Category / REF Subjects

Find out about the ‘Wayfinding & Spatial Cognition’ Lab in Psychology

Successful spatial navigating is one of the most fundamental behavioural problems and requires complex cognitive operations. To navigate in both familiar and unfamiliar environments, we need to monitor various internal and external cues, build, access, and update mental representations of space, plan and execute movements. In the Wayfinding & Spatial Cognition Lab we conduct research into the psychological processes underlying navigation and wayfinding behaviour addressing both fundamental and applied research questions. We make use of a variety of methods including behavioural navigation experiments, virtual reality techniques, static and mobile eye-tracking and cognitive modelling.

Click on image to see a short video of our virtual reality setup that we now combined with a head mounted (mobile) eye-tracker. This allows us to study visual attention across a large field of view while participants solve navigation tasks in highly controlled virtual environments that are build to exactly match the experimental demands.

The “Wayfinding & Spatial Cognition Lab” is currently involved in a number of fundamental and applied research projects:-

 

 

 

 

  • We just received funding from “Army of Angels” and the BU Foundation to start an exciting new project investigating the relationship between PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and navigation.

 

Dr. Jan Wiener in the Psychology Research Centre leads the “Wayfinding and Spatial Cognition” lab. For more information about our projects, the team, and our publications, please visit our lab page at www.spatial-cognition.org. You can also follow us on Twitter.

We are always eager to discuss new project ideas and collaborations, so please get in contact by dropping me an email: jwiener@bournemouth.ac.uk

BUCRU – Seminar presenting Breaking News!

Post-award, Publishing

 

BREAKING  NEWS…

We would like to invite you to an afternoon seminar by one of our Visiting Faculty, Professor Mike Wee, presenting some exciting new research findings to come out of a recently completed Research for Patient Benefit funded study comparing two methods of pain relief during labour (abstract and biography below).  This paper was just voted best paper of the conference at the Obstetric Anaesthetists Association Annual Conference in Liverpool and was featured recently in the Bournemouth Echo http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/9770928.Pain_relief_in_labour__study_at_Poole_hospital_makes_important_discovery/

The seminar is scheduled for Thursday 19th July 2-3pm in BG10 Bournemouth House (after the HSC end of term lunch and next door for your convenience).

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you then.

BUCRU

Website: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru/

Administrator: +44 (0)1202 961939 / wardl@bournemouth.ac.uk

Title: The IDvIP Trial: A two-centre double blind randomised controlled trial comparing i.m. diamorphine and i.m. pethidine for labour analgesia

Research team and affiliations: MYK Wee, JP Tuckey,* P Thomas,† S Burnard,* D Jackson.

Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Poole, UK, *Royal United Hospital, Bath, UK, †Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit, Bournemouth, UK.

Abstract:

Background: Intramuscular pethidine, the commonest parenteral opioid analgesic used in obstetrics and more recently diamorphine usage has increased in the UK.  The maternal, fetal and neonatal side effects are well known for pethidine but there are no sufficiently powered large RCTs comparing pethidine with diamorphine. The aim of this trial is to address this.

Methods: After ethical approval, informed consent was obtained from 484 women randomised to receive either 7.5mg diamorphine i.m. or 150mg pethidine i.m. for labour analgesia. The sample size calculation derived from a small RCT giving 90% power (at the 5% significance level) is based upon the maternal primary outcome measure of pain relief at 60mins and the neonatal primary outcome measures of Apgar Score of <7 at 1min and neonatal resuscitation. Secondary outcome measures include verbal pain intensity at 60mins and over 3hrs post-analgesia, pain relief over first 3hrs, maternal oxygen saturation, sedation, nausea and vomiting and maternal satisfaction with analgesia. Fetal and neonatal secondary outcomes include CTG trace, meconium staining, UApH, UVpH, time of delivery to first breath, Apgar Score at 5mins, naloxone use, neonatal oxygen saturations, sedation and feeding behaviour for the first 2hrs after delivery.

Results: Reported using CONSORT guidelines. At 60mins post-administration and over a 3hr period, diamorphine is better at reducing pain scores than pethidine (p<0.001). There were no statistical differences between the two groups regarding Apgar Scores of <7 at 1min and the need for neonatal resuscitation.  The time between first dose administered and delivery is on average 82mins longer with the diamorphine group compared to pethidine (p<0.001). The vast majority of women experienced moderate to severe pain at all times. Women receiving diamorphine were more satisfied with their analgesia. There were no statistically significant differences in maternal sedation, nausea and vomiting or oxygen saturations over the 3hr period. There were no statistically significant differences in the fetal and neonatal outcomes including feeding behaviour between the two groups within 2hrs of birth but neonates in the pethidine group were more likely to be moderately or severely sedated at delivery.

Discussion: Intramuscular 7.5mg diamorphine gives significantly better analgesia than 150mg pethidine but prolongs delivery by approx. 82mins.  Women given diamorphine are more likely to be satisfied with their analgesia.  The mechanism for the prolongation of delivery time in the diamorphine group should be investigated further.

Acknowledgement: This research was funded by the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme (PB-PG-0407-13170).

References

1. Tuckey JP, Prout RE, Wee MYK. Prescribing intramuscular opioids for labour analgesia in consultant-led maternity units: a survey of UK practice. International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia 2008, 17(1):3-8.

2. Fairlie FM, Marshall L, Walker JJ et al. Intramuscular opioids for maternal pain relief for labour: a randomised controlled trial comparing pethidine with diamorphine. British  Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 1999; 106(11): 1181 -1187.

Biography of speaker:

Michael Wee is a consultant anaesthetist from Poole Hospital and Royal Bournemouth Hospitals.  He has a special interest in obstetric anaesthesia and is the lead obstetric anaesthetist at Poole Hospital.  He is chair of the Research and Innovations Group at Poole Hospital and is a Board member of the Western Comprehensive Local Research Network.  He was awarded a visiting professorship at Bournemouth University in 2009.  He is a referee for several medical journals.  His research interests include patient information, safety in anaesthesia, maternal analgesia and simulation in epidural anaesthesia.  He is a co-supervisor of a PhD student at BU and chief investigator of the MObs study investigating early warning scores in obstetrics.

DEFRA call – Value of the impact of marine protected areas on recreation and tourism services

Funding opportunities

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs invites applications for its value of the impact of marine protected areas on recreation and tourism services. The aim is to undertake a review of the value of tourism and recreation services provided by marine protected areas and marine conservation zones and to scope priorities for future research in this area.

The objectives of this project are:

•to conduct a literature review of existing evidence on the impacts of MPAs on recreation and tourism;

•for contractors to apply this evidence to assess the impact of UK marine conservation zones on the recreation and tourism value;

•suggest a methodology for a more detailed valuation of recreation and tourism benefits for an MPA site. The contract will be expected to start in late August with a duration of five to six months. ERG 1204.

Closing date: 4pm, 27 July 12

Contact: cathal.linnane@defra.gsi.gov.uk

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

 

Visit and STRC seminar not to miss next Tuesday: Image and Signal Processing Group of University of Valencia (26th June at 15h 30’ in PG16)

REF Subjects

Dear Colleagues,
I would like to draw your attention to the visit of two members and a postdoc researcher of the Image and Signal Processing Group of University of Valencia, Spain.
This group is very influential in several areas like for instance Image Processing (in Geosciences, Medical Brain Imaging, etc.) and Kernel Machines; and they will be in Talbot Campus just for one day.
They will deliver a couple of short talks and after that they will stay for an hour for discussing ideas or future plans with anybody interested in BU.
The special seminar will take place next Tuesday, the 26th of June in PG 16 Lecture Theatre at 15:30 h (Ground floor, Poole House)
After that, you are very welcome to join us in an informal Discussion Panel from 16h 30’ to 17h 15’ approx.
I would like to encourage DEC PhD researchers, senior research fellows and staff to attend; particularly those who work or what to get into image/signal processing and kernel machines because they are leading experts in these areas. Kindly check out, for instance,
http://www.uv.es/gcamps
http://www.uv.es/jmalo/
The agenda of the visit is the following:
• 15h 30’. Short intro by Dr. Malo (Associate Prof): “Research at the Image and Signal Processing Group”. Jesús Malo. A brief overview of our research interests and lines.
• 15h 40’. Short talk by Dr Laparra (Postdoc): “Gaussianization Framework for Signal Processing”
Abstract: We generalize a class of projection pursuit methods to transform arbitrary multidimensional data into multivariate normal data, thus attaining statistical independence of its components. The proposed analysis enables a number of novel ways to solve practical problems in high-dimensional scenarios, such as those encountered in image processing, speech recognition, array processing, or bioinformatics. Our framework extends Independent and Principal Components Analyses-based methods, which are typically not applicable to data generated from nonlinear, non-independent or non-Gaussian sources. The performance is successfully illustrated in a number of multidimensional data processing problems such as image synthesis, classification, saliency analysis, and de-noising.
• 16h. Short talk by Dr. Camps (Associate Prof): “Extended Kernel Methods”.
Abstract: I will talk about our love story with kernel methods for the last 10 years. Kernel methods constitute a simple way of translating linear algorithms into nonlinear ones. I will revise several interesting developments for 1) time series analysis, regression and function approximation; 2) classification problems; 3) nonlinear feature extraction; and 4) dependence estimation. The introduced methods extend previous standard algorithms to deal with non-stationary environments and structured domains, and the presence of non-Gaussian noise. Additionally, I’ll briefly talk about a way to learn the kernel function directly from the data via clustering or graphs. Examples in signal and image processing will guide this overview.
• 16h 25’. Discussion Panel.
Please, feel free to show up or leave any time during this event on your convenience. I hope you consider this program attractive and that you find a slot to come in.
Best Wishes, Emili

Digital Economy finds NEMODE

Funding opportunities, Fusion

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;

  • What are economic models and how do different communities define them?
  • Does an economic model differ from a business model?

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;

  • The EPSRC are managing the New Economic Models sub-theme of the Digital Economy
  • The network will now be known as NEMODE
  • NEMODE have £980k to support network activities including funding 10 small (£50k) feasibility/scoping studies. A call for the first two projects will be made in October this year.
  • Successful feasibility studies can be scaled up via direct applications to the RCUK Digital Economy.
  • Funding Applications that involve practitioners will be looked upon more favourably – which sits nicely with BU’s Fusion Strategy!

British Psychological Society Postdoctoral Study Visits and Research Seminar

Funding opportunities

Postdoctoral Study Visits

 

The British Psychological Society has announced the establishment of a new grant scheme to support the work of postdoctoral researchers and lecturers.

The scheme provides grants to enable UK based psychology postdoctoral researchers and lecturers to undertake a study visit to another institution. The scheme is aimed at supporting postdoctoral researchers and lecturers to acquire skills directly relevant to their research/lecturing. The applicant must be employed at a UK institution as a postdoctoral researcher/lecturer and be within three years of the completion of their doctoral research degree in psychology.

Six awards, two in each of the following categories, are available each year:

  • Up to £250 to visit an institution in the UK
  • Up to £400 to visit an institution in Europe
  • Up to £600 to visit an institution elsewhere in the world

 

HowtoApply

The following documentation should be sent to the Society:

  • an application form, available from the Board Administrator
  • a supporting statement from the applicant’s Head of Department
  • a supporting statement from the proposed host institution
  • a copy of the applicant’s current CV

SeminarCompetition

 

Research Seminar Competition

 

The Competition provides grants to enable institutions to co-operate to hold a series of at least three scientific seminars.

The proposed seminars should have tangible goals and should focus on developing and extending the understanding of a psychological process in any field of scientific psychology.

Four grants are available each worth up to £3,000. These provide funding for travel and accommodation expenses for those attending the seminars.

HowtoApply

As a minimum of two institutions will be involved, submissions should be made by a primary applicant and a co-applicant, at least one of whom should be a Society member. Further details and an application form are available from the Board Administrator.

Research Seminars Funded in 2011

  • Paediatric traumatic brain injury: developing and evaluating complex interventions. University of East Anglia and the University of Exeter
  • Neurodevelopmental disorders: exploring sensitive methods of assessment across development. Kingston University, Institute of Education and Newcastle University
  • The social psychology of citizenship: the politics of inclusion and exclusion in language, public space and national identity. University of Winchester, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Dundee, and the Open University

Research Seminars Funded in 2010

  • Psychology and dentistry: future directions. University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, University of Birmingham and King’s College London.
  • Multi perpetrator rape: setting the research agenda. Middlesex University and University of Birmingham
  • The role of emotional processes in the development of Autism Spectrum Disorder. City University London and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Both calls for nominations open in June. The closing date for both nominations is 28 September 2012.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Talk on Software Platforms for Evolving Predictive Systems, wednesday 13th June 14:00, Lawrence Lecture Theatre

REF Subjects, Research themes

Our next external speaker of the STRC seminar series will be Mr . Tobiasz Dworak. The talk will take place on Wednesday, 13th of June in Lawrence Lecture Theatre at 14:00 h
Tobiasz is a highly experience Project Manager and Software Developer in the International Company Research & Engineering Center (REC-global)
I think that those of you involved in software design and development would like to hear this Seminar.
The title of the talk is: “Current state of INFER platform software. (Hands on demo)”
“I will be presenting current state of the INFER (Computational Intelligence Platform for Evolving and Robust Predictive Systems) software with emphasis on new model of predictive elements. Additionally I’ll draft further of INFER core and present live demo of the software. Open discussion will take part after the presentation. I’d like to hear wishes from all potential users of INFER”.
Best Wishes, Emili

Introduction to Adaptive Learning from Streaming Data by Dr Zliobaite, Wednesday 30th of May:

Research themes

Kindly announce that our next speaker of the STRC seminar series will be Dr Indrė Žliobaitė. The talk will take place next Wednesday, 30th of May in Lawrence Lecture Theatre at 16:00 h (please click for a map)

Indrė (Lecturer in BU as most of us know) will present novel angles of her work in a highly didactic fashion. She will talk about an exciting topic, strategies for predicting streaming data. This is particularly attractive for instance for those of us involved in projects in real-time industrial settings.

Please feel free to show up if you like it regardless you background!

The talk title is:

“Introduction to Adaptive Learning from Streaming Data”

Short description:

Changing data over time presents one of the major challenges in predictive modelling applications, for example automated movie recommendation, bankruptcy prediction, spam categorization, food sales prediction and many more. In such situations predictive models need to have mechanisms to update or retrain themselves using recent data, otherwise they will quickly lose accuracy. This talk will give an introductory overview of settings and algorithms for adaptive predictive modelling.

Best Wishes, Emili

Business School’s Ven Tauringana wins award for outstanding reviewer!

BU’s Business School’s Dr Ven Tauringanahas been chosen as an Outstanding Reviewer at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2012.

Each year Emerald names and rewards the Outstanding Reviewers who contribute to the success of the journals.  Each journal’s Editor nominates the Reviewer they believe has been that title’s most Outstanding Reviewer. This year Ven received this nomination due to his role as Reviewer for the Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies throughout 2011, his efforts described as ‘very impressive’ and making a ‘significant contribution’.

Well done Ven!

Interesting Talk Next Wednesday: Evolving Simple and Complex Structures To Combine Predictors

Our next speaker of the STRC seminar series will be Dr Athanasios Tsakonas. The talk will take place next Wednesday, 23rd of May in Lawrence Lecture Theatre at 16:00 h (please click for a map)

In my personal view, this is a very interesting talk for those of us working on any kind of predictive approaches. Please find below more details.

Title:
Evolving Simple and Complex Structures To Combine Predictors

Abstract:
The popularity of ensemble systems in real-world problems is a natural result of their effectiveness for a range of tasks, where single predictors or classifiers can overfit or provide weak solutions. A primary property in ensemble systems, contributing to their ability to generalize better is a combination of individual performances and diversity among individual learners. This lecture presents effective approaches for the generation of multi-level, multi-component combined predictors, through a grammar driven evolutionary framework. Several grammar schemes are presented for the production of hierarchical and fuzzy rule based ensembles. Candidate architectures are investigated in terms of data resampling, and different training approaches are tested, involving ensemble diversity measures

This is a short curriculum of our speaker:

Dr. Athanasios Tsakonas received his M.Eng in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and his M.Sc. and Ph.D from University of the Aegean. His Ph.D thesis was “Computational Intelligence in Complex Managerial and Financial Domains – The Evolutionary Neural Logic Network Paradigm”. Athanasios has gathered strong experience in the analysis, design and development of specialized computational intelligence systems, with applications in the financial and medical sector. His experience includes participation in European and domestic research projects (such as BOEMIE, SHARE, EUNITE, INFER, etc.), occupation of related research positions in top research centers (such as N.C.S.R. Demokritos) or in the private sector (banks, software development companies, etc.), as well as teaching related courses in universities (Aristotle University of Salonica, Demokritus University of Thrace, etc.). His research interests include computational intelligence, data mining, genetic programming and complex systems. He has published 1 book and more than 45 articles in total, in international scientific journals, conferences, or as book chapters. He is with the Smart Technology Research Centre, Bournemouth University, since January 2011.

Best Wishes, Emili

ESRC Call for Evaluating the Business Impact of Social Science

Funding opportunities

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is seeking to commission an evaluation study to assess the ways in which social science research and the knowledge and skills of social scientists can have impact in business. The study will begin by assessing the business impact of social science through the work of a small number of Business/Management Schools. It will then track the career paths of social science doctoral graduates from these Schools, and investigate in greater depth the contributions of those working in business.

The aims of the evaluation are as follows:

Part 1 – Impact of Business/Management Schools

  • identify the range and nature of business impacts resulting from the work of the Business/Management Schools
  • evaluate the processes through which business impacts may be or have been generated, through research and related activities (including academic/business collaborations, knowledge exchange and business engagement initiatives, networking and dissemination)
  • develop an understanding of the contributions of social science within local, regional and national contexts, and the factors that promote or inhibit impact within these contexts
  • identify and analyse the determinants of the impacts identified (ie why and how impact has been generated)
  • identify good practice and lessons learned, to support the development of impact generation within the business sector
  • inform the development of methodology for future impact evaluation studies in this area.

Part 2 – Impact of social scientist with PhDs working within business

  • identify the employment destinations of social science doctoral graduates from the three Schools
  • identify the range and nature of impacts that social scientists with PhDs working in business have contributed to
  • identify and analyse the determinants of the impacts (ie why and how impact has been generated)
  • explore impact processes and potential impacts, and identify any barriers to impact generation
  • develop an understanding of businesses’ appreciation and need for the higher level skills associated with PhD training
  • identify good practice and lessons for enhancing the contribution that social science doctoral graduates can make to business
  • inform the ESRC’s investment in PhD training with a view to maximising future impacts.

Further details, and a copy of the full specification are available from the Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre Ltd. Please contact Jonathan Smith by email: jonathan.smith@ssc.rcuk.ac.uk or by telephone: 01235 446394 (Ref PS120008).

The deadline for submission of bids is 11.00 on 11 June 2012.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

First grant proposal submitted

Awarded & submitted bids

I joined DEC as a lecturer about a year ago. My research focuses on mining streaming data. We are building predictive models (e.g. to recommend an interesting text to a user) that can diagnose themselves and automatically adapt to changes in data over time.

This week I submitted my first grant proposal as a principal investigator. When I was asked to share my experiences on preparing the proposal, I thought I’d rather wait for the outcome. Still, in this post I will share some experiences and tips for those planning to apply for their first grant, which I think are valid no matter if my proposal gets funded.

Start early. Preparing the proposal took about six months. I started drafting the proposal back in October-November. In November I attended an excellent internal workshop on bidding given by Dr. Martin Pickard. I highly recommend to attend his workshops if you have an opportunity. They give you an insight perspective on bidding processes.

Decide about the funding program and stick to it (right after you have an idea about the content and potential collaborators). I have some experience in preparing proposals at my previous institutions (not as a PI, including successful bids), The content requirements seem to vary a lot. So you need to tailor your proposal. I picked the First Grant Scheme within EPSRC, which is a very nice option for early career researchers. The proposals are evaluated only against other early career researchers and no previous experience as a PI is expected.

Decide what you want to get from the bid. A research assistant? Equipment? Contact RKE OPS right from the start, you may be surprised how little fits under the estimated budget, because there are overheads. For instance, the funding cap for the First Grant within EPSRC is 125 TGBP, which effectively means that you can budget a research assistant for up to one year, some of your time, maybe some equipment or some traveling and that’s it. RKE OPS will give you advices on the financial side and help you to do your budget. Your budget restricts how much content you can plan for the proposal to be realistic and feasible, so this should be one of the first decisions to make.

Get as much feedback as you can. During the process I got three reviews from the internal review process (the RPRS, contact Caroline O’Kane), multiple feedbacks from Caroline herself, feedbacks from my line manager, feedbacks from the organizer and the participants of an external workshop on bidding that I attended, and from Dr. Martin Pickard by phone as a follow up of the workshop in November. All this feedback was extremely valuable and helped me to shape my proposal. That also gave a perspective how people from different fields see the proposal and which parts need to be clarified. I must say incorporating the feedback was much more challenging than writing the first draft. Naturally, there were quite some opposing comments and contradicting views by different people. First I was confused, but later I found that extremely valuable, as that helped me to form a big picture of the bidding philosophy.

I’ve learned a lot during this process. I am very grateful to all the reviewers and the research support people for their support. Thanks!

Innovative post graduate research in the School of Tourism

Yesterday saw an opportunity for PhD students from the School of Tourism to update colleagues on the progress of their research through a day conference based on a series of interactive poster sessions.  18 students presented their work on a wide range of subjects (see below) and then submitted themselves to questioning and interrogation from the audience.  This built on the presentations that student had done at the recent Post Graduate Tourism Conference at Exeter University and really highlighted the breadth and depth of research in this area within the University.

The Posters that were presented are listed below and some pictures of the day can be found on Dr Miguel Moital’s blog at, http://miguelmoital.blogspot.co.uk/

  • Zornitza YOVCHEVA – Information system design of Smartphone augmented reality for tourism
  • Ivana RIHOVA – Consumers as producers: customer-to-customer co-creation in the context of festival experiences
  • Nicolas GREGORI Y RIBES- Technology and social media enabled service development and design
  • Barbara NEUHOFER – Technology enhanced tourist experience 
  • John FOTIS – The impact of social media on consumer behaviour; focus on holiday travel
  • Gayathri KANAGASAPATHY – The heritage experience, a visitor perspective: a comparative study of heritage destinations in Malaysia
  • Gde Indr BHASKARA – The local community as a stakeholder group and its participation in UNESCO’s World Heritage Nomination process: Jatiluwih Rice Fields, Bali, Indonesia
  • Emma KAVANAGH – A narrative enquiry into the experience of maltreatment in high performance sport
  • Sean BEER – Human perceptions of the authenticity of food
  • Andrew HARES – Tourist understanding of and engagement with the climate change impacts of holiday
  • Julia HIBBERT – Tourism travel and identity
  • Jan HUTCHINGS – ‘In the Swim‘ – an ethnography on Masters swimming
  • Stephen CALVER – The influence of mass media on countryside leisure visit behaviour compared
  • Gregory KAPUSCINSKI – Tourism, terrorism, political instability and the media
  • Joanna HAWKES – ‘My Bones Won’t Break Me’: an auto-ethnographical exploration of premenopausal osteoporosis in a physically active female‘
  • Pamela WATSON – Grab Your Fork’: a netnography of a foodie blog and its community
  • Stacy WALL – Synergies in public health and tourism; an organisational ethnography
  • Amanda WILDING – The diffusion and adoption of sport psychology by track and field coaches

EPSRC Sandpit: More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency

Funding opportunities

The EPSRC has announced a call for Expressions of Interest for attendance at their Sandpit for ‘More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency’.

The UK is a small nation with limited resources that has a high material dependency. With the ever growing concern of material and resource scarcity we look to the ingenuity of the research base to find long-term sustainable solutions.

The Engineering theme will lead a sandpit in response to the challenges raised by the research community in the Resource Efficiency Scoping Workshop in April 2012 and in line with EPSRC strategy. The primary aim is to invest in ambitious, engineering-led, cross-disciplinary research with the potential for long-term transformation across many and diverse sectors, especially among those that have yet to embrace these concepts.

EPSRC are looking for enthusiastic participants from a wide range of disciplines who will bring their expertise to explore the challenges of:

  • Dematerialisation (eg lightweighting, novel materials functionality, novel materials from waste products, materials security and efficiency);
  • Designing for resource sustainability (eg energy, water and materials efficiency, considerations for engineering processes, whole systems and resource flow modelling);
  • Reuseability at any scale (closed and open loop recycling, remanufacturing, extended product life).

Closing Date: 13.00 on 11 June 2012

Documents to Download:

Resource efficiency sandpit call document

Resource efficiency workshop challenge outcomes

Ideas Factory Sandpit expression of interest form: Return form to sandpit@epsrc.ac.uk

Equal Opportunities Form

A Sandpit for Ideas: The concept of the IDEAS Factory is to organise interactive workshops (sandpits) on particular topics, involving 20-25 participants. The focus for this sandpit is MORE WITH LESS: Engineering solutions for resource efficiency. Anyone eligible to apply for funding from Research Councils UK can apply.

The Sandpit Event: The sandpit will run over five days starting mid-morning on day one and finishing mid-afternoon on day five.

As the sandpit progresses, participants will build up thoughts on how the identified ‘challenges’ may be addressed and develop their innovative ideas and activities into research projects. Projects will contain genuinely novel and speculative investigations that address new approaches to resource efficiency. The sandpit will include inputs from a variety of sources.

Location and Date

The date for this sandpit is 23rd – 27th July 2012. Location to be confirmed.

ISRF Mid-Career Research Fellowship Call announced

Funding opportunities

The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) wishes to support independent-minded researchers to do interdisciplinary work which is unlikely to be funded by existing funding bodies. It is interested in original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

The Foundation intends to make a small number of awards to support original interdisciplinary research, across the range of the social sciences, to be held from a start date during the academic year 2013-4. Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply.

The award is intended to enable a scholar at the mid career stage to pursue his/her research full-time, normally for 12 months. The amount will be offered to buy out the costs of replacing all teaching and associated administration in the applicant’s home institution, and will be considered to a maximum of £60,000 per successful applicant. Within that sum, reasonable support for research expenses may be considered on a matched-funding basis with the host institution.

The applicant should normally hold a salaried position at an institution of higher education and research, and be 10 years or more from the year of their PhD award. However, a shorter time from PhD award may exceptionally be considered, if the candidate has other qualifications to be considered as mid-career.

Applicants should consult the Criteria as set out in the Further Particulars and show that they meet them. Applicants should follow the Application procedure and should present their Proposal in the format specified there.

Closing date for applications is 4pm on June 21st 2012.

Application Queries: Telephone +44 (0) 20 7262 0196 or email applications2012@isrf.org

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

DEC Post Graduate Researcher Poster Competition

PG research

The School of Design, Engineering and Computing is holding its 5th Annual Post Graduate Research Student Poster Competition Conference on Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in the Thomas Hardy Suite.  This event showcases the School’s current PhD research.  Judging will take place in the morning and then the display will be open to all at 14:00 hours. Bournemouth University Board Member, Dr Peter Barnwell MBE will officially open the conference at 14:30 p.m. and will be awarding the prizes for the best posters at approximately 15:00 pm. Students will be there to discuss their research until 16:00 hours.  All staff are welcome.

International placements deemed priceless

Bournemouth University’s Professor Jonathan Parker and Dr Sara Crabtree have been examining the true benefits an international placement has on a student’s learning experience, employability and future career.

The study, conducted alongside Parker and Crabtree’s BU colleague Clare Cutler, examined a range of aspects of inter-cultural learning arising from placements. Current students and graduates were questioned about their confidence, cultural attitudes, employer feedback and other factors arising from the international placement experience.

Professor Parker explained: “This research has shown how working in totally different and sometimes physically inhospitable cultural environments, develops students’ confidence to practice in varied, challenging and unknown situations. This is so important when they come back to work in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country like the UK.”

While the study has primarily focused on international placements in Parker’s own research area of social work, it is already being applied to other disciplines. “We are now surveying students taking international placements in our School of Tourism and these research findings are equally positive,” he explained. “But the concept can be much more widely applied to encompass any career working with the general public.”

But there’s one big problem holding many UK students back: “As a general rule, UK students are very poor at languages, which are so important in so many aspects of life.”

This apparent ‘failing’ of the school system, whereby languages are not compulsory at GCSE level, needs to be addressed if students are going to reap the rewards of international placement schemes such as Erasmus. “Students need a basic degree of language skill,” Parker concluded. “It should be compulsory”.

This international placements research project is supported through BU’s Fusion fund, promoting projects which create a unique academic experience through the powerful fusion of research, education and professional practice.

More information about Professor Jonathan Parker’s and Dr Sara Crabtree’s research can be viewed on BURO.