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I have a top secret FP7 Security document – oh the irony!

Yep, I have summarised the draft FP7 Security Work Programme to save you having to read the mammoth work programme and try to find the info you need (and I am proud to say we are the only uni who does this!). I have placed the summary document on our I drive as it is highly confidential and absolutely not for dissemination outside of BU. You will find hyperlinks taking you to each of the themes, and the calls expected to be released within this. The final work programme will be released in July, so this gives you a great headstart. Find the Security and other draft work programmes at I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Draft Work Programmes for 2012-13

Launch of the Association for Nutrition’s Workforce Competence Model

 

As Chair of the Department of Health funded project, ‘Improving Capacity Confidence and Competence across the Workforce in Nutrition,’ I hosted, with others, the launch of the Association for Nutrition’s Workforce Competence Model: at the Royal Society, in London last week.   We should applaud our profession’s capacity to deliver such a high quality, large scale mass participation project, working across professional boundaries, to time and to budget; a project with enormous potential to influence change across the wider health & social care sector.

Nutrition has a critical role to play in tackling inequalities, especially in deprived communities at risk from poor intake and obesity. It is therefore essential that frontline workers operating in the most disadvantaged sectors of society can lead in reducing nutrition-related health inequalities by demonstrating their competence in communicating and delivering appropriate messages. The aim of the workforce model is to encourage high and consistent standards of education and training alongside robust support, recognition and progression mechanisms to ensure that the nutrition workforce is sufficiently developed and skilled to deliver the government’s targets for public health.   It was a proud moment for me.

 

Various latest calls for funding from the EU

DG Enterprise and Industry third party liability studies: The Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry invites proposals for a study evaluating the status quo and the legal implications of third party liability for the European security industry. The tenderer will collect, analyse and assess data from various legal sources and actual best practices in this field, provide a comprehensive overview of related implications for the security industry, as well as feasible policy options to address these implications, and present the results in an accessible and comprehensible way. Funding is worth up to €800,000 over 12 months.

Eureka EUMINAfab user access call: Eureka invites proposals, through the EUMINAfab initiative, for user access. Investigators from research and industry alike may apply to gain fee-free access to one or more of 37 micro- and nanotechnology fabrication and characterisation installations across Europe. Each researcher must be based in an EU member or associated state.

DG Home Affairs immigration policy: The Directorate-General for Home Affairs invites proposals for the monitoring of the implementation by the member states of the European refugee fund, the European fund for the integration of third-country nationals, the external border fund and the return fund. The tenderer will undertake between 36 and 72 monitoring missions over a three-year period, in order to ensure the correct implementation of funds pursuant to the basic acts and implementing rules in member states. Funding is worth between €100,000 and €200,000 per year over a maximum of three years.

DG Enterprise and Industry electric vehicle promotion:The Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry invites proposals for the promotion of electric vehicles technologies. Projects should raise social awareness about the high performance of electric vehicles and the benefits of their utilisation, while addressing specific aspects that may have created public reluctance about the purchase of vehicles based on electric powertrains. Proposals may be submitted for the following lots: complete construction of an electric car designed for competition, for which funding is worth up to €2 million; organisation of a demonstration event with the presence of the electric car built in lot one, for which funding is worth up to €300,000.

Europe for citizens networking of twinned towns: Each project must foresee at least three events, involving municipalities from at least four participating countries, of which at least one is an EU member state. Grants are worth between €10,000 and €150,000 over a period of 21 days to 24 months. Deadline 01.09.12

Continuous training: Grants support the development of the capacity of audiovisual professionals to understand and integrate a European dimension to their work, through the following measures: training in economic, financial and commercial management; training in new audiovisual technologies; training in script project development. The budget for this call is €7 million. Deadline 16.04.12

Vice-Chancellor Doctoral (Fee Waive) Scholarship

Funding opportunities, PG research

We are delighted to announce the launch of the 2012 Vice-Chancellor Doctoral (Fee Waive Scholarships) which will offer support to up to 60 outstanding postgraduate research students.  The Scholarships will provide a full fee waive for up to 36 months in the case of full-time students and exceptionally 48 months in the case of part-time students.  Stipends (to cover living expenses) are not included in the scholarships and these must be provided by the student themselves or by a sponsor. 

This Scholarship programme will open on 1 March 2012 and will roll until 30 June 2012.  There are up to 60 scholarships available, which are nominally split evenly between the 6 Academic Schools.  However, individual schools may take up more or less than their allocated 10 scholarships as available.  There is no requirement for a School to accept candidates.

The focus of the Vice-Chancellor Doctoral (Fee Waive) Scholarships is on the outstanding nature of the candidate who must meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • All candidates must demonstrate truly outstanding qualities and be motivated to complete a PhD in 3 years full-time or 4 years part-time.
  • All candidates must satisfy the University’s minimum doctoral entry criteria for studentships of an honors degree at First Class (1) and/or an appropriate Masters degree or equivalent .
  • An IELTS (Academic) score of 7.0 minimum is essential for candidates for whom English is not their first language.

In addition to satisfying basic entry criteria, BU will look closely at the qualities, skills and background of each candidate and what they can bring to their chosen research project in order to ensure successful and timely completion.  It is important to consider that in most cases the interpretation of ‘truly outstanding’ is likely to be those candidates with a First Class (Hons) degrees and/or a distinction at Masters, with clear documented evidence of drive, commitment and relevant skills.

Only the most outstanding candidates will be supported.  Full details and criteria are set out in the BU VC Scholarship 2012 – Policy document. Staff and potential candidates are asked to check the eligibility criteria carefully before applying. 

The scholarships will be awarded, via the process set out below, to candidates who meet the eligibility criteria, have the support of their supervisory teams, are accepted by the relevant Academic School and must be approved by the School’s Dean and UET.  The process will be managed by the Graduate School.  The Vice-Chancellor Doctoral Scholarships applications (on the appropriate application form downloaded from the Graduate School website from Thursday 1 March 2012) should be submitted to Dr Fiona Knight (Graduate School Academic Manager) no later than 30 June 2012 who will circulate to each School for approval.

Want to find out how to turn a proposal into a winning proposal?

Guidance

Then attend the Missenden Centre’s excellent ‘Winning Research Funding’ workshop on Friday 16 March in London.

Attendees are invited to take a draft or previously unsuccessful application to the workshop for advice on how to turn it into an award-winning proposal!

Further details are available from: www.missendencentre.co.uk/s1

If you are interested in attending then we have funds in the RDU budget to cover your course fees and travel. Let me know if you are interested! 🙂

Sneak preview of the Energy FP7 Calls for Proposals

I have managed to obtain a draft of the EC FP7 Energy Work Programme. This is highly sensitive information and as the final document isn’t released until July, should give you a great head start to plan your proposal.

I’ve summarised the very dull document with easy to use hyperlinks to take you straight to areas you are interested in, and placed on the I drive along with our other summary FP7 documents. Please note that these are absolutely not to be circulated outside of BU – not even to your prospective partners!  I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Draft Work Programmes for 2012-13

Reflecting on a fantastic 6 months of EU activity at BU

I wanted to use the blog today to say how proud I am of all the exciting EU initiatives we have recently had at BU and to get your suggestions for even more!

We started this year with a fantastic EU showcase event where some of our most EU active academics presented their work with some excellent stories, videos and of course plenty of cake.

We have had 2 fantastic competitions for funding. The first was the EU Academic Development Scheme where nine brilliant BU academics were awarded a place on a scheme set to really launch their EU career. The second saw us support 6 academics in pursuing their networking endeavours through the unique EU Networking Fund.

I have tried to deliver information in a more engaging way, through writing and distributing the Simple Guide to EC Funding which many of you have provided really positive feedback on, and also by making use of this blog space.

We have held specialist sessions from an external expert grant writer on EU Funding & Grant Writing and Marie Curie Fellowships, with amazing feedback and I’ve worked with many of our academics on finding appropriate funding, identifying partners and writing proposals (and I look forward to doing this with many more of you).

I am currently pulling together a plan of what the 12 months of EU focused activities will look like, which will all be designed to help you engage more effectively in EU funding. If you have any suggestions for the kind of activities you would find helpful, or what training would be best for you, then leave a comment at the end of this post. I can’t guarantee I will be able to implement it but I will give it a good go J

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The second brilliant external REF event at BU!

Research assessment

On Wednesday this week BU hosted a REF Team-supported event for universities in the south of England explaining the content of the recently released REF Panel Working Methods and Criteria documentation. This was the second REF event that has been hosted at BU in the past 12 months. The first event was held in May 2011 and you can read about it here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2011/05/25/the-excellent-hefce-ref-event-at-bu/

The event, attended by over 150 delegates from 32 institutions, outlined the similarities between how the four Main Panels will review submissions, as well as focusing on the differences between the panels particularly in how they will define and assess impact in the context of the REF.

Chris Taylor, Deputy REF Manager, spoke about the technical aspects of the REF, e.g. the timetable, element weightings, and institutional REF codes of practice, and then looked at each of the three elements of the REF in depth – impact, outputs and environment.

Prof Stephen Holgate, Chair of Main Panel A, then delivered a very interesting presentation on the similarities between the four Main Panels which have been vastly improved since the sector-wide consultation on the Panel Working Methods documentation last autumn. The Panels have put in a significant amount of work to ensuring their working methods will be as simple, transparent and similar as possible which is excellent news.

After break there were four concurrent sessions, each focusing on one of the Main Panels. Event attendees could choose to attend one session. The session were led by:

  • Main Panel A – Prof Stephen Holgate (Chair of Main Panel A)
  • Main Panel B – Prof Philip Nelson (Chair of the General Engineering sub-panel)
  • Main Panel C – Prof John Scott (Chair of the Sociology sub-panel)
  • Main Panel D – Prof Bruce Brown (Chair of Main Panel D)

After the concurrent sessions, all presenters took part in a Q&A session back in Kimmeridge House.

One of the key messages of the day was that the sub-panels will not make use of journal impact factors, journal ranking lists, or other journal scoring information to inform the review of outputs. Citation data will be provided by the REF Team to sub-panels:

  • Main Panel A: Sub-panels 1-6
  • Main Panel B: Sub-panels 7-11
  • Main Panel C: Sub-panel 18

Research collaboration (e.g. links with other institutions, business and industry, international collaboration, etc) was also highlighted at numerous points throughout the event as being of particular importance in the environment element of the assessment.

Regarding impact, Prof Holgate stressed that the assessment of impact was not necessarily linked to the size of the population affected but to the reach and significance of the impact – for example, a 4* impact case study could be for a drug that cured three people or 3 billion people.

Also interesting was the focus on 4* research being that which is transformative research and that this could be the synthesis of knowledge and the identification of a new way of doing things. A review paper could therefore be assessed as 4* if it meets this definition. Prof Holgate remarked: “we are in an era of transformation. We want game changing outputs to be submitted to the REF”.

The event was closed by Prof Matthew Bennett at 1pm after which point event attendees networked over lunch. Feedback from attendees so far has been very positive!

If you attended the session then we’d love to know what you thought! Let us know by adding a comment to this post.

The slides will be available shortly via the Blog.

What’s coming up in the Marie Curie calls? I can tell you….

Last week on the back of our Marie Curie Fellowship training, I posted the forthcoming deadlines for the Marie Curie calls.  I am pleased to reveal that I have managed to obtain a draft copy of the Marie Curie Work Programme which gives a little more detail about this scheme. This document is highly confidential and contains sensitive information which is why I have placed it on our I drive … I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Draft Work Programmes for 2012-13

It is not for circulation outside of BU at all (not even your potential partners!). The final Work Programme will be released in July so I am giving you a great 4 month head start with this. Contact your RKE Operations Team straight away to let them know you are planning to submit in order to prevent any delays and to make full use of all the resources we have at BU to help you with your submission.

Come along to the BU-research based short-film ‘Rufus Stone’ screening & lunch on Tuesday

Pictured: Tom Kane, who plays 'Flip', Rufus' young friend, and Harry Kershaw as 'Rufus'.

Rufus Stone: a film about love, sexual awakening and treachery (30 minutes).
The Making of Rufus Stone: (7 minutes).
Tuesday 28 February
12:00 noon: Complimentary lunch
12:45- 13:45: Screening of films
Weymouth House 240 & 241
Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University 

A screening of the short film Rufus Stone is open to BU students, staff, the public and takes place on Tuesday 28 February at 12:45 in our Hollywood-style Screening Room on BU’s Talbot Campus. Complimentary lunch will be available beforehand from 12 noon. You must register to attend at: diversity@bournemouth.ac.uk

Rufus Stone stars William Gaunt, familiar to many from his appearances in the TV sitcom, No Place Like Home and Elle Magazine’s ‘Star in the Making’ Harry Kershaw, both playing Rufus at different periods in his life story.

There will be time for discussion following the screening of the films with

Dr Kip Jones Executive Producer, Reader in Qualitative Research, HSC and a behind the scenes look at The Making of Rufus Stone with Trevor Hearing, The Media School.

As featured in The New York Times during its world premiere in 2011, Rufus Stone is a film which draws its story from three years of in-depth research to give an account of being gay and growing older in the British countryside. The film is now available for wider audiences to enjoy in Dorset and Hampshire as part of BU’s annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) History month, celebrating the lives and achievements of the LGBT community.

Rufus Stone is an innovative approach to a research three-year research project, ‘Gay and Pleasant Land?’ led by BU academic, Dr Kip Jones.  The project, about positioning, ageing and gay life in rural South West England and Wales, is a work package in the UK-wide New Dynamics of Ageing Project ‘Grey and Pleasant Land?: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Connectivity of Older People in Rural Civic Society’, funded by Research Councils UK.

Directed by award-winning Josh Appignanesi and produced by Parkville Pictures, the stories which form the foundation of the script for Rufus Stone are entirely based upon research undertaken by Dr Jones and his team from BU’s School of Health and Social Care (HSC) with the assistance of a citizens’ advisory committee. The film’s ‘fictional’ story was created over time using composite characters and situations, all uncovered in the ‘Gay and Pleasant Land?’ research project, through in-depth biographic life story interviews, focus groups, and actual site visits to the rural locations where older gay or lesbian citizens were living.

“Our hope is that the film will dispel many of the myths surrounding ageing, being gay and life in British rural settings,” said Jones, in his role as Executive Producer of Rufus Stone. “The film renders poetically the way in which our memories morph and play with our histories, much as dappled sunlight reveals, then conceals, an idyllic landscape”.

Rufus Stone the movie weblog
Rufus Stone the movie on facebook

Interested in Media or IT? Then these new Calls for Proposals may be of interest…

MEDIA 2007: The EC  has launched a call for proposals for the provision of training under the MEDIA 2007 Programme. One of the measures to be implemented under this Decision involves improving the continuous vocational training of professionals in the audiovisual sector, so as to give them the know-how and skills needed to create competitive products on the European and other markets.  The call for proposals EACEA/5/12 is the last continuous training call to be launched under MEDIA 2007 and offers a two-year framework partnership agreement. The deadline is 16 April 2012.

CIP-ICT PSP: The EC has launched the 2012 CIP-ICT PSP call under the Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) which is part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007 to 2013). There are a number of funding opportunities available including pilot work and thematic networks. The deadline is 15.05.12 and the indicative budget is 127m Euros.

NERC – Demand Management is coming…

From the 1st April 2012 NERC will be monitoring the number of proposals that institutions submit and the quality of the proposals.  In July 2012 NERC will identify research organisations with high number or proportion of uncompetitive submissions and will begin discussions with these institutions on reducing their submissions and improving their quality.  It is undecided yet whether sanctions will be applied. 

Initially uncompetitive submissions are being defined as those receiving a final grade of 6 (out of 10) or below for excellence.  Full details on the new demand management policy can be found on the research council’s website.

What does this mean for me?

BU will be closely monitoring all applications to research councils.  We have a 5 day internal deadline for research council applications to allow time to complete checks on applications before submission.

The best way to ensure that your application is of a high standard is to obtain feedback from academic colleagues.  Our internal peer review service (RPRS),  managed by Caroline O’Kane, allows you to select two academic staff to undertake a review of your draft application.  Caroline also provides feedback on content, structure, a lay perspective and whether funder guidelines have been met.  More information on using the RPRS is available here.

REF draft code of practice – BU academic staff comments invited

Research assessment

Over the past 18-24 months we have been working on a code of practice to set out the approach that is being taken at BU in preparing our REF submission. The document has largely been authored by Anita Somner, Judith Wilson, Dr James Palfreman-Kay and myself with input from Prof Kate Galvin, and has been approved by the REF Academic Steering Group and REF Academic Leadership Team. It is a requirement for all institutions submitting to the REF to have a code of practice in place which has been approved by the REF Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel (EDAP), and the initial deadline for submitting draft codes to the EDAP is midday on 27 April 2012.

We are now inviting all academic staff to comment on this version of the BU REF code of practice. Comments received will help to refine the document in advance of the final version being sent by the VC to the EDAP at the end of April. A feedback form is available for completion by academic staff wishing to comment on the draft document.

The draft code of practice and the feedback form are available from the I-drive: I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\REF\COP feedback

Responses should be emailed to Anita Somner by 5pm on Friday 16 March 2012.

I am happy to discuss the document with colleagues and/or to meet as appropriate. If you have any queries, please do let me know.

Thanks

Julie

Call for academics to unite and stand up against the changes to the student visa regulations

The changes wrought to the student visa regulations are extremely concerning and almost certain to lead to irreversible damage to Higher Education (HE) in the UK especially in respect of its international reputation, as a consequence of an ill-conceived policy to reduce the numbers of incoming migrants to the UK that plays to popular, ill informed ideology and short-term, self-serving politics at the expense of the country. Students are an easy target, but a false one and do not indicate the changes for which the public may in fact be vying.

The ramifications for HE and the UK economy are likely to be very significant judging from the hard evidence brought to bear on the issue. According to the report ‘Estimating the Value to the UK of Education Exports’ produced by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the profits brought in by the education of international students represents £14.1 billion, with a projected estimated profit of £26.6 billion by 2025.

Dr Jo Beall, director of education and society at the British Council, has disseminated the findings of a major study with the Economist Intelligence Unit, entitled ‘Impact of Visa Changes on Student Mobility and Outlook for the UK’. This demonstrates that the UK is now seen as having the most restrictive immigration regime of all its competitors, leading to international students taking their business away from the UK towards the USA, Australia and Canada. Nor do arguments against the control of extremism among international students carry much weight, since this not related to international students, as shown in the Home Affairs Committee report ‘Roots of Violent Radicalisation’. Furthermore, according to the British Council, international students ensure the viability of certain disciplines, such as postgraduate biotechnology and engineering courses, where they can constitute 90% of the population (see Times Higher Education, 9-15th Feb 2012 for details).

The weight of hard evidence from these various, highly reputable sources point to a dramatic and deleterious effect on the economy if we restrict international students in this way. We must not, either, forget the importance that a global mix of students brings to the pursuit, creation and sharing of knowledge. Our higher education is an elite export that brings billions to the UK economy and it seems absolutely incredible that the Government is blatantly ignoring this alarming evidence, especially during a time of grave financial hardship and austerity for the country. This evidence cannot be ignored and makes a mockery of misguided arguments that international students represent an abuse of the UK. Instead it is clear that the UK economy and reputation is reliant on international students who have until now sought in great numbers the UK’s elite export: our world-leading higher education, which is rapidly slipping from its hard-earned first position in the international tables, and is a fall that is likely to prove irreversible.

It is most concerning that academics are seemingly accepting these changes, rolling over and aping the actions of a pusillanimous UUK in the face of the Government’s HE reforms. The evidence is there and we need to stand up for important if difficult truths in the face of short term political goals. Our conversation with Phil Baty at the Times Higher indicates that the new editor, John Gill, features editor, Rebecca Atwood, are seeking interest to develop a campaign around this area. Something we feel strongly should be engaged in by all concerned academics.

 

Prof Jonathan Parker and Dr Sara Crabtree

School of Health and Social Care

Fusion Conference 18 April – call for contributions!

Fusion

The Fusion series of internal conferences and seminars for 2011/12 continues on Wednesday 18th April 2012 with a ‘Fusion in Action’ conference hosted by the Vice Chancellor in the EBC from 12.00 – 5.00pm. Booking details will be published shortly so please save the date!

The conference entitled ‘Fusion in Action: Knowledge exchange with students, society and the professions’ is firmly grounded in the context of Vision and Values and seeks to illustrate fusion at its best. The conference will include contributions from staff and students through a combination of presentations, demonstrations and discussions. The conference aims to showcase examples of staff engaged in academic and/or research-led activities associated with the professions and wider society and to identify: how this helps create a unique academic experience for staff and students at BU, how students and staff can share in the learning experience and how such knowledge exchange can foster innovative learning experiences, pedagogic developments and research activities.

This half day conference replaces the previous Education Enhancement Conference and Research Conferences held in previous years.

Proposals for papers, poster presentations, discussion groups and/or demonstrations related to the theme are now invited. These should be submitted to fusionconference@bournemouth.ac.uk by the 7th March using the abstract form provided.

If you wish to discuss possible contributions, please contact Julie Northam (ext 61208) or Jennifer Taylor (ext 61271) in the first instance.

The conference is open to all staff contributing to the delivery of programmes and research activities at BU and partner locations and will also involve presentations from the University Executive Team and members of the Students’ Union.

EUNF scheme now closed

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that our EUNF pot has now been emptied! Well done to our 6 successful applicants who have been awarded a total of over £11, 000 to help support thei networking activities across Europe aimed at making a grant submission. You can read their accounts over the next couple of weeks on the blog (and a few are on here already) of how they will use funding and what happened after they visited their potential collaborators.

Thanks to all of you who have shown your interest and engagement in developing relationships with your EU partners and well done to our successful applicants.

New EC website with listings of current projects

The EC has set up a new page on its Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) website with an overview of projects funded under the Framework Programme. 

The new webpage shows which projects have been funded both under FP7 and previous Framework programmes and will provide a broader range of material to a wider audience. The new depository will include:

  • project details such as description, funding, programme;
  • project results such as documents, reports, summaries;
  • links;
  • publications;
  • multimedia; and
  • information and details on project participants.

This will be a key resource for you to find future collaborators – take a look at who has been funded before and get in contact with them 🙂

NERC plans to move to shared Research Outcomes System (ROS)

NERC has been collecting research outputs data on NERC-funded research through its Research Outputs Database (ROD) for nearly a decade.  This year’s collection exercise on ROD is progressing towards its 13 March 2012 submissions deadline.

NERC has decided it will in future adopt the Research Outcomes System (ROS) as used by AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC.  By changing systems NERC expects to:

  • Reduce the reporting burden for universities by reducing the number of equivalent systems;
  • Simplify submission by moving to a more standardised questionnaire;
  • Improve how publications are handled;
  • Share information better between systems, reducing data entry and reducing transcription errors; and
  • Improve the quality of performance information available to support the case for public investment in the environmental sciences.

The research council are putting measures in place to ensure a smooth transfer to the new system before next year’s data collection and to engage with users to obtain feedback on the system so that user requirements are met.