Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
The CEMP Research & Innovation Cluster bulletin for the meeting on 14.3.13 is here: Cluster bulletin and agenda 14.3.13.
The focus of the cluster is pedagogic research and innovation. Any colleagues interested in collaborating with CEMP to pursue any of the funding opportunities in the bulletin – please email Julian McDougall.
Cluster meetings take place every other Thursday. In the Thursdays in between, the bulletin will be posted here.
A three-member Media School research team has been awarded a grant for research into Corporate Social Responsibility communication amongst employees.
Dr Tasos Theofilou, Dr Georgiana Grigore and Prof Tom Watson (L-R) gained the grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, a research center at the Penn State College of Communications.
They will be conducting a study in the UK and Romania to link with a previous study undertaken in Greece by Dr Theofilou. The study supports travel and the employment of research assistants for research in summer this year. Prof Watson, the project PI, has been named as a Page Legacy Scholar for 2013.
“Within the Media School’s Public Relations Research Group (the PRRes Gang), there is considerable expertise in CSR,” said Prof Watson.
“Dr Grigore is an organiser of an international CSR conference to be held at BU in the autumn, whilst Dr Theofilou is pioneering research into harnessing ‘scepticism’ as a factor in developing effective CSR communication within corporate organisations.
“This grant is very positive recognition of BU’s standing internationally within public relations and corporate communications research.”
# Arthur W. Page was a highly respected pioneer of public relations and corporate communications in the US from the late 1920s to the late 1940s at the telecoms giant, AT&T.
(L-R) Dr Tasos Theofilou, Dr Georgiana Grigore and Prof Tom Watson
IHPRC at EBC - Scene for first EPRHN meeting
A proposal to develop an innovative Europe-wide network of researchers in the history of public relations field has been supported by the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF).
The European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) was formed in mid-2012 by Prof Tom Watson and backed by EUPRERA (European Public Relations Education & Research Association) as a priority project for the next three years. It was set up to identify archives and resources, undertake collaborative research, and prepare bids to European research bodies and PR industry organisations.
The field of public relations history has been developed at BU over the past four years, mainly through the establishment of the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC).
Prof Watson said: “there has been increasing interest in the conference and PR historical research in Europe over the past 3-4 years but it has largely focused on national histories, personalities or phenomena. Collaborative research, across national boundaries, has yet to emerge. There is little shared knowledge of archival resources, where they exist or can be created.”
So far, 35 academics and practitioners from 12 countries have shown their interest in EPRHN. Its first publication, a catalogue of archives and resources in seven countries has just been published. A EPRHN planning meeting will be held at BU after IHPRC in June.
Within The Media School, the network will also help develop European aspects of the Centre for Media History (CMH). CMH is already developing relationships with universities in Sweden and northern Germany. CMH and EPRHN will, it is hoped, foster the recruitment of PGR students interested in media and communication historical research.
The Fusion funding will allow EPRHN to hold a planning event at BU after IHPRC in late June and for Prof Watson and Dr Tasos Theofilou, who is working with him on both PR history projects, to attend EUPRERA’s annual conference in Barcelona in October. At EUPRERA, they will hold the network’s first formal meeting and workshop. [Photos by Minna-Liisa Nurmilaasko, PROCOM Finland].
IHPRC 2012
Prof Tom Watson teaching at Chulalongkorn University
For several years, the Media School (TMS) has been developing a relationship with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Chula, as it is known, is rated as the No.1 university in the kingdom.
The SMN award allows the development of a collaborative project between TMS and the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chula to organise an academic conference on public relations in Asia in Bangkok on November 18-19.
The conference will provide a platform for academic research on public relations history, current theory and practice, and future trends. In particular, it will investigate Asian (i.e. non Anglo-American) perspectives of public relations and will be the first dedicated conference to do so.
Prof Tom Watson, who is a co-chair of the conference, says the SMN funding “will lead to the development of a sustainable academic and research partnership between the two universities. It will enable BU staff participation in cross-cultural research with Thai colleagues. The conference will also place BU in a leadership role on research into cross-cultural communications and international public relations.”
Dr Ana Adi is working with Prof Watson on the project. She taught at Chula in mid-2012 on a staff exchange. She and at least one other TMS academic will be attending the conference and presenting papers.
The conference collaboration started with attendance by Chula’s Dr Napawan Tantivejakul at the International History of Public Relations Conference 2011 at BU, which began a dialogue about a joint conference with an Asian focus. This was cemented when Prof Watson visited Chula in November last year as a visiting professor and negotiated the arrangements. It is hoped that there will be 16 speakers, plus two keynotes, and 50 delegates at the November event.
At the recent BU EU Funding day, I was asked if I would write a short blog post reflecting on my first 6 months working as the Deputy President of the European Media Management Association (EMMA). So here it is!
My first observation is that over the past few years BU has become more aware of the need to become more externally focussed and integrated into a range of high quality networks. As far as my field of Media Management is concerned, EMMA provides a great platform. It also provides an excellent network to develop a range of collaborative activities at institutional and individual level, and to gain different cultural perspectives on the subject domain.
Being active in such an organisation requires commitment, but the rewards have been excellent in terms of working with European Board members, getting access to a new network and the ‘local’ knowledge that each person brings to the table. BU also bid for and won the right to host the EMMA Annual Conference, which has traditionally been held in major European or capital cities. Being a part of a European association has now moved the conversation from “where is Bournemouth…is it near London?” to “we’re looking forward to working with BU”. From my perspective that’s a quantum leap in our profile!
BU now has an EU Network Fund and I’d encourage you to use this as a springboard to engage with a range of European stakeholders.
My term as Deputy President has another 18 months to run and I’m looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead!
Ruf
us Stone has been selected for this year’s Torin Film Festival, 23 Nov-1Dec in Torino, Italy. Held every November, it is the second largest film festival in Italy, following the Venice Film Festival.
The 30-minute film is the result of three years of in-depth research into ageing and sexuality in rural Britain at Bournemouth University. The project, led by Bournemouth University’s Dr Kip Jones, uses the film as its main output.
Rufus Stone was directed by Josh Appignanesi (The Infidel) and produced by Parkville Pictures, London. The film stars well-known stage and television actor, William Gaunt in the title role. Jones was author of the story and acted in the capacity of Executive Producer for the film.
The film will be shown five times during the festival, which opens with a screening of Dustin Hoffman’s directorial début, Quartet. The festival will close with Ginger & Rosa, a 1960s coming-of-age story from U.K. director Sally Potter.
Rufus Stone will be screened in the Festa Mobile sidebar, made up of mostly European and Italian premiers, including Anna Karenina, Joe Wright’s adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy classic that stars Keira Knightley and Jude Law.
Rufus Stone was recently featured as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science at Bournemouth University and will be shown locally as part of BU’s Festival of Learning next June. Future screenings are also planned for Birbeck, Cambridge and Oxford Universities.
Academics from multi-disciplinary backgrounds recently attended a two day Digital Economy Network+ event at the University of Cambridge. The aim of the event was to continue the process of building a network of people interested researching New Economic Models for the Digital Economy.
The focus of the event was to share the diverse perspectives on new economic models for the digital economy and to develop and shape the research agenda on two key themes;
Both days consisted of a number of brainstorm and discussion activities that opened with each academic presenting their views on the ‘big questions’ in relation to their own subject domain, which in my case is Media Management. It was certainly interesting to look at the same research questions from very different perspectives, and it this has helped inform my thinking for the Advances in Media Management (AiMM) research group that I lead and our forthcoming symposium on New Economic Models.
Further network events are planned, but for those BU academics researching within our own Creative & Digital Economy Theme – the funding headlines are;
Watch this excellent short video from BU’s Prof Stuart Allan on the relationship between the study of journalism and the study of democracy, through work funded by the Swedish Research Council.
To see other BU videos on YouTube go to the BU YouTube page!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiQxwraTF-E
As part of their contribution to the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, EPSRC and ESRC are jointly inviting proposals for research consortia (PDF 79KB) to explore current and future cyber security challenges.
CEReS consortia are encouraged to work across or between established disciplines and to draw on expertise from multiple research organisations wherever necessary. They particularly welcome proposals with significant novel mathematics and/or social science content.
Initially, outline proposals will be assessed for their novelty and fit to the aims of the call. Successful outline applicants will be invited to submit full proposals later in 2012.
EPSRC and ESRC have made available up to £4M available to fund full proposals funded through the CEReS call. They expect to support a range of projects which is broad in terms of scale (likely to be between £500k and £1M for each consortium), duration (two to four years), mix of disciplines (with single discipline proposals being the exception rather than the norm) and subject matter (although all must focus on cyber security-related challenges in the broadest sense). Activities funded through CEReS are limited to those currently allowed on EPSRC grants. As a result they will not be able to accept applications which request funding for PhD studentships, even if they are outside EPSRC’s remit.
CEReS is a call for exploratory research. Consortia should identify ambitious goals with far-reaching impacts on future research and, potentially at least, practice in cyber security. Projects which continue or extend current work in a straightforward or obvious way will not be supported. Collaboration between disciplines is strongly encouraged. Although it is not essential that all projects include cross- or intra-disciplinary working it is likely that the assessment process will select positively for consortia which adopt this approach.
Although it is being managed by EPSRC the CEReS call is also open to researchers eligible to apply for targeted funding from ESRC. There is no quota of applications or funding based on Research Council remits. It is possible for the same researcher(s) to be associated with more than one consortium application.
For further information visit the call website: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/open/Pages/ceres.aspx and read the call documentation: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Calls/2012/CEReSCall.pdf. Outline proposals should be prepared and submitted using the Research Councils’ Joint electronic Submission (JeS) System (https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/).
The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.
The closing date is 14 June 2012.
The Virgin Media Shorts, which is a short film competition that champions undiscovered talent, has announced that its 2012 competition is now open to entries.
The competition is open to filmmakers and gives them the chance to show their work in cinemas, on TV, online and on mobile (via the mobile internet). Prizes include: 13 film makers win a chance to show their work on 214 cinema screens nationwide; one winner will receive £30,000 to make their next film; and a People’s Choice winner will receive £5,000 of film funding and BFI mentoring. Films must be in English or subtitled in English and be of a duration of up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. The deadline for entries is 12 noon on the 12th July 2012.
Funding Source: Association for Journalism Education
Chief Investigators: Dr Einar Thorsen and Sue Wallace, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Research Assistant: Dr Caitlin Patrick, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Journalism is among the most rapidly changing industries, affected by both technological advances and shifting consumer habits. This makes it paramount for journalism education to keep pace with trends such as changing journalism practices and the migration of audiences to online journalism. One possible outcome of this imperative is for online news or magazine websites to be developed to a) showcase student reporting, b) serve as an educational tool in professional journalism practices, and c) facilitate research into news and journalism innovation. Journalism courses are increasingly making use of their own websites in one or more of these ways, but development, as in the news industry itself, has tended to be haphazard and quite often on a trial and error basis.
This project seeks to address this problematic by conducting a survey of news and magazine websites used in journalism courses, their history, evolution and integration into education practice. The aim is not to produce a standard model to be applied in every case. Rather, the intention is to collect and share experiences to inform education and curriculum development. The sharing of best practice can also help to maintain high standards in journalism education.
Phase One of the project launched in March 2012 and involves an international survey into the use of news and magazine websites in journalism education.
We would be most grateful if anyone involved in journalism education could assist by completing our survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/websites-in-journalism-education
We are interested in the views of both staff and students, so please circulate as widely as possible.
The survey is completed anonymously. For staff it takes no more than 10-15 minutes to complete, with the student section possible to complete in 5 minutes. All staff and students on undergraduate and postgraduate journalism courses are encouraged to partake and we welcome your participation.
Phase Two of the project will take place in the second half of 2012 and involve up to five site visits to observe how websites are used in live news days simulating real-life news operations. During these visits we propose to conduct follow-up interviews in conjunction with examination of websites, to scrutinise in finer detail the patterns of application and usage.
This project will investigate both technological and editorial issues associated with use of websites in journalism education.
Findings from this research project will be made available online and as contributions to relevant scholarly journals, including the AJE journal Journalism Education, outlining experiences, advice, and different models of application. The findings may also be of use to accreditation bodies and industry panels.
If you would like further information on the project, you can view the original project brief.
Congratulations to Dr Richard Berger, Associate Professor and Head of Postgraduate Research in the Media School, who has won an AHRC grant to research how the videogame L.A. Noire (which was released for Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 in May 2011) can be used to teach the English Literature curriculum. This is a collaborative grant led by Dr Julian McDougall at the University of Wolverhampton. Richard and Julian have collaborated previously on a number of journal papers, and are co-editors of the Media Education Research Journal.
About the AHRC award: The diegesis is set in 1947, and the game appropriates conventions from American film noir texts of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as later texts such as Alphaville (Godard, 1965) and L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997). The novels of Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy also contribute to this sphere of influence. Unlike these novels and films, this videogame is an author / auteur-less digital text which is pre-designed but ‘written’, in narrative terms, only when read (played). However, its highly literary and filmic nature would seem to be useful for teaching / learning in the English Literature curriculum.
As a research subject, L.A. Noire offers an opportunity to revisit ideas of adaptation and appropriation in the context of this digital transformation of the ‘hard-boiled detective novel’, and to further examine the relationship of exchange that exists between linear and digital texts. Videogames are still largely ignored in education as textual subjects but L.A. Noire is potentially transgressive, in terms of its potential to be taught / studied as a book (novel) in its digitally transformed state.
This project will explore the ways in which gamer-students and teachers might work with L.A. Noire to reconfigure dynamics of expertise, begin a remediation of the English Literature curriculum and respond to the digital transformation of what we think it means to ‘read’ in order to think differently about the function of books and the nature of textual authority in the digital age.
Congratulations Richard – this is an excellent achievement! 😀
Richard is a peer reviewer for the AHRC which he believes directly informs his own bidding activity – you can read his review of the benefits of being a peer reviewer here: Life as an AHRC Peer Reviewer. He has also made use of our internal peer review service (the RPRS) to help to strengthen his proposals prior to submission – you can read his review of the RPRS here: One Man’s Experience of the Research Proposal Review Service
BU is committed to developing its Continuing Professional Development portoflio. One School that has already done some excellent work in this area is the Media School. They launched their provision two years ago and now have over 250 students on a variety of CPD pathways – some delivered by BU and some delivered in partnership with employers such as the BBC and Pearson. All of the courses are accredited by Skillset, the sector skills council for creative and media. To find out more about the short course offer in the Media School and to hear from current students and employers, watch this amazing short video: http://mixtape.bournemouth.ac.uk/overview.html
Visit the Mixtape website here: http://mixtape.bournemouth.ac.uk/
We heard some excellent news at the end of last week that BU academics Dr Bronwen Thomas and Dr Julia Round, both based in the Media School, have been awarded funding from the AHRC!
The research project, due to start imminently, aims to understand the impact of digital transformations on the reading process. Digital technologies have made it much easier for readers to participate in a wide range of activities around their reading, including connecting with other readers, commenting on a range of texts, and even writing stories themselves. Online communities and fan forums present researchers with a wealth of data not only on what readers are reading, but how they are reading and engaging with texts. This data is potentially invaluable, especially in a context where reading is supposedly in decline, and where new devices such as ereaders are threatening to supplant the printed book. This project will investigate the implications of these changes, and how they may potentially benefit a wide range of stakeholders, including those working in education and in the creative industries, as well as academics interested in readers and audiences. The research will provide insights into emerging forms, practices and epistemologies amongst readers, while also reflecting on the ethical and methodological implications for researchers engaged in this kind of activity.
This is an excellent achievement, congratulations Bronwen and Julia 🙂
Bronwen and Julia’s successful proposal was reviewed internally via our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) prior to submission, and they also received support from Martin Pickard during one of his grant writing sessions. BU regularly hosts these sessions with Martin – keep an eye on the Blog for the next one to be advertised! It is strongly advised that all research proposals are reviewed via the RPRS prior to submission. See our RPRS webpage or contact Caroline O’Kane for further details.
Watch this excellent short video from BU’s Dr Sukhpreet Singh who explains how BU’s strong relationships with UK media organisations have fed into copyright theories.
To see other BU videos on YouTube go to the BU YouTube page.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMRtV2GX_WU
Watch this excellent short video from BU’s Professor Hugh Chignell who has worked with London Broadcasting Company’s independent radio news archive to digitalise over 8,000 tapes, creating a live history account which is now available on the British Universities Film and Video Council’s website: http://radio.bufvc.ac.uk/lbc/
To see other BU videos on YouTube go to the BU YouTube page.
A prestigious journal has awarded two Bournemouth University (BU) academics the ‘Best Paper’ accolade for their work in the largely unstudied domain of consumer behaviour in digital virtual spaces, including video games, virtual communities and the web.
‘Concepts and practices of digital virtual consumption’, by BU’s Dr Janice Denegri-Knottand Dr Mike Molesworth, was among the most downloaded work published by Consumption Markets and Culture last year.
The paper examines digital virtual consumption (such as owning luxury cars in a video game), the relationship it has within the real material world and the appeal of consumption that is deprived of a material, physically tangible form.
Denegri-Knott and Molesworth think of consumption on spaces like eBay, Amazon and World of Warcraft as somewhere between the consumers’ imagination and material consumption, and believe it is charged with transformative potential for its users.
Consumers can fulfil all sorts of daydreams, such as finding a designer dress on eBay, or performing the fantasy of being a powerful wizard. They don’t just look and ask ‘what might it be like’, but may ‘try on’ being an entrepreneur, someone with wealth, a collector, a trader, an advertiser, a criminal, a hero, a warrior, or many other ways of being.
Their roles are enhanced as the scripts available to them expand and can be tested within relatively small timescales. The digital virtual individual may be an avid collector one year, a warrior hero the next, and a successful entrepreneur the year after that. The video game player may be a successful criminal one week and a racing driver the next.
Denegri-Knott and Molesworth believe more emphasis is needed on the relationship between the virtual realm and the real-world and, as digital virtual consumption is largely unstudied, they propose an integrative view for further research.
“The paper was written in the spirit of mapping out potential avenues for research, and also to give us some kind of conceptual frame to make sense of consumption in emerging digital virtual spaces,” said Dr Denegri-Knott. “We now have a body of work that looks at the way in which users consume through eBay, from which we have been able to draw some insights on the acceleration of consumer desire and the problems this creates. We now would like to develop the theme of transformative potential in digital virtual consumption; that is to see how consumers make sense of their experiences and how they integrate these into their everyday lives.”
The pair are also now researching the experience of owning digital virtual goods, in particular the ways in which consumers become attached to certain goods, and how they maintain their preferential stature.
Dr Denegri-Knott concluded: “We were both delighted and surprised to hear that our paper was so well received by the readers of the journal and by the judging panel. This is a real achievement for the Emerging Consumer Cultures Group (ECCG).”
At a recent Media School meeting attendees asked us to outline some of the common funders, so here is a general overview of those funders with a Media flavour both domestic and further a field. Part One concentrates on the key UK funders and in the next few days we’ll post information on potential EU funders and schemes.
The two primary research councils for media-focused research are the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) which are responsible for funding the vast majority of arts and humanities in the UK. The success rates for the AHRC are the highest of all RC’s (see the recent blog article) and it offers standard grants, networking grants, collaborative doctoral awards and early career research grants.
The RCs also focus on particular initiatives to address issues of intellectual and wider cultural, social or economic urgency, these schemes tend to have higher success rates than the standard grants so are always worth consideration. Information on AHRC initiatives can be found here.
An overview – AHRC Early Career Research Grants:
Early Career Research Grants are intended to assist new researchers at the start of their careers in gaining experience of managing and leading research projects. They look to support well-defined research projects enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research.
They also enjoy higher success rates than standard grants, there are no set submission dates, projects can last up to 60 months and should cost between £20,000 and £200,000 fEC.
To be eligible as an early career researcher you must be within eight years of the award of your PhD or equivalent professional training or within six years of your first academic appointment.
Further information on all opportunities can be found here – AHRC ESRCs
The British Academy supports excellent ideas, individuals and intellectual resources in the humanities and social sciences. In particular, the Academy enables UK researchers to work with scholars and resources in other countries, sustain a British research presence in various parts of the world and help to attract overseas scholars to the UK.
An overview – International Partnership and Mobility Scheme:
Aims to support the development of partnerships between the UK and other areas of the world where research excellence would be strengthened by new, innovative initiatives and links. Awards are for research partnerships between scholars in the UK and scholars in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, South Asia, or East Asia.
Partnerships might include a range of related activities, and mobility should form an integral part of proposals. Workshops and seminars should form an integral part of the programme. The main purpose of the funding is to cover travel and maintenance costs, although costs related to other eligible activities will be considered. Partnerships including a training element and involving scholars in the early stages in their career will be looked on favourably.
Grants are offered up to a maximum of £10,000 per year for a period of one year or three years. The submission deadline is 8th February 2012.
Further information can be found here – British Academy International Partnerships
In addition to these big UK funders, there are also some smaller more focused funders which may appeal to the interests of specific research groups within the school. For instance conference grants offered by the The Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) could be of interest to the Narrative Research Group – information can be found here MHRA.
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Nanocoatings to Bionanocomposites: Sustainable Solutions
Take part in the 2025 ESRC Festival of Social Science – Deadline for applications: Thursday 15 May 2025 
AI learning to read emotions from motion….
Bournemouth University eHealth paper cited 40 times!
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
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European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published