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ESRC – Workshop for Google Data Analytics Social Science Research

Funding opportunities

“Data is the new raw material of the 21st century, it allows citizens to hold governments to account, drives improvements in public services by informing choice, and provides a feedstock for innovation and growth.” As open-source data is set to grow, this is a key time to better understand how it maps onto and possibly significantly strengthens, the ability of academics to understand society. The ESRC and Google are therefore pleased to announce the Google Data Analytics Social Science Research Call.

The call for Google Data Analytics Social Science Research aims to provide funding for projects that demonstrate the potential of how publicly accessible online data, analytical and presentational tools, such as those provided by Google, can be used to address social and economic research topics, showcasing how academics can use online data analytical tools in creative, intellectual and creative ways. As part of this process, the projects should:

  • transmit best practice in use of such tools for social science
  • show how the tools can be used to test social-science theories
  • suggest possible improvements/innovations in the tools to help integrate analytics and open-source data tools in general into the teaching/learning community.

They have allocated £200,000 to fund a maximum of four research projects lasting up to one year. The call will open on 20 August 2012 and close on 2 October 2012.

To register for this call launch workshop please send a brief description of your area of interest to:knowledgeexchange@esrc.ac.uk by 2 August 2012. Please note, this information may be circulated to other attendees unless you state otherwise.

Further Information

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

ESRC – Student Internship Scheme

Funding opportunities

The ESRC student internship scheme provides current ESRC-funded PhD students with the opportunity to spend up to six months in a non-academic organisation within the public, civil society (voluntary) or private sector where they can work as part of a team involved with policy and practice development.

The internship scheme provides both student and host organisations with a clear set of benefits and contributes to the skills and professional development of PhD students.

Students can benefit from:

  • networking within the policy arena
  • transferable skills and knowledge
  • time management skills
  • report writing skills.

Hosts can benefit from:

  • additional resources
  • production of briefing papers
  • adding to the organisation’s policy evidence base.

ESRC students

If you are an ESRC-funded student wishing to undertake an internship award during 2012, you will need to complete and return an application form for each of the host organisation(s) you wish to apply to by the closing date of 10 August 2012.

Application forms and project details for participating hosts are available using the host organisations links below.

Participating host organisations for the 2012 internships:

Internship holders receive a three month extension to their ESRC award (conditions apply), and will be able to claim for reasonable travel and accommodation costs (conditions apply).

End of Award Report

Students and host organisations must complete and submit an End of Award Report within three months of completing the internship.

Contacts

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Daiwa Foundation Small Grants

Funding opportunities

Grants of £3,000-£7,000 are available to individuals, societies, associations or other bodies in the UK or Japan to promote and support interaction between the two countries.

WHAT KIND OF PROJECT IS ELIGIBLE?

Daiwa Foundation Small Grants can cover all fields of activity, including educational and grassroots exchanges, research travel, the organisation of conferences, exhibitions, and other projects and events that fulfil this broad objective. New initiatives are especially encouraged.

WHAT KIND OF PROJECT IS NOT ELIGIBLE?

Daiwa Foundation Small Grants cannot be used for:
*general appeals
*capital expenditure (eg, building refurbishment, equipment acquisition, etc)
*consumables (eg, stationery, scientific supplies, etc)
*school, college or university fees
*research or study by an individual school/college/university student
*salary costs or professional fees
*commissions for works of art
*retrospective grants
*replacement of statutory funding
*commercial activities

HOW TO APPLY

UK-based applicants can apply online. Applications from Japan should be posted to the Tokyo Office.

There are two application deadlines each year, 31 March (for a decision by 31 May) and 30 September (for a decision by 30 November). However, the Foundation encourages applicants to submit their application as early as possible. The Foundation is also happy to provide advice about possible applications – please contact grants@dajf.org.uk.

Please read the application notes before starting your online  application:
Online Application Notes

Please click here for the online application form

DECISION

All applicants are notified by letter from the Foundation. The decision of the Trustees is final and the Foundation is unable to discuss unsuccessful applications.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Internal Promotion – Associate Professor, Professor 1 and Professor 2

News from the PVC

Dear Colleagues

We are pleased to invite applications for Associate Professor, Professor 1 and Professor 2 appointments.

The title of Associate Professor will be conferred on staff normally with a Doctorate and track record of excellence in one of the following areas: Education, Research, Enterprise or Professional Practice, with an evidence based potential to develop significant national/international standing.

A Professorship is awarded to individuals who have achieved distinction and esteem both at national and international level over and above that of a Reader or Associate Professor in one of the following areas: Education, Research, Enterprise and Professional Practice.

Full details regarding the role, application process, including job descriptions and person specifications are available here:

 I Drive\OVC\Public\Professors & Associate Professors. 

There will be 2 sessions held during August with the Pro Vice-Chancellor and members of the Professoriate to outline the promotion process, define the role and expectations of Associate Professor and Professorial post holders and outline the evidence you would be expected to demonstrate as part of your application.  If you are considering applying for one these posts you are strongly encouraged and expected to attend one of the following sessions:

Applying for Associate Professor – Monday 6 August 2012 at 2pm .

Applying for Professor 1 or Professor 2 – Wednesday 8 August at 2pm.

If for reasons of annual leave you are unable to attend one of these sessions then please contact the Pro-Vice Chancellor for an appointment via Kathryn Hill (ext. 65868) and he will endeavour where possible to meet you individually.

Please contact click here to book on to one of these events. If you are off-campus and experiencing difficulty accessing the staff intranet please email your booking to staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

The closing date for all applications will be Wednesday 5 September 2012. 

It is expected that applications for Associate Professors will be assessed during September 2012 and shortlisted applicants invited to attend an interview during October 2012 subject to panel availability.

It is expected that applications for Professor 1 or 2 will be assessed during September 2012 and shortlisted applicants invited to attend an interview during December 2012 subject to panel availability.

If you would like any further information regarding this process then please speak to Katherine Jabbari on 61145 or your Academic Manager in the first instance.

Kind regards

Human Resources

Commission seeks views on access to research infrastructure

If you get a bit cheesed off with the EC and want to have your say, then consultations are definately a great opportunity for you. There is one currently running on the follow-up to Framework 7’s “integrating activities” for research infrastructure which aims to widen access and enhance the use of research facilities that are already running in Europe and beyond. The consultation is gathering input until 22 October on possible specific topics for these activities under Horizon 2020 in 2014-20. Now’s the chance to have your say

ECCG @ the IPA, Trying to ‘Make commercial sense of scholarly research’

We tried to see how much value might be placed on our scholarly work – PhD work mainly – by those in industries that are linked closely to our subject. In this case that meant talking to people from advertising agencies and our investigations into consumer culture. A series of brief introductory talks each followed by a seminar based discussion led by one of the academic team took place following this format:
The commercial value of academic research: insightful processes and findings
Dr Janice Denegri-Knott PhD work – virtual consumption
Dr Rebecca Jenkins PhD work – consumer imagination
Dr Mike Molesworth PhD work – consumer play
Dr Richard Scullion PhD work – consumer choice
Dr Carrie Hodges – cultural impacts on consumption
Some fascinating insights emerged from the day and I share them in no particular order of importance here.
Industry people are just as likely to say they will turn up and then not do so as our students!
They are locked firmly in the now, in their own practices and many resist being challenged on this
Despite our efforts to ‘talk business language’ it still felt a little impenetrable to our audience ‘for the sake of being clever’
Seeing things in ‘Black and white’ is still very much valued, the complexity and nuances are acknowledged but they want us to iron them out not explain why we shouldn’t, can’t, or are in danger of missing the essence of the material by doing so
More ‘positively’ they sort of know they need to break out of the now mode and the counting mentality but narrow definitions of ROI is currently a major block
Want to know more check this out
http://eccg.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/event-eccg-the-ipa-london-making-commercial-sense-of-scholarly-research-about-consumer-culture/

BBSRC/FSA joint call for Early Career Research Fellowships

Funding opportunities

Application deadline: 20 September 2012

Background

BBSRC, in partnership with the Food Standards Agency (FSA), encourages applications for early career research fellowships (analogous to the David Phillips fellowships scheme) in areas of science that are of strategic and scientific interest and importance to the funders. For more details see:Visit the Food Standards Agency website

They welcome proposals within the BBSRC/FSA remit. The FSA particularly encourages proposals which can demonstrate potential for significant leaps forward in providing the evidence needed to underpin its objective of safer food for the nation. These may be on current/new areas of interest where building research capability/capacity/new approaches would be helpful, for example:

  • on foodborne disease organisms such as Listeria
  • on emerging/new issues for which a compelling case can be made

Number of awards

They anticipate two 5-year fellowships will be awarded, in addition to the standard BBSRC David Phillips fellowships awarded annually, and subject to the usual excellent quality expected.

BBSRC and FSA have allocated up to £2M to fund these additional fellowships.

How to apply

Application to these fellowships is through the David Phillips fellowship scheme (see related links).

Applicants should submit a covering letter indicating that they wish to be considered for the BBSRC-FSA fellowships scheme.

Please note that only one application to both schemes is required.

Applications submitted which are considered out of remit will automatically be considered for a standard David Phillips fellowship, so long as they fall within the broader BBSRC remit.

Assessment

Applications to both schemes will be assessed in the same way through BBSRC’s Research Committee E (supplemented by appropriate expertise as required).

Application assessment will run concurrently with that of David Phillips fellowships.

Engagement with policy

As part of successful fellowships, each Fellow will be allocated a mentor from the FSA (in addition to the mentor assigned from BBSRC) to foster collaboration and interaction between the Fellow and the FSA.

Each Fellow will also be expected to spend approximately one to two days per month working with FSA staff to:

  • develop understanding of the science into policy environment
  • contribute to the strategic development of the Agency’s evidence base to underpin the formulation of FSA policies

Further information

Potential applicants are encouraged  to contact BBSRC/FSA to discuss their proposals’ fit to remit, see contacts below.

External contact

Alisdair Wotherspoon, FSA (scientific remit)
alisdair.wotherspoon@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk

Contact

Anuj Bhatt (scientific remit)
anuj.bhatt@bbsrc.ac.uk

Administrative enquiries
postdoc.fellowships@bbsrc.ac.uk

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Summarised Work Programmes now available!

Well, as I promised last week when the Work Programmes were released, I have taken the pain out of reading these for you and created summary documents. These are bookmarked so you can jump straight to the section you are interested in, see the call aims and objectives and deadline and the type of project it is without trawling through the Work Programme.

You can then look up more specifics such as the assessment criteria in the Work Programme for those calls you are interested in.

Over 1, 000 pages have been compressed in to these documents which are in subject order and on our I drive. We are the only university to offer this service so hopefully you will find this a useful one.

The Work Programme Summaries can be found in the folder: I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Final Work Programme Summaries 2012

 

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Joint Programming: Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life Strategic Research Agenda Published

The Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life (HDHL) has published its Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) at a recent conference in The Hague. The JPI HDHL has also announced some pilot activities to be undertaken. This area will be really important in furture EC calls, so it would be useful for you to get a flavour of what the EU’s thinking is, so you can see if you are able to fit in anywhere with it.

The SRA is built around three main areas:

  • determinants of diet and physical activity;
  • diet and food production; and
  • diet-related chronic diseases.

The three pilot actions are as follows:

  • a project on determinants of diet and physical behaviour;
  • a roadmap initiative for biomarkers for nutritional/health claims; and 
  • a European nutrition phenotype data sharing initiative.

You can read more on the JPI website.

Tender from Creative Care Dorset

Funding opportunities

Creative Care Dorset is working in partnership with Arts and Health South West to build a more comprehensive overview of the arts and health activity taking place inDorset.  Funding for this project comes from Arts Council England and Dorset County Council.  The information gathered from this research project will feed into a larger research project that is taking place across the South West as well as support the arts and health development work taking place inDorset.

 Creative Care Dorset are seeking an experienced and self motivated researcher with the skills to gather the information we seek efficiently as well as the ability to present the information generated in a user friendly manner. For further details about this commission and how to apply please read the Research Brief . Deadline for applications is: 13th August 2012.

Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Survey 2012 “Exchange: Creating Ideas, Opportunities and Identity” now open for responses

The focus of this year’s edition is to investigate the employability of mobile and non-mobile students and show the beneficial effects of going abroad. The survey also explores the impact of student mobility on entrepreneurship and European citizenship, and gives insight into students´ satisfaction with ESN and other student organisations.

The survey will stay open until the 30th of September and takes no more than 15 minutes to fill in. All participants who complete it have the chance to win a two week intensive language course including 32 lessons in the exclusive Education First school in Manchester (with a total value of more than EUR 1,000).

Accommodation in a host family or residence and a meal plan are included as well as the flight and transfer are included.

AHRC European Proposal Support Fund

Funding opportunities

The European Proposal Support Fund (PSF) provides funding to enable researchers to network with potential partners and support the putting together of a proposal to the European Commission.

The fund is primarily aimed at encouraging UK arts and humanities researchers to engage with the European Commission Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) Work Programme, however we are open to considering other European Commission Funding sources. In these cases please contact the AHRC prior to submission and we will advise if you can apply (note: European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Curie Actions are not eligible).

Funding is for up to £10,000 for travel, subsistence, meeting costs etc to enable the researchers involved in the proposal to meet and put together their commission application. Investigator time, overheads etc cannot be included. Applicants must be Arts and Humanities Researchers based in the UK who would ordinarily be eligible for AHRC funding. The application form is very short and needs to be emailed to p.henly@ahrc.ac.uk by the closing date. Deadline: 21st August 2012

 

Beyond REF2014

Attending a recent course on ‘Researcher development, the environment and future impact’, there seems to be a recurring theme across all sessions – the importance of adopting a long term view into research.

You reap the seeds you sow. This rings true in many aspects of life. It certainly is the common mantra sung by many of the speakers on the course. ‘Investment in the future’, ‘future impact’, ‘vitality and sustainability’ are just some of the buzz words thrown into the mix in that context.

And all that, has a direct and indirect link to the ‘impact’ element in the context of the Research Excellence Framework. Naturally, if you’re at the stage of planning your research and thinking about the impact, you’re too late for REF2014.

Yes, the speakers were referring to REF2020,  even though there isn’t an official REF2020 yet.

Isn’t it a bit too early to start thinking about that, I heard you say. When should you start thinking about ‘impact’? Colleagues from other HEIs talked about ‘impact’ at the PhD stages; others even mentioned ‘impact’ during undergrad. So, is there a ‘right’ time to start thinking about impact? Yes. The answer is, as early as possible.

How far wide will your research reach?

How many people will benefit from it?

What significance will it have on the society at large?

How many lives will it change?

Your research is like the stone that creates ripple in the water – how many ripples will it create? How long will the ripples last for? Will it create a beautiful wave? How many people will see those ripples and appreciate their beauty? It’s all to do with the way you cast that stone. You aim, you calculate and you plan.

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With proper planning of your research career path comes the evaluation and identification of the relevant ‘impact’. Along the way, other elements like obtaining funding and support, peer review processes and publications will slot into place, piece by piece.