Category / REF Subjects

2023-24 Missing Persons Indicator Cohort begins work

Awarded & submitted bids, Student Engagement, student research

A team of 10 LLB Law students from across all levels is collating data on a pro bono basis on international, knowledge exchange project.

 

The Missing Persons Indicator Project is a collaboration between the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) and Bournemouth University, with students at the heart of the project. Through students’ voluntary extra-curricular engagement, they are gathering data for sustained, high quality indicators and analysis. At the same time, participation equips students with a plethora of transferable skills and valuable research experience while contributing to a real-life societal problem with the overarching aim of alleviating missing persons cases.

So here’s a massive thank you to our student researcher cohort of 2023-24:

  • Angel Beaumont
  • Arman Ali
  • Maisie Lee
  • Lola Jones
  • Suzie Moore
  • Jazz White
  • Poppy Holland
  • Jasmin Sidhu-Bansal
  • Lydia Gee
  • Siobhan McClatchey

The data collated will help better understand the way states engage with, and seek to solve, missing persons cases, thereby assisting those involved in missing persons efforts. The collation and analysis of data will have a dual purpose: (1) to highlight missing persons protection and investigation mechanisms for improved implementation but also to (2) assist in prevention efforts. The development of indicators offers a way to capture the necessary data whilst facilitating analysis and comparison.

Findings to date will form part of the forthcoming ICMP Global Report and we will present the project rationale, methodology, data analysis and visualisation at the online Social Data School in December as part of the University of Cambridge Digital Humanities initiatives. Over the past two academic years and through the help of dedicated students on staff (Dr David Biggins from BUBS; Melissa Bowden from the Library and Dr Jonathan Whittle in H&L), on structural indicator 1 alone, some 12,288 data entry points have been populated.

The missing persons indicator project team has developed a robust platform and methodology for continued data collation. We are really pleased and grateful to continue on this path to complete the data set for structural and context indicators.

Social Work and Social Policy Academics – Would you like to get more involved in preparing our next REF submission?

REF Subjects, Research assessment

Logo for REF2028

We are currently recruiting to a number of roles to help support preparation for our next REF Submission to Social Work and Social Policy. The deadline for expressions of interest is the 4 December 2023. 
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 –

20 – Social Work and Social Policy 

Output Champion – 

20 – Social Work and Social Policy  x2

Review Panel Members –

20 – Social Work and Social Policy 

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 4 December 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.

Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education

Fusion, Industry collaboration

“What journalism should we teach?” “How can the academy drive and lead change in practice?” These questions run like a red thread through a new publication produced by a collective of BU academics. Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education (Routledge) draws on original and innovative contributions from educators, practitioners and students – including BU alumni. Its aim: to inform our understanding of journalism pedagogy in the context of ongoing shifts in journalism practice that often run deeper than merely technological change. Some observers describe journalism as broken – accused of elitism and often branded as too far removed from the reality of people’s lives. Beleaguered by a persistent crisis of trust, journalists and journalism are often portrayed as core to the problem, rather than the solution. Inclusivity remains an urgent issue with news organisations and industry councils, such as the National Council for the Training of Journalists intensifying protocols in a bid to create more diverse newsrooms.

Against this background, Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education engages with a series of key themes and objectives: These include discussions around safeguarding, sustainability, journalism’s ‘democratic deficit’, integrating media literacy, podcasting and the ‘post-pandemic’ context. Each chapter draws on a research-informed approach: primary data, case studies and examples to describe and unpack the topic, and concludes with practical suggestions for journalism educators. The core tenet is the importance of listening — to the voices of students, the requirements of industry and to each other.

The book is accompanied by a podcast, in which the chapter authors expand on the final section of the book – Reflections. “ Journalists don’t often have time to reflect on their practice” says the book’s editor, Professor Karen Fowler-Watt “their work is tomorrow’s ‘fish and chip wrapper’ – so it was refreshing to have the time and space to discuss with each other the findings of our chapters and our own thoughts about the process of writing this book”. The book concludes with a Manifesto for Change, drawn up by the authors — it is intended to spark a conversation within and between industry and the academy.

The podcast (deftly edited by Jason Hallett) also includes the findings of a ‘call and response’ exercise with final year students of BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism. Each chapter author devised a question for the students to debate and produce a call to action in response – this exercise was discussed further with journalism.co.uk. Senior reporter Jacob Grainger devoted the latest podcast to an interview with Karen Fowler-Watt, who is a former BBC journalist, about the book project, the students’ responses and ways of growing the next generation of journalists. They also discuss how journalism schools and news organisations can work together towards the shared goal of producing journalists that are ready to hit the ground running in industry. Never has this been more important than now – the conversation is only just beginning!


Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education is published by Routledge.
Editor: Karen Fowler-Watt
Chapter authors – Members of the Journalism Education Research Group (JERG):
Andrew Bissell; Jaron Murphy; Graham Majin; David Brine; Michael Sunderland; Jo Royle; Max Mauro and Julian McDougall; Fiona Cownie; De-Graft Mensah (BBC Newsround presenter and BU alumnus); Daniel Henry (ITV News reporter).

The 2 part podcast: I Challenges and II New Directions is available under ‘Support Materials’ for the book.
The journalism.co.uk podcast is available here.

The Success of CuttingGardens2023 Conference

conferences

Last week saw the great success of the CuttingGardens2023 conference (16-19 October 2023). This was a globally distributed and hybrid conference on cutting-edge EEG/MEG methods with 800+ attendees. The event was globally coordinated by the CuttingEEG Association, and locally hosted by 21 gardens in 15 countries across Europe, Asia, and North and South Americas. Bournemouth University hosted a local Bournemouth Garden as part of this global event. This was chaired by Dr Xun He (also a member of the global organising committee) and the Multimodal Immersive NEuro-sensing (MINE) Research Cluster.

The conference had a series of plenary (global) talks on topics of theoretical advances, real-time processing and classification, reproducible analyses, and deep neural networks. These plenary talks were globally broadcasted to all gardens. Our Bournemouth Garden hosted a plenary speaker (Hubert Banville from Meta) on deep neural networks in the afternoon of Thursday, 19 October. Our local discussion on the plenary talks was so lively and critical, that very often our questions were among the top-voted online. Our attendees also enjoyed a thought-provoking, interactive, and friendly local programme. Following BU’s research expertise, they got a chance to visit the MINE Research Cluster and the EEG-eye tracking co-registration labs, and greatly advanced their knowledge and skills in these research fields through talks and tutorials. Our sponsors, ANT Neuro UK (EEG equipment producer) and TG0 (tactile sensing devices producer), also showed great support and delivered excellent demonstrations showcasing the most recent technical advancement.

The full support from the Faculty of Science and Technology (represented by Prof Christos Gatzidis) was extraordinarily reassuring, without which the conference would not have taken place. FST’s Deputy Dean, Dr Carly Stewart, also delivered the welcome note for the conference.

Our great success could not have been possible without the very enthusiastic and dedicated work of the best team. They truly deserve a loud round of applause! They are:

Bournemouth Garden organising committee (over 15 months from July 2022 to October 2023): Xun He (Chair), Ellen Seiss, Andrew Hanson, Marina Kilintari, Ruijie Wang, Federica Degno, and Biao Zeng (University of South Wales, visiting fellow of BU)

Local speakers: Federica Degno, Andrew Hanson, Otto Loberg, Géza Gergely Ambrus, Xun He

MINE Research Cluster visit hosts: Fred Charles, Ellen Seiss, Andrew Hanson, Xun He

EEG-eye tracking co-registration lab visit hosts: Federica Degno, Otto Loberg

Broadcasting support: Elliott Roch

Assistants: Damla Kuleli, Toby Denholm-Smith

 

Some team members and speakers in the summer of 2023 (from left to right: Andrew Hanson, Ellen Seiss, Xun He, Federica Degno, Ruijie Wang, Marina Kilintari, Otto Loberg)

 

Registration desk (from left to right: Xun He, Andrew Hanson, Toby Denholm-Smith, Damla Kuleli)

 

Carly Stewart (FST’s Deputy Dean) delivering the welcome note

 

Poster session

 

Discussion after a plenary talk

 

Enjoying the conference dinner at a vegan restaurant

 

Ellen Seiss hosting the lab visit to MINE Cluster

 

Fred Charles hosting the lab visit to MINE Cluster

 

Géza Gergely Ambrus giving a workshop talk

 

Federica Degno giving a workshop talk

 

Xun He giving a workshop talk

 

Our locally hosted plenary speaker, Hubert Banville (from Meta AI), was giving a plenary talk

 

The cheerful and ambitious conference cohort

Research by BU academic on NFTs, Blockchain and IP law cited in Parliamentary Report

Fusion themes, innovation, REF Subjects

A report on ‘NFTs and the Blockchain: the risks to sport and culture’ recently published by the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMSC) cites research by Bournemouth University’s (BU’s) Professor Dinusha Mendis.

The report follows the consultation that was conducted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in November 2022 and outlines how Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and blockchains should be tackled in the future, particularly in relation to art and culture; professional sport and advertising.

In relation to intellectual property rights (IPRs), the report cites copyright infringement, limited recourse and redress (for consumers and creators), the scale of infringement, consumer confusion and the inflexibility of transferring IP as the main issues that needs consideration.

In responding to these issues, the report cites the research by Prof. Mendis calling for more protection for consumers and creators as a result of rising IP infringements, scams and frauds. The report also identifies the unique nature of NFTs and blockchains and cites Prof. Mendis’ research in demonstrating how current laws – such as ‘notice and takedown’ or ‘the right to be forgotten’ – which apply in other circumstances relating to piracy and counterfeiting, may not necessarily apply to online marketplaces. As such, the report recommends a code of conduct to be adopted by online platforms dealing with NFTs.

The hype surrounding NFTs was short-lived and in mid-2022, investors saw a collapse in the NFT market. However, as the report states, “cryptoassets such as NFTs continue to have advocates … [and] even if NFTs never again reach the peak they achieved over the last few years, areas of concern [in relation to regulation] remain”.

As such, based on the research presented in this report relating to intellectual property, the CMSC recommends that the “Government engages with NFT marketplaces to address the scale of infringement and enable copyright holders to enforce their rights”. In relation to sports, the report identifies the financial risks and harm which NFTs present to fans and the reputational harm it presents to clubs and recommends that “any measurement of fan engagement in sports, including in the forthcoming regulation of football, should explicitly exclude the use of fan tokens”.

Finally, in relation to advertising, and once again citing the research by Prof. Mendis, the report recommends that the Government respond to misleading and/or fraudulent advertising for NFTs.

For further information and for the full report, please see here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41611/documents/205745/default/

Media coverage BU’s kidney research in Nepal

international

This week Bournemouth University organised two dissemination events for our risk of kidney disease study in Nepalese migrant workers in the Middle East and Malaysia.  A previous blog reported on the first event in the capital Kathmandu (see details here!) .  These dissemination events have generated a loads of media coverage in Nepal, both in Nepali and in English. 

The study was led by Bournemouth University and a charity in Nepal which whom we have been collaborating for two decades, called Green Tara Nepal.  This important study, the first of its kind, was conducted among the Nepalese migrant workers and a comparison group of non-migrants from the same community.  This study was funded by The Colt Foundation, based in the UK. In the field it was supported by the Madhes Province Public Health Laboratory, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration and University College London (UCL).

Dr Pramod Raj Regmi (Principal Academic in International Health in Bournemouth University’s Department of Nursing Sciences) is the lead researcher and our team further comprises researchers Dr Nirmal Aryal and Prof Edwin van Teijlingen (both from BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences), and in Nepal clinicians: Prof Dr Arun Sedhai, Dr Radheshyam KC and Dr Shrawan Kumar Mishra.

 

 

 

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

International Composer Residencies for BU academic

I was recently selected for two composer residencies in Sweden, first at Elektronmusik Studion (EMS), Stockholm (June 2023), and then at Studio Alpha, Visby International Centre for Composers (VICC), Visby, Sweden (September 2023). Both studios feature immersive multichannel surround sound systems of extremely high quality, enabling me to explore in-depth the compositional possibilities of spatial audio. 

Studio 2 at EMS Stockholm

Studio Alpha at Visby International Centre for Composers

During these residencies I was able to focus on the use of ambisonic sound. Ambisonic sound is used in many areas of the creative industries, such as music and sound recording, music creation, cinema and TV sound design, and game audio. The format allows for spatial audio ‘environments’ to be created within a virtual listening space using computer software, positioning and moving individual sounds around the listening area. Most significantly, this spatial audio can then be decoded for any playback system – from binaural for earbuds, conventional stereo, and on to immersive audio systems of 64 loudspeakers or more, yet always retaining the composed spatial image.

This scalability of ambisonic sound makes it extremely flexible when presenting immersive audio work in different venues of different sizes, and with different loudspeaker layouts. At EMS, I was able to work using their 15.1 Genelec sound system, which features an array of ceiling loudspeakers, as shown in the photo.

These residencies gave me fantastic opportunities to commence composing new electroacoustic work whilst exploring the ambisonic technique in-depth, using a variety of software tools in different music studio environments.

Ambrose Seddon, Department of Creative Technology and EMERGE