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Are Disruptive Transformations Overshadowing or Paving the Way for the SDGs Implementation?

The 6th Edition of the LIGUE International Conference Poster

6th Edition of the LIGUE Conference, Tunis, 8-9 December 2022

Collaboration between Bournemouth University & University of Manouba

Are Disruptive Transformations Overshadowing or Paving the Way for the SDGs Implementation? Challenges and Opportunities for the Organizations and their Stakeholders

I am very proud of the latest collaboration between Bournemouth University and the University of Manouba on this conference addressing the disruptive transformations organisations and their stakeholders have been experiencing. Such disruptions have strongly influenced their efforts to achieve the UN SDGs. This conference gathered academics from Tunisia, UK, Spain, France, Canada, Morocco, Libya and Sri Lanka, to discuss this essential and timely topic. The conference is in line with Bournemouth University values, mission and strategy and strongly contributes to the UN SDGs.  Academics from  BU played a key role in the success of this conference in many ways:

 

Dr Ediz Akcay

Dr Kaouther Kooli

Professor Hamid Bouchachia

1-Professor Hamid Bouchachia, Faculty of Science and Technology, delivered a keynote speech on Data Science and AI as Enablers for Tackling SDGs and asserted that the implementation of the SDGs agenda by governments and societies can only be monitored through credible data and supported by adequate and transparent decision-making mechanisms.

 

Dr Kaouther Kooli, Keynote speech on establishing a research ethic committee

2-Professor Ameur Cherif, Professor Hamida Skandrani  Dr Sean Beer and myself delivered a keynote speech on the challenges of establishing research ethic committee in global south countries. The presentation made impact as it opened a very interesting debate on research ethics and how it is practiced by academics at the University of Manouba.

 

 

 

 

Dr Ediz Akcay and Dr Kaouther Kooli, workshop with entrepreneurs

3-Dr Ediz Akçay and myself delivered a workshop to entrepreneurs and academics. Five women entrepreneurs exhibited their products and talked about their SMEs. Nurtured by our research and education activities, Dr Ediz Akçay and myself have organised a workshop on how these women entrepreneurs can best take advantage on the opportunities available in their environment e.g. We emphasised how they can be guided by the UN SDGs  and how they can achieve these through their collaboration with the University of Manouba. This workshop aimed to promote inclusivity, local communities, organic products. I would like to thank the following brands/entrepreneurs for attending this workshop : Sajnania, JIJI, Emna Wssaoufi, Ommi Daouda, Dry Rose. The workshop has been commended by Professor Samir Trabelsi, Brock University , Canada, as “The best session he attended in the conference”.

Hybrid Conference Presentation by Kithsiri H V Athula on the screen from Sri Lanka, Dr Ediz Akçay and Dr Kaouther Kooli

4-Presenting papers with Dr Ediz Akçay and Kithsiri H V Athula from Sri Lanka. Our presentations made impact and we received very good feedback from colleagues from other universities. As a result, we have been invited to submit one of the papers to a top American journal.

 

 

 

Professor Khaled Huseyni, Portsmouth University and Dr Padmi Nagirikandalage, Nottingham Trent University

 

 

5-Guest editing special issues of CABS journals, involving ECRs from Bournemouth University, Nottingham Trent University and from the University of Manouba. We encourage paper submissions from Bournemouth University. Please contact me on: kkooli@bournemouth.ac.uk or Dr Ediz Akcay: eakcay@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.

 

 

 

Closing ceremony photo

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Hamid Bouchachia, Dr Ediz Akçay and Dr Sean Beer for their invaluable contributions.  Also, I would like to thank Professor Hamida Skandrani, Professor Samir Trabelsi from Brock University, Professor Khaled Husseiny from Portsmouth University, Professor Derrick De Kerkhove from the Interdisciplinary Internet Institute, Dr Padmi Nagirikandalage from Nottingham Trent University and all the other participants for engaging with us, providing feedback and commenting about our work.

Bournemouth University collaboration with the University of Manouba started more than five years ago. This collaboration made a difference for the University of Manouba and especially the LIGUE (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Gestion Université Entreprise) that has recently won the ED-ECCOFIGES prize of the best scientific publications. This is a very encouraging and comforting proof of years of hard work organising conferences, guest editing special issues of CABS journals, co-authoring papers, bidding for external funding, etc. This collaboration has been making a strong contribution to Bournemouth University values of excellence, inclusivity, creativity and responsibility and to the Seventeen UN SDGs. It is paving the way for other partnerships for the goals involving institutions from other countries in North Africa and beyond and, therefore, it is placing Bournemouth University in a strong posture in the race for sustainability.

I Wish you a happy festive break.

Dr Kaouther Kooli

Business School, Bournemouth University

Email: kkooli@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research reflections 2022 – Your highlights: DONATION project

Dr Rounaq Nayak, Lecturer in Sustainability, writes about the DONATION project, which explored the impact of the cost of living crisis on food aid programmes… 

The research success I have had is with a project that I started at the beginning of the year, titled ‘Design of a social sustainability and food utilisation matrix for food banks (DONATION)’, using the Charity Impact fund (internal call).

The fund helped me explore the impact of the cost of living crisis on various food aid programmes in the UK (including food banks and community markets in Dorset, Leicestershire and Shropshire).

I would term this project a success due to 3 reasons: it gave me the chance to carry out research in a new topic area, it allowed me to network both within the university as well as with key stakeholders outside the University, and apply successfully for seed funding from the British Academy.

Findings from the study were published in a Call for evidence on the UK Parliament website, which is a first for me. Detailed findings will also be published as a peer-reviewed paper in a special issue journal that is widely read by audiences in the sector.

Vegetables in packaging in a food bankWhat started out as a small project that was awarded £2500 at the start of the year has led to a larger project with a defined theme (£7900) that is attracting interest from various stakeholders such as BCP, Bristol City and Oxfordshire Councils, key stakeholders associated with food aid programmes in the UK, and charities that work with vulnerable populations.

The findings have also led to the identification of a new group of clients that need access to food banks due to food and fuel poverty – people working full-time jobs and on an annual salary. Based on these findings and the gravity of the situation identified through this project, I am aiming to apply for a UKRI New Investigator Grant in the autumn of 2023.

Research reflections 2022 – Your highlights: ECHO project showcase event

Dr Jane Henriksen-Bulmer, Principal Academic in Computer Science, writes about a three-day event that took place at BU in early December to mark the end of the ECHO project, which aims to strengthen the proactive cyber defence of the European Union…

This is the largest event we have ever arranged and the culmination of the H2020 pilot programme (consisting of only 4 projects, including ECHO) on Cybersecurity. BU is the one of only 3 universities involved in the project, with most of the partners being from industry (44 partners in all). We are the only project partner from the UK, so we have a lot to be proud of.

Presentations took place as part of the ECHO dissemination event

This event was the showcase for all the outputs from the ECHO project and we had an impressive line-up of prominent guests and speakers, both local and from Europe. On top of that, we involved 4 cohorts of students in the event, from L5 through to L7, so this truly is a fusion exercise where learning, teaching and industry come together to showcase the best of what we can do when we ‘fuse’ the three aspects.

The 3 days were jam-packed with excitement starting on the Monday with a kick-off event where we had talks from a number of prominent speakers from across Europe including ENISA, DG CNECT, Accenture, DSTL and ESET.

This was followed by a series of student-led workshops run by our final year undergraduate and master’s students (Huseyin’s Human Factors unit) where they interviewed the ECHO partners and conducted Human Factors evaluations on the Early Warning System, which went really well.

On Tuesday, we and our ECHO guests spent the morning recording some footage on the Green Screen in the Faculty of Media and Communication, which they are going to turn into an animation that we hope to use for dissemination. This was followed by a visit to BAE Systems’ STEP facility in Christchurch, where my final year business IT students presented their ideas for how the various plug-ins created as part of ECHO can be commercialised, which went down really well.

Students sat at computers

Students take part in an exercise as part of the ECHO event.

Then, on Wednesday we had the Incident Response Scenario where a group of second year students (Cagatay’s Ethical Hacking Unit) played blue team, defending multiple systems under attack. They then used the Early Warning System to raise tickets to warn of the attack as it was happening. It was a real eye-opener for them to see how this might play out in real life and they had a fabulous day, as did the observers and guests.

Overall, the whole 3 days were a resounding success, we have really enjoyed the experience (although we now must sleep!) and are hoping to host similar events in the future, watch this space!

Research reflections 2022: Your highlights

As we come to the end of 2022, we’re taking a look back at some of our research and knowledge exchange successes from across the year.

In today’s blog post, Professor Jane Murphy, Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, shares some of her highlights… 

“I started this role on 1st April 2022 – April Fool’s Day, ironically! At the same time, I started a new funded project – the DIALOR ( DIgitAL cOaching for fRailty) project, which has been funded by the NIHR ARC Wessex and is a digital health coaching project for people in the early to moderate stages of frailty.

Starting a new role and a project on the same day was quite interesting and there was lots to prepare and get up and running but I was really fortunate to have a huge amount of support from my predecessor.

It’s been brilliant to join such an inspiring and forward-thinking leadership team and also great to work with colleagues across the Faculty in a different role.

It’s been a really exciting year for the Faculty in terms of research. We obviously had the REF results in May, with lots to celebrate from our submission, and some major research successes and funding awarded – such as Professor Edwin van Teijlingen’s NIHR grant for drowning prevention work in Bangladeshi children.

We’ve also had a lot of new staff join us this year and, in particular, early career researchers (ECRs) within the Faculty, and I’ve started work this year on understanding how we can better promote a positive research culture.

One of the initiatives that I’ve implemented is a new ECR Community Hub, which I’m running in partnership with Professor Lee Ann Fenge so we have both the health and social care perspectives. We’ve had a couple of meetings to date and will have more in the New Year but it gives our new ECRs and research staff an opportunity to come together, have a conversation, and meet with myself and Lee Ann.

We’ve also established a new Professoriate Group which is going to be chaired by Professor Vanora Hundley for professors and associate professors.

We’re making the most of our new fantastic new building – it’s made such a difference being able to walk down the corridors and bump into people and make those connections. Next year, we’ll be looking at ways to use the building to bring our research to life and thinking creatively about how we can bring people into our lovely building and show them what we’re doing.

We’re also building exciting partnerships, such as our links with University Hospitals Dorset. We had the research event in October, which was really successful, and we’ll be having more engagement events to help develop new pathways to grow research and support clinical academics who want to conduct research in partnership with us.

We’re building similar models with Dorset Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Dorset County Hospital as well, so it’s very much a Dorset-wide approach, strengthening and growing the region as a place to engage with education and research, with the capability to improve patient care and public health.

I think as a Faculty, we’re in a really strong position. We have ambitious targets for our research income and knowledge exchange but underpinning that, we’re thinking our strategy and processes and what we need to put in place to help us grow and develop and help us achieve those targets. I’m looking forward to continuing to build on this work in 2023!”

Postgraduate Researchers and Supervisors | Monthly Update for Researcher Development

PG research

Postgraduate researchers and supervisors, hopefully you have seen your monthly update for researcher development e-newsletter sent earlier this month. If you have missed it, please check your junk email or you can view it within the Researcher Development Programme on Brightspace.

The start of the month is a great time to reflect on your upcoming postgraduate researcher development needs and explore what is being delivered this month as part of the Doctoral College Researcher Development Programme and what is available via your Faculty or Department. Remember some sessions only run once per year, so don’t miss out.

Please also subscribe to your Brightspace announcement notifications for updates when they are posted.

If you have any questions about the Researcher Development Programme, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Natalie (Doctoral College Programme Manager)
pgrskillsdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk 

Research reflections 2022: Your highlights

As we come to the end of 2022, we’re taking a look back at some of our research and knowledge exchange successes from across the year.

In today’s blog post, members of the BU community share some of their highlights…

In 2022, we celebrated the REF 2021 results (and associated increase in QR funding) and our increase in performance in KEF2. We also supported BU to successfully retain the HR Excellence in Research Award for the 8th year.

We had a successful internal research audit and we received positive feedback from the Senate review on URPPC management, administration and advice.

We supported the launch of the Strategic Narratives, including organising the Online Public Lecture Series, and we ran our first research conference in several years, which was a great success. We also re-started our in-person Café Scientifique series and delivered several events as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

We established the Research Excellence Team and welcomed the Business and Knowledge Exchange Managers to BU, as well as launching the RCaTS scheme.

We made further improvements to the RKE processes by working with the BU Transformation Team, such as the implementation of the enquiry management system, the eItB, and the launch of a new process for Research Centre memberships.

We’ve increased our number of bids compared to the previous year, which has led to some exciting new awards, such as Dr Philip Riris’ AHRC grant and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership led by Professor Marcin Budka.

RDS moved into Studland House and Joelle Fallows, RDS Operations Officer, has been instrumental in linking a new charity (Story Works, set up by Dee Hughes in FMC) with a local primary school, launched with a visit from Michael Rosen (the charity patron) to BU – pretty cool!

Julie Northam, Head of RDS

The work being undertaken by myself and Henry Bang from the BUDMC has had major impacts through projects such as AFRICAB, EVALDIS and ELIED, working with governmental organisations in preparing for, responding to, and recovery from crisis.

Elsewhere in the Faculty, Professor Mike Silk has concluded his big grants around the Paralympics, with major coverage in the year of the Paralympic Games; Professor Dimitrios Buhalis’s achievement of being the most cited academic in terms of individual papers in the field of Tourism and Hospitality; Professor Janet Dickinson and her exciting e-drones project; and Professor Chris Chapleo has been supporting local business Actisense, enhancing and automating their customer service through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership.

Professor Lee Miles, Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice, BU Business School

As part of the BOU (British Ornithological Union) panel that records fossil and archaeological birds from the last 2.6 Million years for the official British list (category F) we published a paper in Ibis detailing our database. This can be used to inform policy decisions on native status of British birds. The paper includes a discussion of some of the more interesting and controversial records like the mandarin duck, pigmy cormorant etc.

Professor John Stewart, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeoecology, Faculty of Science and Technology

The launch of the Research Excellence Manager role, full stop; having a role which has specific responsibilities for BU’s research environment and research culture is pretty brilliant. Equally, the launch of the Research ‘Most Excellent’ team – having a team with this lens brings a lovely perspective to the work we do.

Our REF results and QR funding increase was a massive achievement and testament to the hard work everyone has been putting in for years. We’ve been rejuvenating connections among the UOA teams, with a large number of expressions of interest from staff wanting to get involved (50 plus), ranging from ECRs to Professors. We’ve also been working with academic colleagues to achieve 100% compliance on our Research Outcomes submission.

We have lively, active and full research leadership programmes, ECR network and almost fully represented Research Staff Association, and the research conference had a large number of attendees and great speakers – cracking!

It’s been great to reconnect our RDS team after a few unsettling and disjointed years and move into our new home on the 8th floor of Studland House (complete with sea views!) Finally, a special shout out to Peng Peng Hatch for being awarded the Doctorate in Education!

Shelly Anne Stringer, Research Excellence Manager, RDS

A paper published by Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier, Dr Rachel Moseley and Dr Maddy Greville-Harris (entitled “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals with eating disorders: the role of emotion regulation and exploration of online treatment experiences”) was selected for the Best COVID-19 2022 Research Paper award in the Journal of Eating Disorders.

Professor Jan Wiener, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology

Research reflections 2022: the year in numbers

2022 has been another great year for research and knowledge exchange at BU. From receiving our excellent REF 2021 results to securing prestigious external funding and supporting new research activity, there’s a lot to celebrate.

Across the coming days, we’ll be featuring stories and reflections from across the BU community, sharing some of their highlights from across the year.

To get us started, here are just some of the numbers that make up the year in research at BU…

We received 171 new awards, representing over £7.5 million in research income

94% of BU research was found to be internationally-recognised or above, with 19% world-leading in quality (REF 2021)

95.7% of our research was found to be delivering considerable impact or above. Nearly one third of our impact case studies achieved an outstanding (4*) impact score. (REF 2021)

We held 20 public engagement events (as part of our regular events series) – attended by 1,231 people

16 positions were funded in 3 new research clusters through the Research Capacity Transformation Scheme (RCaTs)

36 new academic members of staff joined BU

2 new research centres were established – the Centre for Sustainable Business Transformations and the Computing and Informatics Research Centre

27 articles were written by BU academics for The Conversation, which had over 987,000 reads across the world

We’d love to hear from you – please share your reflections, successes and stories from across 2022 in the comments or by emailing research@bournemouth.ac.uk

Two rejections in one week

Fusion

This week I had the pleasure of receiving two rejection emails from two different national organisations. On Monday the BSA (British Sociological Association) apologised for not putting my name forward to join the ESRC DTP (Doctoral Training Partnerships) Peer Review College.  The BSA panel received “a high number of applications which were all of a very high standard. A maximum of only three names could go forward and I’m afraid, on this occasion, your application was not successful.”

On Wednesday this was followed by an email from the NIHR Global Health Research Project which did not exactly offered a rejection: “Thank you for expressing your interest in joining the Advisory Planning Committee for the NIHR Global Health Research Shared Learning Event Series planned for early 2023.  We were delighted to receive plenty of interest and have selected a small group to make up the committee, bearing in mind that we were looking for diversity in topics, geography, and gender.  Despite this, we are keen to maintain engagement with you and obtain your advice regarding some of the arrangements for the Series. Should this be acceptable, we would be grateful if you could complete the following survey, which should only take about 5 to 10 minutes:…”  From the words ‘despite this‘ I gathered that I am not included in the ‘small group to make up the committee‘.

Putting my name forward for research committees like these is two-fold: (1) raise Bournemouth University’s profile nationally; and (2) fulfill my part FUSION’s  ‘professional practice’.  Contributing to the latter is always slightly more difficult for a sociologist than an academic with a health or social care background.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)

Researcher Roadshow – Exploring Health Data Science

Guidance, NHS, Research Ethics, Training

Researcher Roadshow
Exploring Health Data Science

March 1st, 2023. 10:00 – 12:00

The NIHR Research Design Service, Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), the MRC Regulatory Support Centre and NHS Digital are pleased to offer the opportunity to attend the sixth in a series of virtual researcher roadshows.

This free to attend event is aimed at researchers and others working with health and social care datasets who would like to increase their understanding of roles of health data scientists and value of health data science.

The event will bring together health data scientists from the NHS, academia, and industry and provide insights and perspectives on the important work they do.

This event will include presentations on different roles and careers in health data science and different methods and approaches used by health data scientists.

Speakers will be confirmed in the New Year. 

Provisional registration is at: https://ukri.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GntzbzTITLmw0ghBRadQKQ

Recordings of previous Researcher Roadshows can be viewed here – Research Advisory Group (RAG) researcher roadshows – NHS Digital

Queries: If you have any questions about this event, please contact: rsc@mrc.ukri.org