Earlier this month (15 June) Dr. Samreen Ashraf, was cited in the newspaper The Guardian in an interesting article with title ‘Modest fashion’ headed for mainstream despite political hostility, say experts. The article recognizes that Dr. Samreen Ashraf pioneered UK research into modest fashion. The journalist reporting on this, Chris Osuh, cited Samreen as saying that the growth of modest fashion “was also driven by women’s desire to avoid objectification” and that “the market remained underserved, with issues around clear labeling from big brands and affordability with smaller suppliers”.
Samreen is Principal Academic in Marketing, the Bournemouth University’s Business School.
On World Refugee Day 2025, Friday 20 June, the new Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) website was launched. MIHERC is a hub for research, collaboration and action on maternal and infant health equity. MIHERC) is a collaborative effort between Sheffield Hallam University, Bournemouth University and City of Doncaster Council working to reduce health inequalities for mothers and babies. This year’s World Refugee Day’s theme, hashtag#Solidarity, reflects MIHERC’s mission to stand with all mothers and babies – especially those facing health and social inequalities or barriers to care.
Yesterday the online newspaper Online Khabar in Nepal published an opinion piece in English written by three Bournemouth University academics working with a colleague in Kathmandu. This interdisciplinary piece ‘Resilient through experiences: Unlocking the entrepreneurial prowess of Nepal’s left-behind women‘ brings together ideas gained from many different studies and disciplines. The three authors from Bournemouth University are: Dr. Sukanya Ayatakshi-Endow, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Dr. Pramod Regmi, and they collaborated with Dr. Rashmee Rajkarnikar who is based at Nepal’s oldest and largest university, Tribhuvan University. The four authors brings insights from economics, business studies, sociology, women’s studies, migration studies and health.
Yesterday (25 June) the online journal PLoS One published ‘Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal‘ our latest study on disability in Nepal [1]. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 28 municipalities representing all seven provinces as well as all three ecological regions of Nepal. A total of 1,294 women and girls with disability aged 15–59 years participated in 2021. We trained local enumerators using the KoBo application on smartphones or tablets. Both written and oral informed consent was sought from all participants. Cross-tabulations were performed in STATA 18 to determine the distribution of the prevalence of violence. Also, bivariable and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to establish association between the participants’ characteristics and odds of experiencing violence.
Overall, 457 (35.32%) women living with disabilities had ever experienced violence at a point in their lifetime. Psychological/emotional violence was the most prevalent violence (74.40%) followed by physical violence (31.07%) and denial of services (28.67%). Age was positively associated with the likelihood of experiencing violence. Women belonging to the Brahman/Chhetri ethnic group had reduced odds of violence [AOR = 0.56; 95%CI: 0.37–0.85] compared to Hill Dalits. Divorced or separated women showed a markedly higher likelihood of experiencing violence [AOR = 6.69; 95%CI: 2.31–19.40] compared to currently married women. Participants who had not witnessed violence against other women exhibited significantly higher odds of experiencing violence [AOR = 1.86; 95%CI: 1.20–2.89]. Women living in the Koshi province [AOR = 4.04; 95%CI: 2.54–6.42], Madhesh province [AOR = 2.16; 95%CI: 1.15–4.08] and Bagmati province [AOR = 2.21; 95%CI: 1.41–3.46] reported significantly higher odds of experiencing violence compared to those in Karnali.
The paper concludes oncludes that age, ethnicity, marital status, and provincial residence are significant predictors of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal. Interventions aimed at addressing violence against women living with disability in Nepal must prioritize older women and those who were previously married. Also, policy-makers may want to consider giving priority must be given to those provinces where the prevalence and risk of experiencing violence is highest.
The study was funded The United Nations Women Trust Fund, and the paper is freely available in the Open Access journal. We previously published on research into disability in Nepal in 2023 [2].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Visiting Faculty, Centre for Disability Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India.
This week the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Global Consortium for Public Health (GCPHR) takes place at the University of Huddersfield on June 25th-26th. GCPHR 2025 was attended by people involved in global health research from the UK, India, Nepal, Qatar, and Ghana. Building on the success of the 2023 inaugural two-day meeting and the second annual event in 2024, the 2025 meeting brought together a diverse community of health researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and global health leaders. This initiative has as its main aim to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, promote innovation, and strengthen international collaboration.
Bournemouth University academics have been involved since GCPHR’s inception, and this year Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) contributed to a panel discussion on ‘Innovating Tomorrow: National and Global Research in the Age of AI’. He presented around the pros and cons of Interdisciplinary Research in Global Health. Together with colleagues Edwin has published several papers on interdisciplinary research [1-3] and collaborative writing of research output with a range of colleagues from different disciplines [4-5].
Prof. Padam Simkhada from the University of Huddersfield (and Visiting Faculty in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences outlined the recently awarded British Academy grant on ‘Evidence-based Policy-Making in Nepal’. The latter project, which includes BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi as co-investigator, also has policy-makers in Nepal as collaborators, giving it great potential to become a REF Impact Case-Study.
References:
Shanker, S., Wasti, S.P., Ireland, J., Regmi, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) The Interdisciplinary Team Not the Interdisciplinarist: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Research, Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences3(2): 1-5. https://doi.org/10.46405/ejms.v3i2.317
van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019). Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward. Health Prospect, 18(1), 4-7. https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v18i1.19337
Wasti, S. P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2020) Public Health is truly interdisciplinary. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 6(1):21-22.
Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, A., Regmi, P.R., Ireland, J., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing, Health Prospect21(1):1-3. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/39320/31432
Hundley, V., Luce, A., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2022) Collaborative Writing for Publication, In: Wasti, S.P., et al. (Eds.) Academic Writing and Publishing in Health & Social Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books: 15-19.
Event Date and time: Tuesday, 15 July 2025, 1200-1600 GMT
Event Location: Bournemouth Gateway Building, St Pauls Lane, Bournemouth, BH8 8GP Room BG
(Refreshments and Lunch will be provided)
Join us to explore the use of Virtual Reality (VR) for training and evaluating dynamic risk assessment (DRA) in domiciliary care settings.
This stakeholder workshop will seek insights on the following research questions:
How does the domiciliary care sector and FE colleges currently train and assess their workforce/students to risk assess in a patient’s home?
How can a VR app be used by the domiciliary care sector and FE colleges to improve the learning and evaluation of dynamic risk assessment (DRA) skills?
To what extent can VR DRA improve DCWs’ (domiciliary care workers) awareness of risks in a patient’s home?
Featured Speakers (TBC):
Skills for Care, the strategic workforce development and planning body for adult social care in England.
Partners in Care BCP Dorset
BU Nursing Academics
Demo of BU’s VR for DCW DRA prototype
Who Should Attend?
Domiciliary care providers
Workforce Educators
Tech innovators in healthcare
Government Policy / CQC professionals
About CfACTs+ Project
This project explores how creative technologies like VR can transform training, improve operational efficiency, and support workforce development; see:
Next month on July 25th Bournemouth University will join in with the world-wide celebrations of World Drowning Prevention Day 2025. The first achievement to highlight is Dr. Jill Nash interesting piece recently published in The Conversation, in which she highlights Five ways to keep teenagers safe by the water[1]. It is also worthwhile to read last year’s contribution to World Drowning Prevention Day by Jill on the dangers of being near water and the role emotions play in making safer decisions [2].
The second major piece of research related to drowning prevention at Bournemouth University is the Sonamoni Project. The Sonamoni Project is working with communities in rural Bangladesh utilizing human-centered design (HCD) techniques. The research project is identifying solutions to reduce the number of drowning deaths in newly mobile children (6-24 months), developing prototype, and assessing the acceptability and usability of potential interventions. Sonamoni is coordinated by Bournemouth University in collaboration with the University of the West of England (Bristol), the University of Southampton, and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), Design Without Border (DWB) in Uganda and Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB). The interdisciplinary team at Bournemouth University covers three faculties and six academics: Dr. Mavis Bengtsson, Dr. Kyungjoo Cha, Dr. Mehdi Chowdhury, Dr. Yong Hun Lim, Mr. John Powell, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
This international project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through its Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation programme, also includes a BU-based PhD student, Mr. Md. Shafkat Hossein. He recently published the first article related to drowning prevention in Nepal [3].
Have you taken part in a local festival, run a community workshop, volunteered at a cultural event, or used your BU expertise to support a community group? BU is required to report on a range of knowledge exchange activities for the HE-BCI survey, collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Research England uses this data to inform the annual allocation of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).
We are collecting details of all social, community and cultural engagement activities delivered between 1 August 2024 and 31 July 2025. Entries must be submitted by Friday 17 October 2025.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. If you haven’t recorded your involvement yet, it only takes a few minutes. Every entry helps us show BU’s wider impact.
We have now moved to a single central table for collecting entries. If you have already submitted your activity to your faculty’s table, we will transfer this over for you.
This year, we can’t include information uploaded to the public engagement section of BRIAN, as it doesn’t capture all the data HESA requires. If you have added entries to BRIAN for this period, please upload the full details to the central table as well, or your activity won’t be included in the survey.
For guidance on what to include, see the FAQ section.
Does your research broadly fit the category of “rehabilitation and prevention”? Then join us for this first event of the Rehabilitation & Prevention workstream of the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-term Health!
Whatever the focus of your research is or your professional background, whether it be at population or individual level, public health or rehabilitation of a particular condition in a particular demographic of people, whether you are a PGR or a senior academic, we would like this to be your research home. Come and share the highlights of what you do in a 5-minute Lightning talk, and hear from the highlights of others.
We want this to be a stimulating event and you might just find your next collaborator(s). Dr Jonny Branney and Dr Katie Collins, the workstream leads, will be taking notes with a view to creating a quick reference guide of what the workstream members are working on to make it easier for you to find the expertise you need for your next project. We want the workstream to be a place to talk about the sort of research enquiry that gets you out of bed in the morning, that puts the joy into your working life. A place to share and celebrate in your project successes, and to get a welcome lift when your latest research bid or journal submissions are rejected. A place to learn from those more experienced, from those with alternative expertise, identify a mentor or a coach, and for others to learn from you and benefit from your coaching and mentorship. A place to test out your ideas and get feedback from critical friends. A place to identify collaborators for your next research project. Is your research broadly “rehabilitation and prevention”? Then this is your place. Register here!!
Lightning Talks
Attendees are required to prepare a 5 minute lightning talk – 5 PowerPoint slides maximum to summarise your background as a researcher, what you’ve done, are doing, and plan to do. Nice and concise so we quickly get to know what everyone is about. There will be a timer!
Rough Itinerary
12:30pm Lunch – provided
1pm Welcome from workstream leads
1.05pm 5-minute Lightning talks
2.50pm – 3pm Closing remarks from workstream leads
The paper entitled ‘Mass grave mapping and the protection of the dead gives’ insight into the current research being undertaken within the project, including the ongoing mapping of mass graves globally. It also asks, to what extent mapping can be considered a preventative process.
To read the full paper follow the link in the image below:
Dr Jill Nash writes for The Conversation about the need to educate young people about the risks of drowning, and shares her advice for helping to keep them safe…
Teaching children to swim is essential, but it’s not enough to save them from drowning. Water safety is about judgement, impulse control, peer influence and understanding your limits. Peer pressure, social situations and a false sense of confidence can all put young people in danger.
My research highlights how we’re not talking enough to young people, especially teenage boys, about the emotional and cognitive risks of making decisions around water. The National Water Safety Forum reports that young males aged between 10-19 are one of the highest groups at risk from drowning, as they assert their independence and test personal boundaries.
Drowning happens quickly, often without adults watching, when kids are hanging out by rivers and lakes, tombstoning off bridges, or misjudging their abilities when trying to impress friends.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Leading water safety organisations like the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and HM Coastguard run education campaigns about the dangers of the ocean. The Canal & River Trust, the UK’s largest canal charity, recently developed a school education pack for teenagers highlighting water safety.
Parents can also shape how teens interact with water. In Nottingham, the charity called Open Water Education Network was founded in memory of Owen Jenkins, a 12-year-old boy who drowned while trying to save two girls in difficulty. As well as teaching young people about the dangers of open water and the importance of self rescue, this charity empowers parents to talk to teens even if they seem to ignore parental advice.
Talking to teenagers about safety isn’t easy. Here’s how to do it in a way that’s honest, effective and grounded in care.
1. Talk just before they go
Rules work best when they’re short, consistent and repeated. Before a trip to the beach or river, take five minutes to remind your teen of your family’s water safety rules. Repetition builds habits. Remind them not to swim after dark or alone and explain what to do if someone’s in trouble (call for help, don’t jump in).
2. Share real-life stories
Stories help bring home the reality of water risk, especially for teens who can feel invincible in an all-male group without any supervision. While on a lads holiday on the Northumberland coast, 16-year-old called Evan saved himself from drowning in a rip tide by laying on his back to stay afloat. Eventually, a surfer managed to paddle out and reach him, and an rescue lifeboat also came to the scene. Evan recovered after treatment in hospital for hypothermia.
Teenager Evan explains how he escaped drowning in a rip tide.
Another heartbreaking story of Liam Hall, a teenager who drowned while out in a dinghy with friends in Sunderland, demonstrates how quickly things can escalate in the sea.
Not all stories end in tragedy. A group of teenagers from East Sussex made the life-saving decision to stay out of the water, using a life ring to help two swimmers in trouble, proving that staying on shore can save lives.
Female teens can play a powerful role in promoting water safety, especially in mixed-gender peer groups where social dynamics can significantly influence behaviour. Research shows that all-boy groups are more likely to engage in risk-taking activities. When girls are present, especially those who feel confident speaking up, risky behaviour often decreases.
Parents can empower girls to speak up if someone suggests swimming in dangerous conditions or places and promote safety strategies like the RNLI’s “call, tell and throw” approach. By reinforcing these behaviours, teen girls can become leaders in lifesaving culture, not only keeping themselves safe but influencing their peers to make smarter choices too.
4. Deflate false sense of confidence
Stick to the facts and be honest about the dangers. Drowning can happen within seconds, even when someone is a strong swimmer. Most drownings occur in open water, not swimming pools. Teenagers need to understand how the effects of cold water shock, fast currents and submerged objects can quickly turn a fun day into a fatal one.
5. Make brave choices
Teens don’t drown because they’re bad swimmers. They drown because they made a poor decision in a high-risk moment. Teaching safety early (before they start taking unsupervised risks) helps shape smarter thinking later.
Parents can model care, calmness and emotional awareness. Show them that bravery isn’t about bravado. It’s about looking out for your mates and making good choices. Fathers can play a powerful role in framing what strength looks like. Research shows that fathers who show empathy and emotional intelligence teach children how to be resilient during high-pressure moments. Emphasise that calm decision-making when in danger or choosing not to jump into the water under peer pressure doesn’t make a boy weak. It makes him wise. Talk to your sons about how real masculinity means thinking clearly, not reacting emotionally.
Teenagers can feel invincible. Be honest. Tell them you love them and that you trust them to make good decisions. Talking about safety is one of the most powerful things a family can do. Water safety begins at home with all of us.
Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle – the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health.
This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.
Dr. Catalin Brylla, Principal Lecturer in Film and TV has chaired the DEI Committee for the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image since 2022, launching several initiatives. At this year’s conference at the University of Alberta in Canada he organised three related events:
DEI Roundtable and Workshop: Intersectionality, Bias and Positionality
This roundtable featured international scholars, including Charles Kebaya (Machakos University, Kenya), to explore how intersectionality, bias, and positionality shape our work in film and media research. The session was followed by two facilitated workshop groups: one focusing on teaching (including decolonising curricula and participatory learning methods), the other on research (including de-centralising publishing, engaging with Global South scholarship, and community-led research methods).
The workshops offered a space for critical reflection and practical strategies for fostering equity and inclusion in teaching and research, addressing the following questions.
How do we approach research and teaching when we acknowledge the researcher’s and teacher’s partial perspective shaped by their intersected social identities?
When the positionality of the researcher differs from that of the research participant, research collaborator, screen character or film viewer, how does this frame our analytic lens and the choice of research methods?
What happens when we study marginalised groups without their collaborative participation? Do we risk replicating epistemic hierarchies or social practices that have contributed to this marginalisation? (relates to slogan “Nothing about us, without us.” – disability rights movement)
In cross-cultural and cross-ability research and teaching, how do we account for not only difference, but for blind spots in acknowledging and respecting different positionalities?
How can we design curricula that properly balance between dominant and underrepresented academic and non-academic knowledge structures?
Mentorship Lunch: Learning from Academic Trial and Errors
This event provided an informal and supportive space where senior scholars shared candid reflections on the mistakes, challenges, and lessons that have shaped their academic journeys. We rarely speak openly about trial-and-error experiences in teaching, research, or media practice. Even more rarely do we celebrate these moments or fully recognise the valuable contributions they make to eventual positive outcomes. As a result, when we engage with the work of other scholars—whether through conversation, presentations, or publications—their research is often presented as a neatly packaged narrative of clear and successful results, with little acknowledgement of the mistakes, missteps, and failures that inevitably occurred along the way.
The session covered topics from research and publishing to teaching, grant-writing, and career development, this session invites open discussion with early career researchers about navigating the ups and downs of academic life.
Paper Presentation on Social Cognition, Bias and Audience Perception of Films
Together with Dr. Tico Romao (University of Alberta), Brylla proposed a framework for audience segmentation that focuses on the mapping of intersecting social identities across viewers and screen characters. This type of spectator segmentation offers a more granular alternative to explain divergent viewer responses and biases. This can reveal the often-overlooked gap between authorial intent and spectatorial reception. This framework is especially useful in comparing responses to structured and formalist narratives, as well as more open or ambiguous narrative forms.
Does your research broadly fit the category of “rehabilitation and prevention”? Then join us for this first event of the Rehabilitation & Prevention workstream of the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-term Health!
Whatever the focus of your research is or your professional background, whether it be at population or individual level, public health or rehabilitation of a particular condition in a particular demographic of people, whether you are a PGR or a senior academic, we would like this to be your research home. Come and share the highlights of what you do in a 5-minute Lightning talk, and hear from the highlights of others.
We want this to be a stimulating event and you might just find your next collaborator(s). Dr Jonny Branney and Dr Katie Collins, the workstream leads, will be taking notes with a view to creating a quick reference guide of what the workstream members are working on to make it easier for you to find the expertise you need for your next project. We want the workstream to be a place to talk about the sort of research enquiry that gets you out of bed in the morning, that puts the joy into your working life. A place to share and celebrate in your project successes, and to get a welcome lift when your latest research bid or journal submissions are rejected. A place to learn from those more experienced, from those with alternative expertise, identify a mentor or a coach, and for others to learn from you and benefit from your coaching and mentorship. A place to test out your ideas and get feedback from critical friends. A place to identify collaborators for your next research project. Is your research broadly “rehabilitation and prevention”? Then this is your place. Register here!!
Lightning Talks
Attendees are required to prepare a 5 minute lightning talk – 5 PowerPoint slides maximum to summarise your background as a researcher, what you’ve done, are doing, and plan to do. Nice and concise so we quickly get to know what everyone is about. There will be a timer!
Rough Itinerary
12:30pm Lunch – provided
1pm Welcome from workstream leads
1.05pm 5-minute Lightning talks
2.50pm – 3pm Closing remarks from workstream leads
The academic editor of PLOS ONE informed us yesterday that our latest paper ‘Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal: A cross-sectional study’ [1] has been accepted for publication. The paper is based on research conducted as part of the Inclusive Partnership Against Violence (INPAV) project in Nepal. Working with our long-term research paper Green Tara Nepal (GTN) and funded by The United Nations Trust Fund (UNTF) through Nepal Disabled Women Association (NDWA), we have been involved in InPAV. This project included a situation analysis of the existing government setup One-stop Crisis Management Center (OCMC) to understand the inclusiveness of the OCMC services for girls and women with disabilities. The paper just accepted was part of this research.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Simkhada, P., Basnet, S., Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Wasti, S.P., Dahal, T., Okyere, J., Silwal, R.C., Pyakurel, M. (2025) Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal: A cross-sectional study . PLoS ONE (accepted).
The Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Adult Neuropsychology Services in Dorset are having their 25 years anniversary which they are celebrating with this conference held in Bournemouth University.
We would like to invite you to this conference on 10th July 2025 which brings together professionals, researchers, and students who work with people with acquired brain injuries such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, tumour, or brain infections to discuss holistic and effective rehabilitation approaches in practice and applied research.
The Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Adult Neuropsychology Services in Dorset have always supported multidisciplinary collaborations across the field of rehabilitation and recovery. They have continued to have strong collaborations with Bournemouth University. Members have supported teaching and work placements at the MSc level for over a decade and collaborated with BU researchers from the INRC to bring together practice and research. This conference celebrates and showcases the services and these collaborations in this conference by bringing together professionals, clinical practice, and applied research.
The conference will include presentations about the ABRIS’s holistic rehabilitation philosophy, discussions about effective brain injury rehabilitation programmes, case stories and displays about bespoke person-centred rehabilitation activities.
This conference will be of interests to occupational therapists, speech therapists, clinical and neuropsychologists, doctors and rehabilitation physicians, physiotherapists, rehabilitation assistants, nurses, and case managers.
The Eating and Drinking Well with Dementia at Home Guide is a new resource to support people living with dementia at home, specifically designed for family carers, friends, and home care workers.
We are honoured to welcome our keynote speaker, Dr Jane Townson OBE, Chief Executive, Homecare Association, who brings extensive expertise spanning social care, health, housing, and the technology sector. We will also be joined by people with lived experience, researchers, and representatives from key stakeholder organisations.
Everyone interested in nutrition, dementia, and home care is welcome, whether you’re looking to learn more, support a family member, or are a care provider in the social care or healthcare sector!
• Keynote address
• Networking over lunch
• About TOMATO project and research findings that informed the development of the resources
• Panel and audience discussions
• Official launch of the resource (print copy available on the day).
For further information on this event, please contact HSSRKEAdministrator@bournemouth.ac.uk
The purpose of this study is to explore the potential for tourism and hospitality education and training through immersive metaverse learning. This study examines familiarity levels, perceived benefits and challenges and proposes a framework for metaverse adoption in education and training.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in Diffusion of Innovation Theory, this qualitative study analyses 45 in-depth interviews with students and academics in Saudi Arabia. The thematic analysis identifies adoption stages and factors influencing metaverse readiness in tourism education.
Findings
While metaverse can enhance engagement in skill development, it may also include barriers such as accessibility, data privacy and technical readiness. Adoption varies by generation and digital proficiency. Younger students and early-career academics embrace its experiential benefits, while senior academics cite cost, infrastructure and complexity concerns. This study develops a DOI-based framework to evaluate metaverse adoption in tourism education.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study are context-specific and qualitative. Future research should validate the proposed model across different educational and cultural contexts using longitudinal and mixed-method approaches.
Practical implications
The metaverse Integration Framework provides actionable guidance for educators, policymakers and institutional leaders. This study supports phased integration, risk mitigation and alignment with governance structures, while addressing issues such as digital equity, funding and compliance.
Social implications
Metaverse technologies offer opportunities to democratise access to high-quality, immersive education, particularly in under-resourced or remote regions, thereby enhancing employability and workforce resilience.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature on metaverse adoption in tourism and hospitality training and education by introducing a DOI theory-informed framework. The findings of this study offer theoretical insights that bridge technology adoption models with educational practice, providing a foundation for future digital education and training research.
Supporting ECRs to Publish Through a Writing Workshop on Exploitation and Violence
BU ECRN Seed Funding was awarded to Dr Sarah Hambidge, supported by Kari Davies, to organise and host an Exploitation and Violence Writing Workshop. The event brought together 22 participants, including 18 early career researchers (ECRs) from six different higher education institutions, all of whom are engaged in research topics related to exploitation and violence.
The workshop featured a series of structured sessions aimed at helping ECRs set and review their writing goals. A key highlight of the day was the Mastering the Publication Process and Writing Strategies session, delivered by the senior editor of the Psychology, Crime & Law journal, who shared invaluable insights into the publication process and offered practical writing guidance.
In addition to structured learning, the event included dedicated writing time and opportunities for attendees to network and discuss future collaborations, strengthening the sense of community among researchers in this field. The workshop supported ECRs to progress towards publishing their research by providing them with the skills and confidence to navigate the publication process and share their findings effectively.
Post-event feedback was extremely positive, with all attendees expressing strong interest in future in-person and online writing retreats, as well as other research related events facilitated by Bournemouth University. The success of this workshop has created ongoing support and development opportunities for ECRs working on exploitation and violence research.
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Earlier this month (15 June) Dr. Samreen Ashraf, was cited in the newspaper The Guardian in an interesting article with title ‘Modest fashion’ headed for mainstream despite political hostility, say experts. The article recognizes that Dr. Samreen Ashraf pioneered UK research into modest fashion. The journalist reporting on this, Chris Osuh, cited Samreen as saying that the growth of modest fashion “was also driven by women’s desire to avoid objectification” and that “the market remained underserved, with issues around clear labeling from big brands and affordability with smaller suppliers”. 
The Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Adult Neuropsychology Services in Dorset are having their 25 years anniversary which they are celebrating with this conference held in Bournemouth University.
Dr. Ashraf cited on ‘Modest Fashion’ in The Guardian
NIHR-funded research launches website
Academics write for newspaper in Nepal
New paper published on disability in women & girls
Global Consortium for Public Health Research 2025
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Explore our work, meet our partners, and find out how you can collaborate with us by clicking here! MIHERC is led by Sheffield Hallam University, with Bournemouth University as a key partner and the important funding coming from NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) Maternity Challenge Initiative. The BU key academics are: Huseyin Dogan, Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijlingen, and Deniz Çetinkaya. Please share with all who may be interested.