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What do funders look for in a research application?

Funding opportunities, Guidance

  • Funders look for a research application that is novel and that addresses an important research question pertinent to their strategic aims.  Check funder’s websites and research their current priorities.
  • They need to be convinced of the Principal Investigator’s ability to deliver and are thus keen to see clearly described aims and a well thought through project plan.
  • Funders are also increasingly looking for a clear indication of what the likely impact of the research will be.

How does the funding decision process work?

  • On receipt of a grant proposal, funders will identify UK and/or international academics with appropriate expertise to provide written assessment of it.
  • On the day of decision-making, there is rarely enough money to fund every grant considered to be fundable and so often a ranking/scoring system is adopted such that only those ranked in the top grouping get funded.
  • How far the bar comes down depends on the committee’s budget – you just have to present the best case you can to catch the eye of the funding committee.

What are the typical reasons for proposal rejection?

  • Applicant is not eligible to apply/exceeding the page limits/missing documentation
  • Uninvited/undeclared resubmissions which fail to meet the criteria after revision
  • Lack of clearly stated hypothesis/research question
  • Research question not considered to be novel
  • Insufficient reference to previously published research
  • Importance of research question not well argued
  • Project too vague in its objectives
  • Not clear how the methodologies/work plan will provide the answer to the question posed
  • Unconvincing track record of applicant
  • Proposal is over-ambitious
  • Lack of sound methodology
  • Not value for money (i.e. a quicker/cheaper way to answer question exists)
  • Outcome unlikely to have much impact on the field or impact of outcomes not explained
  • Proposed research would be run in isolation/in an unsupported environment

Who can I ask for further help?

Contact Caroline O’Kane in the Research Development Unit for advice on what makes a good proposal.  

Caroline also runs the University’s Research Proposal Review Service (RPRS), and can advise on funding criteria, funders and eligibility issues.   For the best results please get in touch with Caroline as soon as you start developing a funding proposal – the RPRS can support your bid in more ways than you think.

Find out more:

Tourism Week – ESRC Research on Sport Tourism and International Sports Events

The Sport Tourism Opportunities for Research, Mobility and International Networking Group (STORMING) Initiative awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC) to Dr. Richard Shipway offered seventeen travel and conference bursaries for UK-based early career researchers to each attend one of three international networking events. This grant scheme formed part of the ESRC’s ‘International Training and Networking Opportunities Programme’. The project utilised the bursaries to both increase international mobility and provide networking opportunities for emerging early career researchers with a commitment to supporting and further developing sport tourism research. Bursaries were awarded across eleven higher education institutions. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games also acted as a catalyst for this project, highlighting the impacts of sport events.

The main objective of the STORMING Initiative was to deliver a series of international sport tourism networking events across four continents. These events were aligned with existing conferences in the area of sport, tourism, events, and leisure studies. The first event, in Australia in February 2010, was aligned with the annual CAUTHE (Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education) conference in Hobart, Tasmania; the second event was aligned with the annual NASSM (North American Society for Sport Management) conference in June 2010 in Tampa, Florida, USA; whilst the third event was aligned with the 11th World Leisure Congress and World Games in ChunCheon, Korea in August 2010. A one-day concluding networking event was held at Bournemouth University in November 2010. This final event brought together all seventeen bursary recipients and several international research mentors and provided the opportunity to outline their research findings, and to engage in a wider debate on the future directions of sport tourism research.

In summary, the STORMING Initiative acted as a catalyst for larger research projects within the context of sport and society, the 2012 Games, and internationalisation. The vision for the project was to leave a tangible legacy in the form of seventeen UK based early career researchers with established research profiles in sport tourism and sport event studies, who are now well positioned to benefit from the increasing economic importance of the tourism industry and the enhanced profile of sport as an agent of positive social change in society.

PhD Success in the School of Tourism

PG research

Congratulations are due to Viachaslau Filimonau of the School of Tourism who successfully defended his thesis this September. Dr Filimonau, who was in receipt of a BU studentship, conducted research titled: Reviewing the carbon footprint assessment of tourism: developing and evaluating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to introduce a more holistic approach to existing methodologies.

Dr Filimonau (known to many of us as Slava) not only completed his PhD within three years but was also awarded the PhD with no corrections. The external examiner, Professor Andrew Holden, commented: “This was one of the best thesis I have examined. To have completed a PhD within three years and have two journal articles in print is a significant achievement.” His supervisors (Dr Janet Dickinson, Derek Robbins and Dr Vijay Reddy) are very proud of his achievement.

Tourism Week – Co-locating a tourism and public health strategy

There are new and exciting developments within the School of Tourism with ground breaking research identifying the fusion between recreation, leisure and wellbeing. The rationale for co-locating a tourism and public health strategy is based on the recognition that creating a community culture where a tourist destination is seen to enhance and promote physical and mental health for both locals and tourists is desirable. A community that supports health creation can be a re-branding opportunity within a destination management approach, dovetailing health and wellbeing alongside a marketing and economic positioning. The concept of wellness tourism is emerging and is an area where strategic priority is being given in many European destinations. It is estimated that the market is currently worth $106.0 globally1 with predictions of major growth in the coming 5-10 years2.

Figures show that there are about 289 million wellness consumers’1 and trends due to an aging world population, failing conventional medical systems and increased globalization will ensure continued growth. Policy documents from the WHO, Health 2020 and data from the British Leisure Trends and Slow Tourism Report, 2011, the World Travel Market Global Trends Report, 2010,  VisitBritain Foresight, 2010 plus the launch of the international trade alliance, Wellness Tourism Worldwide (2011) dedicated to the development and promotion of wellness tourism, all adds corroborating evidence of currency.

With much debate on aspects of wellbeing, social tourism and inclusion prevalent at both national and local levels, most notably in Bournemouth with the town’s 2026 vision group, there is momentum building in this area3. Promoting public health is a complex task but one than can be aided by other professionals. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts and where a lack of co-ordination can bring confusion and disharmony. People do not lead their lives in a vacuum; we are all products of our culture, media influences, and the services we consume. There is a complex interrelationship between the individual and wider society, sometimes for good, but often leading to poor health. Much interest was stimulated by our appearance in the Big Ideas for the Future Report4, where Bournemouth University’s research linking tourism and public health was featured. We intend to capitalise on this interest particularly as it represents pan-School collaboration with the School of Health and Social Care and therefore builds on current strengths and expertise. The research output will be of interest to those responsible for policy, strategy and operational practice within the tourism industry and will lead to a greater understanding of this discipline engaging with the wellbeing agenda.  Consequently, the societal impact extends beyond a public health perspective to also impact the ability of destinations to leverage health creation in re-branding and marketing, a potential synergy that can contribute to both sustainable health and economic gain.

References

1SRI International (2010) Spas and the Global Wellness Market, http://csted.sri.com/projects/spas-and-global-wellness-market-synergies-and-opportunities  (accessed 07 September 2011)

 2 Wellness Tourism Worldwide (2011) Wellness for whom, where and what? Wellness Tourism 2020 http://www.wellnesstourismworldwide.com/uploads/7/2/1/6/7216110/wtw_4wr_phase2_web.pdf (accessed 07 September 2011)

3 Hartwell H., (2011) Can we bring tourism and public health strategy together?, Guardian Professional, Thursday 28 July

4 Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Universities UK (2011) http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/Publications/reports/Pages/BigIdeas.aspx

British Academy announce Mid-Career Fellowship Scheme

Funding opportunities

 

The British Academy have published details of their next round of Mid-Career Fellowships, with a  2nd November 2011 closing date for applications to the Outline Stage.

These fellowships are aimed at allowing successful applicants to obtain time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments. The time bought by the scheme should be devoted to the completion of a major piece of research.

Who is eligible?

  • scholars who have already published works of intellectual distinction
  • or have established a significant track record as an excellent communicator and ‘champion’ in their field,
  • and who are normally within no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate.
  • the Academy will make due allowance for applicants who have had career breaks, and for established scholars who do not have doctorates.

Full Economic Costing

These Fellowships are covered under the Full Economic Costing (FEC) regime, but the Academy’s contribution to the salary of the Mid-Career Fellow will be capped at an upper limit of £80,000. It is not expected that the total value of an award will exceed £160,000 (BA contribution to FEC). Awards can be held over a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 12 months, beginning in the autumn of 2012.

Thinking of applying? Talk to the British Academy

If you have any questions about your eligibility please have a chat with the BA they are happy to help and actively encourage researchers to get in touch when thinking about submitting a bid.   

Phone: 020 7969 5200  5200   

Contact RPRS!

If you are thinking about submitting a proposal please contact Caroline O’Kane at the RPRS at the earliest stage.  The RPRS will not only organise peer review of your proposal, but can also ensure that your bid is fully compliant with funder guidelines and eligibilty. 

Key deadlines:

The BA closing date is 2nd November 2011.  Please remember the BU internal deadline of five working days for submission of British Academy bids, and build this into your planning.

‘Scandalous’ – EU majorly under-reports super greenhouse gas

A new study has suggested that the UK, Italy and the Netherlands have under-reported emissions of a potent greenhouse gas HFC-23 which has a global warming potential 15,000 greater than that of CO2. The report, states that Western EU countries produce twice as much of HFC-23 gas as they declare and the lead author – Stefan Reinmann, EMPA, told Research Europe: “it’s a little disturbing that Europe, as one of the most developed regions in the world, is not able to perform a good estimation of its greenhouse gas emissions.” The UK is said to swiftly convert huge quantities of the powerful ‘super greenhouse gas’ 60-140% more than officially reported. Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigations Agency called the situation ‘scandalous’.

Tourism Week – The drivers of visitor enjoyment at heritage properties

This research project conducted during 2011 is part of a portfolio of research conducted for the National Trust, the UK’s major conservation charity. The organisation is committed to the aims of widening the appeal of the properties and countryside under its management, as well as providing meaning and inspiration as part of this broad appeal. The measurement of enjoyment, linked to meaning and inspiration is therefore a critical measure in the success criteria of individual properties and the organisation as a whole.

The aim of the research was to identify the ‘drivers’ or causes of enjoyment ratings; various approaches have been used to analyse the causal relationships in the data generated from a survey of 189 pay for entry properties and 11 countryside properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The data used for analysis was collected in 2010 and a survey running in 2011 will be used to further test the current findings.

One approach to analysing the data has used structural equation modelling where causal relations between enjoyment and factor analysed (principal axis factored), independent variables are examined by comparing the results of a series of hypothetical models. Fifteen key drivers  of the two main components of visitor enjoyment at National Trust properties, ‘Service & Relaxation’ and ‘Stimulation & Interest ‘ have been identified. A further 20 operational imperatives have been formulated which provide guidance for property managers to improve visitor enjoyment.

The research methodology draws upon previous research in the fields of psychology and applied statistics, specifically Batson, C.D., Shaw, L.L., Oleson, K.C., (1992) Emotion review of personality and social psychology, Bagozzi, R.P., & Yi, Y., (1988) On the evaluation of structural equation models, Szymanski, D.M. & Henard D.H. (2001) Customer satisfaction: A meta analysis of the empirical evidence and Ajzen, I., (1991) The theory of planned behaviour.

Tourism Week – Tourism and Disaster Management

Professor John Fletcher from the School of Tourism highlights the role of the tourism industry in emergency planning.

Tourism throughout much of the 20th Century following World War II was characterised by strong growth and an ever-reaching spread of countries. However, since the mid-1990s and throughout this first part of the 21st century tourism has been beset by an ever-increasing number of obstacles ranging from health issues, such as SARS, Avian and Swine Flu, natural disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and human-induced crises such as the events of 9/11 in the USA, 7/7 in London and the Bali bombings, not to mention the myriad of events related to the Middle East and pressures created by the current global financial crisis.

It is against this backcloth that the world’s largest export industry is being re-moulded and, to some extent finding its strong growth pattern to be faltering, like many other industries. In an attempt to mitigate the damage that crises bring to the tourism industry it is vital that emergency planning agencies and the tourism industry are closely integrated in their approaches to planning for, responding to and recovering from disasters, this way they can implement technologies such as a community notification system that helps send push notifications about safety alerts, weather updates, and emergency information.

This is perhaps more true for the tourism industry than any other, because the tourists, the consumers, have to travel out of their normal environment in order to enjoy the output of the industry. The Disaster Management wing of the International Centre for Tourism & Hospitality Research is currently helping the UN WTO develop a framework which will facilitate this integration. In addition to reviewing the literature on emergency planning and tourism crises, the team are currently engaging more than 120 Ministries, Airlines, Tourist Authorities, Tour Operators, Hotel Chains and academics in a Delphi Panel Exercise to establish which functions should be undertaken from a integrated platform.  The results of the study will be presented to the UN WTO early next year.

Staff Erasmus funding 2011-12

BU is participating in the EU funded Erasmus Mobility Programme which is part of the EU funded Lifelong Learning Programme. Academic and Professional Services staff can now bid for funding in support of visits to partner universities or enterprises in Europe. Enhance your CV and have a great international experience!

The funding isn’t just available for teaching visits, staff can also visit businesses or universities for training.  The criteria for the training visits are as follows:

Staff going to an enterprise:

  • Learn by transfer of knowledge and to acquire practical skills.
  • Activities can also include: language training, seminars, workshops, courses and conferences. These should not account for the majority of activities carried out.

 Non-teaching staff visiting a partner university:

  • Learn from the experiences and good practices of the partner university and improve the skills required for their current job.
  • The main activity is a short stay in the partner institution that may include a short secondment period, job-shadowing scheme, study visit etc.

 Teaching staff visiting a partner university:

  • Main purpose is to receive training.
  • Formal periods of practical training, short secondments etc should account for the majority of the activities carried out.
  • Activities can also include: language training, seminars, workshops, courses and conferences. These should not account for the majority of activities carried out.

To apply:

Further information and the form to bid for Erasmus funding is now online at – http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/the_global_dimension/centre_for_global_perspectives/erasmus_staff.html

Deadline:

The deadline for submission of the bids is Friday 28th October 2011

Queries:

BU Erasmus Co-ordinator – Deborah Velay

Email: dvelay@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tel: 01202 965 824

A Boring Train Ride or Research Success & E-Journals

Last week I was sitting on the train, on route to a rather dull meeting in London, and wading through a brief case full of glossy reports and papers that had been accumulating in the in tray for several weeks. Not the sort of reading that usually has the pulse racing or the pages turning. I could at this point make reference to the latest Charles Cumming spy thriller but I will refrain and finish this piece so I can catch a few pages later. Any way in the stack of reading was a report published earlier in the year by the Research Information Network on the use, value and impact of e-journals (www.rin.ac.uk). Apart from a very colourful cover the report did not look that great but in fact was really fantastic, and I mean really fantastic, making an excellent link between investment in e-journals, usage and research bidding success.

As I think I have reported before I have fond memories of the basement stacks of Queen Mary where as an undergraduate I used to spend my days lost in the shelves of geology journals. A few years later I can still remember how as a new academic one would wait for the post every day and the return from review of a cherished manuscripts and the all-important editor’s letter with the verdict; all now things of the past with electronic submission and on-line publishing. The journal names remain the same but I can’t remember the last time I actually set foot in the library in search of a paper yet my weekly reading list grows longer constantly as electronic alerts draw my attention to the productivity of my colleagues. However nostalgic I may feel about paper copy it is a thing of the past as almost all journals these days are provided as e-journals.

As a University we invest substantially each year in maintaining access rights to a huge portfolio of journals and our collective reading habits have changedas access has increased and the sheer volume of material to be read has grown. These changes are all elegantly document in the report by the Research Information Network, but the bit that piqued my interest most was a statistical model which explored the link between investment in e-journals, journal usage (reading) and research success as measured by the number of research bids won. The model clearly demonstrated a link between expenditure, e-journal use and research success and also a positive feedback loop between research success and e-journal usage. Basically the more a university invests in the provision of academic literature for its staff and students the more they read. The more they read the more successful they are which in turn leads to more reading. This is really elegant if rather self-evident but is something that we need to think hard about as a university especially as we bring forward our new research strategy this autumn. E-journals are alreadya priority area for expenditure,but is there value in further investment?  The Research Information Network report suggests that there might be.

Now let’s get serious here, I am not as naive as to believe that we can enhance our research success by simply pouring more money into the library, but BU’s researchers – staff and students – have a right to state of the art tools to do their jobs and we are committed as part our new Vision and Values to providing world class facilities. So further investment in our e-journals portfolio may be very much in order! I would welcome your views? You can find a copy of the report on the Research Information Network here.

Become an EC Evaluator to increase your chances success and earn spondoolies!

Becoming an EC evaluator has many benefits – it can improve your understanding of the funding approval process, strengthen your knowledge of the schemes, enable you to understand what makes a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ proposal and can help you gain further kudos in your subject area.

Being an Evaluator is basically being a peer-reviewer for  the EC, It involves examining proposals for funding against published criteria and providing comments and recommendations to the Commission. You can still apply to the EC for funding if you are registered as an evaluator.

The number of proposals you could review depends very much on your area of expertise and while normally undertaken at home, you can also travel to Brussels to perform a review.  Unlike British funders, you will get paid a day rate (up to € 450) for your time, plus travel and subsistence expenses if these have been incurred. You also do not have to review an application just because you are requested.

So what do you have to lose? Register to become an evaluator today.

Tourism Week – Helping charities use social media

The eTourism Lab, ICTHR , in the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University is supporting Just a Drop– a water charity to spread its word through Social Media and the Internet.

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis and Georgina Sekadakis a Masters student at Bournemouth University work closely with Fiona Jeffery Chairman of World Travel Market & Just a Drop and Ana Sustelo of Just a Drop to demonstrate how charities can use Social Media to benefit their great causes. Just a Drop is a registered water charity raising money to build wells, install boreholes and hand pumps as well as carry out sanitation and health education programmes in some of the poorest parts of the developing world. The mission they are trying to accomplish is to reduce child mortality. Currently a child dies every 20 seconds as a result of water-borne diseases and this must stop. Their main donors are from the Travel and Tourism industry however they are now trying to attract donors from all industries and individuals.

While there is agreement that charities nowadays have a greater need for marketing, there is little agreement on how they should be approaching marketing and especially when it comes to the adoption of Social Media; research has shown that they are lagging behind as they are waiting to see how others use this new technology.  Today, charities of any size can take advantage of Social Media tools to showcase their organisation to the world without relying on huge budgets.  Money is no longer the decision factor, creativity is. Getting a head start and expanding your Instagram presence buy choosing to buy Threads shares might be a game-changer in this fast-paced digital environment.

Little research has actually been carried out on marketing from a non-profitable organisation’s point of view.  Bournemouth University is experimenting with Internet and Social Media to try and classify a best practice for charities to help them engage and create awareness about the problem and how people can help make a change.  Facebook and Twitter are primarily used to raise awareness and create story telling.  As relationships are the foundation for Social Media sites they are key for charities in order to engage further with their stakeholders.  So far our attempts have been successful and we have found that followers are engaging with us through Social Media and we are now looking into ways of raising money through the various platforms to help fund new projects around the world. Using social media strategically will be critical for organisations of the future and the expertise of the eTourism Lab will be widely used for all organisations engaging.

Bidding success

Guidance

On Friday last week the RDU organised two bidding workshops with John Wakeford of the Missenden Centre.

John left the groups with some important points to remember when writing funding applications.

Here are John’s top tips for bid writing success……

Top ten rules for readability:

  • think about your audience
  • think how they will read it
  • only use words they will understand
  • plan
  • engaging title and first sentence
  • every word counts
  • avoid -ve words, difficulties, conditionals
  • face problems, but replace with challenges/opportunities
  • short sentences
  • eliminate jargon, and minimise acronyms

 Key features of a good proposal:

  • investigate funders’ current priorities
  • contact CRE Ops, RPRS, identify potential reviewers and book them in
  • read carefully the precise rules for submissions
  • check agreement among your collaborators
  • allow time for multiple drafts

Strategies for success:

  • network, network, network
  • hitch your wagon to a star
  • be in contact with funders
  • why should they want to fund you?
  • ensure you are the world expert
  • guarantee impact
  • clear your diary
  • re-use ideas on different context and try again
  • deliver on title
  • re-read and consider:
  • why should it be funded?
  • how would the world be different if it wasn’t?

If you are thinking about writing a funding proposal please contact Caroline O’Kane and find out about how the RPRS can support your bid.

To find out more about John Wakeford’s sessions please contact Susan Dowdle or Caroline O’Kane.

Education focused EU programmes offering support for collaboration

 There are 7 main Programmes offering support for collaboration related to Higher Education; all which have calls attached to them. These are:
ALFA:To improve the quality, relevance and accessibility of Higher Education in Latin America and to contribute to the process of regional integration in Latin America, fostering progress towards the creation of a joint Higher Education area in the region and exploiting its synergies with the European Union.
EDULINK:Supports cooperation between HEIs in the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP countries). It represents a harmonised approach to the implementation of EU funded programmes in the ACP countries with a view to improving the effectiveness, management, visibility and impact of ACP-EU cooperation in the field of HE.
Erasmus Mundus: A cooperation and mobility programme that aims to enhance the quality of European Higher Education and to promote dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with HEIs in third countries. It supports joint programmes, partnerships and the promotion of European HE.
EU – US Cooperation in HE (ATLANTIS): To promote understanding between the people of the EU and the USA and to improve the quality of human resource development. ATLANTIS supports innovative projects for cooperation in HE and VET which are designed to develop and implement double or joint transatlantic degrees for students in the EU and US and other forms or cooperation including mobility and policy oriented measures
ICI Education Cooperation: EU cooperation with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Republic of Korea includes bilateral cooperation projects in higher education and vocational training (ICI-ECP).
Lifelong Learning: To reinforce the contribution made by education and training to achieving the Lisbon goal of making the EU the most competitive knowledge based economy, with sustainable economic development, more and better jobs, and greater social cohesion.
Tempus: Supports the modernisation of higher education in the Partner Countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean region, mainly through university cooperation projects. It also aims to promote voluntary convergence of Partner Country higher education systems with EU developments in the field of higher education such as the Lisbon agenda and the Bologna process.

Tourism comes of age…

Although a major contributor to life at BU, the study of Tourism is often wrongly maligned as being a niche subject on the periphery of more established areas of study such as Business & Management and Geography. Well, in the UK alone over 100 institutions offer HE courses at undergraduate level including “top tier” universities such as Exeter, Surrey, Strathclyde and Stirling with many more competing for students and staff across Europe and beyond with major concentrations of activity in North America, the Middle East, South East Asia and Australia and New Zealand where tourism is not only a significant area of academic interest but also of valuable income, foreign exchange earnings and employment.

Returning to the UK one of the most significant “coming of age” moments has been the explicit inclusion of Tourism for the very first time in a Unit of Assessment in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework. Unit 26, Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism is one of only a few new units in the REF, a fact which clearly reflects its growing maturity as an area of academic investigation and the widespread positive recognition with which it is now held across the sector. This recognition really took hold 2 to 3 years ago when the ESRC awarded colleagues at the University of Exeter £1.5 million to set up its research cluster in Sport, Leisure and Tourism, an award which would have been unthinkable only a few years before. Since then, staff from the School of Tourism at BU have been attracting funds from the ESRC, the European Union and the United Nations World Tourism Organization and others while the significant award recently won by colleagues from the School from the EPSRC on sustainable patterns of travel demonstrates the collaborative and inter-disciplinary opportunities offered by Tourism. This latter point was again highlighted recently with the inclusion in the RCUK publication Big Ideas for the Future of a project looking at the fusion between public health and tourism policies at the local level. This was BU’s only entry in this prestigious publication, testament if it were ever needed that the industry that is widely acclaimed as the world’s largest has now also come of age in the academic arena!

Tourism Week – highlighting stories from BU’s School of Tourism

Tomorrow, Tuesday 27th September 2011, is World Tourism Day and to celebrate this week on the research blog is Tourism Week.  Every day the research blog will be highlighting stories about the excellent work going on in Bournemouth University’s School of Tourism.

World Tourism Day was instigated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic values.

“The message on this World Tourism Day is that, thanks to tourism, millions of people from different cultures are being brought together around the world like never before,” said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai. “This interaction between people of different backgrounds and ways of life represents an enormous opportunity to advance tolerance, respect and mutual understanding”.

In 2010, 940 million tourists travelled to a different country, coming into direct contact with tangible – art, monuments – and intangible – music, food, traditions – culture. World Tourism Day 2011 is a celebration of this unique interaction and aims at furthering understanding of the values of cultural diversity.

Leading Academic encourages UK government to adopt German model of Innovation

David Payne, Professor of Photonics and Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton has warned in a comment in the Daily Telegraph that substantial and sustained investment is necessary if the UK government wants to restore the country’s manufacturing base. After assessing the challenges faced in converting excellent research into commercial successful products, Professor Payne welcomed the Government’s support for 6 Technology Innovation Centres which will nurture links between academia and industry. However more funds are needed as the £200 million pledged to date is tiny compared with the £1.45 billion a year provided for the network of Fraunhofer centres in Germany which form the blueprint for the proposed UK network. “It would be a shame if this led to distributed ‘virtual centres’ of expertise to appease regional political interests with the consequent management headaches, rather than the single-centred and single-minded Fraunhofer model…I fear we are about to repeat the British thing and spread the money so everyone gets a prize,” he said.

BU internal peer-review scheme for your research proposal

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Why is the internal peer review of research proposals important?

  • The competition for research funds is high and is likely to increase.  Research Council funding presents a particular challenge – with the ESRC having one of the lowest success rates.
  • In recent years funders have expressed their growing concern over the number of poor quality research proposals they receive, with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) taking the action to implement a ban on submissions from unsuccessful candidates who fail repeatedly and requesting evidence on steps institutions take to improve academic skills in producing research proposals.
  • Internal peer review has been credited with producing higher quality research proposals and increased success rates and is a process encouraged by the Research Councils.

Who reviews the applications?

  • The Peer Reviewers are a selection of BU academics who have a considerable track record in successfully gaining research funding, who sit on funding panels and who review research proposals for funders.
  • We select two reviewers to review your proposal.

Who can apply to the RPRS?

  • The service is open to anyone at BU and for any type of research funding.

What kind of feedback can I expect?

  • Peer reviewers will provide feedback on the proposed research in terms of topic selection, novel value, clarity of ideas proposed and advise on how the proposal can be further strengthened. They may also provide the names of potential collaborators where applicable.
  • Feedback will be delivered within 3 weeks of submission – often before.

Will the RPRS help with unsuccessful applications?

  • Yes, if you have a unsuccesful proposal, the RPRS will provide feedback on your submission on how you could potentially improve the style of the proposal, advise on other possible funders and provide other useful information.   The system works as for as yet unsubmitted drafts.

How do I submit an application?

  • Contact RKEO Funding Development Team to obtain a rough costing for your proposal. RKEO FDT will guide you through the process
  • Send in a Word or PDF version of your electronic submission draft (such as Je-S) and submit to Jo Garrad and Dianne Goodman/Giles Ashton.
  • The RKEO FDT will undertake review of the proposal and forward to 2 experts
  • You will receive feedback within 2-3 weeks

Remember

  • Please allow sufficient time in your proposal development to allow for the  mandatory internal deadline of five working days for the submission of Research Council bids via the Je-S system. This internal deadline also applies to applications made via the E-Gap2 and Leverhulme Online e-submissions systems (affecting applications made to the British Academy, the Royal Society and the Leverhulme Trust).

Who can I ask for further help?

  • Jo Garrad and Dianne Goodman/Giles Ashton  in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development team look after the RPRS and will answer any questions you have.