Category / BU Challenges

REF Internal Review Panels – Recruiting Now!

BU Challenges, BU research, REF Subjects, Research assessment

Last year BU established a number of internal review panels to review and assess our research outputs and impact case studies to help us prepare for our upcoming submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021.

The panels below would like to add to their membership. Expressions of interest are invited from academic staff who are interested in being a Panel Member for the following Units of Assessment (UOAs):

  • UOA 3 – Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy. UOA Leader – Prof Edwin van Teijlingen
  • UOA 11 – Computer Science and Informatics. UOA Leader – Prof. Hamid Bouchachia
  • UOA 12 – Engineering. UOA Leader – Prof. Zulfiqar Khan
  • UOA 14 – Geography and Environmental Studies. UOA Leader – Dr Philippa Gillingham
  • UOA 17 – Business and Management. UOA Leader – Dr Chris Chapleo
  • UOA 20 – Social Work and Social Policy. UOA Leader – Prof. Jonathan Parker
  • UOA 24 – Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism. UOA Leaders – Prof. Tim Rees & Prof. Adam Blake

Those interested should identify which UOA Panel they would like to be considered for and put forward a short case (suggested length of one paragraph) as to why they are interested in the role and what they think they could bring to it. EoIs should be emailed to ref@bournemouth.ac.uk by close of play on 21st January 2020.

UOA Teams would particularly welcome EoIs from those who have:

  • Experience reviewing for previous REF stocktake exercises
  • Experience in editorship
  • Experience peer review

Full details of the role, the process of recruitment and terms of reference for the panels themselves can be found here.

Any queries regarding a specific panel should be directed to the UOA Leader. General enquiries should be directed to Shelly Anne Stringer, RDS.

HEIF6 Project – Neuravatar: Integrated augmented reality platform for medical education, postgraduate training and decision support.

Awarded & submitted bids, BU Challenges, BU research, BU2025, Fusion, HEIF, Impact, Industry collaboration, NHS, Uncategorized

The understanding of human anatomy is vital to the delivery of healthcare. In medical education, this has historically been done through direct dissection of human cadavers by medical students or close observation of such dissection by an anatomist. This helps with the development of a comprehensive understanding of the three-dimensional relationships of the structures human body in health and disease. The intricate complexity of the human nervous system, combined with the vast range of neurological diseases make this area one of the most challenging for medical education.

The computer animation and visualisation skills already at BU offer a unique opportunity to develop a suite of tools ready for the influx of medical students using immersive virtual reality and mixed reality techniques. The primary aim of the project is to develop a medical teaching platform that provides an anatomically correct three-dimensional teaching tool using virtual reality and mixed reality such as Microsoft’s HoloLens 2. This will facilitate a deeper understanding of the human body in real individuals. The platform will be developed to allow immersion in a range of clinical scenarios and provide virtual training for students to supplement live clinical experience. This approach will be supported with modular teaching tools and case scenarios derived from real cases and outcomes. Future developments of the platform will include decision support tools, case recording and data analytics tools to support machine learning and personalised actionable analytics.

The project will blend cutting-edge animation/visualisation techniques with digital health approaches with human-centred design principles to provide a platform to train the next generation of healthcare professionals. The project aim is to build on work already undertaken between BU and NHS organisations in Dorset to develop a blended reality platform for undergraduate medical teaching and postgraduate training. Large clinical datasets from existing data repositories in Dorset will be used to train machine learning driven education and decision support tools using supervised learning. Prospective clinical data collection using the de-identification/re-identification pipeline being developed as part of the Dorset informatics strategy will be subjected to unsupervised learning approaches to evaluate and improve accuracy.

The project is funded through HEIF6 running from November 2019 until July 2022. Please contact Dr Xiaosong Yang (xyang@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Dr. Rupert Page (Rupert.Page@poole.nhs.uk) if you have any questions about the project.

UKRO Visit (and Brexit)

BU Challenges, BU research, EU, Funding opportunities, international, Post-award, pre-award, Research news, Research Training, RKE development framework, Training

As usual, RDS will host an annual UK Research Office visit to BU in 2019. This year’s event has been scheduled for November; the reason is obvious – Brexit!

 

All academic staff interested in EU funding are invited to attend the event:

Monday 18th November Fusion Building – FG06 from 11:00 – 14:30. Lunch will be included.

Dr Andreas Kontogeorgos, European Advisor of the UK Research Office will be discussing with us the impact of Brexit on EU funding opportunities. Academics are welcome to submit any other EU funding related topics for discussion to Ainar Blaudums by the end of October.

UKRO delivers subscription-based advisory service for research organisations and provides MSCA and ERC National Contact Point services in the UK. As part of UKRO services, BU members of staff may sign up to receive personalised email alerts and get early access to EU funding related publications on UKRO portal.

Please contact Organisational Development to book a place.

Linking technologies to better detect disease: apply for funding

BU Challenges, BU research, Business Engagement, Industry collaboration

Businesses and health researchers can apply for up to £20 million to develop new diagnostic tools based on linking technologies, data and systems.

https://i0.wp.com/www.davidmillard.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/webscience-blog.jpg?resize=750%2C410&ssl=1

This competition is part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s £120 million Data to Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine Challenge.

The challenge aims to fund researchers and industry to combine data and real-world evidence from UK health services and create new products and services that diagnose diseases earlier and more efficiently.

Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council, as part of UK Research and Innovation, have up to £17 million to invest in collaborative consortia developing integrated diagnostics. Cancer Research UK has a further £3 million to invest in cancer-related projects.

Summary:

Deadline : 25 September 2019

Eligibility : Businesses of any size may apply, and consortia must include at least 1 NHS or academic partner and 1 SME

Please see this link for more information.

NIHR RDS Grant Applications – seminar & support event, Truro, Cornwall – 8th October 2019

BU Challenges, Events, Funding opportunities, NHS, pre-award

Are you planning to submit a grant application to NIHR?

We are holding a one-day event at the Knowledge Spa, Truro, Cornwall on Tuesday 8 October that is aimed at helping you to improve your chances of success..

The morning seminar session is open to anyone to come and hear RDS advisers give presentations on what makes a good grant proposal. Topics covered will include:

  • what does the NIHR look for?
  • the application as a marketing document: selling the topic, selling the method, and selling the team
  • the team
  • clarity of description and explanation
  • feasibility issues
  • identifying and avoiding potential pitfalls.

The afternoon support session of one-to-one appointments is for those who would like to discuss their own proposal with an RDS adviser.

This event is FREE and refreshments and lunch will be provided. Places are limited and will be allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. In order to secure your place please register using our online form by 1pm, 25 September 2019. Find out more.

And don’t forget, your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us, call us on 61939 or send us an email.

Opportunity to share your research at the Bournemouth Air Festival

BU Challenges

As part of BU’s public engagement activity BU’s Marketing and Communications (M&C) Team will again have a presence at the Bournemouth Air Festival, which sees tens of thousands of visitors each year. For BU, the purpose will be to raise our profile and showcase the activity we do as part of our outreach activity in schools and colleges.  As part of this, M&C will be running activities which are accessible, participative and relevant to the audience, but we also want to showcase BU’s research to demonstrate the impact we have on our community locally, regionally or internationally – again, all relevant to the audience and a chance to position BU’s research specialisms, breadth and impact.

Members of BU’s outreach and corporate communications team will be on the stand each day of the festival and there is an opportunity to join us for a couple of hours to talk about your research with the public. The event runs from Thursday 29 August to Sunday 1 September .  If you are free to join us at some point over these 4 days, M&C can arrange the necessary pass, help in transporting any display materials you may wish to have on the stand during your visit and promote through our social media channels before and during the festival. There will also be a couple of tables under a covered stand on the main promenade.

It would be great to engage with the public on a range of areas of BU research and if you are interested in joining us please contact Ella Thompson athompson3@bournemouth.ac.uk in M&C and she will be able to plan your visit into our timetable.

WAN seminar: Working Women and Flexible Working

BU Challenges, Research news, Women's Academic Network

Dr Zoe Young is one of those rare creatures: an academic organisational sociologist and practising consultant to industry for the development of gender-equitable policies around the issue of flexible working. She has recently published an important research monograph, based on her PhD, exploring the experiences of flexible working among working mothers. In WAN we were very pleased that Dr Young accepted our invitation to share her interesting findings to an engaged, mixed audience of academics and professional services, with a lively discussion ensuing.

Flexible working is often mooted as the panacea for gender-based inequities in the workplace in terms of stalling and interrupted career progression and gender pay gaps. Moreover, this is primarily a gendered issue as flexible working is most likely to be requested by women, and this for the equally gendered reason that it is mostly women who are expected to adapt their working lives to the demands of childcare.

The conventional argument for flexible working (which is different from part-time working) is that this will help women to balance family and work time better and in consequence will overcome gendered career inequities. But does it?

Dr Young’s research suggests otherwise, pointing out that there are multiple variations of flexible working that could potentially be offered to employees from a currently very limited menu. Not only is the menu unimaginative and meanly populated, but while women have a legal right to request flexible work, companies are under no legal obligation to comply. Her research illustrates the unnecessary stressors and casualties caused to women workers by organisations unwilling to adapt to employees’ changing circumstances – and how flexible working, as it is currently practiced, far from being a solution, may add to the issues that disadvantage women in the workplace.

At BU the benefits of promoting flexible working is being seriously explored by the Equal Pay Review Committee and by Athena SWAN committees. It is recognised that all posts ideally should be flexible working ones and that male colleagues should also be encouraged to consider new working modes in order to spread the potential benefits. However, as Dr Young’s research suggests, a very important outcome of ensuring greater gender representation for flexible working, is that it would also serve to minimise the currently feminised disadvantages associated with that elusive pursuit of a better work-life balance.

CEL Co-Creation Award- BSc Marketing Students

BU Challenges, BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Events, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Student Engagement, student research, Uncategorized

Following a competitive bidding process, Emma Keene and Julia Karol (BSc Marketing, final year students) have been successfully awarded this year ‘staff student co-creation award’. Emma is awarded for the project’ The contour generation’ which looks into the negative impact of social media on millennial’s mental health. Emma is mentored by Samreen Ashraf.
Whereas Julia’s project, “The snob effect” looks into the impact of Instagram influencers on the consumption of luxury fashion”. Julia has worked under the supervision of Dr. Elvira Bolat.
Congratulations to both the winners!

Future frameworks for international collaboration on research and innovation – Call for evidence

BU Challenges, BU research

Overview

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation have commissioned Professor Sir Adrian Smith to provide independent advice on the design of future UK funding schemes for international collaboration, innovation and curiosity-driven blue-skies research. There is a written call for evidence to inform this advice, and BU is preparing an institutional response to this call.

 

Further information can be found in the call for evidence document, and associated Terms of Reference.

 

How to contribute

If you would like your feedback to be included in the institutional response, please complete the feedback form and send to Lisa Andrews, RDS Research Facilitator by Wednesday 15th May.

Funding opportunity – Innovate UK Smart Grants: February 2019

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities

Smart is the new name for Innovate UK’s ‘Open grant funding’ programme.

Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £20 million in the best game-changing or disruptive ideas with a view to commercialisation.

All proposals must be business focused, rather than pure research. Applications can come from any area of technology (including arts, design, media or creative industries), science or engineering and be applied to any part of the economy.

Summary:

Call open: 18 February 2019, Monday

Call close : 24 April 2019, Wednesday

Available funding : between £25,000 and £500,000 (for single company or collaboration); between £25,000 and £2m (for collaboration only)

Duration : between 6 and 8 months (for single company or collaboration); between 19 and 36 months (for collaboration only)

Please see this link for more information.

Innovate UK funding : Demonstrators addressing cyber security challenges in the Internet of Things

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities, Industry collaboration, innovation

Innovate UK, through the UKRI’s Strategic Priorities Fund is investing up to £6million in collaborative, business led research and development (R&D) projects.

The aim of this competition is to solve industry-focused major cyber security-related challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT). You should include a plan to test nearer-to-market interventions and experiments in real environments.

Summary:

Competition opens : 18 February 2019 (Monday)

Competition closes : 1 May 2019 (Wednesday; noon)

Funding available : Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £2.5 million and £4 million and you can request up to £2 million grant.

For more information, please refer to this link.

ISCF Faraday Battery Challenge: Faraday Institution – Battery Characterisation Call

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities, innovation

Image from tbat.co.uk

The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund invites proposal from researchers interested in research projects to develop battery related characterisation analytical techniques and capabilities.

This call is expected to lead to new characterisation and analytical techniques which will have the effect of strengthening the UK’s leading position in electrochemical energy storage technology, providing our battery researchers with world leading methods and capabilities to advance their research. In short, we are looking for a revolution in battery research and a “business as usual” approach will not be deemed sufficient.

Summary:

Closing date : 4 April 2019

Available award : £500,000 (up to £2million available for up to four awards)

Project duration : 21 months

For more information, please visit this link.

IMPORTANT : If you are planning to submit an application you must register your intent by completing the short survey at the bottom of this page by 14 March 2019 16:00.

ISCF Audience of the Future Challenge: the AotF Investor Accelerator launches 4 March

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities, pre-award

Image from www.immerseuk.org

The UK Research and Innovation, through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, is launching the Audience of the Future Challange (AofT) Investor Accelerator co-investment fund on 4 March.

This next phase of AoFT co-investment fund is aimed at supporting the commercial development of significant innovation in the UK immersive tech sector through simultaneous grant funding and venture capital investment in UK creative businesses.