Category / REF Subjects

Double congratulations to Prof. Jonathan Parker

Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Prof. Jonathan Parker, Professor of Society & Social Welfare in the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work, who just published his historical-sociological analysis of British Welfare under the title Analysing the History of British Social Welfare – Compassion, Coercion and Beyond.  The book it is published by Policy Press and will be available next week.   This book offers insights into the development of social welfare policies in Britain. By identifying continuities in welfare policy, practice and thought throughout history, it offers the potential for the development of new thinking, policy making and practice.

In addition Jonathan also published a new edition of his popular textbook Introducing Social Work SECOND EDITION.  This edited volume included chapters by BU academics Dr. Orlanda Harvey (Chapter 26) and Dr. Sally Lee (Chapter 22) as well as an array of internationally renowned social work academics.

Congratulations!
Prof.Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH

BU-BCP collaborative initiative on sustainable urban parking

Fusion, international, Knowledge Exchange, Publishing, REF Subjects

BU has collaborated with the Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole (BCP) local council on the initiative investigating sustainable solutions to urban parking which is a challenging problem to the area especially during peak tourist periods. The study, initiated and led by Dr. Wei Koong Chai in BU, explores the possibilities of exploiting online parking reservation platforms proposed in the last decade to cope with the parking challenge by enlisting parking resources from commercial operators (e.g., lots) and individuals (e.g., driveways) and allowing drivers make online reservations through mobile apps. The platforms facilitate transactions between the two sides and best match parking supply with parking demand. In this way, we increase the supply which may be otherwise unused while maximise value for drivers and parking space providers.
The study analyses real parking data in the Bournemouth city to realistically model the rich spatiotemporal dynamics of parking demand such as the location, start times and duration of parking events. These datasets drive the experimental evaluation of the research, which reports gains of up to 35% compared to the de facto parking resource reservation policy in such platforms.
Reference:
M. Karaliopoulos, O. Mastakas and W. K. Chai, “Matching Supply and Demand in Online Parking Reservation Platforms,” in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 3182-3193, March 2023, doi: 10.1109/TITS.2022.3230087.

BU signs up to Jisc agreement with the American Psychological Association

Guidance, open access, REF Subjects, Research assessment, writing

BU authors can now publish OA for free in select journals with American Psychological Association. Read on to find out more!

Authors affiliated with UK institutions participating in APA’s Jisc agreement may publish open access in hybrid journals published by APA at no cost to the author, provided that:

  • The article’s corresponding author is affiliated with a participating institution’s UK campus.
  • The article is accepted after August 1, 2022.
  • The article is an original peer-reviewed research article or review article.

All articles under this agreement will be published under the CC-BY copyright license. Upon publication, articles will be made immediately open access.

You can find further information on how to submit an article for consideration and other key information, such as maximum number of articles, here.

As a reminder, BU holds a number of agreements with key publishers, many of which allow you to publish open access for free. You can read more about them here.

If you have any queries, please contact the Open Access team.

Free webinar Wednesday 29th March: Developing capability and capacity – releasing nurses’ research potential

Free webinar: Developing capability and capacity – releasing nurses’ research potential

Registration is now open for a webinar placing the spotlight on the importance of nurse leadership in developing capacity and capability in research. Join Professor Mark Radford, Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England, two experienced nurse researchers and a highly skilled nurse leader in the field of research and innovation, who will showcase initiatives and activity in support of developing research capability and capacity in nursing. Book your place: Developing capability and capacity – releasing nurses’ research potential Tickets, Wed 29 Mar 2023 at 15:00 | Eventbrite

Would you like to get more involved in preparing our next REF submission?

REF Subjects

We are currently recruiting to a number of roles to help support preparation for our next REF submission. The deadline for expressions of interest is the 30th March 2023.

Further information is outlined below…

The roles are recruited through an open and transparent process, which gives all academic staff the opportunity to put themselves forward. Applications from underrepresented groups (e.g. minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome.

We are currently preparing submissions to thirteen units (otherwise known as UOAs). Each unit has a leadership team with at least one leader, an output and impact champion. The leadership team are supported by a panel of reviewers who assess the research from the unit. This includes research outputs (journal articles, book chapters, digital artefacts and conference proceedings) and impact case studies.

We currently have vacancies in the following roles:

Impact Champion –

17 – Business and Management Studies

Review Panel Members –

14 – Geography and Environmental Studies

32 – Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory (Academic year 2023/24 onwards)

All roles require a level of commitment which is recognised accordingly with time to review, attend meetings, and take responsibility for tasks.

Undertaking a UOA role can be enjoyable and rewarding as two of our current champions testify:

“As UOA Outputs Champion you develop a detailed knowledge of all the great work that colleagues are doing related to the subject, and the different outlets used for disseminating their work.  As an outputs committee member, you also get to know what research is going on across BU, and it’s interesting to see the differences between disciplines.  It’s a good way develop your knowledge of the bigger picture of BU’s research, and also to understand the importance of REF and how it works in practice.  You do spend quite a bit of time chasing colleagues to put their outputs on BRIAN for REF compliance but hopefully they forgive you!”

Professor Adele Ladkin – UOA 24 Output Champion

“As a UoA 17 impact champion, I work closely with the UoA 17 impact team to encourage the development of a culture of impact across BUBS. I try to pop into Department / research group meetings when I can to discuss impact, and I’ve enjoyed meeting people with a whole range of research interests. Sometimes it can be tough to engage people with impact – understandably; everyone is busy – so it’s important to be enthusiastic about the need for our BU research to reach the public. Overall, the role is about planting the seeds to get researchers thinking about the impact their work might have in the future (as well as the impact they have already had, sometimes without realising!)”

Dr Rafaelle Nicholson – UOA 17 Impact Champion

 How to apply

All those interested should 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. These should be clearly marked with the relevant role and unit and emailed to ref@bournemouth.ac.uk by 30th March 2023.

Further detail on the roles, the process of recruitment and selection criteria can be found here:

UOA Leader Output Champion Impact Champion Panel Reviewer
Role Descriptor Role Descriptor Role Descriptor Role Descriptor
Process and criteria for selection Process and criteria for selection Process and criteria for selection Process and criteria for selection

For further information please contact ref@bournemouth.ac.uk, a member of current UOA Team or your Deputy Dean Research and Professional Practice with queries.

Reminder: International Care Network to present at Community Voices webinar March 8th 12-1pm

March’s webinar welcomes Rachael Sawers from International Care Network. ICN is a local charity providing support and advice services to refugees, asylum-seekers and vulnerable migrants in the BCP and Dorset LA areas. Rachael manages the Resettlement Support services (working with Syrian, Afghan and Ukrainian families) as well as coordinating community activities for vulnerable women and their families, such as conversation groups, English lessons, homework clubs and key working.

Community voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.

Please do join us for this webinar….

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SaferKids VR launch

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Industry collaboration, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Before the pandemic, local school children had a local facility near Wallisdown called SafeWise. SafeWise supported children learning about keeping safe and in particular road safety. However, during the pandemic this facility closed, leaving children without such an important resource. In collaboration with Colin Parnell from Centre VR, Dr Sarah Hodge (from the Department of Psychology) was awarded a bid by Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) Council to develop a VR simulation/game about road safety skills; SaferKids VR.

The educational simulation/game was designed and created, with an interdisciplinary team, including psychologists, and game developers and programmers. The team of game developers and programmers, consisted of two BU graduates Sam Walsh and Josh Maddocks, as well as Andrew Ham. Since graduating from his Masters degree, Sam has led the team on the SaferKids VR development.

Within SaferKids VR, there was the creation of SKIE: Safer Kids Interactive Expert (robot pictured above). SKIE supports the player in VR, navigating the friendly real-life interactive virtual world and achieving learning goals and road safety skills. In the United States, every year, thousands of people are injured as a result of someone else’s negligence. You can read this article to know what to do if you ever get into an accident.

Schools can sign up for their pupils to be involved. 

For more information on the project please see the link https://centrevr.co.uk/saferkidsvr/ or contact shodge@bournemouth.ac.uk