BU Research Blog

29 April 2015

New paper by Dr. Mastoureh Fathi

Congratulations to Mastoureh Fathi for her latest paper: “I Make Here My Soil. I Make Here My Country” in Political Psychology.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

28 April 2015

NIHR Panels and Boards are Recruiting

Funding opportunities Dianne Goodman

NIHR research programme boards and panels select the most important research questions to commission, and make funding recommendations on project applications.

They are looking for additional expertise for the boards or panels of the following programmes:

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme
NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research (HS&DR) Programme
NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme

For more information please see: Opportunities to influence Health Research

20 April 2015

Yawning in Dubai with Dr Simon Thompson

Fusion, Grants Academy, Knowledge Exchange, Post-award Simon Thompson

At the International conference

Yawning has now been linked with cortisol following a series of trials at Bournemouth University [1], and following evidence from other researchers that have found temperature fluctuations in the brains of people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

I am leading the fMRI study in collaboration with French neuroscientists as part of the International Scientific Council for Research into Multiple Sclerosis, and hope to develop a new biomarker for the early detection of MS.

I was delighted with the response to my recent talk at the XIII International Conference on Psychology and Psychiatry in Dubai which was attended my neuroscientists, neurologists and health professionals. Hopefully, findings from the study will benefit people with MS in terms of early treatment interventions in the future.

Dubai’s famous landmark, Burj Al Arab, in the distance

Reference

1. Thompson, S.B.N., 2015. Health psychology intervention – identifying early symptoms in neurological disorders. International Science Index, 17(4), XXIII, 2639-2643.

2 April 2015

Publishing an academic book in a low-income country

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Earlier this year our book ‘The Dynamics of Health in Nepal’ was published by Himal Books for Social Science Baha in Kathmandu.¹It is an edited collection covering a range of current health topics in Nepal, including issues such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, sexual health, road traffic accidents, non-communicable diseases and the role of the media and migration.

One of us had published several books, with for example international publishers such as Elsevier, Routledge (part of Taylor Francis) and Oxford University Press.^2-4All editors authors are UK PhD graduates from the universities of Aberdeen (van Teijlingen), Southampton (Simkhada) and Sheffield (Wasti) respectively. All three of us were based in the UK at the time of conception of the book. Padam Simkhada was Senior Lecturer in International Health at the University of Sheffield, Edwin van Teijlingen still is professor at Bournemouth University and Sharada Prasad Wasti was a PhD student at ScHARR (University of Sheffield). So it made sense to talk to publishers in the UK, which is what we did. However, it rapidly became clear that we could get a deal for an expensive hardback book, a book which would sell way above what the average academic in Nepal could afford. After some soul searching we decided to look into getting the book published in Nepal.

One of the advantages of publishing Nepal is the same most outsourcing to low income-countries, namely it keeps the production costs down. Rather than increasing our profit margins by keeping the low production costs, as it the typical case in the global market, we used this to keep the retail price low. The book retails for 800NR (about £5.50) in Nepal which means it is affordable to academics and postgraduate students in Nepal. Similar books from international publishers sell for at least £20!

We had some trepidation about the potentially quality of the book before we signed the contract with Social Science Baha. These low expectations were based on the quality of printed text books we had seen for sale on small stalls outside the Kittipur Campus of Tribhuvan University. One of these shoddy looking books was based on lecturers given by our Nepalese colleague Prof. Dr. Bhimsen Devkota. When we passed one of these stalls many years ago he pointed at a particular book and said: “See that book, a student who had attended my lectures two years in a row, copied all I said, and the materials I handed out, all of it word for word. That student then got it published as a book.”

However, our expectations were wrong. From the outset the publishing process was impressive. Social Science Baha employed a very professional proof-reader/copy-editor who picked up a lot of minor style and language issues even after we had most of the chapters professionally proof-read in the UK. The classic example of the thoroughness of his checking was the name of one for the chapter contributors ‘Sally Woodes Rogers’, he came back to us and said, “But her name on the web pages of the University of Aberdeen is ‘Sarah’ not ‘Sally’, are you sure?” At which point we had to assure him that ‘Sarah’ was her correct birth name but that she wanted herself to be known as ‘Sally’.

The final version of our book looks very good. The cover is beautifully printed; the font, chapter lay-out and overall style are of a very high quality. Our book has the feel of a typical academic book published in Europe or North America. There is really nothing about it that says this book is published in a low-income country.

The book has been well received at its launch in Kathmandu in January 2015. The first published book review was also very complementary.⁵ Last but not least, having produced a great looking book, for us the final feel-good factor is that we agreed to donate all profits from the sale of the book to the charity Green Tara Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Prof. Padam Simkhada

Dr. Sharada P. Wasti

References:

Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.(eds.) (2015)The Dynamics of Health in Nepal,Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha&Himal Books
DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E., Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe,New York: Routledge.
Taylor R., Smith, B.,Teijlingen van, E. (eds.) (2003) Health & Illness in the Community: an Oxford Core Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alder, B. Abraham, C., van Teijlingen, E., Porter, M. (eds.) (2009) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (third edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier Science.
Pradhan S. (2015) Book review The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Public Health Perspective 5(2) on line journal: http://www.phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=943

26 February 2015

Thought leadership on welfare information and advice

Fusion, PG research, Public engagement aharding

The charity Elderly Accommodation Counsel, who run the national FirstStop information and advice network (that enables older people to become informed about housing and care issues and whom my PhD research is with), are in the latter stages of designing a ‘thought leadership’ blog.

As I’m sure you can all imagine, welfare is an area defined by information asymmetries and imperfect levels of information. In other words, it can be hard to make choices around welfare! However, despite this, over the last two decades or more, successive UK governments have pursued consumerist welfare policies that position consumer like choices as the means to access and engage with welfare. However, a great deal of people are relatively or very flawed welfare consumers. On this basis, seeking and being imparted with information and advice is an important mechanism toward making good quality and informed choices. The importance of information and advice around welfare has been acknowledged in the recent Care Act, which has made it mandatory for local authorities to provide information and advice on welfare issues (including housing). Yet, although information and advice is being positioned centre stage, it is a policy area that is devoid of much discussion or debate.

The aim of the blog is for it to become a vibrant place and forum for discussion, comment and analysis around key information and advice issues. The site is still under construction, but if anyone would be interested in contributing short blog pieces, on areas that you think are important, please do get in touch. We hope to get contributions from all sorts of people including academics, policy makers, practitioners etc…

My email address is aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk

23 January 2015

Reminder: Consumer Research Group Meeting No.3!!

Funding opportunities, PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes jmemery

The ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be holding its next meeting 2-4pm on Wednesday 28^th January in PG19. Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting. Discussions within this meeting will revolve around an outline of the vision/strategic plan for the CRG, as well as opportunities to initiate and progress collaborative research projects around the seven CRG themes. These all aim to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers. If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

19 January 2015

American Psychology Teaching Conference opens with beautiful sunrise

Knowledge Exchange Rachel Bowen

Dr. Jacqui Taylor, Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Bournemouth University recently presented and ran a workshop at the ‘National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology’, an annual conference for teachers of psychology to explore new ideas to enhance and broaden their teaching skills. Below, Dr. Taylor summarises her experience:

“I welcomed the New Year by presenting a poster and workshop at the 37^th Annual ‘National Institute on the Teaching Of Psychology’ in Florida. The first day dawned with a beautiful sunrise and an early 7:30 am breakfast session!

My poster ‘The Evaluation and Assessment of Online Skills Through Online Group Discussion’ stimulated lots of interaction from delegates who were mainly interested in my use of reflection as an assessment tool. Increasingly, much of a psychology student’s learning occurs within electronic environments, however rarely are the new skills they develop in these contexts identified, improved or assessed. Over the past 5 years, I have addressed this important need, and examples from assessed online student discussions were presented in my poster to demonstrate an innovative way to develop and assess online skills. I made some good contacts with other lecturers who were using quite different quantitative rubrics to assess technical skills and I look forward to developing links with them.

My second presentation was under a category called ‘Participant Idea Exchange (referred to as PIEs!)’ and consisted of a one-hour facilitated workshop session. My ‘PIE’ was on ‘Psychological Literacy: A Practical Approach’ and I presented with Dr Carolyn Mair (a past PGR and lecturer at BU). Psychological literacy is a new and important concept in psychology education which encapsulates the knowledge, skills and attributes acquired through the study of psychology and the ability to transfer learning from the academic setting into the real world. Despite an increasing number of academic and professional publications highlighting theoretical concepts and benefits of psychological literacy, there are few practical resources for psychology educators. This PIE addressed this need by discussing our two recent publications commissioned by the UK Higher Education Academy: ‘An Introductory Guide to Psychological Literacy’ (Mair, Taylor & Hulme, 2013) and ‘A Psychological Literacy Compendium’ (Taylor & Hulme, in prep).

As the sun set on this year’s conference there were promises from many delegates to collaborate and share their teaching practice throughout 2015 and meet once again at the 38^th ‘NITOP’ in 2016.”

13 January 2015

Ireland Yawns with Dr Simon Thompson

Fusion, Grants Academy, Public engagement Simon Thompson

Yawning is something we all find ourselves doing at different times of the day and on different occasions. For some of us, it becomes a big problem especially when we need keep awake and alert so that we can accomplish important tasks.

Even parachutists are encouraged to yawn before dropping out of a plane in order to stimulate the arousal system to maintain vigilance. Cortisol (Fig 1), the naturally produced stress hormone, is now established as co-existent with the yawning reflex and with new research showing that those who yawn have higher levels of salivary cortisol than those who do not yawn (1).

Fig 1. Cortisol molecule

A curious problem is the temperature fluctuation and fatigue levels of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) who excessively yawn. With a view to establishing cortisol patterns within the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, our natural stress feedback loop, centrally controlled deep within our brains, I am exploring how yawning might provide an important clue to diagnosis. Developing cortisol as a biomarker for early detection of neurological symptoms is the intended goal for research I am undertaking at Bournemouth University in collaboration with Université Paris X Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Hôpital Universitaire Amiens, Jules Verne Université de Picardie, Université Paris 8 St Denis, Université Paris 5 René Descartes, and the Clinical Research & Imaging Centre, University of Bristol.

It is hoped that people with MS may benefit with early treatment intervention that will be supported with professional care from the French and British MS Societies, Ligue Française contre la Sclérose en Plaques and the UK Multiple Sclerosis Society.

I was invited to discuss my research recently with Newstalk Irish National Radio broadcaster, Seán Moncrieff on the Moncrieff Show, 07 January 2015 (2). We feared that some listeners may in fact uncontrollably yawn but hopefully as a positive reaction to this intriguing subject!

References

1.
Thompson, S.B.N., Rose, K., Richer, S., 2014. Yawning with cortisol: examining the neuroscience behind the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis for supporting rehabilitation of neurologically impaired individuals. Journal of Neuroscience & Rehabilitation, 1(1), 1-11, doi: 2014.01.01/2374-9091: SS0003

2.
Moncrieff Show, 07 Jan 2015:
http://www.newstalk.com/player/listen_back/8/15549/07th_January_2015_Moncrieff_Part_3

5 January 2015

New Scientist Yawns! – Dr Simon Thompson

Fusion, Grants Academy, Public engagement, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy Simon Thompson

Why do we yawn? Dogs and cats make us yawn. We even yawn in the womb.

The first yawn of the day is usually when we awake to stretch our intercostal muscles surrounding our lungs to bring in more oxygen. Many of us recognise yawning as a sign of tiredness or boredom yet we also yawn before that important job interview. We contagiously yawn when our pets yawn and because we are empathetic towards another yawning human being. We even yawn in the womb.

As a member of the International Association for Research on Yawning, I have presented at the first international conference of neuroscientists and neurologists on yawning in Paris in 2010. Since then, I have been conducting research into this intriguing area and proposed the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis (1;2) to explain why the naturally produced stress hormone cortisol is released during yawning – a phenomenon never reported before.

Recently, I was delighted to be invited by the prestigious New Scientist to write a piece about this curiosity that affects all of us (3) and have received so much international interest that it has encouraged me to continue this pursuit with a view to its medical application.

I am also a member of the International Scientific Committee on Research into Multiple Sclerosis (MS) which is particularly relevant to yawning as people with MS often include fatigue and excessive yawning in their reported symptoms. Meeting in Paris recently with international collaborators from Paris X Ouest University and the French Multiple Sclerosis Society, I am conducting research into induced fatigue and MS and how these variables affect cortisol levels.

It is hoped this may point towards the development of a new diagnostic tool for the early diagnosis of MS using cortisol as a biomarker.

References

Thompson SBN. The dawn of the yawn: is yawning a warning? Linking neurological disorders. Medical Hypotheses 2010;75:630-633;doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2010.08.002.
Thompson SBN. 2011. Born to yawn? Cortisol linked to yawning: a new hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses 2011;77:861-862;doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2011.07.056.
Thompson SBN. This will make you yawn. New Scientist 2014;224(3000/3001):38-39.
Inset photo: Pynq Thompson, aged 28 days old.

Contact: simont@bournemouth.ac.uk

8 December 2014

News from the Consumer Research Group: The CR@B is dead … long live the CRG!!

PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes jmemery

The newly renamed ‘Consumer Research Group’ (formally known as CR@B (Consumer Research @ Bournemouth) … but now rebranded!) held its second meeting last week which again brought together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University for lively discussions around the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research (over coffee and mince pies!). The aim of the meeting was to begin to identify themes around which groups or clusters of consumer researchers could discuss potential collaborations and plan activities for the future. From the meeting seven themes were initially proposed (see diagram above), and whilst these may initially remain fluid, they offer great opportunity for further discussion. A notable outcome from this meeting was the variety of consumer research areas being explored at BU, and the number of potential linkages that could be made between different groups, across and between these themes, to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

The next meeting for the ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be 2-4pm on Wednesday 28^th January in PG19. Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting.

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers. If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

27 November 2014

Reminder For All Consumer Researchers – December Meeting of Consumer Research @ BU

smcdougall

Just over a month ago we held a very successful meeting bringing together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University. Our ‘Hands-On Information Sharing Session’ made it clear that there was tremendous potential for cross-disciplinary research and that as a united group we could not only act as a forum for research and ideas but also to provide a platform for interaction with industry.

This is a reminder that our next meeting is going to be held on:-

Wednesday, 3^rd December in CG01, Christchurch House between 3-5pm. [Please note the change in venue.]

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome (e.g. consumer behaviour, retail, marketing, advertising, psychology, consumer neuroscience …) and there will be coffee and mince pies to help our consumer thinking along.

At this meeting we will be begin to identify groups or clusters of researchers, to discuss potential collaborations, and discuss plans for the future.

So if you think this might be of interest, please do come along next Wednesday. If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

15 October 2014

Reminder For All Consumer Behaviour Researchers … A forum for discussion around CB research.

REF Subjects, Research themes jmemery

The study of consumer behaviour has always been a multi-disciplinary endeavour, so perhaps it is not too surprising that there are pockets of related research activity all around BU. These include consumer related research clusters in the Business School, the Media School, School of Tourism and Psychology. What is surprising is how little we are aware of each other’s work.

Given this the ICB research cluster are hosting a ‘Hands-on Information Sharing Session’ to provide a forum for discussion around CB research at BU. The session will provide an opportunity to meet others with similar research interests and learn more about the variety of consumer research being carried out across the University through brief research presentations, followed by discussions over refreshments to look for potential cross-discipline research opportunities.

Wherever you are in BU, if you think that you would like to be part of a forum aimed at developing a stronger research presence in this area please come along to a meeting over coffee and cakes ….

‘CB Hands-on Information Sharing Session’

Wednesday 22^nd October at 15:30 in TAG22, Talbot Campus.

Please could those wishing to attend let Juliet Memery know as soon as possible to ascertain likely numbers for catering purposes, and then send three Powerpoint slides (max) that briefly cover your research/interests in issues relating to consumer behaviour research to her by Monday 20^th October (email: jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

All welcome – we look forward to seeing you there!

12 October 2014

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

PG research, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.¹ The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal. These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital.²

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334. www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

8 October 2014

Cyber Security seminars for 2014-2015 start with a bang

Fusion Shamal Faily

Yesterday, we held the first of this academic year’s cyber security seminars. We hosted Dr John Lyle from Facebook, who spoke to a packed audience in the Barnes Lecture Theatre about some of the challenges fighting spam at Facebook. After his talk, John described how impressed he was with some of the thought provoking questions raised by audience.

Our next seminar will be on Tuesday, 25th November and will be delivered by Dr Andrea Atzeni from the Computer and Network Security group at Politecnico di Torino. Andrea will be visiting us that week as part of our Fusion funded Bournemouth European Network in Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS) project. Watch this space for more details about Andrea’s talk.

Our interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security is a wonderful opportunity to hear interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy. Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind. We’re also interested in ideas about possible speakers or seminar topics, so please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

24 September 2014

Calling All Consumer Behaviour Researchers … A forum for discussion around CB research.

Research themes jmemery

The study of consumer behaviour has always been a multi-disciplinary endeavour, so perhaps it is not too surprising that there are pockets of related research activity all around BU. These include consumer related research clusters in the Business School, the Media School, School of Tourism and Psychology. What is surprising is how little we are aware of each other’s work.

Given this the ICB research cluster are hosting a ‘Hands-on Information Sharing Session’ to provide a forum for discussion around CB research at BU. The session will provide an opportunity to meet others with similar research interests and learn more about the variety of consumer research being carried out across the University through brief research presentations, followed by discussions over refreshments to look for potential cross-discipline research opportunities.

Wherever you are in BU, if you think that you would like to be part of a forum aimed at developing a stronger research presence in this area please come along to a meeting over coffee and cakes ….

‘CB Hands-on Information Sharing Session’

Wednesday 22^nd October at 15:30 in TAG22, Talbot Campus.

Please could those wishing to attend let Juliet Memery know as soon as possible to ascertain likely numbers for catering purposes, and then send three Powerpoint slides (max) that briefly cover your research/interests in issues relating to consumer behaviour research to her by Monday 20^th October (email: jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

All welcome – we look forward to seeing you there!

3 September 2014

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visits to Universitat de València

Fusion bangele

Dr Bernhard Angele from the Faculty of Science and Technology has been awarded funding from the Santander strand of the Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships and collaborations with the Universitat de València (UV), Spain, a Santander Partner University. Bernhard has accepted an invitation by Professor Manuel Perea of the Faculty of Psychology and he will travel to Valencia on the September 15th for an initial three-day visit to give a talk, meet the members of Professor Perea’s research group, and set up a number of pilot studies.

Professor Perea will make a return visit to BU at the start of next year in order to present a talk here and meet with BU staff and postgraduates. Bernhard will make a second visit to Valencia in July 2015 and attend a symposium on Psycholinguistics hosted by the Faculty of Psychology. The primary goal of these visits will be to set up a research partnership and to initiate a number of pilot collaborative projects, which will involve both staff and postgraduate students at BU and UV. These pilot collaborations will establish a foundation for jointly seeking grant funding from the national and European research councils. Ultimately, these projects are hoped to lead to a long-term collaboration between the two universities, opening up possibilities for staff and student exchange as well as joint PhD supervision and making Universitat de València a partner in BU’s internationalisation effort.

UV is one of Spain’s leading academic institutions and was founded more than 500 years ago. Its 55,000 students are distributed across three campuses. The Faculty of Psychology is consistently ranked as one of the top three Psychology research centres nationally and one of the top 50 research centres in Europe. UV has a strong international orientation and participates in many international exchange programmes and networks.

For more information, please contact Bernhard Angele (bangele@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Image credit: “Universitat valència vella” by Felivet – Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

3 September 2014

Report on Fusion-funded internal secondment to BUDI

Fusion snyman

I was awarded Fusion funding to spend the last six months working in the BU Dementia Institute (BUDI) on an internal secondment. This time has come to an end and a formal report has been submitted reporting on how the objectives have all been achieved. Here I’d like to share what I personally found to be most useful from the secondment.

I had several tasks to complete over the six months but the bulk of my time was spent on writing research grant proposals. In particular, I took the lead on an application for a project to develop and validate a novel intervention to help older people with dementia who have recently experienced a fall-related injury (currently under review with the National Institute of Health Research, Health Technology Assessment programme). The secondment was invaluable for writing this proposal in two ways. First, the sheer volume of work to be completed in writing the proposal demanded many hours of my time. Second, there were several aspects I had to get to grips with during the proposal writing including NHS sponsorship, arrangements for intellectual property, involving patients in our decision-making, etc., that the secondment provided the ideal environment to master all of this. This was great not only for completing the proposal but gave me the tools to subsequently write a different proposal for a different funder very quickly to meet the tight deadline.

I would therefore recommend internal secondments to colleagues who may have interests relevant to institutes / research centres outside of their school. It provides an opportunity to contribute to BU outside your immediate school and an opportunity to develop tools to not only achieve the task at hand but take back with you and use after the life of the secondment.

Those interested in an internal secondment to contribute to BUDI’s research and / or education should contact Professor Innes in the first instance.

Dr Samuel Nyman

BUDI and Department of Psychology

22 August 2014

Yawning In Paris – Dr Simon Thompson

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Grants Academy, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Research themes Simon Thompson

I have taught at Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense on a number of occasions but I continue to be impressed by the enthusiasm and challenging questions the Master’s level students pose. Paris is rich with culture and the education system has many benefits. I am privileged to be part of a growing French research culture that respects skills and knowledge with cutting edge technology in neuroscience.

Sacre Coeur, roof-top; Gare du Nord, r.

Eiffel Tower, roof-top.

This complements my experience at Bournemouth University and has enabled me to collaborate on projects that face difficult challenges with respect to ethics and use of expensive technology, namely fMRI scanning. Functional Magnetic Resonance Scanning is notoriously expensive yet the benefits to clinical research are potentially huge.

Modernism - or the Aliens have landed!

My study on yawning and cortisol at Bournemouth University [1] has now includes collaboration with three prestigious centres in France: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Amiens University Hospital, University of Picardy Jules Verne.

I hope to continue my Anglo-French meetings with the assistance of the Erasmus Travel Scholarship scheme in the future, as well as with funding from the French Embassy and the French Multiple Sclerosis Society.

[1] Thompson, S.B.N., 2014. Yawning, fatigue and cortisol: expanding the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses. Doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2014.08.009.

Category / Psychology