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New Frontiers in Neuroscience: Neuroimaging and Integrative Multi-Sensing Methods (room update -Inspire LT)

We would like to cordially invite you to the 2nd symposium of the BU’s Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Centre on next Monday the 16th of January 2023 from 9:00-13:00 at the Inspire Lecture Theatre, Fusion Building first floor (room updated).

The symposium is entitled “New Frontiers in Neuroscience: Neuroimaging and Integrative Multi-Sensing Methods”.  We will focus on these two themes from a cross-disciplinary angle, leveraging synergies between different departments at BU and our collaborators in other universities, industry, charities, and at the NHS. We think that this is a good opportunity to have informal discussions on grant proposals, also to explore shared interests with our external guests.

The schedule is:

9:00-9:15 Welcome and coffee.

9:30. Keynote talk: Prof. Mavi Sanchez-Vives, Biomedical Research Institute IDIBAPS, Barcelona (Leader of Human Brain Project Work Package 2 -Networks underlying brain cognition and consciousness-). “Brain States and Consciousness Studies in the Human Brain Project”.  This talk will be online, projected on the screen. All the rest of the talks will be presential.

10.20-10:40. Coffee.

10:40-11:40. Session I. Integrating Multi-sensing approaches and Industrial Applications.

  • Prof. Fred Charles (Creative Technology, FST, BU). “Multimodal Immersive Neuro-sensing approaches -introduction to the MINE cluster”.
  • Dr. Ifigeneia Mavridou (EmteqLabs, Sussex Innovation Centre). “Investigating affective responses to VR environments”.
  • Dr. Federica Degno (Psychology Department, FST, BU). “Co-Registration of Eye Movements and EEG”.

11.40 -12.00. Coffee and grants discussion.

12.00-13:00. Session II. Neuroimaging and Clinical Neuroscience. Concluding remarks.

  • Dr. Ruth Williamson (Deputy Chief Medical Officer, UHD; Consultant Radiologist). “The effect of cold-water immersion on brain function”.
  • Prof. Carol Clark (Rehabilitation and Sport Sciences, HSS, BU). “Measuring the brain structure, function and cognition of women currently engaged in sporting activities”.
  • Prof. Brigitte Vollmer (Southampton General Hospital, Southampton University). “Neurodevelopmental trajectories and neural correlates in children with neonatal Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy”.

Please, feel free to forward this email to any colleague/students who may be interested. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact any of us (Ellen Seiss, eseiss@bournemouth.ac.uk, Emili Balaguer-Ballester eb-ballester@bournemouth.ac.uk). For those of you who cannot make it, we will use Zoom, and it will be recorded (please see the Zoom link below this post).

After the event and having some lunch (can be bought in the same building) there are follow-up activates, if you wish to:

  • In the same lecture theatre, at 14h, there will be a very interesting talk, sponsored by the MINE cluster-Department of Psychology seminars, by Dr. Benjamin Schoene (Universität Osnabrück), entitled “The Brain in Virtual Reality: A Novel Perspective on Psychological Science”.
  • The talk will be followed by a visit to the Multimodal Immersive Neuro-sensing lab for natural neuro-behavioural measurement, which is just next to the Fusion Building (MINE lab, Tolpuddle Annex 1, TAG02) .

Thank you very much, we are looking forward to seeing you on Monday.

Kind regards,

Ellen and Emili

 

 

 

 

 

Emili Balaguer-Ballester is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 860 9963 8587

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Find your local number: https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/u/kdtV9nkL8X

NEW Jisc Transformative Journals Guide

Cambridge University Press Elsevier logoSAGE Logo

Jisc have recently published a guide for researchers on publishing in transformative journals. All peer-reviewed research articles (including reviews and conference papers) submitted after 1 April 2022 acknowledging funding from UKRI or one of its constituent councils must be published open access immediately, without embargo, under a CC-BY licence (or other licence permitted by UKRI).

Similar policies have been adopted by other funders such as the Wellcome Trust and NIHR, with further details on their websites. Jisc’s guide can be found here, and should prove useful when wishing to make your research openly available.

Transformative journals are subscription/hybrid journals that commit to transitioning to full open access journals. Jisc-approved transformative journals can be checked on Sherpa, with other useful resources below:

  • Use the Journal Checker Tool to find out whether a title is a transformative journal or compliant via another route. Remember that if you’re funded by UKRI and intend to use UKRI open access funds for an article processing charge in a transformative journal, you’ll need to ensure that the journal is listed as Jisc-approved on Sherpa.
  • Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers to identify trusted journals.
  • Sherpa lists funder policies from over 150 funders around the world.

You can read up on the transformative deals BU holds with a number of publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley and Taylor & Francis.

If you have any queries, please contact Open Access.

Research process seminar. Online daily diaries as a method. Tuesday 10th Jan at 2pm on Zoom

Research Process seminars are back, and we have a really nice lineup of talks coming for you this semester.
We kick off tomorrow with Prof Melanie Magin (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim) https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/melanie.magin
She is talking about “Online daily diaries as a method to investigating social media’s the role of news sources for political opinion formation processes”
Diary studies are well established in media studies, and are usually applied in qualitative contexts. Melanie will talk through a study and method that used mostly quantitative and structured diary entries. You can see the related full paper here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612211026595
Summary:
The talk provides insights into the methodological design of a two-week quantitative panel study in which we investigated which sources people used to inform themselves about recent political issues. Every day, the participants filled in a short quantitative questionnaire which allowed us to quantify the role of different information sources for opinion formation processes. The data collected enable us to research phenomena such as filter bubbles, echo chambers, fragmentation and polarization.
Tuesday 10th January at 2pm on Zoom
We hope to see you there. All welcome
Dan and Sae

Join BU CSHV/PIER for the first Community Voices Webinar of 2023

Wednesday 11th January 2023 – 12pm to 1pm 

January’s webinar welcomes Jessie Budynkiewicz from West Howe Community Enterprises. 

Jessie will  discuss how West Howe Community Enterprises uses a strength based approach to build on what’s strong in the community, aiming for a thriving community that identifies its own needs and is confident enough to provide it.

The Community Voices webinar series is a collaboration between the BU Research Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership. Our aim is to provide a platform to amplify the voices of community groups, organisations, activists and campaigners who are conducting incredible work to promote inclusion and advance social justice across our region and further afield. The webinars provide an opportunity to hear about this work and to engage in discussions and conversations on these topics.

Please add the link below to your calendar or email kejupp@bournmouth.ac.uk for further details.

Microsoft Teams meeting

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 327 243 890 723
Passcode: Gr5inu

Horizon Europe Resources

Happy New Year everybody!

In December, Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) and the UK’s Horizon Europe National Contact Points (NCPs) hosted a series of webinars presenting funding opportunities of the Horizon Europe 2023-24 work programme parts for the six Clusters under Pillar 2 ‘Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness’.

The video recordings and presentation slides from these events are now available online. Each webinar provides an overview of calls for proposals for the specific Cluster, practical tips for applicants and case studies.

As a reminder, the European Commission’s info days and brokerage events are taking place in in January 2023, follow the link for more information. You can also find more Horizon Europe internal resources on Brightspace.

As a reminder, one of BU Funding Development Briefings in January (scheduled for 25/01/23) will have spotlight on UK government guaranty related Horizon Europe grants.

Supervisor Lunchbite | Avoiding PGR Plagiarism & Copyright Breaches

Hosted by the Doctoral College, these one hour online lunch bite sessions supplement the regular New and Established Supervisory Development Sessions and are aimed at all academic staff who are new to, or experienced at, supervising research degree students and are interested in expanding their knowledge of a specific aspect or process in research degree supervision.Each session will be led by a senior academic who will introduce the topic, and staff will benefit from discussions aimed at sharing best practice from across BU. Bookings are arranged by Organisational Development.

The Library Staff are increasingly identifying issues with referencing in research degree thesis at the final submission stage. This is particularly problematic now theses are available online or for integrated theses. This session is focused on providing guidance for supervisors on how to advise PGRs on avoiding plagiarism and copyright breaches. This discussion will be led by Tim Calvert, Academic Services.

Staff attending this session will:

  • have gained additional knowledge of how to avoid common referencing and copyright errors

Further details on the session as well as information on future lunchbite sessions can also be found on the staff intranet.

Date: Tuesday, 10 January 2023

Time: 12:00 – 13:00

To book a place on this session please complete the booking form.

Further details and future sessions can also be found on the Supervisory Development Lunchbite Sessions staff intranet page.

NMWP Unconference and Awards Evening! 17-18 Jan, online

As part of the annual New Media Writing Prize, for the first time, we are hosting a fully online 2-day “unconference” symposium, 17-18 Jan 2023, hosted by BU in partnership with the Electronic Literature Organization and the British Library. The Unconference will culminate in the awards evening for the New Media Writing Prize on 18 January 2023.

NMWP Unconference Theme: Social Good

How can we change our world with our digital art and literature?

Our unconference call for proposals sought creative approaches to conference activities: events, works, and activities that aim to serve a social purpose (such as projects aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals): “Digital Literature for Social Good”. Activist projects, works for education and sustainability, events to brainstorm new digital lit approaches to improving society and culture—it’s all fair game. How can we change our world with our art and literature?

Over the past couple of months, we’ve put together a fantastic two days of discussions, workshops, artists’ talks, and brainstorming sessions. (See the schedule here.)

Join us!

Registration is open to those who would like to attend and participate in these creative sessions. (Please contact Lyle Skains if, as a BU student or staff member, you would like to observe only.)

Please also join us for the ultimate event in our NMWP Unconference, the New Media Writing Prize Awards Evening, which is free and open to the public. Our keynote is Deena Larsen, creator of Marble Springs, Modern Moral Fairy Tale, and other frequently studied and taught works of electronic literature. The 2021 NMWP winner, Joannes Truyens for Neurocracy, will give a featured talk, and awards will be given for the Chris Meade Memorial Main Prize, the Journalism Prize, Student Prize, and the Opening Up Prize (which is still open for voting here!).

We hope to see you there!

Introducing our RCATS project: ‘Resolving the extinction crisis: sustainable and technological solutions for biodiversity and society’

Rates of biodiversity loss across the world are now so alarming that it is generally recognised there is an urgent need to halt this loss of species that is largely being driven by human activities (e.g. last month’s UN Biodiversity conference, COP15). Indeed, the UN describe current extinction rates as the largest loss of life since the time of the dinosaurs. It is thus timely that we were recently awarded funding from BU’s Research Capacity Transformation Scheme for our project on preventing biodiversity loss for the benefit of both society and the natural world by developing sustainable solutions based on data collected using the latest technologies.

 

Our project is bringing researchers together from across BU and working with our match funders and external partners to deliver an integrated programme of research on biodiversity and sustainability that ranges from the social sciences through to the development of new analytical processes in the laboratory and engineering new technologies to monitor biodiversity. Our work focuses around four post-doctoral research projects that work in synergy with five match-funded PhD studentships. Work by the PhDs includes understanding extinction risks in critically endangered species in fragmented habitats, and identifies how schemes to reconnect and rewild habitats can reverse biodiversity losses. Our post-doctoral researchers will assess the relationships between society, consumer choices and public policy to benefit biodiversity, and identify how human-driven environmental changes are affecting biodiversity in terms of the behaviour, physiology and genetics of animal populations and communities.

 

If you want to hear more about our project, including how you can get involved, we are holding an open meeting for Bournemouth University staff on 24th January from 1 to 2 pm in Create lecture theatre. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Rob Britton & Pippa Gillingham (Project leads)

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships – Now is THE time to apply!

Innovation, impact and challenge.

 

If there is one (three) thing(s) to take from this post, it’s innovation…impact…and challenge.

 

You may have heard of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), or even been part of an academic team delivering one (or more!), and if you have an interest in not only finding out more about KTP but leading/being involved in one, now is a great time to apply. There is a large pot of KTP funding available from Innovate UK that is waiting to be spent by business/university collaborations. If you are working with a business on what could be an innovative project with a financial impact that is a challenge for the project team, do get in touch.

 

KTP is a three-way partnership three-way partnership between a knowledge base (in this case, BU!), a business and an associate (a graduate-level employee) that is part-funded by Innovate UK.  KTP is a great way of bringing in income and developing knowledge exchange with a clear pathway to impact.

 

The main criteria of KTP is innovation (must be an innovative project), impact (must have at least a financial impact to make a step-change within the business) and challenge (must be challenging for all three parties). There is a fourth criteria of cohesiveness to ensure the application has a clear narrative running throughout it.

 

KTP has regular submission deadlines throughout the year with the next KTP deadline as 23 January 2023.

 

In addition to this, we have just been successful in bidding to enhance our KTP capacity via a grant from Innovate UK, so you will see more KTP activity taking place around the University, please look out for it.

 

If you would like to find out more about KTP and how you can be involved/reap the benefits, please do contact your Faculty Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Manager (Health and Care Partnerships Manager for HSS).

 

 

So, as they say, watch this space!

 

 

Photo by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash

Research Professional – all you need to know

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to Research Professional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using Research Professional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of Research Professional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on Research Professional. They are holding two monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with Research Professional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the second Tuesday of the month. You can register here for your preferred date:

9th May 2023

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you. Previous recordings can be found here if you can’t attend a session.

Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

Conversation article: Terrorist recruitment now happens mainly online – which makes offenders easier to catch

BU’s Chris Baker-Beall co-authors this article for The Conversation around new research into the different journeys and patterns of extremist offending…

Terrorist recruitment now happens mainly online – which makes offenders easier to catch

Shutterstock

Jens Binder, Nottingham Trent University and Chris Baker-Beall, Bournemouth University

It is notoriously difficult to work out how and why someone becomes a terrorism risk. While attacks cause immense pain and suffering, the actual number of terrorist incidents in the western world is small. That makes it difficult to arrive at reliable, quantified evidence.

But in our research, we’ve started to identify important patterns when it comes to different journeys into extremist offending. Most notably, we’ve found that in recent years, people who go on to be convicted of terrorist offences are far more likely to have been radicalised online – without any offline interactions at all – than was the case in the past.

While the seeming ease with which this can happen is worrying, we’ve also found that people recruited purely online are less likely to commit violent attacks and less committed to their extremist causes than those recruited via in-person meetings. While face-to-face radicalisation continues, the process is now found to take place primarily online.

Our work, which uses detailed risk assessment reports on people sentenced for terrorist offences in England and Wales, draws on 437 cases between October 2010 and December 2021. These reports, written by trained prison and probation professionals, focus on the pre-history of an offence and the current circumstances of the offender. As well as a detailed narrative, they also contain estimates of the levels of risk that the individual poses.

The shift online

We wanted to look into how people became radicalised in the outside world before they committed an extremist offence. We found that, over time, it is less and less the case that people are radicalised offline, such as at local meeting places or via direct contact with peers and relatives.

Mixed radicalisation, where extremist offenders are subject to both online and in-person influences, has also been declining. It is now much more common for people to be radicalised online. They might learn from online sources or engage with extreme views on social media. They might also use internet forums and chat groups that provide easy access to like-minded others.

Our findings show that despite current perceptions about the growth of encrypted messaging services, online radicalisation is not necessarily happening predominantly through one-to-one communication channels. The most commonly named platform is YouTube.

While encrypted applications will always play their role, monitoring and regulating the more public online spaces is likely to make the most difference.

It was also interesting to note that those radicalised online consistently showed the lowest level of estimated risk. They were less engaged with extremist causes than those radicalised offline. They were also the most likely to have committed a non-violent offence, such as inciting and encouraging others to commit terrorism or possessing terrorist material, and to have committed their offences solely online.

Police caution tape sectioning off an area of a street.
Police were more likely to thwart online plots.
Shutterstock

They were also far less intent on committing further offences after leaving prison than those who were radicalised offline – and they appeared to have the lowest capacity to commit further crimes because of having less access to the knowledge, networks or materials they might need.

So it seems that while online radicalisation is the most pervasive form at the moment, it is not overly effective at permanently immersing people in an extremist mindset. Nor is the online approach particularly successful for conveying the skills and knowledge necessary to commit graver offences.

Disrupting online plots

In order to check for potentially more dangerous sub-groups, we also focused on those offenders classed as attackers. These were people who did not necessarily carry out full attacks but had, at the very least, cast themselves in such a role and had pursued attack plans.

The online group showed the lowest frequency of attack-related activities, and attackers in this group were least successful in progressing plots for attacks. Only 29% of these plots moved from planning to the execution stage and only 18% were successfully carried out.

All the plots we studied, which were not successful, had been disrupted by the police or other security services. The online world is, after all, not a perfect hiding place. Online activities often leave traces that can be detected by counter-terrorism practitioners.

While this could all mean that online radicalisation is comparatively harmless, there is a thin line between a relatively ineffective online-only radicalisation and a much more effective mixed radicalisation that includes both online and in-person influences. Online communication can slide into real-life interactions, and people radicalised via the latter technique were assessed as being highest in engagement and intent.

So while the switch to online radicalisation appears to make people easier to catch and less likely to commit violent attacks, this form of radicalisation should still be taken seriously and be recognised as a potential stepping stone towards more dangerous behaviour.The Conversation

Jens Binder, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Nottingham Trent University and Chris Baker-Beall, Senior Lecturer In Crisis and Disaster Management, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

HE Policy Update w/e 21st December 2022

There’s something for everyone in this final policy update of 2022. Although things have calmed down a bit as we approach the festive period there is still lots of news. We’ve kept matters as light as possible for you with links to more information for those that wish to read more. Here’s wishing you all a relaxing break, happy Christmas and a good start to the New Year.

Parliamentary News

Parliamentary session to continue: It’s been confirmed that the King’s Speech (and therefore, the State Opening of Parliament in 2023) will be delayed allowing more time for the Government to pass its legislative agenda. This is because when the Parliamentary session is closed any outstanding legislation drops away automatically unless a carry-over motion is passed to enable it to continue. (You’ll recall the Freedom of Speech (HE) Bill was carried over from the previous session because the Government is determined to get it on the statute books). The monarch then re-opens parliament with a speech setting out the Government’s legislative plans for the coming months. The Government indicated they plan to dissolve Parliament in Autumn 2023 meaning the new parliamentary session may begin in November 2023. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “The programme is very full and to make sure we have the time we need to get through the packed agenda the Prime Minister wants to deliver, the session will run until autumn 2023.” A cynic might mention it’s also getting awfully close to the next general election. Both Houses will return from recess on the 9 January.

HE priorities: Education Select Committee session: HE Minister Robert Halfon was examined by the Education select committee and HE received a brief mention. Miriam Cates MP queried whether HE funded provided value for money considering the lower funding settlement received by FE institutions. Halfon stated he welcomed the impact and successes of both sectors and suggested that he wanted the sector to focus on social justice and bringing the most disadvantaged the opportunities to get enter higher or further education. This is a personal agenda for Halfon and he has been very open about his interest in social justice, social mobility and accessibility/performance of HE institutions in supporting disadvantage. Cates was unimpressed with Halfon’s response and pressed for a full review of joined up education post-16, not just 16 to 18, stating that the investment in HE did pay off in terms of jobs and prosperity.

Spring budget announced: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver the Spring Budget on 15 March 2023. This fulfils the obligation to produce two forecasts in a financial year (required by law).

HERA – the Christmas edition

The DfE published their policy paper assessing the Higher Education and Research Act 2017: post-legislative scrutiny. HERA was a major change to HE operations and was pushed through the Commons (against substantial Lords backlash) by Jo Johnson in 2017. It established the OfS and UKRI in their current form.

Although the paper seems to have come out of the blue the DfE are expected to do this for each major piece of legislation within their remit after the first 5 years. As the paper is written for the Education select committee we may well see a new inquiry in this field in the new year.

Even if you’re not interested in the paper per se it has an interesting synopsis of the sector from page 8 onwards. And what is a Christmas edition of anything without a review of the major occurrences over the last (5) years? Here are the ‘high’lights we’ve contended with:

  • Left EU
  • Global pandemic and all that implied: changed social and economic environment and remote/hybrid/blended learning
  • New regulatory and funding system
  • Revolving door for ministers each with their own stamp on specific priorities (printing and accommodation costs, free speech, antisemitism, university advertising, post qualification admissions, the role of universities in school performance
  • All the big things: disadvantage, quality and outcomes, Lifelong Loan Entitlements, degree apprenticeships, T levels, broader structural HE reform. Cue the adverts… phew!

On the paper Wonkhe say: It is meant to properly reflect on the act – what has worked, what hasn’t, and what needs to change, with a view to making sure we have the best law we can. The publication we got made a start – and there are some eyebrow-raising lines in there about the way the underlying assumptions and government policy have shifted, often quite radically. They have a blog for those who enjoy Wonkhe’s analyses: David Kernohan wonders if we really have the system that was asked for.

HEPI have a related blog: Have the Higher Education & Research Act and the Office for Students delivered for new and ‘challenger’ providers?

Regulatory & Free Speech

HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill

The HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords. The Lords made more amendments and have passed it back to the House of Commons. So we are now in the final stage of ‘ping pong’ where the Commons and Lords tussle over the ultimate wording before the Bill passes to the King for Royal Assent.

The Third Reading was a calm affair but the Lords didn’t roll over. Minister for the School System and Student Finance, Baroness Barran, stated she was pleased to have introduced a definition of “freedom of speech” to the Bill and that this was one of the many important clarifications as a result of their discussions in the House (during Report Stage). She also confirmed they had avoided inadvertently giving alumni the same protections as current students and had clarified that the new power given to the OfS to give guidance on supporting freedom of speech was not related to the duty on higher education providers and their constituent colleges to promote the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom. She recognised as a breakthrough the banning of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct, abuse or harassment, or other forms of bullying. However, the proposed right to bring a civil claim in the courts against universities remains a big bone of contention. The Peers voted to remove it during the Report Stage and Baroness Barran said the Government would “reflect on this verdict and the arguments advanced to support it very carefully indeed.”

Lord Wallace spoke about the appointment of the new OfS free speech director. He asked the Government to “take particular care in finding a candidate for that position who will be accepted—possibly even welcomed—by the sector he or she sets out to regulate.” This reminds us of the controversy of partisan appointments that dogged Boris Johnson’s premiership.

Lord Wallace also drew attention to the outstanding question of the degree of overlap between this Bill, the recent National Security and Investment Act and the current National Security Bill, all of which imposed new duties and reporting requirements on universities. This has still not been fully resolved.

Baroness Thornton, Shadow Equalities Spokesperson, said “the jury it still out” on whether the Bill was necessary at all, but she was confident the legislation was being sent back to the Commons in an improved state. She drew attention to other outstanding matters, such as the role of the students’ unions. She also agreed with concerns around the risk of duplicating security regulations, and the risk that the Bill might pose to the business community, the commercial relations and the trading futures of universities.

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Affiliated) said she hoped the Commons would “restore some version of Clause 4 and material remedies for victims of cancel culture on campus”.

OfS Annual Review: The OfS published its annual review. In her commentary of the report, OfS Chief Executive Susan Lapworth, sets out the key OfS priorities for 2023 including how tackling poor quality provision, ensuring students from all backgrounds are able to enter higher education and succeed in their studies, and protecting freedom of speech on campus are the key priorities for the OfS in 2023.

Parliamentary Questions: Regulatory

Matt Western (Shadow Universities Minister) asked some interesting questions regarding OfS funding:

In response to a parliamentary question Robert Halfon (Universities Minister) confirmed that the department’s priorities for higher education are consistent with those set out in guidance to the Office for Students (OfS) earlier this year. This includes a continued focus on delivering the government’s skills mission, driving up quality and ensuring equality of opportunity and real social mobility for students. The Government will only issue the OfS with new guidance for the current financial year if new issues or priorities emerge. 

Matt Western also asked: whether a review of the potential changes required to the admissions system for HE course in advance of the delivery of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (2024/25) has been conducted.  Robert Halfon responded:

  • To support the design and delivery of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) from 2025, the department will continue to engage with sector bodies across both further education and higher education, as well as the Student Loans Company and regulatory bodies.
  • On admissions, the department is continuing to work with UCAS and sector bodies to improve transparency, reduce the use of unconditional offers, and reform the personal statement to improve fairness for applicants of all backgrounds.
  • The LLE consultation and other ongoing engagements are an important part of delivering a transformation of student finance. The department is carefully considering the contributions and will publish a response in due course.

Research

Pro-innovation regulation

The Treasury published a policy paper: Pro-Innovation Regulation of Technologies Project: Terms of Reference which announces a review considering how to regulate emerging technologies.

Pro-innovation regulation focuses on ensuring that we can safely and ethically accelerate the development, testing, route to market and uptake of new technology products. It should give confidence to innovators. This is key to making the UK an attractive destination for R&D projects, manufacturing and investment, and ensuring we can realise the economic and social benefits of new technologies as quickly as possible.

The Treasury also announced the appointment of five industry experts to help accelerate the development and deployment of emerging technologies in the following key UK growth sectors:

  • digital technology
  • green industries
  • life sciences
  • advanced manufacturing
  • creative industries.

Experts will collaborate with industry and Sir Patrick Vallance to advise on new rules that use regulatory freedom to promote innovation.  The aim of the review is to establish the UK as the best regulated economy ensuring that industry and investors have the certainty needed to drive innovation, investment and growth through anticipating new developments in emerging technologies. The experts are:

Matt Clifford, Chair of the new Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), and Priya Lakhani OBE, a member of the AI Council, have been appointed to support work to harness new digital technology such as artificial intelligence.

Sir John Bell, sits on Genomics England’s board of directors, and Camilla Fleetcroft, Eclevar UK’s Vice-President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, will work on cultivating the life sciences sector and help drive the next generation of discoveries, such as delivering genomics-enabled clinical trials.

Jane Toogood, Chief Executive of Catalyst Technologies at Johnson Matthey, will take forward work on building green industries like hydrogen and battery development in the UK.

Future Research Assessment Programme

UKRI/Research England published three reports on the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP). Taken together the reports speak out against a fully metricised system for the next REF but do suggest ways in which AI might support low risk areas of the exercise. The reports are:

  • Harnessing the metric tide: indicators, infrastructures and priorities for responsible research assessment in the UK
  • Responsible use of technology in research assessment
  • REF outputs analysis: maximising the use of REF data

Quick news:

Horizon Europe extension: The Government announced an extension to the support provided to UK Horizon Europe applicants, originally launched in November 2021. The extension will ensure that eligible, successful UK applicants will continue to be guaranteed funding. The guarantee will be in place to cover all Horizon Europe calls that close on or before 31 March 2023. Eligible, successful applicants to Horizon Europe will receive the full value of their funding at their UK host institution for the lifetime of their grant. Successful awardees do not need to leave the UK to receive this funding, which will provide reassurance for future collaborations, and support UK researchers whether association is confirmed, or otherwise.

Science Minister, George Freeman, has been busy recently:

Wonkhe blog: The International Science Partnerships Fund is out, and James Coe thinks it has implications for UK research post Horizon.

The Lords Science and Technology Committee wrote to the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation George Freeman with the findings of its inquiry into people and skills in UK STEM. And THE has a blog on the topic: Academic careers: Teetering progress: A House of Lords committee has warned that the precarity of academic careers is exacerbating the UK’s growing skills gap in STEM.

HEPI blog: Research Leadership Matters: Agility, Alignment, Ambition

Graduate outcomes and employment

Sir John Holman, Independent Strategic Adviser on Careers Guidance wrote to DfE and DWP Minister regarding England’s careers guidance system.The letter summarises his recommendations for the future of the careers guidance system. It draws upon 18 months’ of consultation and conversations with careers practitioners and sector representatives, employers, schools, colleges, local bodies and a range of other interested parties, as well as a review of available evidence from the DfE, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the wider sector. You can read Holman’s recommendations (9 Strategic Principles) here. It’s worth a read, put it on your January list! HE and Skills Minister Robert Halfon welcomed the recommendations and stated he will consider them carefully – and that the Department will publish more information on future plans for the careers guidance system “in due course”.

Graduate employment: A catch up on the news that graduate employers aren’t focussed on degree outcome grade. The Times broke the story. Quickly followed up by Research Professional: The Times reports that fewer than half of graduate employers asked recruits for a 2:1 this year, according to a report by the Institute of Student Employers. And by Wonkhe: For the first time, less than half of graduate employers require a 2:1, new findings from the Institute for Student Employers suggest. The data from its 2022 student recruitment survey – drawn from 168 responses covering 32,110 hires, with larger organisations somewhat overrepresented – saw only 48% of responding employers having such a stipulation for graduate roles, down from 57% in 2021.

Data: The DfE released a new type of LEO data dashboard (and a report) looking at the earnings of individuals post GCSE over a 15 year period. Socioeconomic, demographic and education factors are within the data providing a granular picture. It isn’t directly comparable with the Graduate Outcomes data the HE sector routinely uses as there are small methodological differences, not least the inclusion of non-graduates. The box on page 23 explains the differences.  However, it provides a comparator for graduate and non-graduates of the same age (rather than mixed ages with all of the same graduation cohort). For the data buffs page 22 onwards explains the graduate/non-graduate comparators re: the value of a degree.

Key points:

  • People have diverse employment pathways in their 15 years. Taking into account the 50 most common pathways only accounts for 31% of individuals.
  • The report aims to show how education and labour market activities and outcomes differ for different groups of individuals despite similar education levels. Particularly, to see how education and labour market outcomes differ for graduates and non-graduates with different individual characteristics.
  • Higher proportions of individuals completing a degree are in employment, having higher average earnings than those without a degree and with lower proportions claiming out of work benefits.
  • Higher levels of education lead to better labour market outcomes for all. This compares like with like so an individual with SEN or who was in receipt of free school meals (FSM) has a better labour market outcome than their SEN/FSM counterpart who left education at a lower level.
  • However, when the comparison is not like with like certain groups have lower labour market outcome than others. Although in these cases those completing a degree have better labour market outcomes than their comparators who do not have a degree. For example, there are higher proportions of graduates that were FSM eligible in employment and lower proportions claiming benefits than non-FSM eligible nongraduates. Of those in employment, the FSM eligible graduates earn around £5,000 more per year than non-FSM eligible nongraduates and their earnings potential seem to have different trajectories.
  • For a few select sub-groups a higher education level does not always lead to better labour market outcomes than their peers with a lower education level. For example, individuals with a SEN statement even with a degree tend not to outperform those without SEN who only studied to a lower educational level.
  • There is considerable difference in the earnings trajectories and outcomes for graduate and non-graduate individuals in employment (see Figure 15 below). There is a £10,000 difference in annual average earnings for graduates and non-graduates in employment 15 years after finishing KS4 (for most graduates this is around 8 to 10 years after graduation). Though the curve for graduates flattens after a sharp increase as more graduates join the labour market, it continues to increase at a faster rate than that for non-graduates

The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysed the data in more depth using measures to control multiple background characteristics. They found prior attainment and subject of study at HE level to be very important in determining [financial] returns to degrees. Similarly, this report finds:

  • Those with poorer attainment at KS4 that go on to complete a degree do not have better labour market outcomes than individuals with better KS4 attainment that do not complete a degree. This is also the case for SEN statemented individuals when compared with those not identified with SEN.  However, every other sub-group that completed a degree benefits from the better labour market outcomes due to the degree premium. Table 14 below illustrates this for SEN individuals. If you are interested in this sectionality do read the key findings, paragraph 159 on page 86 onwards as they cover all the groups with lower outcomes in a more granular way.
  • Black and minority ethnic groups tend to have higher levels of post 16 education, when compared with those from the White British group, yet not necessarily better labour market outcomes
  • The report states it is novel in that it analyses the data by SEN, first language and school type (in relation to employment outcomes and benefit claims).
  • Graduates are more likely to be employed than non-graduates, however, there is an interesting regional effect (see Table 18 below). Bear in mind this is based on the individual’s current region (which is not necessarily their key stage 4 region) – yet the rankings by region for those completing a level 3 are exactly the same in table 19 on page 80 – suggesting it’s a regional thing more than a graduate thing

HEPI

HEPI published many interesting papers and blogs over the autumn semester. Here are the most relevant and recent apart from those featured elsewhere:

 Students are evenly split on whether or not they regard it as the responsibility of their higher education institution to find them a job, with one-quarter (34%) believing it is and only a slightly lower proportion (30%) saying it is not.

 Most students look to their careers service to offer help with finding an internship or placement (63%), writing their curriculum vitae (63%), interview preparation (61%), finding a career (60%) and hosting careers fairs (52%). Providing mentoring and life skills also has substantial support (49%) while far fewer students expect help with finding a holiday job (22%).

 A majority of students (53%) think ‘all university courses should be designed mainly with future employment in mind’ and a further 37% say ‘some university courses should be’. Very few students say only ‘a small proportion’ (4%) or no university course (4%) should have a focus on employment.

 However, over half of students oppose the proposal in England of providing reduced access to student finance to those opting for courses with poor employment prospects; 53% ‘strongly disagree’ and an additional 16% ‘disagree’.

 Nearly one-half of students are either ‘very confident’ (14%) or ‘quite confident’ (32%) that they are likely to find their desired job on graduation but a substantial minority are ‘quite unconfident’ (21%) or ‘very unconfident’ (9%).

 When it comes to the type of employer, many students say they do not mind (34%) what size their future employer is. Among those with a preference, a similar proportion chose larger employers (28%) with 250 or more staff than small-to-medium sized enterprises (31%) with 249 staff or fewer.

 More students prefer employers who consider characteristics such as work experience and extra-curricular activities (41%) than prefer employers who mostly care about degree results (30%).

 When asked what they regard as ‘the best definition of a “graduate-level job”‘, students split three ways: 30% say a graduate-level job is one where an employer requires applicants to have a degree; 29% say it is one that is officially classified as ‘graduate-level’; and 26% say it is a position that pays above the student loan repayment threshold.

 Nearly half of students are either ‘very confident’ (16%) or ‘quite confident’ (31%) that they will secure a graduate-level role, while 17% are ‘quite unconfident’ and 8% are ‘very unconfident’.

 Around half (49%) of students have not used their careers service to date, which is slightly higher than the proportion who have (43%).

 Those who have used a careers service are more satisfied than unsatisfied, with 59% saying they were ‘very happy’ or ‘quite happy’ with the service they received. However, 13% were ‘quite unhappy’ and 7% were ‘very unhappy’.

 Those who have not used their careers service were given an opportunity to explain why. Some said they do not know what their careers service has to offer, some believe the careers service would not support their specific career needs and some feel they are too early in their course to consider career planning.

 Students want a single digital learning platform that is easy to use.

The vast majority (87%) of students would like to see digital learning resources streamlined onto a single platform with one, intuitive user experience, where texts are easily readable and navigable. The platform should be compatible across a range of devices and accessible on- and off-campus.

Students want to be able to access digital resources without waiting lists.

Nearly all (95%) of students say digital copies of their course books should be available to them at the point of need, without waiting lists.

Although many students say that they do not worry about being able to access course books through the library when they need them, 59% of students who are impacted by such worries say the wider availability of digital resources would improve their mental health.

Students want digital recordings of their lectures.

The most in-demand digital learning resource is lecture recordings. Students want to see recordings uploaded onto a single, user-friendly platform and for them to be made available for the duration of their courses.

HE Sector Resource

The Institute for Fiscal Studies published its fifth annual report on education spending in England. Here’s the summary of HE spending provided by Dods Political Intelligence:

  • Up-front spending on teaching resources per higher education student has continued to decline steadily, standing at £9,300 per year for the 2022–23 university entry cohort. That is around £1,700 less per year in real terms than for 2012–13 entrants, largely because the cap on tuition fees is now 18% lower in real terms than it was in 2012–13.
  • The nominal freeze in fees is set to continue for another two years, adding to other financial pressures on universities. The most important pressure in the near term is likely to be the cost of any settlement with staff over pay and pensions.
  • A major package of student loans reforms was announced in February and has substantially reduced the expected long-run cost of higher education, shifting a larger share of the cost onto graduates themselves. Changes to future repayment thresholds mean most students from the 2012 to 2022 university entry cohorts can expect to repay substantially more, with middle-earning graduates hit hardest.
  • From the 2023 entry cohort onwards, a lower repayment threshold, a longer repayment period and a lower interest rate mean most students can expect to repay their loans in full and to repay roughly the same amount as they borrowed in real terms. High earners will no longer pay off more than they borrowed, and only low-earning graduates’ loans will be subsidised by the taxpayer.
  • For current students, higher-than-expected inflation has eroded the real value of maintenance loans. Students in 2022–23 will be entitled to borrow 10% less towards their living costs than they were in 2020–21, a cut equivalent to £90 a month for the poorest students. Without a change in policy, living cost support for future students will be permanently lower, causing hardship for some.

Admissions, Access & Participation

Disabled students: Wonkhe blog – Endless reports have promised progress on access failures for disabled students – but how much difference has been made? Meg Darroch and Jim Dickinson take some regulatory ideas for a spin.

Disadvantage gaps: The Education Policy Institute published a report on the disadvantage gaps in England during 2021. It finds that much of the reduction in the disadvantage gap over the last decade has been reversed during the pandemic. The report mainly focuses on key stage 4 and 16-19 education. If this report was of interest you may also be interested in Ofsted’s annual report,

HEPI blog: Designing outreach with people of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage – a lesson in critical unlearning and Raising institutional aspirations for supporting Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boater students in higher education

HEPI blog: Why every university needs an advisor for care leavers and estranged students

Admissions:

HE – massification

Research Professional ran a thought-provoking article describing how the massification of HE has resulted in an unequal and divided workforce as graduate culture permeates companies. It describes ways to rebalance HE to provide vocationally oriented degrees – but this isn’t article just trumpeting skills, it believes HE should be universally funded and as natural as completing secondary schooling. It supports levelling up – although not in quite the same style as the Government originally intended through technologically advanced regions. Also: At the same time, there would need to be a corresponding growth in graduate jobs. This would involve spinouts and cooperative ventures with research universities, incentivised through their endowments to build these kind of links. Regional government would need to be involved in planning health, care and education systems, and the supply of graduate jobs in the health and education sectors would need to be underwritten before graduate employment in private and not-for-profit sectors caught up. It’s alternative in its solutions and it is easy to dismiss the article but closer readers may find aspects that resonate.

International

Transnational £: DfE estimates of the value of transnational education (TNE) for 2020 (this includes education programmes that take place outside the UK, through partner institutions or distance learning or international campuses).

  • Total UK revenue estimated to be £25.6 billion in 2020, an increase of 0.8% since 2019 in current prices.
  • HE was the main contributor with £19.5 billion of export revenue – equating to a share of 76.3% of the value of total exports, representing an increase of 6.3 ppts from 2019.
  • In 2020, international (EU and non-EU) Higher Education students at UK universities generated an estimated £18.0 billion in exports through living expenditure and tuition fees (£15.9 billion in 2019), which accounts for around 70.2% of the total value of education exports and TNE activity (62.6% in 2019).

The National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond, has explained why international students are included in the net migration figures.

  • The United Nations definition of a long-term migrant is: “A person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence.” International students will typically live in the UK for more than a year, and so meet the definition of a long-term migrant.
  • However, we recognise this definition is narrow and doesn’t always meet user needs. We have plans to explore alternative definitions, including estimating net migration by reason, such as study. This will help provide more context to headline measures of migration, addressing recent findings from the ONS research that most international students will leave the UK after their studies are concluded.

Wonkhe blog – For Nick Isles, recent ministerial comments about international students have been dangerously underinformed.

Parliamentary Questions:

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. There are not any new consultations or inquiries this week.

Other news

Gaming: Grants for R&D and recruitment of video game graduates (parliamentary question).  

OIA appointment: The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE (OIA) announced the appointment of Helen Megarry as the next Independent Adjudicator. Helen takes up the post in May 2023, and will jointly lead the organisation with Ben Elger, Chief Executive. Megarry is currently the Independent Adjudicator for His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and Valuation Office Agency, and independent reviewer of decisions made under the Windrush Compensation Scheme. She was previously Deputy Housing Ombudsman at the Housing Ombudsman Service, and a Board member of the Ombudsman Association. The current Independent Adjudicator, Felicity Mitchell, will continue to jointly lead the organisation until her term of office concludes at the end of April 2023.

PTES: Earlier this month the 2022 Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey results were released. Research Professional has a nice write up suggesting that satisfaction levels among PGT students have bounced back after hitting record lows during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Power sharing:  Gordon Brown’s Commission on the UK’s Future (Labour party) published A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy – a report on devolution and constitutional reform. Key points:

  • A new “constitutional statute” will be written which codifies social rights for citizens and the devolution of power amongst the 4 nations.
  • Local authorities will be given the opportunity to gain new powers from central government.
  • A “suite” of R&D programs will aim to drive growth across England via local growth.
  • The UK Infrastructure Bank will be given an explicit mission to address regional economic inequality in the provision of infrastructure.
  • Local authorities will be given longer term funding settlements
  • Local people will have greater input to local authorities spending priorities.
  • Powers for devolved nations will be broadened
  • Councils of the Nations and Regions and of England will open opportunities for shared decision making from local government, devolved and national government.
  • New rules and enforcement procedures for standards in public life.
  • The House of Lords will be abolished and replaced with an elected 2ndchamber which will focus on protecting the constitution, devolution and standards in public life.

The report was strongly criticised by Plaid Cymru and the SNP.

Consumer Law: New OfS enforcement deal raises consumer law compliance pressure on universities. Higher education providers in the UK need to step up their efforts to protect students’ rights and comply with consumer laws, an expert has said as the Office for Students (OfS) and National Trading Standards announced a new partnership. The OfS’ partnership with National Trading Standards is a sign that the higher education regulator is moving into “regulatory compliance mode”, according to Rami Labib of Pinsent Masons. Read more.

Fees & Funding: Wonkhe blog – It was a trip down memory lane as graduate tax – and all the reasons to reject it – were rehearsed at a sector event. But the sector needs some bigger thinking on fees and funding soon, argues Jim Dickinson.

Enterprise: The All-Party Parliamentary University Group praised the work of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education in the blog: How can higher education be at the forefront of enterprise and entrepreneurship?

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Tourism, marketing and health in 2022

In his overview of 2022 on LinkedIn Professor Dimitrios Buhalis reminded us that: “The Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing Marketing was finally published with 1250 entries contributed by 1500 academics from all over the world to produce 4 volumes and 3528 pages. This will work brought together the best thinking process and brains in tourism management to contribute to the rebuilding of the tourism industry, globally, and contribution to communities around the world.”

We are happy to have made a small contribution to this book.  Professor Padam Simkhada (BU Visiting Faculty and Professor at the University of Huddersfield) and I contributed the chapter on trekking guides in Nepal and sexual health [1].

 

 

Have a happy and healthy 2023!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

Reference:

  1. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E. (2022) Sexual relationships and trekking guides. In: Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing, Buhalis, D. (ed.), Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing, pages: 77-79.