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Internationalisation and the research process

Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Professor Jonathan Parker from the School of Health and Social Care discuss some of their recent research that explores the experiences of exchange students.

Although internationalisation is much wider in reach than student exchanges it is recognised that such exchanges can play a critical part in enhancing students’ appreciation and understanding of global issues.  In this blog we describe some of our research exploring the experiences and perceptions of students undertaking an exchange and their ensuing culture shock. Accordingly, a three-year British Council PM1 2 funded research study into student mobility has provided a wealth of data on student learning in international social work placements; although this also provides some important implications for other types of international student exchanges.

BU students at a dinner hosted by Universiti Sains Penang

In respect of these particular student opportunities, the sustainable development of the placements was created through the forging of Memoranda of Understanding with two participating universities: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) in East Malaysia; and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang. The history of the two universities differ; where like BU, UNIMAS is a new university, but with a lively social science faculty, which has been home to a thriving social work programme from the institution’s inception.  USM, by contrast, is a long established, APEX status, research-intensive university, boasting the oldest academic social work provision in the country, and where social work programmes are offered at undergraduate, masters and doctoral level.

Consequently, BU social work students on international placements were able to benefit from an international support network of experienced academics working in concert for the duration of the placements, as well as receiving day-to-day support from local agency staff at the placement settings. The research element of the placements focused on the process of student learning in an unfamiliar cultural context, in which the writing of a daily log and a critical incident analysis formed the raw data collected by the students.

An analysis of data indicates that the concept of liminality – a process of moving through experiences from a status-less position to one of becoming – is useful in understanding the transitions experienced by the students and their confrontation with professional and personal values, often markedly different from their own.  These are duly reflected on in terms of the mediation of the domains of familiar and unfamiliar ‘cultures’ and disciplinary practice. Liminality was also demonstrated by an awareness, new for some, of minority status and how this was perceived in the local context. Exposure to unfamiliar norms relating to gender, religion and culture, were also experienced, where, for example, previously unquestioned assumptions relating to Islam and women were re-examined upon encountering ‘strong’ Muslim feminists.

BU Student, Gatrine Muldoon, with the indigenous family who 'adopted' her.

Other aspects of liminality were constituted through the experience of encountering alternative ideological constructs, such as that of meritocracy as opposed to equal opportunities, ‘triage’ welfare provision as opposed to universal rights, or the strongly promoted Confucian values of family self-reliance wherever possible, even under the circumstances of absolute poverty. These experiences bring the students into sharp relief with their own, often, ethnocentric values, challenging notions of diversity, acceptance and cultural norms which, when worked through, can provide a depth of cultural sensitivity important in working in the contemporary global world.

While analysis of the data continues and the nexus of collaboration has widened over time to encompass other programmes in HSC, such as the new BA Sociology and Social Policy, dilemmas of how such partnerships may be fostered for mutual benefit in terms of expectation and reciprocation are raised. This has relevance for international partnerships between institutions where, for example, significant socio-economic differentials may exist, or where institutional research and resource capacity are unequal.

The outcome of this study, however, indicates a need to theorise teaching and learning in order to more comprehensively address global and internationalisation issues within and beyond the classroom setting. This also requires ways to address ethnocentricity effectively, so often implicit in the perspectives and assumptions of individuals, even those with insight into cultural relativity. Finally, the conclusion of this study will lead to practical outcomes in terms of follow-up research to examine whether international placements enhance employment opportunities for graduates.

Find EU Partners for the Lifelong Learning Programme, Ethics in Security or Health

Attending Information days and workshops held by the European Commission not only gives you a great opportunity to find out more about a call and ask any questions about it, but these events are also critical networking opportunities to meet others interested in building a consortium and applying for funding. An info day on the Lifelong Learning Programme will be held in October and a workshop on Ethical issues in Security Research in September.  If you are interested in applying to either of these calls, you should attend the info day.

To help find partners in Health funding, the details of participants who attended the recent partnering day on the 2012 Health Theme calls in Brussels are now available. A search page has been created where it is possible to look for participants of the recent partnering event by area of the work programme, type of organisation, country or through a free search. If you are planning on being involved in a proposal for the 2012 calls for the FP7 Co-operation Health Theme, then you should join look at this search page Health partnering day search page

Upcoming Missenden Centre workshops – book your place now!

The Missenden Centre still has places available on a number excellent workshops this autumn/winter.

The Research Development Unit has some funds available to support academics and research support staff to attend. If you are interested please contact Julie Northam in the first instance.

Ensuring PhD completions for REF 2014
15/16 September
With: John Wakeford, Head of Missenden Centre and Fiona Denney, Head of Postgraduate Development at King’s College London
Special session for academic, registry and graduate school staff
http://www.missendencentre.co.uk/s1

Successful bidding: third of our day clinics
18 November
With: John Wakeford
Bring a draft or previously unsuccessful application for advice on how to turn it into an award-winning form.
http://www.missendencentre.co.uk/s4

Bidding for research funding: pathways to success
9/10 November for academics
10/11 November for research support staff
With Sarah Andrew, Dean of Applied and Health Sciences, University of Chester
Robert Crawshaw, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Lancaster University
‘The course was excellent. I think it will probably change my entire approach to writing grant proposals and will most wholeheartedly recommend it to my colleagues. So, once again, many thanks.’  Dr. Miriam V. Dwek, Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry, University of Westminster.
http://www.missendencentre.co.uk/s2

Effective supervision
12/13 January
Our unique preparation for supervisors and those with responsibilities for training them.
http://www.missendencentre.co.uk/s6

Speak to the Research Development Unit and book your place now!

Great events to launch the Digital Hub

We had two great events this week both hosted by the Digital Hub at Bournemouth University. The Digital Day on the 19th July took place at Kimmeridge House on Talbot Campus and the Digital Dinner at the Chewton Glen.

Both events were attended by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor John Vinney and by a range of businesses – large and small who had come to hear how Bournemouth University’s Digital Hub could provide them with knowledge and expertise to help them take advantage of the opportunities presented by the creative and digital economy.

There was a wide range of expertise on display – all of which you can find out more about on the Digital Hub website.

Delegates also had the pleasure of hearing an inspirational keynote speaker, Tiffany St James who, among a staggering array of roles, has advised the UK government on its social media and runs a series of workshops for The Guardian on digital media. Tiffany’s slides are available for download on this site. The event trended on Twitter (London) for 30 minutes #BUdigihub – testimony to the interest online and the live Twitter feed at the event.

Eating Cats & Top Journals

News from the PVC

I have a big paper out today on the Laetoli footprints in Tanzania.  I am not first author, but still very proud of the paper.  Laetoli is the oldest footprint site known at over 3.75 million years and was first discovered in the late 1970s by the Leakey’s.  It consists of a couple of trails each of a dozen prints or so preserved in volcanic ash and is a site that has been argued over ever since its discovery with different teams interpreting the prints in different ways often basisng their arguements on specific prints.  The likely print maker is Australopithecus afarensis which is perhaps better known by the famous skelton called Lucy.  Some say the prints represent a primitive foot anatomy, function and gait, while other claim a more modern form and foot function.  One of the challenges here has been the lack of an objective methodology to allow different hypothesis to be explored.  At the heart of my current NERC grant with Liverpool University is a new objective approach based on calculating a mean footprint from a trail, which can then be statistically compared to others.  This provides the first objective method with which to interpret ancient footprint trails.  The paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface today applies this method to the Laetoli prints to good effect resolving, in our view at least, over 30 years of argument!

The paper is based on data that I collected back in 2008 during a rapid visit to Nairobi to scan casts of the prints during the height the post election troubles that year.  I remember the visit quite well not just for the 16 hours of plane flights in two days there and back stolen out of a busy term, but for the political tension still evident on the streets.  The paper it self stems from 2009 when Robin Crompton (Liverpool) and I first started to collaborate and has taken a while to gestate and find a home.  I suppose it’s the latter aspect that is worth mentioning because this paper was first tried in the top three science journals – Nature, Science and PNAS – without success or review.  In each case there was something of a jaundiced view from the editor ‘not yet another paper on Lateoli!’  Yet in our view the paper is top-notch and the science within it ground-breaking and we were very disappointed not to get the paper even reviewed.  There are several things here worth drawing out.  One is keeping faith with a paper as it is rejected by different journals and keeping your nerve, as you try and aspire to each top journal in turn.  Because it will find a home eventually if it is good and in truth the Journal of the Royal Society Interface is a great journal since not only does it have a high impact factor but there is much more space to describe the science!  The paper will be part of my REF submission that is for sure.  It has also attracted a fair amount of publicity today and my colleagues in Liverpool have been stars of local TV this evening.  The other aspect that is worth drawing out is around the sheer luck in getting things published in a top journal.  When I got my Science paper in 2009 not only was it based on a new discovery but there had not been many recent footprint papers so it had additional novelty.  When our current paper was doing the rounds this autumn we discovered subsequently that another team had submitted a Laetoli paper, and in our view an inferior paper, unsuccessfully a few months earlier making our research seem just that bit less noteworthy.  Journals such as Nature and Science have their pick of the best stories so want something to excite interest as well as be good science.  I suppose a headline of ‘Cat eats boy’ stands out when it is a rare event, but when there has been a run of stories about domestic cats eating boys it does not!  (And if you are wondering where this came from, the connection is that my cat is currently licking my abandoned desert bowl.)

This idea that success is not just about the sheer merits of something but is about the circumstances and timing is an interesting concept and goes to the heart of a book I have been reading recently entitled Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  He dissects a range of successful individuals – sports players, business men, billionaire etc – and shows how in most cases talent is not the sole reason for their success but the context and timing of their contribution is critical.  As is years of practice!  So in the context of trying to hit the top journals one could argue that it is all about timing and the current scientific context in vogue or considered to be novel.  If you talk to Ralph Clarke in ApSci who hit Science the same year I did he will tell you the same thing – you need a great a bit of research, but timing is also everything.  This cuts both ways in our case we did not know that other papers were hitting the editor’s desks at the same time, but if we had not tried then we would have been left always wondering if it could have made it.  But if you turn this around you also need to have an eye to what will hit the right buttons at any one moment and capitalise on it if you can.  Any way enough of this; time to do the washing up!

You can read the abstract here: 10.1098/rsif.2011.0258

And a review of the article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110719194356.htm

Symplectic Elements: BU’s new research management system

I’d like to introduce you to Symplectic Elements – our soon-to-be new research management system. You might have heard colleagues talking about Symplectic Elements for a while now – the supplier (Symplectic Ltd) first visited BU to demonstrate the application in August 2009. I’m pleased to announced that we have now signed the contract with Symplectic and are in discussions with the supplier to determine the implementation plan. The aim is to have the system up and running this autumn.

Symplectic Elements is already used by lots of other UK universities, including Imperial College, Oxford, Exeter, Cambridge, UCL and Plymouth.

So what is Symplectic Elements and what benefits will it bring to BU? Symplectic Elements is a research management system. It will not replace any of our existing BU systems (such as BURO or RED) but it will link to them and join them together, sharing data between the systems. This means that BU staff will be able to add information to Symplectic Elements and it will be used in multiple systems. You will also be able to access research information from a single place. A single point of data entry will enable research information (such as publications data) to be automatically formatted and reused in other forums, such as in BU’s open access repository (BURO) and the BU staff profile webpages, without the need for duplicate or additional data entry. You will also be able to query data that appears to be missing or incorrect.

Symplectic Elements will provide academics with a simple ‘dashboard’ from which to view and manage their research information. This will also help when BU begins compiling data to meet the requirements of the REF.

How will Symplectic Elements link with the existing systems?

  • Symplectic Elements will link to our Research and Enterprise Database (RED) so you can see your current bids and projects. From within Symplectic you will also be able to link yourself to the PGR students you supervise.
  • It will link to BURO so that your research outputs are entered into the repository.
  • It will also link to a number of external publication databases (including Web of Science and Scopus) and automatically search these for your publications. When it identifies a paper it thinks might be yours it will send you an email and ask you to confirm it is your paper. If it is then all you will need to do is to tick ‘yes’ and Symplectic will create a record of your publication automatically. You will simply need to add a full-text copy of the paper (copyright permitting) and it will be uploaded into BURO.
  • Symplectic Elements will link to the new content management system and you will be able to choose which information is used on your staff profile webpage.

Timeframe for implementation: A broad steering group of representatives from across BU’s Schools and Professional Services has been formed to help feed into and guide the system’s implementation. A core project management group is currently overseeing the day-to-day tasks and will manage the initial data integration and checking. A meeting with the suppliers is scheduled for the end of the month. The system is due to go live in autumn 2011.

Further updates about Symplectic Elements will be posted on the BU Research Blog in due course!

Be Bold – Host an Event or Conference at BU!

Professor Alan Fyall, Deputy Dean Research & Enterprise in the School of Tourism encourages staff to consider hosting an event.

In recent weeks the School of Tourism has hosted a number of events including the Seventh International Conference on Culinary Arts and Science, the Third Conference of the International Association for Tourism Economics and a workshop on Context-Based Services led by PhD students from the John Kent Institute of Tourism. Although such events are hard work, require much planning and last-minute stress, they represent a valuable opportunity to attract academics from across the UK and beyond to BU. If you have not considered hosting such an event, think again as BU provides a good level of support, something that was not the case a few years back. Why not ……………

  • Start small with a one-day workshop or similar event with staff who have undertaken an event before
  • Build up to a two-day event or conference with extended abstracts and/or external speakers, possibly in association with other universities or external bodies
  • Graduate to a fully-refereed academic conference, possibly with sponsorship from other universities, professional bodies or research councils, with publishers and journal editors present
  • Start an international association, as happened with the International Association for Tourism Economics which formalises what in reality are loose informal gatherings of like-minded academics with a passion for their subject

If you do decide to take the plunge and host one of the above, from experience I can assure you that Bournemouth has much to offer as a conference destination. We often tend to mock our own location and imagine that everybody else does it better. Simply not true! In addition, we have the distinct advantage of being geographically close to all the major publishers in Oxford so invite them, look after them and work with them in expanding the publication opportunities for you and your colleagues. Not only does their appearance guarantee additional delegates, especially from overseas, but it serves to raise the quality threshold of what you are trying to achieve from your event through association with leading international organisations. Also, always plan what outputs you are seeking in the early stages of your event planning as, for example, editors of journals are always seeking new themes for special issues! Finally, although they are hard work, events are great fun and can serve as the platform for new friendships, writing relationships and the foundations for future research grant applications ….. and funding, for that next conference!

FP7 Work Programmes and Calls for Proposals to be released today!

 Annual budgets for most programmes and themes have risen and some excellent funding opportunities exist. We will be summarising all of the Work Programmes and making them available to you this week.

There are 53 calls for the 2012 round of FP7 with an overall budget of €7billion. 39 were published in the Work Programmes on 20 July, with different deadlines in 2011 and 2012 and the other calls will be published later in 2011 or 2012.

There are a few new features in 2012 compared to previous FP7 years, with the most obvious being the greater integration of innovation and the objectives of the Innovation Union Flagship Initiative in the Work Programmes. Support to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) will continue to form part of most of the calls, including a pilot call under the Health Theme in 2012 with specific SME-targeted actions, similar to the US Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) schemes.

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High flying publication for BU academic!

Dr Scott Cohen in the School of Tourism has had a paper published in the latest issue of the Annals of Tourism Research, one of the most prominent journals in the field of tourism.

The paper explores the concept of what has been termed ‘binge mobility’ or ‘binge flying’ – the notion that excessive tourism could constitute a new behavioural addition. Scott co-authored the paper with James Higham and Christina Cavaliere from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

The Annals of Tourism Research is rated a 4* journal in the Association on Business Schools‘ journal ranking list –  the ABS Journal Quality Guide – and has a Web of Science impact factor of 1.95.

In addition the paper was one of only five papers featured in Elsevier’s July 2011 Flash Alert, Elsevier’s monthly round up of the top stories in the science, health and medical journals.

You can read a copy of the paper on our institutional repository BURO.

Congratulations Scott! 😀

Internal deadline expanded to include bids to: Royal Society, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust

At the start of the year ULT agreed to an enforced, mandatory internal deadline of five working days for the submission of Research Council bids via the Je-S system. This has been extremely effective in identifying and correcting errors in applications prior to bid submission, resulting in higher quality applications being submitted.

The University Research and Enterprise Forum (UREF) agreed yesterday to expand the five working days internal deadline to applications made via the E-Gap2 and Leverhulme Online e-submissions systems. This will affect all applications made to the following funding bodies:

  • British Academy
  • Royal Society
  • Leverhulme Trust

To enable BU to seriously compete for future Research Council funding, bids submitted by BU need to be of the highest quality possible. The Research Proposal Review Service (RPRS) has been established to offer advice to improve the quality of bids submitted. The RPRS is there to help you submit the best quality proposal possible – talk to Caroline O’Kane about putting your bid through the RPRS.

The decision from UREF to expand the internal submission deadline to cover these additional funding bodies is to allow sufficient time for the CRE Operations team to undertake the necessary institutional checks and also to provide the opportunity to make any required changes in a more considered, less pressured fashion. Five working days is the internal deadline advised by the Research Councils and other major funding bodies.

Academic staff will continue to be guided through the process and made aware of the internal submission deadlines by the CRE Operations team.

This change will take effect from 1 August 2011.

Research and Enterprise into Space

Space travel has been in the news recently with the last space shuttle flight on the 8th July 2011 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14063682). The ending of the operational space shuttle era which has lasted almost thirty years after its development has led to recent discussions concerning the future of NASA funding and space flight and research from national and international collaboration perspectives.

Here in the UK the European Space Agency (ESA) has a technology centre in Harwell headed by Martin Ditter. He explained the rational of the ESA UK location and the relationship with technology and research (http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/interviews/martin-ditter-of-esa-uk-harwell-research-centre/1000835.article).

In terms of enterprise ESA have recently opened a Business Incubation Centre to utilise mature space technologies to create opportunities within other business sectors. In addition Research Council, EU and KTP priorities include space as a preferred area. Other activity includes the UK Space Agency established in April 2011 as part of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

At an educational level Space is identified a key subject area to enthuse young people and stimulate STEM subject interest. Space technology has a university undergraduate and master’s level presence at several universities linked with engineering studies such as electronics, aerospace, robotics and mechanical. Other related opportunities such as space tourism (http://www.virgingalactic.com/) will only increase public activity and interest in Space.

This could be an opportunity for HEI’s to develop niche research areas related to space.

The Green Living Project

This project was funded by DEFRA and harnessed the support of several organisations involved with the management of natural and environmental resources in the UK. MRG was commissioned by the National Trust for their contribution to the Green Living project, this involved a two year research programme with a £68,000 budget. The purpose of the research was to support an initiative to encourage people to eat more sustainably using locally produced food, in season and to grow their own food. The results of the survey showed a change in people’s behaviour which demonstrated a greater regard for environmentally friendly activities  following  a programme of information dissemination, events and education. The results have encouraged a change of policy towards Green Living initiatives which will be incorporated in future strategy.

The Green Living project is the latest example of work undertaken by MRG in the countryside, a programme of research extending back to 1995.

Excellent PI development resource available from Vitae

Guidance

Earlier this year Vitae launched an excellent development resource for principal investigators (PIs). The Leadership Development for Principal Investigators training is available online, free of charge from here: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/263521/Leadership-Development-for-Principal-Investigators.html

The website provides information in the following sections:

  • What is expected of a principal investigator
  • Research environment
  • Impact
  • Managing people
  • Project management
  • Networks

Information is provided for both pre-award and post-award stages of the research lifecycle.

This is a fantastic resource suitable for PIs at all stages of the research career.

If you have used the resource to access information then let us know what you think by commenting on this blog post and share your tips with your colleagues!

Good luck & Congratulations!

Awarded & submitted bids

It has been a couple of weeks since the last ‘good luck & congratulations’ e-mail and I’m really pleased to report that there has been lots of activity! Good luck to Rob Britton (ApSci), Alan Fyall (ST), Dimitrios Buhalis (ST) and Adrian Newton (ApSci) who have all submitted large bids for EU funding which is excellent news given BU’s aim to grow its European activity. A cross-School bid was submitted to Arthritis Research UK by Samuel Nyman (DEC) and Kate Galvin (HSC) – good luck! Milena Bobeva and Geli Roushan (BS) have submitted a large bid to JISC on developing digital literacy and in ST Lorraine Brown has submitted a bid to the British Council IELTS scheme. Tian Feng and Christos Gatzidis (DEC) have submitted a bid to the Royal Society and Venky Dubey (DEC) has submitted an outline proposal to the NIHR to develop a wearable upper arm exoskeleton to train stroke survivors for everyday tasks. Anita Diaz (ApSci) has submitted a teaching development bid to the Higher Education Academy, Mark Dover (ApSci) has submitted a couple of bids for consultancy projects with Geoplan and the Forestry Commission, and Rob Britton is seeking funds from the Darwin Initiative to continue his biodiversity conservation work in Africa. In HSC Clive Andrewes has submitted a number of proposals to local NHS organisations, and Lee-Ann Fenge has submitted a bid to the Big Lottery Fund. I would like to thank all of you for your efforts with these various bids and wish you all good luck!

There have been a lot of successes recently which is excellent news! Huge congratulations are due to Paola Palma in ApSci who has been awarded £145k from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project to encourage the public the visit museums. Fabian Homberg, Dermot McCarthy and Vurain Tabvuma in the Business School have been awarded funding from the British Academy to research public service motivation across Europe. Holger Schutkowski (ApSci) has also been successful with the British Academy and has been awarded funding to investigate the interrelationship of diet and status in early medieval Almanac societies. In the Media School Jon Wardle has secured another contract with Drum Cussac and a contract with Pearson Education Limited to run a postgraduate CPD course, Cliff Van Wyk has been awarded a small contract with Studentpadz, and Graham Goode has been awarded a contract with CC Group Communications Ltd. In HSC Gill Jordan has been awarded funds to continue running the overseas nurses programme and Fiona Cowdell will be working with Cotoco to develop innovative technology around self-care options after winning government funds as part of a larger bid. In addition Edwin van Teijlingen will be running a master class in November titled ‘Meeting the Editors’. Adrian Newton (ApSci) and Tim Darvill (ApSci) have been awarded funding from the New Forest National Park Authority and Poole Harbour Heritage Project for two match funded PhD studentships. Bournemouth Archaeology, led by Bronwen Russell (ApSci), has been awarded 3 contracts and also submitted two bids. The Market Research Group, led by Steve Calver (ST), has been awarded a small contract from Bangor University. Well done to everyone involved!

Professor Matthew Bennett

PVC (Research, Enterprise & Internationalisation)

REF Guidance on Submissions document released

Guidance, Research assessment

The REF2014 Guidance on Submissions document was released on Thursday and can be accessed on the HEFCE website here: REF Guidance on Submissions

We have prepared a summary document of the key points that can be accessed on the I drive: I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\REF

At the end of July the REF team will publish the draft panel working methods and criteria documents which will be open to consultation until the autumn. The Research Development Unit will be coordinating the BU response to the consultation – further details will be available once the documentation is released.

Latest EU funding for ICT

Quantifying public procurement of research and development of ICT solutions in Europe: proposals should gather quantitative evidence of research and development and ICT products and services procured by public contracting authorities across EU member states and associated countries, and cluster the data on a map to show the main fields of public interest in which procurement expenditures occur. Funding is worth up to €400,000 over 24 months. Deadline 23.09.11

e-Skills for Competitiveness and Innovation: the aim of this fund is to develop, with relevant stakeholders, a coherent vision and a detailed roadmap as well as foresight scenarios on the supply and demand of e-skills for competitiveness and innovation in Europe (2011–2015). It will build on the momentum of the EU e-skills strategy. The skills needed include ICT, marketing, design, law, management, etc. for entrepreneurs, managers and ICT professionals and advanced users in all industries. Closing date: 16 September 2011

More help needed for small businesses says European Investment Fund

New financial instruments must be introduced that are better tailored to the individual needs of smaller businesses in Europe—which are having serious problems in accessing capital for growth—according to both employers and fund managers. Several EU stakeholders including the EIF have called for a comprehensive set of measures to further support these smaller companies obtain finance.  The demand for funding under existing programmes such as the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), which EIF manages on behalf of the European Commission, outstrips current budget availability.

Researchers and NGOs slam industry bias in EU research funding plans

A group of NGOs and scientists’ organisations have complained that the Commission’s plans for the future research funding programme are biased towards commercial interests and neglect the needs of citizens.

In an open letter,  the signatories urge the European Commission, Parliament and national governments to “overcome the myth that only highly complex and cost intensive technology can create sustainability, employment and well-being.”