Category / REF Subjects

ESRC: Miracles in the mundane: hitchhiking and micro-adventures

Events, Impact

As as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2017, organised by Bournemouth University, I ran an event about hitchhiking and micro-adventures. You may wonder, when did the practice of hitchhiking need to be thought through social science. By inviting six speakers (hitchhikers and social scientists) to Bournemouth University, we spent 3 hours thinking with and through hitchhiking and micro adventures to explore the modern experiences of passengering, ethical encounters, trust, the cost of speed and acceleration, driverless cars, social entrepreneurship, self-sufficiency, automobility and infrastructure. Other Topics Included –

  • Hitchhiking and the nature of being a passenger (agency, performances and resistance to standardized categories);
  • Contrasted affects, bodies and emotions of being on the road;
  • Role of media and social media in accessibility, inclusion, and diversity of micro adventures;
  • Systems, technologies and practices linked to friction/ frictionless travel;
  • The move back towards so-called ‘active’ and human powered mobility cultures that gives value to turbulence, friction, risk and the social exchange they engender;
  • The future of hitchhiking.
  • The role of gender, race, class, age and sexuality and other social and intersectional relationships of domination at play;
  • Understanding and potentially overcoming physical, mental, emotional barriers to microadventures;
  • Hitchhiking as Sustainable, Subversive Mobilities, Slow Mobilities;

Poster for the Event

The speakers
– Antonin Borgnon, an hitchhiker and photographer spoke about his project “Art of Hitchhiking.”
– Anick-Marie Bouchard is a travel blogger specialized in Hitchhiking, Female Solo Travel, and spoke about putting adventure back into ones life, even without having to travel far.
– Patrick Laviolette, PhD spoke about the recurrent material and bodily techniques employed in hitching a lift. He’s presentation also touched on certain cross-cultural points of comparison between the decline of hitching in the West versus its persistence in Eastern Europe.
– Max Neumegen spoke about his life of travel, and what travel and adventure means to him.
– Ali Hussain spoke about his experiences as a non-white hitchhiker and solo male across different regions, Ali spoke about his  relationship with money in a money-centric culture and hitchhiking as a values-oriented practice rather than as a means to an end.
– Dego from Glasgow, who has been hitchhiking for 30 years, spoke about hitchhiking as central to his lifestyle and work.

Ali Hussain presenting.

 
Some signs from the event” Miracles in the Mundane: hitchhiking and micro-adventures” held last  Saturday,

This event was FREE to attend, and was superbly supported by Natt & Devon at the University. The event was attended by approx. 20 people and was shown LIVE on twitter and Facebook. The experience of been part of the ESRC festival of Social Science was a very positive one.  It has provided a public engagement opportunity, helped me engage with new research partners, and provided more inside into an under researched phenomenon. It has also led to discussions about organizing an event with similar topic areas in 2018.

 

Organizer Michael O’Regan, Faculty of Management

 

For further information please contact FestivalofSocialScience@bournemouth.ac.uk or please visit the event website at nomadx.org

The slow process from public health research to law

Featured, Impact, international, policy, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

We know that public health works and thinks long-term. We’ll typically see the population benefits of reducing health risks such as tobacco use, obesity and high alcohol intake in ten or twenty years’ time.  But we often forget that preceding public health research into the determinants of ill health and the possible public health solutions is also slow working.  Evidence-based public health solutions can be unpopular with voters, politicians or commercial companies (or all).  Hence these take time to get accepted by the various stakeholders and make their way into policies.

I was, therefore, glad to see that Scotland won the Supreme Court case today in favour of a minimum price for a unit of alcohol. As we know from the media, the court case took five years.  Before that the preparation and drafting of the legislation took years, and some of the original research took place long before that.  Together with colleagues at the Health Economic Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, the University of York and Health Education Board for Scotland, we conducted a literature review on Effective & Cost-Effective Measures to Reduce Alcohol Misuse in Scotland as early as 2001 [1].  Some of the initial research was so long ago it was conducted for the Scottish Executive, before it was even renamed the Scottish Government.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

Research started years ago! Ludbrook et al.(2002) Effective & Cost-Effective Measures to Reduce Alcohol Misuse in Scotland: Lit Review, HERU, Univ. of Aberdeen. [ISBN: 0755932803] http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/1124/0052548.pdf

Upcoming conference: Rethinking the Business to Business (B2B) label

BU research, Business Engagement, conferences, Events, Research communication, Research news, Research themes

B2B marketing is an important sector in social sciences and relevant to many academics and practitioners. The B2B label has become out-dated; lacks focus, clarity and accuracy as a descriptive classification; and fails to inspire interest and enthusiasm. This event calls on marketers to rethink the B2B label by engaging relevant stakeholders: researchers, practitioners and educators, in an in-depth conversation on what B2B means today.

4th B2B colloquium – welcome talk by Dr Kaouther Kooli

Led by Dr Kaouther Kooli academics from the Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management (BU) and Professor Merlin Stone from St Mary’s University are co-organising a conference aimed at rethinking the Business to Business label. This event calls on marketers to rethink the B2B label by engaging relevant stakeholders: researchers, practitioners and educators, in an in-depth conversation on what B2B means today.

4th B2B colloquium – parallel session

The conference is taking place on 18thDecember 2017 at St Mary’s University Twickenham. The half day event will engage the B2B community (researchers, practitioners and educators) in an in-depth conversation on B2B marketing with the aim to define what B2B is and exchange new ideas about how to advance academic and practitioner thinking in this area.

Guest speakers include Professor Merlin Stone, Professor Len Tiu Wright (University of Huddersfield) and a senior B2B practitioner.

Round tables will be facilitated by Dr Kaouther Kooli, Dr Julie Robson and Dr Elvira Bolat, all of Bournemouth University and specialists in B2B marketing. A detailed programme can be downloaded in here.

Attendance is free. We are welcoming all academics, PhD candidates, UG and PG students as well as practitioners.

If you wish to attend, please confirm your attendance via email at merlin.stone@stmarys.ac.uk

Location: St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. For instructions about getting to St Mary’s, see https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/contact/directions.aspx.

In that past three years, the B2B SIG (Academy of Marketing) has published two special issues in Journal of Customer Behaviour and Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, featuring academic and practitioners’ research. At the moment Dr Kaouther Kooli is preparing new special issue for the Journal of Business to Business Marketing. If you wish to benefit from such amazing publishing and networking opportunities, do become a member of the SIG by emailing at kkooli@bournemouth.ac.uk or ebolat@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Exploring Plankton Diversity in Southampton Water

BU research, student research

Undergraduate students in the department of Life and Environmental Sciences investigated the diversity of phytoplankton and zooplankton in Southampton water as part of their third-year Biological Oceanography module. Using the research vessel RV Callista at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), samples were collected at 5 locations, or “stations”, between Calshott and the Itchen River. Environmental data was collected at each station using an array of sensors, measuring parameters such as temperature, salinity, chlorophyll and oxygen concentration. Phytoplankton were collected at two depths at each site, representing deep and shallow water. Zooplankton was caught using a plankton net, with a 120µm mesh to catch zooplankton in the net. These samples were subsequently analysed back at the university.

Trawls and grab samples were also used to investigate the benthic (bottom dwelling) communities living on the seabed and to analyse the oxygen conent of the sediment. Benthic animals found included starfish, fish such as gobies and flounders, cuttlefish, crabs and ‘moss animals’ (bryozoans).

Back at BU, the phyto- and zooplankton samples were analysed using microscopy. A variety of diatoms and dinoflagellates were found in the phytoplankton samples, and barnacle larvae, copepods and the larvae of marine worms were found in the zooplankton samples. Microbes too small to be seen under the microscope were counted using flow cytometry, a technique used to identify cyanobacteria and other minute cells.

The study demonstrated the great diversity of planktonic and benthic life in Southampton water, and highlighted the importance of monitoring and understanding the microscopic life of the sea since the microscopic life , as the base of the food web, is crucial in sustaining the larger and better understood forms of marine life.

 

 

 

 

BU welcomes the ERASMUS+ Research Team

BU research, EU

On the 25th-27th October 2017, Dr Ben Hicks (Psychology and ADRC) and Professor Wen Tang (Department of Creative Technology) welcomed the ERASMUS+ project team to Bournemouth University. The team consisted of practitioners based at Alzheimer’s Valencia, Alzheimer’s Greece, Alzheimer’s Slovenia, Alzheimer’s Romania and IBV. Since October 2016, thanks to funding from the European Commission, the team has been developing an e-training platform to promote the use of Serious Games with people with dementia. This meeting-the third since the project began- enabled the research team to present the work they had been undertaking within their associated countries and discuss the next stages of the project. This included:

  • Selecting and evaluating a range of Serious Games with people with dementia and their care partners;
  • Creating guidance information on using the Serious Games; and
  • Developing training materials for health practitioners wishing to use the e-training platform

The e-training platform is beginning to take shape, although the training materials are not yet publically available. If you would like to access the web platform it can be found at: http://adgaming.ibv.org/

Although the meetings were long (and the discussions incredibly fruitful), the research team still had time to visit BU facilities and live the student experience for a day. This included having lunch within the Fusion Building canteen, undertaking Virtual Reality Navigational testing within the Psychology labs and buying two-for-one pints in Dylans at the end of the day!

The next project meeting will take place in Bucharest, Romania, in February 2018, where plans to disseminate and evaluate the training delivered to health practitioners will be discussed.

Welcoming the research team

The meetings begin

Experiencing student life at Dylans

Natalia Adamczewska joins the HEIF-6 Virtual Learning Environment project

Awarded & submitted bids, HEIF

Recently, I was fortune enough to become the Research Assistant on the HEIF-6 project run by Dr Ben Hicks. This is a one year project that aims to develop and evaluate a free Virtual Learning Environment tool that will support practitioners and care home staff wishing to use commercial gaming technology (iPads, Nintendo Wii) with people with dementia and their care partners. We have a number of experts involved in the research, such as Dr Samuel Nyman from Psychology Department and ADRC, Professor Wen Tang from Department of Creative Technology, Dr Sarah Thomas who is Deputy Director BUCRU and Dr Clare Cutler who is Research Skills and Development Officer. We also collaborate with Alive! who are a charity dedicated to improving the lives of older people and people with dementia through delivering innovative activities (e.g. the use of technology) and training dementia care practitioners. They work with 350 Care Homes and Day Centers across the South West of England and we are lucky to have Malcolm Burgin onboard who as the Regional Manager of Alive!.

 

Being part of such a research team, and having the chance to contribute to the HEIF-6 project is a great privilege and will certainly be beneficial as I begin my journey as an early career researcher.

If you would like further information on the project, please feel free to email Ben on bhicks@Bournemouth.ac.uk

 

NIHR Grant Applications Seminar & Support event – last chance to book

BU research, Events

 

 

 

 

Are you planning to submit a grant application to NIHR?

Research Design Service South West (RDS-SW) are holding a one day event on 9 November 2017 at Plymouth Science Park, Devon.

Last few days to book!

The events consists of:

  • a morning seminar session which is open to anyone to come and RDS advisers give presentations on what makes a good grant proposal.
  • an afternoon support session of one-to-one appointments which is for those who would like to discuss their own proposal with an RDS adviser. Those interested in this opportunity will be asked to supply in advance a brief description of their project idea.

Registration is FREE and lunch will be provided. Places are limited and will be allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. In order to secure a place at one of these events, delegates will need to complete the online registration form by 1pm 30 October 2017. One-to-one appointments need to be booked in advance by selecting the appropriate option on the registration form.

You can find out more here

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

FHSS student needs help with online questionnaire for her research

BU research, PG research, Research communication, student research

Our PhD student Orlanda Harvey is currently conducting her study on why people use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS).  Since steroid use is a sensitive topic and its users are a hard-to-reach population we need as much help as we can get to get her survey distributed to as many as possible potential steroid users (aged 18 and over).  We, as her PhD supervisors, would like to ask you to alert friends, family, neighbours, health care professionals working with this target group, etc. to the existence of this survey.   Her questionnaire is available in paper version (from harveyo@bournemouth.ac.uk or telephone Edwin van Teijlingen at: 01202-961564).  However, the easiest and most anonymous way would be for people to complete it online using the following online link.

 

Thank you very much in advance!

Dr. Margarete Parrish

Dr. Steven Trenoweth

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

Congratulations to James Palfreman-Kay

BU Challenges, Featured academics, humanities, innovation, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized

Congratulations to BU’s Equality and Diversity Adviser James Palfreman-Kay whose application to HEFCE’s ‘Catalyst Fund: Tackling hate crime and online harassment on campus‘ has been successful.  He is one of 40 academic recipients of funding at universities and colleges throughout England.  Applications have been  assessed by a panel of HEFCE staff and external experts from across relevant areas of knowledge particular to student safeguarding.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

Hidden Microbes in Christchurch House “Pond”

BU research, Featured academics, Research news, Student Engagement, student research

Microscopic investigations of water samples from the half-barrel pond in Christchurch House courtyard have revealed a menagerie of single-celled life. These tiny organisms (smaller than one tenth of a millimetre) are incredibly important as they form the basis of food webs.  They also play a major role in maintaining water quality as they feed on bacteria, and stalked species such as Vorticella (image) are responsible for their removal in waste-water treatment plants.  The half-barrel “pond” may be almost as small as its inhabitants but it promises to become a treasure of local ‘hidden’ biodiversity!

For further information please contact Genoveva F. Esteban gesteban@bournemouth@ac.uk, Jack Dazley i7447079@bournemouth.ac.uk, or Damian Evans devans@bournemouth.ac.uk

SAIL Project Team Meeting

BU research, EU, Events, Knowledge Exchange, Research news, Uncategorized

Last week, Prof Ann Hemingway,  Prof Adele Ladkin  and Dr Holly Crossen-White joined European research colleagues in Ostend, Belgium for a SAIL Project bi-annual team meeting. Over two days  all research partners from four different European countries had the opportunity to share their initial research data from pilot projects being developed within each country for older people. The BU team will be undertaking the feasibility study for the SAIL project and will be drawing together all the learning from the various interventions created by the other partners.