Category / BU Challenges

Firsthand: HEFCE’s Open Access Policy

BU Challenges, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

A few weeks back we were privileged to welcome experts on the topic of Open Access to speak at BU in an event well attended by delegates from HEIs across England, Scotland and Wales. The event was enjoyed by all who attended and over a series of blog posts I hope to summarise some of the key points raised by each of the speakers. We also filmed the event so hope to be posting this soon for all to watch, enjoy and comment upon. 

A few days a go, I summarised Alma Swans Introductory Address on ‘The benefits of Open Access’. Today, I look at Ben Johnson’s presentation ‘Open Access in a Post-2014 REF’.

Ben Johnson is a policy adviser at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), where he has worked for the past five years. He has a first class honours degree in music from the University of Southampton, and ten years’ experience working in strategic planning, process improvement and risk management. Since joining HEFCE, Ben has focussed on developing the Council’s thinking in novel, emerging and cross-cutting policy areas. Recently, these have included examining how technological advancements can drive openness in education and research. In 2013, Ben joined the research policy team to lead HEFCE’s work on open access, research information and infrastructure.

In April, HEFCE and the other three UK funding bodies published details of a new policy for open access relating to future research assessments after the current 2014 REF. To read this item in full visit: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2014/news86805.html. In his presentation, Ben talked through this policy and answered questions from delegates throughout the day.

He opened his presentation by outlining Open Access its flavours and routes. GOLD being the journal making the work immediately and freely accessible online under a CC-BY licence and GREEN by the author depositing their work into an intuitional or subject repositories at point of acceptance – further information can be found in earlier blog posts (How to deposit to BURO, Green & Gold).

HEFCEs core principle behind the policy is that outputs submitted to a post-2014
REF should be Open Access and they have three objectives in implementing the policy:

  • Significantly increase the uptake of open access options
  • Protect author choice as much as possible
  • Stimulate the deposit of work in repositories

 

  The minimum requirements of the policy are that:

  1. The final peer-reviewed draft of your paper is deposited in an institutional or subject repository on acceptance
  2. The repository record must be discoverable ASAP
  3. The full text must be accessible ASAP (or once an embargo has elapsed)

 This will apply to all journal articles and most conference proceedings (those with an ISSN), he also stipulated that the maximum embargoes to be allowed will be:

  • REF main panels A and B – 12 months
  • REF main panels C and D – 24 months

An analysis of the REF 2014 submissions found that 96% of outputs could have been Open Access based on this criteria and the remaining 4% would be covered in the exceptions of the policy.

In addition to this, extra credit will be given in the research environment component of the post-2014 REF where an HEI can demonstrate that:

  • Outputs are presented in a form that allows re-use of the work, including via text-mining
  • Outputs not in the scope (books etc.) are made open access

 The prediction is that this will lead to:

  • Significantly greater uptake of open access (even within publishers’ current policies)
  • Increased visibility and usage of repositories
  • Many more immediate deposit mandates
  • Later: author-driven moves to faster and more permissive access
  • Later: open access is ‘solved’ for books etc.

Full slides from Ben Johnson’s presentation at Bournemouth University’s Open Access Event on the 7th May 2014 are available here internally.

If you would like to deposit your full text articles into BURO you can do this easily via BRIAN, full guidance can be found on the staff intranet pages.

The UK Goes International!

BU Challenges, Guidance

One of BUs priorities for 2018 is to increase our presentations at international conferences. Previously, only conference presentations that take place overseas were being considering in this calculation however, this week it has been agreed that the definition can be amended to include international conferences which are hosted in the UK, which is excellent news!

So, if you’ve presented at a conference (international or otherwise) remember to add these to your Staff Profile Page via BRIAN .

If you have any queries about BRIAN or the Staff Profile Pages then please direct these to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Your chance to influence research and knowledge exchange support at BU – deadline looming

BU Challenges, R & KE Operations

The deadline is looming for your chance to influence how you receive research and knowledge exchange support! The RKE Operations team are implementing improvements to the way we work and we want your feedback. Contribute by completing this short survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GTHQG3F by 9th February 2014 – and we’ll do our best to make sure you receive the kind of support you want.

Jenny Roddis

Under-grad Midwifery Students and Examination of the Newborn – a pilot project.

BU Challenges, Fusion, Training

Five pre-registration midwifery students were successful in their application to take part in a pilot project which will equip them with the knowledge, skills and competency to undertake  examination of the newborn prior to qualification as a midwife. Midwives have always undertaken an initial examination of a baby soon after birth and the 24 hour ‘medical’ examination was traditionally undertaken by junior doctors or GP trainees. Following a change in doctor’s hours and a call for more holistic midwifery care, midwives began to take on the role of examining newborns following a period of rigorous training and education delivered through universities throughout the UK. Bournemouth University, for many years now, has been actively involved in educating midwives into this role, both locally and as far a field as Brighton and Gloucester. Currently the under-graduate midwifery curriculum does not offer this learning to its midwifery students although there is a strong push nationally for students to qualify with the skills. Two universities have already embedded the skills into their three year curriculum and BU will begin to educate and train students with the necessary skills/competencies in 2014 with a brand new midwifery curriculum. In the meanwhile we are fast tracking five motivated students. The students (Bex, Jenna, Katie, Luzie and Jeanette (not in photograph)  have to access all the post grad teaching and learning days (x5) which started last week. As well as undertaking an assessed presentation (6th day) with their qualified colleagues, they will have to undertake 30 newborn examinations under the watchful eye of their midwifery mentor who already has the qualification.  The unit leader (myself) will undertake their final assessment in practice in conjunction with their mentor. If successful the students will be awarded with 20 CPD credits for use after qualification.

Undertaking the pilot will be demanding for the students as they will still have to obtain their EU midwifery numbers, but it will not be at the expense of the pilot. Their under-grad training takes precedence.Furthermore a number of conditions were attached to the offers of a place:  the pilot cannot be used as mitigation for any referred  unit  in their 3rd year and the credits cannot be used to top up their degree should they not achieve the requisite 120 credits for completion.  All the students expressed strong commitment to obtaining the necessary skills and they have until September 2014 to complete. The pilot will pave the way for the new curriculum and will help with exposing any shortfalls in practice. I am immensely proud of the students for taking on this extra work. They have so many competing demands on their time and this will be just another. However it will provide the students with the skills to examine newborn babies when they are newly qualified midwives, which in turn will benefit women and their babies.  If anybody is interested in knowing more about the pilot please contact me on:  lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk

Prof. Ben Azvine, Global Head of Security Research and Innovation at BT. Monday the 11th of November, PG16

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities, PG research

The next of our research seminars will take on Monday, the 11th of November, PG16 at 15:00.
Our distinguished guest is Professor Ben Azvine, the Global Head of Security Research and Innovation at BT; invited by our colleague Prof. Bogdan Gabrys.

Professor Azvine holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, an MSc in Control Engineering, a PhD in Intelligent Control Systems all from Manchester University and an MBA from Imperial College, London. Having held research fellowship and lectureship posts in several universities, he joined British Telecom Research in 1995 and set up a research programme to develop and exploit intelligent systems technologies within BT.
Since then he has held senior, principal and chief research scientist as well as head of research centre posts at Adastral Park, the head quarter of BT R&D. Ben has edited several books and published more than 100 scientific articles. He is an inventor on 50 patents, has won two BCS gold medals, and the IET award for innovation in IT, holds visiting professorships at Universities of Bristol, Cranfield and Bournemouth in the UK.

The title of his exciting talk will be “Industrial applications of novel Intelligent Systems”. Intelligent systems play an important role in industry for managing customer relationship, providing business intelligence, helping organisations analyse their data and protecting organisations against Cyber-attacks. In this talk I’ll present a number of case studies within BT where we have used intelligent system originating from within our research organisation and successfully downstreamed them into our operations.

I strongly encourage academics and PhD students not to miss the opportunity to attend to the seminar and to discuss potential collaborations.

Emili

CEMP Fellows? A Proposal for Fostering Innovative Education Research at BU

BU Challenges, Fusion

Many media studies professionals engaged in learning innovation first get introduced to Bournemouth University through CEMP, the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice. From attending annual summits to publishing in the Media Education Research Journal, before joining BU I was already connected to this unique community characterised by creativity, sharing and mentorship. Once I started working at BU I quickly realised that educational researchers interested in media and technology were not just in CEMP. From the School of Tourism to DEC, inspiring educational research can be found across BU.

As the Fusion vision expands and EdD programme grows, the time seems ripe to further foster innovative education research at BU, to use CEMP to bring our educational researchers together. Yet, as any of us who’ve scampered around to meet a grant deadline knows all too well, network building and collaborative bidding requires workload time and institutional support. This got some of us thinking about ways we might be able to foster educational research through CEMP. Borrowing a best practice employed at many research centres around the world, we asked ourselves: What if CEMP had internal fellows?

These CEMP Fellows could be culled from BU’s existing educational research community. Provided dedicated time in their schedules to meet together, they could share their previous scholarship and develop new collaborative projects. CEMP could create annual or bi-annual themes to guide this knowledge exchange and facilitate initiatives, offering a programmed series of meetings and events. For example, CEMP might run a Fellow programme on a topic like ‘Games and Education,’ bringing together researchers exploring the use of educational gaming across all schools.  As evidence that these fellows already exist amongst us, just two weeks ago at the VS Games conference hosted at BU by Dr. Christos Gatzidis and Dr. Jian Zhang of DEC, we saw BU participants from Tourism, the Centre for Digital Entertainment, Animation, Corporate Communication and more. Together we shared innovations in educational gaming.  Could CEMP Fellows be a way forward for fostering fusion?

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

The following opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

  • As part of the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wish to commission new, multi-disciplinary and innovative research projects to develop greater understanding of how questions of ethics and rights play out in a security environment, with a focus on governance. The total investment for this Call is £2 million – £2.5 million. A Town Hall meeting is scheduled for 23/09/13. Closing date: 21/10/13
  • The ESRC are offering c. 50 Training Bursaries to improve the standards of research methods and to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses in research methods across the UK social science community. Bursaries are up to £1,000.
  • A three month secondment opportunity to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is open to EPSRC funded PhD students. Closing date: 04/10/13
  • The US National Institutes of Health have opened their R01 (Research Project Grant) scheme. Closing date: 05/10/13
  • NERC have opened their Standard Research Grant call. There are special grants available for new investigators. Grants from £65,000 to £1.2m. Closing date: 21/01/14 with another date in July 2014.
  • Industry Fellowships are available from The Royal Society (with support from BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC and BP Ltd). Closing date 04/10/13
  • The Medical Research Council is inviting applications to their Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP) PhD studentship scheme. Closing date: 20/11/13
  • The Royal Society is also offering University Research Fellowships. There are c.35 fellowships are available with a length of tenure of five years in the first instance, which may be extended for a further three years. Closing date: 17/09/13
  • The Technology Strategy Board is offering funding to support Unlocking the Hydrocarbon Energy Market. The aim of this competition is to support business-led innovation that leads to supply chain opportunities for hydrogen energy technologies and that addresses key market barriers to the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. The total cost of projects is expected to range in size from £250k to £1m. A briefing event for potential applicants will be held on 23/09/13. Applicants must register by noon on 23/10/13 and the deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 30/10/13. 
  • The Wellcome Trust is inviting applications to their Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowships for Clinicians. The total cost of a Fellowship would not normally exceed £350 000. Closing date: 15/11/13

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic.

 

Festival of Learning – Testament to a Successful Morning (Dr Simon Thompson, DEC Psychology Research Centre)

BU Challenges, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Training

‘Testamentary Capacity in Dementia’ (03 June 2013 10:00h – 13:00h) – Presentation followed by in-depth plenary session about the complexities of leaving an estate to beneficiaries following a diagnosis of dementia.

‘Dementia’ is an umbrella term used to describe many types of deteriorating diseases – the most common ones are Alzhiemer’s disease, Vascular dementia, and Lewy body dementia.

Many married couples own property as ‘joint tenants’. Upon death, ownership automatically passes to the survivor. If property is owned as ‘tenants in common’, one half of the estate belonging to the deceased is dealt with by their Will. Problems arise when there is no Will, when others make a claim, or when another Will is executed.

‘Testamentary capacity’ is a person’s legal and mental ability to make a
valid Will. There are three premises: Presumption of capacity; Requirements; Proof of testamentary capacity.

It is proposed that the law should allow testators alternative means of satisfying the testamentary capacity standard such as an option to validate a testator’s capacity during their lifetime through forensic assessment measuring cognitive elements of testamentary capacity.

It does not remove the difficulty of knowing the status of person at a specific time line. However, it goes some way to describing a person during their lifetime in terms of mental ability and capacity.

Thompson, SBN (2006). Dementia and memory: a handbook for students and professionals. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Thompson, SBN (2012). Dementia. In SBN Thompson (Ed), Psychology of trauma: clinical reviews, case histories, research (pp169-202). Portsmouth: Blackwell-Harvard-Academic.

Daily Echo report on BU research into wellbeing of older people

BU Challenges

The economic downturn is having a marked impact on the wellbeing of ‘asset rich, cash poor’ older people in Dorset, Bournemouth University (BU) researchers have found.

The study looked at the financial challenges facing retired older people, who are often considered to be asset rich but cash poor, owning property but not receiving a large monthly income.

As well as the economic downturn affecting their social, mental and physical wellbeing, researchers found that the income many older people expected when planning for retirement had not come to fruition, and they felt poor in relation to their previous lifestyle and expectations.

Read more at…..

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/10438614.Dorset_s__asset_rich__cash_poor__elderly_suffering_in_recession/

OR

http://icas.org.uk/hean/

 

New PhD at HSC!

BU Challenges

Colleen Deane has recently joined the School of Health and Social Care to commence a BU matched funded PhD studentship investigating novel mechanisms regulating muscle mass in the elderly. Colleen has just successfully completed her Masters (with distinction) in Physical Activity, Nutrition and Health Promotion, where she investigated the effects of specific hormones (Testosterone) and polyphenols (Resveratrol) on artificially aged skeletal muscle cells, extracted from rodent mice. This PhD aims to enhance current understanding of the mechanisms regulating age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass (termed ‘sarcopenia’) and the associated reductions in mobility, general health and quality of life. Whilst exercise and nutritional interventions improve muscle size and function in young individuals, this response is attenuated in elderly muscle. Thus, using a combination of physiological and metabolic/molecular techniques these studies will investigate novel mechanisms underlying the blunted response of ageing muscle to exercise and nutritional growth stimuli. For further information contact Colleen on cdeane@bournemouth.ac.uk.

PGR students – sign up to the BU Research Themes!

BU Challenges, PG research

The BU Research Themes were launched in December at the first of the BU-wide Fusion events. The Themes are societally-led, encourage cross-School working and collaboration, and will be the main vehicle through which BU research is presented externally in future.

We’re now encouraging postgraduate research students to sign up to one or more of the Themes! This is a great way to get involved in the BU research environment and to meet other academics and students from across the University.

There are eight BU Research Themes:

  • Creative & Digital Economies
  • Culture & Society
  • Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth
  • Environmental Change & Biodiversity
  • Green Economy & Sustainability
  • Health, Wellbeing & Aging
  • Leisure & Recreation
  • Technology & Design

If you would like to join one or more of the Themes, then complete the form below and I will add you to the list.

    Your Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Your School / Professional Service (required)

    Staff or PGR student? (required)

    StaffPGR

    Please select the themes that you are interested in (required)

    The BU Challenges: the way forward

    BU Challenges, Fusion

    The BU Challenges (previously the Research Themes) were launched in December at the first of the BU-wide Fusion events. The Challenges are societally-led, encourage cross-School working and collaboration, and will be the main vehicle through which our research is presented externally in future.

    To discuss how to take the Challenges forward and foster collaborative working, Matthew Bennett would like to talk to all staff interested in the Challenges. Matthew will spend an hour per Challenge either in the Costa in the Atrium or in the Costa in Studland House and invites you to join him to talk about the way forward for each theme.

    The session times are listed below:

    Research Theme

    Date and Venue
    Creative and Digital Economy 11 January – 2.00 pm to 3.00 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     
    Culture and Society 12 January – 2.30 pm to 3.30 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     
    Environmental Change and Biodiversity 16 January – 2.00 pm to 3.00 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     
    Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth 18 January – 11.00 am to 12.00 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Studland House

     
    Green Economy and Sustainability 18 January – 4.00 pm to 5.00 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     
    Recreation and Leisure 19 January – 10.00 am to 11.00 amCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     
    Health, Wellbeing and Aging 25 January – 1.30 pm to 2.30 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Studland House

     
    Technology and Design 23 January – 4.00 pm to 5.00 pmCosta Coffee Shop, Poole House

     

    Digital Hub event on 19th July

    BU Challenges

    The launch event for the Digital Hub is drawing near and we have over 70 registrations and growing interest and publicity. This event is primarily aimed at external organisations and is designed to showcase BU research related to the creative and digital economy. We’ve got a great program lined up and a fantastic keynote speaker who is also an ex-BU graduate. More information is available at : http://digital-day-bournemouth-university.eventbrite.com/ and it would be great if you know of any businesses and organisations who would benefit from attending the event if you could push this link and information out to your networks. As there are already a lot of staff participating in the event from 5 different schools we are not opening it up to general staff registration, however if you would like to find out more about the Hub please email : thedigitalhub@bournemouth.ac.uk

     

    Digital Hub publicity

    Cultural and Social Change (Barry Richards and Rosie Read)

    BU Challenges

    A number of colleagues from four Schools (AS, HSC, MS, ST) met on Monday 27th June to consider whether a meaningful theme, complementary to those already in development, could be defined within the broad territory of the social sciences and humanities. We had a useful discussion around the following points:

    1. The themes are being defined as a way of presenting BU’s research externally, but may have internal effects, in promoting collaborations, inflecting research identities, etc.
    2. There will inevitably be major areas of overlap between several themes, given that all are broadly defined.
    3. Dialogue between themes in the development phase would help to clarify boundaries.
    4. The themes of ‘Creative & digital economies’ and ‘Leisure and tourism’, and also ‘Health and well-being’, were ones where overlaps and interfaces with a ‘culture&society’ one would be most obvious.
    5. Contributions to the debate about how to define a ‘culture&society’ theme had suggested that ‘history’ and ‘welfare’ were two important parameters, amongst others.
    6. In the discussion we were very aware of the need to introduce some limits to the theme, and of the possibility therefore that some ‘potential ‘members’ might not fit into the final definition of it.
    7. There was also a view that we should try to include both social scientific and more humanities-based researchers.

    The proposal that the phrase ‘Cultural and social change’ might be an appropriate theme title was favourably received. While still very broad (no doubt in some contexts unhelpfully so), it puts implicit emphasis on the historical context (‘change’ being a process in time), which is important for those studying contemporary life as well as for those actually doing historical research. It would encompass researchers of different philosophical orientation, and is hospitable to agendas of social engagement (such as the social welfare vision from HSC, the commentaries on democratic culture from MS, contributions to media and cultural policy/production from MS and ST, and the perspectives on various social issues from AS). Whether the theme title can be modified to reflect explicitly this principle of engagement for social betterment remains to be seen.

    The meeting decided that in order to produce a full prospectus for this theme we would invite any interested colleagues to contribute further inputs to it – building on or otherwise responding to the above – via the Research blog. These could be thoughts about the overall theme, or suggestions for specific elements to be within it. If you’d like to do so, please indicate which heading of the theme template you are addressing (summary, scope in/out, ‘big societal questions’ which the theme addresses, link to RC priorities, interlinks with other BU themes). Given the need to finalise a statement about the theme within the next month, we agreed that blog-based conversations and inputs could run until 15 July, at which point a smaller group would hopefully collate them into a generally acceptable statement which would establish the theme across at least the four Schools so far involved. Myself and Rosie Read are happy to play a part in that group; if anyone else is interested please let us know.

    You can access the latest version of the scoping document for the Cultural & Society theme here:  Cultural and Social Change – July 2011

    In the meantime, to help consolidate the responses so far around this theme, please note that the previous two discussion threads entitled ‘Culture and Society (Rosie Read)‘ and ‘Culture and Society (Barry Richards)‘ are now closed and all future responses related to this theme should be made to this post using the link below. Thank you.

    Barry Richards

    Culture and Societal Change: Methodologies

    BU Challenges

    I would concur with the idea raised at our recent meeting that a defining feature of this theme could encompass some specific forms of methodology underpinning epistemology  relevant to the social sciences and humanities. I would suggest that ethnography and its variants are a key form of methodology commonly used by a number of interested members of our emerging group; in addition to case studies, narrative and oral history methodologies. I’m sure there would be a number of other methodologies that colleagues might wish to suggest as well, including quantitative methods commonly used in the social sciences, for example. Although precisely how to define these as distinctive to this theme, as opposed to others, may be more of a challenge. Perhaps here the ‘naturalistic’ social context of any epistemological undertaking, as opposed to the more ‘controlled’ positivistic context might be one way forward.

    Sara Crabtree

    Culture and Society

    BU Challenges

    There are dangers with trying to develop too focused a title for this research theme as this is likely to lead to exclusion of potentially interesting and important areas of research and research collaboration. For instance, adding ‘change’ or ‘cohesion’ introduces a particular idea that socially transformative research would be privileged above, say, methodological endeavour. Whilst there are problems with the use of the singular forms in ‘culture and society’, it perhaps allows for the emergence of greater productive diversity in developing what is likely to be a wide and changing brief.

    The ways in which societies and cultures are understood, analysed and approached, and the meanings created by these for individuals and groups within them, again offers fertile ground for exploration and cross-school collaborative work, and this too is an area which would be useful to include within the theme’s overarching brief.

    Inclusivity and broad coverage is important. It is within this context that exciting pockets of research can develop across the university. Let’s not be too prescriptive at this stage of the game.

    Professor Jonathan Parker

    ‘Society and Social Welfare’,  HSC

    Creative and Digital Economy

    BU Challenges

    Authors: John Oliver and Darren Lilleker

    Alternative name suggestion: Creative and Digital Society

    Brief theme summary:

    This theme aims to explore the way digital  technologies are developed, and how they are used and applied within organisational and  social contexts. One important aspect of this is to understand technological developments, we argue that the key to understand the impacts of technologies is to adopt a social constructionist approach. This allows us to understand how users shape technologies to facilitate the accomplishment of their own objectives. We will explore this by looking at usage by corporate, media, political or governmental organisations, highlighting innovations in usage in order to develop best practice guidelines. However, this will be supplemented by focusing on end user perspectives. In particular we want to connect understandings of organisational usage to the way in which the broader consumers and citizens engage with technologies. The extent to which these facilitate participation in the development of consumer goods and services or public or social policy, and how technologies afford users the opportunity to be content creators, shaping the experiences of other users within a collaborate ecosystem. Of equal interest is how usage feeds back into technological development to explore the circularity between developers, professional users and the broader online participants, audiences and users.

    Scope of theme: what is included?

    We would cover any area of academic research where digital technology has relevance and meaning. However, specific areas could include; creative arts, creative industries, film, special effects, computer animation, computer games, marketing communications, digital marketing, media communication, journalism, social media, branding, media production, story-telling, cloud computing, geographic information systems,  consumer psychology and behaviour, digital citizenship, and audiences.

    Scope of theme: what is excluded?

    We would cover any area of academic research where digital technology has relevance and meaning to the economy or society. Research conducted under the umbrella of this theme would include the development and application of technology in a wide variety of contexts and would exclude areas of study that would not have a digital technology component.

    Which big societal questions are addressed by this theme?

    • What are the sources of knowledge and creativity?
    • How will digital technologies change the way we work and communicate?
    • What is the role of social innovation and exchange?
    • How do people engage with digital technologies?
    • How will stories be created and conveyed through digital media in the future?
    • How will audiences be reached and engaged in the future?
    • What roles do trust, data protection and privacy play in a digital society?
    • What is intellectual property and who owns it?

    How do this link to the priorities of the major funding bodies?

    NESTA – interested in innovation and the role it has to play in enhancing eeconomic growth in the creative economy and public services.

    AHRC – provide numerous opportunities through in their knowledge economy and innovation agenda. Particularly, emphasis is placed on funding research into improvements in social and intellectual capital, community identity, learning skills, technological evolution and the quality of life of the nation.

    ESRC – have strategic priorities relating to; Understanding and influencing behaviour, Technology and innovation, Economic Performance and Sustainable Growth.

    TSB – Innovation is a key enabler of growth. They place an emphasis on the Creative Industries, and in particular, how to exploiting digital technologies and commercialise digital content.

    British Academy – a wide range of opportunities in the humanities and social sciences, opportunities.

    EPSRC – have strategic priorities that relate to; information and communications technology, digital economy, user-led knowledge.

    European Union – opportunities under FP7 for research into commercialisation, competitiveness and knowledge-based economy.

    Leverhulme – broad range of opportunities. 

    How does this theme interlink with the other BU themes currently under consideration?

    Since the digital world is increasingly embedded in all areas of life, we would see this theme linking with all other BU research themes.

     

    Health and Wellbeing (Wei-Jun Liang, Kevin McGhee and David Osselton)

    BU Challenges

    Author: Kevin McGhee, Wei-Jun Liang, M. David Osselton (ApSci)

    Alternative name suggestion:

    Living with environmental change – Health and Wellbeing in the Fast-changing Environments

    Functional Genomics and Integrated Systems Biology

    Brief theme summary: 

    In the dynamic and fast-changing natural or social environments, we are exposed to a variety of pollutants, drugs, viruses and deadly pathogens. As the ages of our population are rising, so are degenerative diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases. Therefore, understanding those environmental impacts on human health and aging is paramount and becomes one of the top priorities in the vision of RCUK.

    Differences in genetic make-up between individuals and different populations make us respond differently to harmful agents including prescribed medicinal drugs, beneficial to some or detrimental to others.  The desire to understand detailed mechanisms in order to provide better healthcare had been monumentally dispirited before we were able to reveal the detailed differences in our genomes. Ever since the completion of human genome sequencing in 2004, the advancement in genome sciences in conjunction with that of environmental sciences provides opportunities for substantiating the improvement of human health and wellbeing as well as management of  healthcare of aging populations. Since the genomic sequences of many other important organisms have also been determined, comparative genomic studies between humans and amongst other organisms is currently the most powerful way to unravel the intricate interrelationships of human health and environment. In the post-genome era, this newer vision of biological sciences driven by the concept of systems biology is currently pursued internationally.

    With our expertise in molecular biology, human genetics, toxicology and analytical chemistry as well as some of the essential equipment, we can take advantage of functional genomics in order to drive the research theme in human health and wellbeing, and aging, in relation to environmental, social and cultural factors.

    Scope of theme: what is included?

     Our current on-going research embraces the following areas:

     Pharmacogenomics

    • Molecular networks of integrin-linked mechanical signalling in relation to human heart disease – Bioimaging (in collaboration with Professor Jiang Jun Zhang of Media School and Professor Adrian Podoleanu of Kent University).
    • Impacts of SNP (genetic variations) on the toxicities of methadone amongst populations (in collaboration with Professor David Paunder of Dundee University).
    • Impacts of SNP (genetic variations) on the efficacy of morphine in patient pain management (collaboration with Tamas Hikish of Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Dr Joy Ross of Royal Marsden Hospital in London).

    Biodiversities and conservation

    • Evaluation and protection of local red squirrel populations in Dorset (in collaboration with Dr Kathy Hodder).
    • Evaluation and protection of local Padina species to exploit their economic potential (in collaboration with Dr Roger Herbert).
    • Molecular mechanisms of pheromone-communications of diverse species (in collaboration with Professor Rudy Gozlan).
    • DNA profiling for human and animal identifications in the fields of anthropology and archaeology.

    Our topics of interests in the immediate future:

    • Human vitamin C transport and its impact on human degenerative diseases, such as cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases.
    • Human detoxification pathways in relation to the glucuronidation and transport, and personalised medicine (in collaboration with Prof Stephen Wong of Wake Forest University, USA)
    • Molecular mechanisms of infectious diesease (in collaboration with Professor Rudy Gozlan).

    Scope of theme: what is excluded? Not sure.

    Which big societal questions are addressed by this theme?

    Humans are exposed to a variety of pollutants, drugs, viruses and deadly pathogens in the modern fast-changing environments. Degenerative diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases are often associated with aging. To effectively maintain human health and wellbeing, understanding those environmental impacts on human health and aging using the approaches of functional genomics and systems biology is paramount and becomes one of the top priorities in the vision of RCUK.

    How do these link to the priorities of the major funding bodies?

    Health and well being is one of the most important research areas funded by some of the CRUK, namely, the BBSRC, the Wellcome Trust, the MRC, the Royal Society, from which we could sort future funding.

    Our proposed research theme fits very well to the underlined strategic research priorities of the Two Current Research Priority Themes of the MRC:

    • Resilience, repair and replacement (Natural protection, Tissue disease and degeneration, Mental health and wellbeing, and Repair and replacement).
    • Living a long and healthy life (Genetics and disease, Life course perspective, Lifestyles affecting health, Environment and health).

    As highlighted by the BBSRC, systems biology is the pivotal approach for addressing issues in human health, aging and diseases. It is an effective way forward to study human health in the aspects of epidemiology, such as parasites, virus, and infectious disease. Our research theme also fits well to strategic research priorities of the BBSRC, in exploiting new ways of working were outline as:

    • Data driven biology
    • Synthetic biology
    • Systems approaches to the biosciences
    • Technology development for the biosciences 

    Our research theme also fits well to The Cross–Council Priorities outlined by the BBSRC:

    The Wellcome Trust also focuses on health and wellbeing associated with functional genomics. The Royal Society promotes international collaborations, and is encouraging collaborative studies on human health, wellbeing and aging impacted by population single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) coincided with human life style and different ethnicities in the diverse living environments.

    To follow the strategies outlined by RCUK in promoting 3Rs (Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research), we propose to use the cost-effective and well characterised model organisms, fruit-fly and zebra fish to study the molecular mechanisms in conjunction with survey data from human subjects.  The genome information of those model organisms is known and the organisms are amendable to genetic defects and molecular manipulations.  Moreover, at least 75% of human disease genes have their counterparts in their genomes. 

    How does this theme interlink with the other BU themes currently under consideration?

    Our research theme is complementary to the existing research in HSC and will be of interest to local hospitals and communities. Although a small team, we have the expertise in molecular biology, toxicology, and analytical chemistry with some of the essential equipment. Our current research orientations already fit well with the remit of our university research and enterprise strategies. We certainly would like to contribute to the existing theme of research orientations, particularly, health and well being, aging, environmental sciences, and social and cultural sciences within the university. Our expertise will enable us to form close link with the existing research groups that have already formed critical mass, particularly in the ApSci and HSC.

    Through our research, we have already formed strong links with the Media School of BU and Physics Department in the University of Kent for bioimaging and biomodelling. We have already submitted a strong interdisciplinary research proposal to the MRC, addressing the impacts of genome on heart diseases. We will maintain this collaborative consortium and continuously formulate research proposals to address issues involved in human health and wellbeing.  We have also established strong links with Dr Helen Machitia of Glasgow University, Joy Gill of Imperial College School of Medicine for collaborative research in science and society.

    Since we already have the expertise and facilities in fish studies in the School of Applied Sciences, it is logial and efficient to use the well characterised model organism, zebra fish to address questions in human health, fish conservation and environment issues.