Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
The international publisher Routledge published earlier this month a new book with the title: The Psychology of Stress [1]. The three authors of this excellent book are: Drs. Charlotte Mottram, Alison Woodward and Shanti Farrington. The latter two academics are based in Bournemouth University’s Psychology Department.
Well done and congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
Our Bournemouth University team visited Baden, Austria, for a secondment with Ronge & Partner — Austria’s leading large-scale kitchen consulting firm. This was part of the EU-funded FoodMAPP project and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Staff Exchange, which connects research with industry.
In Austria, Professor Melanie Klinkner (International Law), Professor Jeff Bray (Consumer Behaviour), Dr Quyhn Nguyen (Hospitality Management), and myself, Dr Guljira Manimont (Food Marketing and Advertising) discussed with Ronge & Partner to explore how food service practices can better support local sourcing. These discussions are shaping FoodMAPP’s interactive platform, which connects consumers with local producers to reduce waste and enhance traceability.
After this visit, Dr Quynh Nguyen and myself, Dr Guljira Manimont continued to Lyon, France, where we visited Institut Lyfe — a leading centre for hospitality, food service, and culinary arts education. Welcomed by Dr Maxime Michaud, Head of the Social Sciences team, and Calixte Engelberg, we toured the campus and explored how research can be integrated into hospitality training and industry practice
.
FoodMAPP is developing an interactive, map-based platform designed to connect consumers with locally produced food. This tool aims to reduce food waste, promote regional food economies, and improve food traceability. The secondment with Ronge & Partner, for example, provided us with valuable insights into the operational realities of the food service and kitchen design sector — a critical link between food producers and consumers.
The MSCA Staff Exchange programme has played a vital role in making this kind of exchange possible. It allows researchers to step outside the academic environment, test ideas in real-world settings, and build partnerships that help ensure our work delivers real, tangible impact.
As food marketing researchers (doing what we arguably do best), we took the chance to experience Austria’s food culture firsthand by visiting traditional Heurigen — small, family-run wine taverns known for their local wines, breads, cured meats, and fresh produce.
In Lyon, we focused on the city’s bakeries, sampling artisan breads that showcase the region’s strong food heritage. These moments brought home the real value of local and transparent food systems, which lie at the heart of FoodMAPP’s mission.
PS: Having spent four weeks based in these foodie spots, I compiled a list of favourite spots to eat and drink. If you’re ever in Vienna or Lyon, feel free to get in touch—I’d be happy to share it! 🙂
This morning ResearchGate informed us that our paper ‘Understanding health education, health promotion and public health‘ [1] which was published in 2021 has been read 8,000 times. This thinking piece delves into the differences between the concepts of: (a) health education; (b) health promotion; and (c) public health. This confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms,
but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts. The paper starts by outlining the authors’ understanding of these individual terms.
They suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1984) fit into Tannahill’s (2009) model of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Such schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the centre of the overarching disciplines of education and public health. The authors hope their article helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH
Reference:
Last month a US organisation published The Beautiful Work Challenge: On Birth | The Situation on YouTube. The episode which includes two Bournemouth University professors-Ann Luce and Edwin van Teijlingen can be found here: https://youtu.be/sKdBYTASCt8
The advert for the video highlights questions such as: What’s the current situation in birth? On Birth has stories to tell about the Sahrasia hypothesis, the rulers of birth, an ongoing inquisition, the invention of obstetrics, Hollywood’s influence, and the rise of eBirth. Welcome to the age of medicalised, techno-driven birth. What you don’t know can hurt you.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
We had the pleasure of organising a thought-provoking session at made possible through funding from British Academy ECRN, focused on one big question: How is AI reshaping who we are as academics?
We were joined by two inspiring speakers:
-Peter Magnani, CEO and founder of BEEM, who shared the development journey of his AI-powered app and how it’s transforming user experiences
-@Prof. Professor Gelareh Roushan-Easton, reflected on how AI is influencing academic practice, from teaching and learning to research and student engagement
-Dr. Samreen Ashraf (organiser of the session) shared her research about identity and the timely nature of the topic considering the rapid changes in higher education.
The heart of the session was an interactive activity where participants explored:
1. How they define their academic identity.
2. Where and how AI intersects with their roles and values
3. The opportunities, tensions, and uncertainties this evolving landscape presents
The conversations were honest, reflective, and energising, reminding us that as AI continues to evolve, so too must our understanding of academic identity.
And finally massive thanks to all involved in this workshop, our guest speakers, audience, BAECRN, and my colleague Marianna for helping with this.
💬 I’d love to hear from others in higher education:
How is AI influencing your professional identity? What excites you or concerns you most about this shift?
Feel free to get in touch with me at sashraf@bournemouth.ac.uk , if you are interested in this topic area 🙂
Today the University of Huddersfield reported online on the international array of over 70 delegates who attended the Annual Meeting of the Global Consortium for Public Health Research (GCPHR) hosted by the University of Huddersfield in June. Academics, policymakers, clinicians and researchers from around the world (including from Bournemouth University) spent two days on campus for the third GCPHR yearly meeting. Further details on the online report can be read here!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
At the beginning of July, the chapter Interactive Tangible and Intangible Heritage Applications Built on Real-Time Graphics Systems: Heritage Experiences in Desktop CG, Virtual and Augmented Reality by Eike Falk Anderson, Valery Adzhiev, Paul Cheetham, Glyn Hadley, David John, Catja Larsson, Ana-Maria-Cristina Ureche and Mario Romero was published in the volume Interactive Media for Cultural Heritage of the highly regarded Springer Series on Cultural Computing.
The chapter explores different types of interactive heritage experiences that can be built using modern computer games technologies, including museum exhibits, games and mobile apps, providing exemplars for heritage applications in the form of a set of case studies that encompass both tangible and intangible heritage.
Among the featured case studies are three final year undergraduate student projects that were created at the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) during the 2021/2022 academic year: two projects by Catja Larsson and one project by Ana-Maria-Cristina Ureche. Both alumni co-authored the chapter, demonstrating once again the excellent quality of work produced by NCCA undergraduates.
Today was the first day of strategic planning for the MIHERC project. Our collaborators from Sheffield and Doncaster came down to Bournemouth University to discuss progress, meet with midwifery practitioners from University Hospital Dorset NHS Foundation Trust,
and plan action for the coming year. 
MIHERC comprises an interdisciplinary team, led by Prof. Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University, which has members from ethnically and professionally diverse colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University, Bournemouth University and Doncaster City Council.
Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health (CMWH), and Prof. Huseyin Dogan and Dr. Deniz Cetinkaya from the Department of Computing and Informatics are the key Bournemouth University applicants in MIHERC (Maternal & Infant Health Equity Research Centre). Further Bournemouth University academics have been incorporated since its start, these include: Drs. Malika Felton, Orlanda Harvey, Dominique Mylod and Daisy Wiggins. MIHERC is one of the nine NIHR-funded groups to tackle inequalities in UK maternal healthcare as part of the NIHR Challenge Call: Maternity Disparities Consortium. We are proud that of the nine funded groupings across the UK, MIHERC is the only one that is midwifery led.
Congratulations to Maryam Malekian, a MRes student in CMWH, who has just published her second paper as part of her integrated thesis in the highly respected journal Midwifery. Maryam’s paper reports her recently completed scoping review looking at knowledge and attitudes of nulliparous women regarding breastfeeding.
Malekian M, Irving M, Hundley V (2025) Factors associated with breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age: A Scoping review. Midwifery, vol 148, September, 104511
The protocol was published earlier this year in MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. She has also presented this work at the Maternal, Parental and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN) Conference in April.
Malekian M, Hundley V, Irving M. (2025) A scoping review protocol of factors influencing breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, vol 35, no 2, June, pp 179-182.
The RKEDF is excited to announce this ECRN seed funded event:
AI and Academic Identities: Navigating the Future
📅 Thursday, 18th July 2025
🕚 11:00 AM – 3:15 PM
📍 FG06, Fusion Building, Bournemouth University
This interdisciplinary workshop explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping academic identity, challenging traditional roles in research, teaching, authorship, and professional development. Join us to reflect on what it means to be an academic in the age of AI and how to navigate these shifts with clarity and confidence.
Workshop aims:
Click here for more information and to register your place.
(Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis)
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with mconsonirubio@bournemouth.ac.uk or sashraf@bournemouth.ac.uk
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.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
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, hashtagSolidarity, 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.
References:
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:
BU staff can login below:
Bournemouth University psychologists publish new book
Connecting Research with Practice: FoodMAPP Secondment in Austria and France
Health promotion paper read 8,000 times
The Beautiful Work Challenge: On Birth
Free event on Solutions to Inequalities in Dementia Diagnosis and Care
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published
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.