

With this in mind, I thought I might share the background for the project.  A few years back in the late 198os, a secondary school teacher friend of mine often told me of instances when he used to play educational dramas about gay and lesbian youth identity issues.  I remember one time, he told me that he had played the television drama ‘The Two of  Us’ (Roger Tongue, 1988), which features a ‘kind of’ teen romance. This was quite daring, as at the time there was the backdrop of Clause 28, and the prohibition of educating school audiences about gay and lesbian identity.  Wind forward, many years later, and referencing an entirely different country, the work of Debra Chasnoff and her production company Groundspark, offered great insight.  Educational documentaries such as ‘Thats a Family’ (2000), and ‘Straighlaced’ (2009) produced by Groundspark offered insight into the diversity of families (adopted, single parent, same sex parents, diverse ethnicity etc) and the problem of stereotyping gender norms for teens.  Also Groundspark produced ‘Lets Get Real’ talking about issues of name calling in school.  At Bournemouth I had discussed the merits of these documentaries to students in the year 2 Media and Diversity option that I held.  I was inspired how students engaged with the subject area, and how they related these issues to their own productions.

More recently, specifically September 2010, I was invited to speak at the Westminster Media Forum.  The conference subject area was LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) representation in mainstream media.  I was thrilled to present a very brief paper to quite a diverse audience, including media professionals, broadcasters, and government representatives. My paper had been related to a need for more diverse representations.   The day after the conference, I read in the Guardian about the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a first year student at Rutgers university in the US.  He had killed himself, as his roommate had secretly filmed Tytler with a same sex partner.  The alleged shame appeared too much to bear for Tyler.  This high profile case made me investigate this further online.  I then discovered the ‘It Gets better Project’, a web site that was produced to offer support for youth contemplating suicide, due to oppression for sexual diversity.  What I did not know was that in the month of September 2010, a number of other gay male youth committed suicide also, stimulating video contribution to the ‘It Gets better Project’. I have done some papers on this area, considering the use of the site, but increasingly I am interested in how name calling is a real issue for young learners, and how words such as ‘gay’, ‘dyke’, ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’, are often unchallenged within diverse social environments.

So this is the very basic background to my research project.  Some great research has already taken place looking at LGBT identity issues in school, such as the No Outsiders Project (funded by the ESRC) a few years back relative to primary schools, but I am looking to extend these ideas, looking at how media is used in the secondary school classroom.

As a precursor to this project, I recently presented a paper at the Screen Conference in Glasgow, considering how children may read representations.  I was particularly interested in how young learners may read irony, which enables youth to make complex judgments about ‘earnest’ or ‘hyper-real’ representations.

So this is my starting point. I’ll add to this blog, as it all progresses.  Thanks again, supporters of this bid.

Success for a second time under the Leonardo Programme: GameWise

   Following the completion of the EU funded GameiT Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project (which attracted funding of 250,000 Euros in total) which focused on identifying, collecting, testing and distributing good practice in game-based learning thus producing a framework of game-based learning pedagogy targeted at teachers and trainers, running between 2009 and 2011, I was involved in another Leonardo bid this winter led by the same PI from Denmark (CV2).

The new project proposed was titled GameWise and concentrates on the European Commission’s recent acknowledgment of the  need to pay more attention to new ways of unlocking Europe’s potentials of cultural and creative industries (CCIs). For Europe and other parts of the world, the rapid rollout of new technologies and increased globalisation has meant a striking shift away from traditional manufacturing towards services and innovation. Factory floors are progressively being replaced by creative communities, whose raw material is their ability to imagine, create and innovate. In this new digital economy, immaterial value increasingly determines material value, as consumers are looking for new and enriching “experiences”. The ability to create social experiences and networking is now a factor of competitiveness.

The production of video games is central in this relation. These last years, the game industry has been on a fast track to become the world’s leading entertainment business. The majority of the production is, however, placed primarily in North America – and the focus is on games designed only for entertainment purposes. But a new way of doing business is on the rise: games made for other purposes than mere entertainment – e.g. learning, training, recruiting etc. The general term for this category of games is ‘serious games’, although also often referred to as applied gaming or gamification.

This project is then set to attempt to transfer the related to the above results that have been made under individual partners involved to the rest of the partnership and thus, via the exchange of practices amongst the consortium, explore the creation of new jobs in Europe by the transfer and adaptation of a model for closer cooperation between VET (Vocational Education and Training) institutions and the surrounding world of work.

The GameWise project I am happy to inform has now been successful in attracting funding and is set to run from the 1st of September 2012 to the 1st of September 2014. The total funds attracted are 250,000 Euros with 37,900 of that allocated to BU. Partners include institutions from a range of countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway.

I will post updates on GameWise occasionally once the project officially begins; meanwhile, I would definitely recommend colleagues look into the Leonardo calls for next year (the next one is I believe for January 31st 2013), these are part of the Lifelong Learning Programme and squarely focused on vocational education (as you can probably surmise from the GameWise project description above). As vocational teaching has traditionally been a BU strength, schemes such as the Leonardo one are an obvious EU funding avenue which could lead to successful results.

BU’s ECOSAL Team visiting Northern Ireland to investigate the coastal salt working site at Ballycastle, Co Antrim

BU’s ECOSAL Team recently visited Northern Ireland to investigate the coastal salt working site at Ballycastle, Co Antrim. ECOSAL is a multi-national EU-funded project that is recording the archaeological evidence for salt working around the Atlantic Coast of the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. It is also recording the ecology and biodiversity of these sites, many of them located in fragile environments such as lagoons. Key sites will be included on a European Salt Route, linking sites from all four countries while telling the story of salt production, the uses of salt, its economic history, etc.

The photo shows that it’s not all sunshine and celebrity media events, but on this occasion we found some excellent evidence for the 17th to 19th century salt-workings at Ballycastle, a once thriving industry now completely gone.

From left to right in the photo: David Cranstone, Wes Forsythe, Mark Brisbane, Michael Fradley and Danny McGill.

You can find out more about ECOSAL at our BU website: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/applied-sciences/research/ecosal-atlantis/index.html

Erasmus opportunities

 Erasmus intensive programmes facilitate student mobility for studies and placements and staff mobility. Projects funded under this programme will encourage education, vocational education and training. The Erasmus programme enables students to study abroad and supports collaboration between higher education institutions. The following are available with a closing date of March 2013:

•intensive programmes: lasting for between 10 continuous days and six weeks, to bring together students and teaching staff from higher education institutions of at least three participating countries

•student mobility for studies: lasting for between three and 12 months, enabling students at higher education institutions to spend an integrated study period in another participating country (see BU website for Erasmus student exchanges)

•student mobility for placements: lasting for between two and 12 months, enabling students at higher education institutions to spend a placement period in an enterprise or organisation in another participating country  (see BU website forErasmus work placements)

•staff mobility: lasting from one day to six weeks, enabling staff to spend a teaching period at a higher education institution in another participating country  (see BU website for Erasmus staff mobility)

 •staff mobility: lasting from five working days to six weeks, enabling teaching and other staff of higher education institutions to spend a period of training in an enterprise or organisation, such as an HEI, in another participating country  (see BU website for Erasmus staff mobility)

Research Professional – Training

Funding opportunities, Guidance, Training

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

25th September 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/156092065

23rd October 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/864991824

27th November 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/326491841

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

School of Tourism’s Lorraine Brown on her upcoming Study Leave

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

I am very pleased to be able to to share the first blog post for Fusion Investment Fund Projects.

Our research has shown that posts by our academics sharing their projects are our most widely read posts.  So the coming weeks are set to be packed with stories our successful applicants will share in the lead up to and during their funded projects.  I hope this post will spark your interest in applying for Study Leave and in Dr Brown’s two trips abroad starting in November.    

Dr Lorraine Brown from the School of Tourism has won funding from the Fusion Investment Fund Study leave strand to do research on literary tourism in both Paris and Berlin, She has been invited to visit the prestigious Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University as a visiting researcher in France’s leading tourism research centre (IREST), where she will based to do her primary research and where she will also network with colleagues in IREST’s interdisciplinary research centre.

In Berlin, she will be based in the Geography Department of the world-leading Humboldt University. A qualitative approach will be undertaken, involving observation and interviews over a six-week period at key literary tourist sites in Berlin, one of the top three literary tourism destinations in the world. In line with the Fusion agenda, findings will be published in top tourism journals; they will be disseminated to practitioners; and will inform the syllabus of one of the MSc units that the proposer leads.

At both Universities, Lorraine will explore opportunities for ongoing research collaboration.

If you would like further information on the fund please do get in touch by email with me.

Best wishes,

Sam

Engineering Research Exchanges with China and India – funding available now!

The Royal Academy of Engineering have announced their next round of Research Exchanges with China and India scheme funding. The scheme promotes collaboration between high quality engineering researchers in the UK and China/India and facilitates the expansion of networks of excellence in engineering research between the UK and China/India. It enables academic engineering researchers at Universities to travel to a Chinese or Indian academic Institution, and for China/India-based academic researchers to spend between 3 and 12 months at a UK Institution. Visits should be part of longer-term efforts to build UK-China/India relationships and to advance joint research. Funding of up to £24,000 per annum is provided (or part thereof for shorter visits). The deadline for applications is 12 October 2012.

School of Tourism’s Dr. Debbie Sadd undertaking an ethnographic study of volunteering at the Olympics

Dr. Debbie Sadd, from School of Tourism, had the fantastic opportunity to work as a volunteer with the world’s photographers and journalists covering the basketball at the London Olympic Games. Her duties varied from day to day but involved sitting court side with the photographers making sure they don’t stray from their allotted areas to working ‘backstage’ ensuring all the required technical material is available for them to transmit their stories/photos back to their respective editors. Some days the sports specialists rang through whilst the transmissions were live on US television asking for facts and figures, which have to be available immediately for broadcast in the US. Debbie’s group had their own system called info+ which contained all the necessary information and they were required to be proficient in its use pretty quickly.

In Debbie’s own words, the experience was “quite stressful and tiring but gosh have I seen some exciting games and met some wonderful people and I even got to see my hero Kobe Bryant!”

The International Early Labour Research Group

Early labour Group

Photo (L to R): Dr Helen Cheyne (University of Stirling), Dr Mechthild Gross (Hannover Medical School), Dr Mary-Ann Davey (La Trobe University), Professor Patti Janssen (University of British Columbia), Professor Helen Spiby (University of Nottingham), and Professor Vanora Hundley (Bournemouth University). Not shown Gillian Hanley (University of British Columbia).

Researchers from across the globe met in Stirling last week to discuss early labour research and to plan an international collaborative study. The meeting was the result of a successful Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) planning grant to bring together researchers from Canada, Australia, Germany, England and Scotland. We have met on a number of occasions in the last couple of years, but usually at a conference when time is limited, so it was a real luxury to have two full days to discuss early labour care and to plan a possible intervention for women in the latent phase of labour. Although we have all conducted studies in this area, developing a complex intervention for use in five countries raises many novel challenges. Discussion focused on the varying models of care and current guidelines – the NICE and KCND guidelines used in the UK were much appreciated by our international colleagues. We left the meeting invigorated, but also aware that there is much to do. The first step will be a special issue of Midwifery later this year dedicated to early labour and guest edited by two of the team.