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Future directions of EU research….

 

Mental health research: The Head of Health Services & Population Research announced at a conference last week that mental health research is likely to be the next research field to be tackled on an international scale. Hopefully funding announcements released next year will reflect this!

Biological diversity:  The Swedish Research Council has announced that it will invest 36 million kroner (3.9m euros) from 2010-2014 to set up a database for researchers studying biological diversity. The LifeWatch is a national research infrastructure project which will tie up with a Europe-wide initiative to share biodiversity data. Four other partners in the consortium, including several universities, will put up between 2.5 million and 9.2 million kroner for the project.

EU Funding for Culture, Tourism and Sport collaborations

The Culture Programme promotes transnational mobility of people working in the cultural sector and to promote intercultural dialogue. If you have contacts in this sector, this could be a key opportunity to collaborate and introduce yourself to EU funding. Calls for proposals are released on an annual basis and 3 calls are currently open under the ‘Cultural Service Teams, Youth Workers’

Multinational Cooperation Projects: Funds groups of cultural organisations to develop joint cultural activities over a period of three to five years. Projects will involve a minimum of 6 cultural operators from at least 6 eligible countries. The maximum funding per project is €500k and the deadline is 03.10.11
Cooperation Measures: Funds shorter and smaller-scale joint projects involving cultural organisations from at least three European countries. Projects can last up to 2 years and should involve at least 3 different European countries. Deadline 03.10.11
Support to European Cultural Festivals: funds festivals that support the circulation of cultural works from other European countries. Projects up to €100k are supported and the deadline is 15.11.11

BU academics in the media

In the last few days, BU academics have achieved a series of major results by having their expertise featured in key national media outlets.

This includes stories in:

  • The Sunday Telegraph (31 July) – featuring Professor Rudy Gozlan in the School of Applied Sciences commenting on the decline of the world’s river fish at the recent  annual conference of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles hosted by BU; 
  • Broadcast* (29 July) – a thought leadership article by Jon Wardle in the Media School which calls for improved media education in light of the recent phone-hacking scandal;
  • The Times* (29 July) – a thought leadership article by Professor Edwin van Teijlingen in the School of Health and Social Care on the role of GPs in the provision of maternity care;
  • The Guardian (28 July) – a thought leadership article by Dr Heather Hartwell in the School of Tourism on link between tourism strategies and health and well-being.

 * – subscriptions are required to view these articles online. If you are a BU staff member and would like to receive a hard copy please email: press@bournemouth.ac.uk

Good luck & Congratulations!

Awarded & submitted bids

This week’s messages of good luck are due to Ann Bevan (HSC) who has submitted a first stage proposal to the BUPA Foundation’s Philip Poole Wilson Seedcorn Grants, to Gill Jordan (HSC) for applying for another contract with Pulse International to run the overseas nursing programme, to Joanne Holmes (HSC) who has submitted a bid to Partners in Care to run a nutrition course, to Clive Andrewes (HSC) for bidding for two PDU accreditations with Somerset Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust, and to Dave Parham (ApSci) who has submitted a large proposal to English Heritage to continue his marine archaeology research in the Swash Channel.

Congratulations to Rudy Gozlan and the Conservation Ecology and Environmental Sciences Group (ApSci) for winning an Erasmus Mundus award from the European Commission. The TECHNO project aims to develop cooperation between Asian and European HEIs through the exchange of students and staff. The project will start later this year and will contribute significantly to the research culture in ApSci. This is excellent news considering BU’s push to grow its European activity and international networking. Well done to Jonathan Wardle (MS) for securing 5 license renewals for CEMP’s Parashoot tool as well as winning a CPD contract with Pearson Education Ltd. Congratulations are also due to Steve Calver (and the MRG team, ST) for a contract with Bath Preservation Trust, Clive Andrewes (HSC) for winning a CPD contract with Care UK and also for running a dementia short course in September, and to Les Todres (HSC) who will be running a masterclass on interpretive phenomenological analysis in November. Well done to everyone involved in these projects!

Professor Matthew Bennett

PVC (Research, Enterprise & Internationalisation)

Latest journal impact factors

Research assessment

Following the release of the latest Journal Citation Reports® on the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science 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 collaborative I-drive: I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Journal Impact Factors 2011. If there are any additional subject areas that you would like to see included, do send me an email.

Related blog posts that may be of interest:
Journal impact factors explained

Find out about Dr Sarah Bate’s research into prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia, or face blindness, refers to a severe deficit in recognizing familiar people from their face. The condition affects people in different ways with some experiencing difficulties in the recognition of faces and others experiencing problems recognising other things, such as objects, cars, or animals, as well as faces. Many of those people diagnosed with prosopagnosia report difficulties in other aspects of face processing, such as judging age or gender, and the majority report navigational difficulties. Dr Sarah Bate is a neuropsychologist working in BU’s Psychology Research Group and has been researching the condition for a number of years.

The condition might be more common than previously thought with one study suggesting that as many as 2.5% of the population might have developmental prosopagnosia.

Working with Dr Brad Duchaine (Dartmouth College), Sarah is developing and testing some intervention programmes that might improve face processing in prosopagnosia. Sarah has set up a website (www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org) to raise awareness of prosopagnia and to recruit candidates for her research. Sarah has devised an online test of face recognition ability which can be taken via the website. I took the test last night and highly recommend that others have a go. To date almost 4,000 people worldwide have taken the test. At the end of the test you will be given the option to register your details to visit Sarah at BU for a more formal assessment. During formal assessments Sarah makes use of BU’s eye-tracking technology to assess how prosopagnosics visually read faces.

Sarah is also interested in whether face blindness is hereditary and physiological rather than psychological. She is colaborating with genetics researchers to test families of prosopagnosics and examine any links. The research is ongoing, but initial findings suggest prosopagnia is hereditry, but not always. Sarah’s research aims to identify the sub-types and various causes of prosopagnia, and to improve public understanding of the condition, as well as increasing the early diagnosis of the condition in children.

The Psychology Research Group are always looking for volunteers to take part in their research (example projects include navigation and ageing, children’s language and literature development, and poor sleep in school children). To find out more, visit the psychology volunteers section on the Group’s website.

Sarah’s research has recently been featured in the Guardian. You can read the full story here: Researchers explore problems of ‘face blindness’

You can test yourself for prosopagnosia at Sarah’s website: www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org

links for 2011-08-02

Interesting research related webpages that were bookmarked on the BU Research Delicious pages this week:

 

 

Launch of the BU Research Development Fund

Guidance

It’s a beautiful summer’s day and to celebrate the new academic year the Research Development Unit has some exciting news – the launch of the BU Research Development Fund!

The Research Development Fund (RDF) is open to BU academics and will provide selective support to research initiatives considered to be of strategic importance to BU. There are two strands to the RDF: i) Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per application); and ii) Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per annum, must include two or more Schools). It is envisaged that each year approximately 20 small grants will be awarded and one large collaborative grant.

Awards will only cover direct costs (i.e. overheads and established staff costs will not be reimbursed). Applications need to include a precise breakdown of costs calculated using full economic costing (fEC) methodology – this will be calculated for you by the CRE Operations team.

All decisions on funding will be made by the University R&E Forum (UREF).

An overview of the two schemes is provided below. For further information please read the Research Development Fund Policy.

RDF – Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per award) – There will be three competitions per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadlines:

  • 31 October 2011
  • 28 February 2012
  • 31 May 2012

Priority will be given to applications that involve staff from two or more Schools and/or those from early career researchers.

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Interview transcription
  • Fieldwork
  • Visiting major libraries, museums, other research institutions, etc.
  • Organisation of an academic conference at BU with external participants
  • Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
  • Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Research consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)

To apply for a Small Grant, please complete the RDF-SGS application form.

RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per award) – There will be one competition per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadline:

  • 1 December 2011

The RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme aims to provide funding for the development of large-scale, complex, inter/multi-disciplinary collaborative research activities leading to external funding. Applications must involve academic staff from at least two BU Schools. Priority will be given to applications that meet the following criteria:

  • In line with BU’s emerging Research Themes
  • Include external organizations (particularly SMEs and/or international organizations)
  • In line with the strategic priorities of major funding bodies (such as the UK research councils, European Commission, etc)
  • Clearly beneficial to BU’s submission to REF2014

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Meeting expenses
  • Travel to proposed collaborators
  • Attendance at external networking events with the aim of expanding the network
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)
  • Fees for external proposal support and review

To apply for a Large Collaborative Research Grant, please complete the RDF-LCGS application form.

Research Professional – Updates and Improvements

Funding opportunities

In order to add updates and improve their funding website, Research Professional will be unavailable on Tuesday 2nd August 2012 from 6 pm.  It is expected that the funding website will be unavailable for at least 4 hours.

The improvements will include:

  • updating the site to prevent your sessions from timing out
  • changing URLs to make them simpler and clearer (don’t worry – old bookmarks and links you have will still work)
  • standardising the behaviour of the ‘back’ button on your web browser
  • speeding up the performance of Research Professional

After this time, if anyone experiences problems accessing or using Research Professional, please contact Susan Dowdle in the first instance.

Google Scholar’s new citations tracking tool

As the demand for information about the performance of research outputs increases, Google Scholar’s latest online citations tracking tool could prove to be a useful resource. Google Scholar Citations is currently being launched with a small number of users before widespread dissemination, but the early signs are that it could provide a simple way for academics to calculate key metrics and monitor them over time.

According to Google Scholar, the tool will ‘use a statistical model based on author names, bibliographic data, and article content to group articles likely written by the same author’. You can then identify your articles using these groups and Google Scholar will then automatically produce the citation metrics. Three metrics will be available: the h-index, the i-10 index (which is the number of articles with at least ten citations), and the total number of citations to your articles. Each of these metrics will be available for all outputs as well as for articles published in the last five years, and will be automatically updated as new citations are available on the web.

You will be able to update your ‘profile’ of outputs by adding missing items, merging duplicates or correcting bibliographic errors. You’ll also have the choice to make your profile public, the idea being that you’ll make it easier for colleagues globally to follow your research because your outputs will appear in Google Scholar search results.

To get a glimpse of Google Scholar Citations in action, there are some sample profiles available via the Google Scholar blog. You can also register your email address so that you will be notified when the tool is finally available to everyone.

Launch of the BU Open Access Publication Fund

Guidance, Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceBack in April it was announced that BU would be launching an Open Access Publication Fund in August 2011 (see the previous blog post here: BU’s open access publication fund to go live!).

Therefore, as of today BU officially operates a dedicated central Open Access Publication Fund (OAPF), launched in response to, and in support of, developments in research communication and publication trends. The fund is also to support research in complying with some of the major funding bodies who have introduced open access publishing requirements as a condition of their grants.

The fund is available for use by any BU author ready to submit a completed article for publication who wishes to make their output freely and openly accessible.

If you are interested in applying to the fund then you need to email Julie Northam in the Research Development Unit with the following information:

  • Name of the open access publication
  • Confirmation this will be a peer reviewed paper
  • A short justification (1 paragraph) of why it is beneficial for your research to be published in this particular open access publication
  • The cost of the open access publication
  • Likely publication date
  • Likely REF Unit of Assessment (UOA)
  • A copy of the paper

If you have any questions about the new OAPF then please direct them to me via email.

Further information:

REF draft panel criteria is now available

Research assessment

Two important REF documents are now available on the REF website:

1. The draft panel criteria and working methods for consultation. A summary of this will be added to the blog next week.

2. The analysis of panel membership is now available.

Panel criteria and working methods consultation – the consultation runs from now until 5 October. BU will be submitting a single institutional response coordinated by the Research Development Unit. BU staff are invited to submit feedback for consideration as part of this response. Please email all comments to Anita Somner by 20 September 2011.

The REF Guidance on Submissions document was released on 14 June, a summary of which can be accessed on the I-drive from: I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\REF.

BU Santander Scholarships 2011-12 – apply now!!

PG research

Santander is offering five x £5,000 research and travel grants to BU staff and students

The funds must be used for a specific project to build on or develop links with at least one university from the Santander overseas network. Trips must be taken before February 2012.

Preference will be given to applications received from postgraduate research students and early career researchers.

Funds can only be used to cover direct costs (i.e. not salary costs or overheads).

To apply complete the Santander application form and submit it by email to: researchunit@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications is Friday 16 September 2011.

Good luck 🙂

Continuing importance of ‘Impact’ highlighted by HEFCE and RCUK

Research assessment

RCUK logoThe Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Universities UK (UUK) have issued a joint statement highlighting the continuing importance of the impact of research and making a commitment to developing common frameworks.  Both the REF (undertaken by HEFCE) and the Research Councils place a strong emphasis on the impact of research.

Their key aims are:

  • ensuring that their approaches to supporting knowledge exchange are joined up
  • securing greater impact from publicly funded research whilst ensuring their funding policies are complementary and work coherently together
  • ensuring that their monitoring, assessment and evaluation as well as the collection of statistical data from HEIs is proportionate.
  • supporting the training of new researchers, at both PhD and post-doctoral level, to ensure that they acquire the skills and expertise needed to maximise the impact of their own research.

The full statement is available on the RCUK website.

€4.2M Healthy Ageing in the EU Research funds just released!

Europe’s first joint call for ageing research ‘ERA-AGE 2’ has been released with a whopping €4.2M available. Research Councils from across Europe have contributed to this fund which aims to increase healthy ageing and increase life expectancy by two years within the European Union by 2020.
This call enables researchers from all disciplines to put in applications addressing “Active and healthy ageing across the life course”. The research funded will aim to generate new insights on the factors that enable individuals to live actively and healthily into later life. Applications are invited from multidisciplinary research groups representing three to five funding countries. Stage-one pre-proposals can be submitted until 3 October 2011 under three areas:
1. Generate new knowledge on the biological, clinical, behavioural, social and environmental factors that enable individuals to live actively and healthily into later life.
2. Explore comparatively different models, methods, approaches and good practices in societal responses to increased longevity which emphasise both social inclusion and sustainability.
3. Engage in effective knowledge exchange activities that will assist European and other countries to achieve the goal of increasing healthy life expectancy by two years by 2020.

We’ve summarised the EU FP7 Work Programmes for you!

As you will be aware  the FP7 Calls for Proposals were released on July 20th. FP7 is the major Programme for European funding  with a budget of €7 billion for this year, so plenty of funds to dip into!  

The European Commission releases its Calls for Proposals in some rather long documents (196 pages in some cases) known as ‘Work Programmes’.

The RDU know you are all pushed for time in your research endeavours and that the Work Programmes make for very dull reading, so we have been working day and night to summarise all of the calls for you in easy to access PDF formats under different types of funding and different subject areas. This way, you can scan the opportunities faster and take a look at the aim and eligibility criteria more easily to see if you can apply.

These summaries along with a full outline of what FP7 is, how to find funders etc are all available at our staff-only access webpage on EU Funding.