Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulations to HEMS’s Dr. Malika Felton, Dr. Vikram Mohan and Prof. Vanora Hundley on the recent publication of their academic paper ‘Acute cardiovascular responses to slow and deep breathing in normotensive men and women‘ [1]. 
The BU authors outline that there differences in cardiovascular responses to different methods of slow and deep breathing (SDB) delivery. They query whether utilising a multi-parametric approach to measuring cardiovascular variables reveal new/different responses. Their key findings are that all SDB conditions elicited similar cardiovascular responses to each other when compared with spontaneous breathing. However, lower breathing frequencies elicit greater blood pressure oscillations, and higher breathing frequencies (∼8 breaths min−1) may not fully optimise cardiovascular responses. This has implications on the practice of SDB for management of hypertension.
Well done!
Prof.Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
Yesterday the international journal Health Policy & Planning published our latest article with the title ‘Understanding the formulation of non-communicable disease policies in Nepal: A qualitative study‘ [1]. The paper is part of the PhD work (at the University of Hudderfield) by the first author, Dr. Anju Vaidya, who is originally from Nepal. Anju’s thesis was supervised by Prof. Padam Simkhada (University of Chester), Prof. Andre Lee (The University of Sheffield) and by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
The paper recognises that there is limited evidence about the process through which health policies were formulated in Nepal. This study used Kingdon’s multiple streams framework to explore how NCDs (non-communicable diseases) were recognised and prioritised, how policy alternatives were decided, how policy windows were opened, and which contextual factors influenced the policy formulation process. Anju’s PhD included a qualitative study to gain a comprehensive understanding of the formulation of major NCD-related policies in Nepal. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 key stakeholders, and policy documents were analysed using framework analysis.
The NCDs were gradually prioritised through the convergence of global and local evidence, sustained advocacy, and international commitments. Policymakers encountered several challenges, such as competing health priorities, the chronic nature of NCDs, donor preferences for communicable diseases, financial constraints, and multisectoral complexities of NCDs. The Package of Essential Non-communicable diseases (PEN) interventions were adopted as a policy alternative, informed by global evidence, World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, and lessons from other countries. While coordinated efforts by stakeholders brought the problem, policy and politics streams together, the role of policy entrepreneurs was found to be less relevant in Nepal’s context.
Health Policy & Planning is an Open Access journal, hence the paper is available worldwide to anybody with internet access.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
The editor of HIV Research & Clinical Practice informed us that the paper ‘Stigma in UK health care: A key barrier to reaching zero HIV transmission by 2030’ has been accepted for publication [1]. This paper is based on the PhD research currently conducted by Mr. Tom Weeks in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS). Tom’s thesis focuses on the perceptions of stigmatisation of People Living with HIV in care settings in the UK and the kind of education health care staff (clinical and non-clinical) receive in relation to HIV. His long-term aim in the PhD is to help improve education to reduce such stigma. Tom is being supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
Both supervisors have a long experience in studying social and health promotion aspects of HIV and AIDS. Thirty years ago Prof. van Teijlingen worked in the NHS as a researcher in the Centre for HIV/AIDS and Drugs Studies based in Edinburgh. Whilst Dr. Regmi conducted his PhD research on sexual health and health promotion in young people in Nepal. Both supervisors themselves have published widely on the topic of HIV and AIDS [2-23]. The first of these many publication was a letter on community care for people living with HIV in the community which was published in the Lancet in 1993 [2].
References
There is something quietly radical about placing a box of LEGO bricks in front of an entrepreneurship student and asking them to build what it feels like to start a business as a woman. It looks playful. It feels unfamiliar. And that is precisely the point.
Gendered barriers to enterprise, unequal access to networks and capital, and the legitimacy penalties faced by women founders are not peripheral concerns — they are central to how entrepreneurship actually works. Yet they are among the hardest things to surface in a conventional classroom. Lectures can name them; discussions can debate them. But neither easily reaches the experiential, affective layer where structural disadvantage is felt and processed. LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) – a structured, facilitated methodology in which participants construct physical models as a vehicle for thinking and sense-making – offers a compelling answer.
The theoretical roots of LSP lie in constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991 cited in Imholz and Petrosino, 2012), extending Piaget’s Constructivism, the premise that humans learn most powerfully when actively making something shareable. In entrepreneurship, this matters enormously. The field is inherently uncertain, relational and situated (Neck & Greene, 2011), demanding that practitioners navigate ambiguity and construct meaning from incomplete information — precisely what traditional pedagogies rarely train students to do.
LSP addresses this through embodied cognition — the well-established view that cognitive processes are rooted in the body’s interactions with the world (Barsalou, 2008; Wilson, 2002). When students physically manipulate bricks, they activate neural pathways associated with memory, association and imagination, surfacing tacit knowledge that verbal reasoning cannot access. The cognitive and reflective processes generated map directly onto the experiential learning cycle entrepreneurship education has long sought to replicate (Kolb, 1984).
Nowhere is LSP’s capacity to make the invisible visible more valuable than when the subject is gender and structural disadvantage. When a student is asked to build what barriers look like — giving them height, weight and spatial relationship — something categorically different becomes possible. The model externalises and legitimises the experience: it makes the barrier an object in the room for collective examination, rather than a contested assertion subject to instant pushback.
The LSP rule that the meaning of a model belongs only to its creator — and that no one may impose their own interpretation (Gkogkidis & Dacre, 2021) — creates protective distance between the student and their experience, allowing difficult realities to be surfaced through metaphor before being verbalised. Reduced perceived risk is precisely what enables more diverse voices to emerge (Gauntlett, 2011). Benesova’s (2023) study at the University of Leeds evidences this: students from high power-distance cultures reported that building gave them expression, bypassing the social hierarchies of the seminar, with one noting it was “much easier to build it than say it.”
The Entrepreneurial Learning Case
Fox et al. (2018) identify active, reflective, situated, and crisis-based learning as the key dimensions that effective entrepreneurship pedagogy must address, finding that digital simulations perform poorly on the affective and reflective dimensions and almost entirely fail to simulate failure and uncertainty. LSP does not share these limitations. Ball et al.’s (2021) case study from Northumbria University saw students complete a LEGO task with pieces deliberately missing — simulating resource constraints and ambiguity — and subsequently identify 68 distinct entrepreneurial skills and competencies including risk-taking, creativity and leadership. Creativity here means recombining knowledge, recognising patterns and imagining alternatives (Fillis & Rentschler, 2010) — and material, exploratory engagement of the kind LSP provides is precisely what develops creative confidence and problem-solving capability (Rauth et al., 2010). Zenk et al. (2018) went further still, designing an entire innovation course around LSP — guiding students through ideation, prototyping, pivot questioning and pre-mortem analysis in ways conventional course design cannot match.
Where LSP makes its most distinctive contribution is in the quality of reflection it generates. Gkogkidis and Dacre (2023) frame the four-step core process — pose question, construct, share meaning, reflect — as a pedagogical architecture that operationalises constructivist learning values. For universities seeking to embed entrepreneurial thinking across their culture, active, reflexive pedagogies of this kind are central to the entrepreneurial university mission (Guerrero & Urbano, 2012). When students have physically constructed the systems that disadvantage them, the subsequent reflection is grounded in something concrete and shared, allowing a group to move from “do these barriers exist?” to “here they are — now what do we do?” That shift, from debate to design thinking, is precisely the mode entrepreneurship demands.
In conclusion, gender, network access and legitimacy inequality do not sit comfortably in a traditional seminar. They are too personal, too politically charged, too easily deflected. LSP creates conditions in which these conversations happen differently: externalising structural barriers, equalising participation and protecting less powerful voices. For entrepreneurship educators serious about structural inequality, the bricks are doing serious work.
References
Ball, S., Quan, R., & Clegg, S. (2025). A case study of experiential entrepreneurial learning through LEGO® play. 20(1), Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Northumbria University. https://doi.org/10.34190/ecie.20.1.3942
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(1), 617–645. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093639
Benesova, N. (2023). LEGO® Serious Play® in management education. Cogent Education, 10(2), 2262284. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2262284
Fillis, I., & Rentschler, R. (2010). The role of creativity in entrepreneurship. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 18(1), 49–81. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218495810000501
Fox, J., Pittaway, L., & Uzuegbunam, I. (2018). Simulations in entrepreneurship education: Serious games and learning through play. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 1(1), 61–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515127417737285
Gkogkidis V., and Dacre N. (2023). The educator’s LSP journey: creating exploratory learning environments for responsible management education using Lego Serious Play. Emerald Open Research, 1(12) No Pagination Specified, doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/EOR-12-2023-0004
Guerrero, M., & Urbano, D. (2012). The development of an entrepreneurial university. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 37(1), 43–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-010-9171-x
Imholz, S. and Petrosino, A. (2012) Teacher Observations on the Implementation of the Tools of the Mind Curriculum in the Classroom: Analysis of Interviews Conducted over a One-Year Period. Creative Education, 3, 185-192. doi: 10.4236/ce.2012.32029.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.
Neck, H. M., & Greene, P. G. (2011). Entrepreneurship education: Known worlds and new frontiers. Journal of Small Business Management, 49(1), 55–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-627X.2010.00314.x
Rauth, I., Köppen, E., Jobst, B., & Meinel, C. (2010). Design thinking: An educational model towards creative confidence. In T. Taura & Y. Nagai (Eds.), DS 66-2: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Design Creativity (ICDC 2010). The Design Society.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625–636. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196322
Zenk, L., Hynek, N., Schreder, G., Zenk, A., Pausits, A., & Steiner, G. (2018). Designing innovation courses in higher education using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. International Journal of Management and Applied Research, 5(4), 244–263. https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.54.18-019
This week four postgraduate midwifery students from Bournemouth University attended the Royal College of Midwives annual Education & Research conference in London. Their contributions included studies on: (1) ‘A Unique Approach to Smoking Cessation During Pregnancy’ by Ph.D. student Louise Barton; (2) Investigating how women make decisions about prescribed psychiatric medication use during pregnancy by M.Res. student Jessica Correia; (3) Harnessing midwives’ research delivery expertise to encourage medics’ participation in research’ by M.Res. student Susara Blunden; and (4) ‘Personalised care for women of advanced maternal age, from conception to postnatal care: A mixed-methods study’ by Ph.D. student Joanne Rack. Joanne was also at this conference in her capacity of the newly appointed Editor-in-Chief of The Practising Midwife.
Congratulations to these postgraduate students and their supervisors.
Profs. Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen
Dear colleagues,
We warmly invite you to the event organised by the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Centre on Wednesday, the 22 of April 2026, from 13:00 h to 15:00 h at P426 (Poole House).
The exciting event will focus on the interface between clinical and social neuroscience from the standpoint of new neuroscientific and technological leaps. The schedule is:
13.00 – 13.45 Dr Jonathan Cole (Visiting Professor, Bournemouth University) book presentation and roundtable: Hard Talk – When speech is difficult.
13.35 – 14.00 Coffee break.
14.00 – 14.45 Dr Catherine Talbot (Senior Lecturer, Bournemouth University) talk: Dementia in the digital age: the promise and pitfalls of social technologies.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Ellen Seiss, eseiss@bournemouth.ac.uk or Emili Balaguer-Ballester, eb-ballester@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Thank you very much; we are looking forward to debating with you there.
The 4th INRC symposium: “From Clinical Applications to Neuro-Inspired Computation”, took place last Wednesday, 16th of January 2026. Thank you very much for your interest and especially to the fantastic speakers. It was great to see you there, and we hope you enjoyed it.
Kind regards,
Ellen and Emili, on behalf of all of us.
On Monday 9th March Prof. Sujan Marahatta visited Bournmouth University (BU) to speak about ‘Strengthening BU-Nepal collaboration AND Nepal’s experience of competency-based health professional education’. Prof. Marahatta is the Director of the Medical Education Commission in Nepal overseeing the education of health professionals in 15 areas including Medicine, Physiotherapy, Nursing and Midwifery. 
He spoke about long partnership between Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) and BU. This partnership is formalised in a Memoradum of Agreement (MoA) and over the years it has included joint research projects, staff-student exchanges (funded by ERASMUS+ and Turing scheme) and offering guest lectures at each others institutions.
One of the jointly conducted studies which Prof. Marahatta highlighted was the work on CPD (Continuous Professional Development) in nursing and midwifery in Nepal. Research on CPD started a decade ago and culminated in several papers [1-4]. The research was combined with sustained advocacy and stakeholder engagement, and resulted in the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) formally introduced mandatory CPD as a requirement for nursing and midwifery re-registration earlier this year (15 January 2026). The National Guideline on Continuing Nursing and Midwifery Education (CNME) CPD for Nurses and Midwives refer to our work conducted by academics based at Bournemouth University. This is the foundation for one of BU’s REF Impact Case Studies for 2029.
Amongst other studies, Prof. Marahatta also highlighted a recent publication which was jointly authored between BU’s professors Clark and Hundley and himself on pain catastrophising in nulliparous women in Nepal, the importance for childbirth [5]. Prof. Marahatta’s visit was held in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) in the Bournemouth Gateway Building.
References:
Entrepreneurship often begins with a deceptively simple act: reaching out to someone you do not know.
During the first week of our MBA Technology Entrepreneurship unit at Bournemouth University, a final year engineering student entrepreneur, Atanas Burmov, spoke to the class about building his venture from scratch. He arrived in Bournemouth at 18 to study software engineering. Within months he had established a mathematics and programming society to create peer support for students navigating the demands of their degree. Soon afterwards, he began contacting academics, technologists and organisations—sometimes completely cold—seeking advice and collaboration for a technology idea he was developing.
At that stage he had no venture capital, no established network, and no formal ecosystem behind him. What he had instead was something more fundamental: the belief that he could learn, build, and navigate uncertainty. He simply started reaching out to people. Those early emails and conversations eventually became the foundations of the collaborations that now support the growth of his venture. But at the beginning, it was not about partnerships or strategic alliances. It was about initiative.
His story is simply an illustration which shows a much larger phenomenon in entrepreneurship research: the role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in enabling individuals to act under conditions of uncertainty and constraint ( McGee et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2005).
The concept of self-efficacy originates in Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory. Bandura defines self-efficacy as an individual’s belief in their capability to organise and execute the actions required to manage prospective situations (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 1997). In other words, it is not simply about possessing knowledge or skills. It is about believing that those capabilities can be applied effectively in uncertain circumstances. Entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain. New ventures rarely begin with stable structures, predictable markets or guaranteed resources. In such environments, internal judgements of capability become critically important. A substantial body of research shows that entrepreneurial self-efficacy is strongly associated with entrepreneurial intention, persistence and opportunity pursuit (Chen et al., 1998; Zhao et al., 2005; McGee et al., 2009).
Individuals who believe they can navigate uncertainty are more likely to act despite incomplete information. They are more willing to experiment, to approach new contacts, to persist after rejection and to mobilise resources creatively when conventional pathways are unavailable. This becomes particularly relevant when entrepreneurs begin under conditions of constraint. Many founders start without financial capital, established networks or institutional legitimacy. Research on entrepreneurial bricolage shows how entrepreneurs often respond by recombining the resources already available to them in creative ways (Baker & Nelson, 2005). Similarly, the theory of effectuation highlights how entrepreneurs begin with the means they already possess—who they are, what they know and whom they know—and gradually build ventures through partnerships and experimentation (Sarasvathy, 2001).
Technical expertise can reinforce this process. Founders with deep domain knowledge, particularly in technology-based ventures, often possess greater confidence in their ability to solve problems. This confidence can strengthen entrepreneurial self-efficacy and increase the likelihood that individuals will attempt to translate ideas into ventures (Marvel et al., 2016). Yet confidence does not emerge in isolation. Bandura himself emphasised that self-efficacy develops through interaction with social environments. Mastery experiences, encouragement from others, observing peers succeed and working within supportive communities all contribute to the strengthening of self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997).
This is one reason why institutional environments such as universities can play such an important role in the entrepreneurial journey. Universities increasingly operate as entrepreneurial institutions, supporting venture creation alongside their traditional roles in research and teaching (Etzkowitz, 2003; Guerrero et al., 2016). For students, universities offer more than academic instruction. They provide access to laboratories, intellectual property expertise, mentoring networks, entrepreneurship societies, careers services and communities of peers who are also experimenting with ideas. These infrastructures matter because they help transform tentative initiative into sustained entrepreneurial action. When students know that expertise, resources and encouragement exist around them, their willingness to act increases.
The role of place also deserves attention. Entrepreneurship discourse often focuses heavily on global innovation hubs such as London or Silicon Valley, where capital and talent are highly concentrated. These ecosystems undoubtedly provide significant advantages. Yet they also involve intense competition and high barriers to visibility for early-stage founders.
Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems suggests that smaller regions can offer different but equally important advantages. In regional contexts, social networks are often more visible and accessible, and relationships between ecosystem actors may form more quickly (Stam, 2015; Spigel, 2017). Studies of regional entrepreneurial networks show that such environments frequently display dense relational ties and higher levels of trust, which can lower barriers for new entrepreneurs seeking advice, introductions or collaboration (Granovetter, 1985; Feldman & Zoller, 2012). In these ecosystems, universities frequently function as anchor institutions. They concentrate knowledge, talent, infrastructure and legitimacy within a particular place, often acting as catalysts for regional innovation and venture creation (Goddard & Kempton, 2016).
For student entrepreneurs, this combination of place-based networks and institutional support can be powerful. Access to mentors, academics, laboratories and peer communities can enable ideas to move more quickly from concept to experimentation.
Returning to the story that opened this article, the venture did not begin with a fully formed ecosystem. It began with initiative: sending emails, asking questions and seeking conversations. Over time those conversations developed into collaborations that now support the growth of the business.
What began as individual initiative gradually evolved into a network. Entrepreneurship research often focuses on funding, scaling and investment. Yet the earliest stages of venture creation frequently occur long before these elements appear. They occur in moments that are almost invisible: an email written, a conversation initiated, a question asked despite uncertainty.
Self-efficacy plays a critical role in these moments. It allows individuals to act before legitimacy, capital or networks are fully in place. But sustaining entrepreneurial action requires more than individual belief. It requires environments that recognise initiative and respond to it. Universities, mentors, regional ecosystems and institutional infrastructures all contribute to creating contexts where entrepreneurial action becomes possible.
Sometimes the most important entrepreneurial resource is not capital or connections. It is the quiet confidence to begin.
References
Baker, T., & Nelson, R. (2005). Creating something from nothing: Resource construction through entrepreneurial bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 329–366. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.3.329
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Chen, C., Greene, P., & Crick, A. (1998). Does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers? Journal of Business Venturing, 13(4), 295–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-9026(97)00029-3
Etzkowitz, H. (2003). Research groups as ‘quasi-firms’: The invention of the entrepreneurial university. Research Policy, 32(1), 109–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(02)00009-4
Feldman, M., & Zoller, T. D. (2012). Dealmakers in Place: Social Capital Connections in Regional Entrepreneurial Economies. Regional Studies, 46(1), 23–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2011.607808
Goddard, J., & Kempton, L. (2016). The civic university: Universities in leadership and management of place. Available from https://www.ncl.ac.uk/mediav8/centre-for-urban-and-regional-development-studies/files/the-Civic-University.pdf
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510. https://doi.org/10.1086/228311
Guerrero, M., Urbano, D., & Fayolle, A. (2016). Entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness: Evidence from European entrepreneurial universities. Journal of Technology Transfer, 41, 105–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-014-9377-4
Marvel, M., Davis, J., & Sproul, C. (2016). Human capital and entrepreneurship research: A critical review. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 40(3), 599–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12136
McGee, J., Peterson, M., Mueller, S., & Sequeira, J. (2009). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy: Refining the measure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(4), 965–988. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2009.00304.x
Sarasvathy, S. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243–263. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2001.4378020
Spigel, B. (2017). The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(1), 49–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12167
Stam, E. (2015). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional policy: A sympathetic critique. European Planning Studies, 23(9), 1759–1769. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2015.1061484
Zhao, H., Seibert, S., & Hills, G. (2005). The mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1265–1272. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.6.1265
Yesterday (5th March) Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen published a topical piece in an online newspaper in Nepal called ‘NepaliLink. This newspaper article coincided with the national elections taking place in the country. This is the first general election since Gen Z protests overturned the Government of Nepal in the autumn of 2025. Migrant labour is key to Nepal’s economy as no country in the world relies so much on workers going abroad to work and sending money home. The latter is called remittance and the total amount sent home comprises more than a quarter of the national income.
Dr. Regmi and Prof. van Teijlingen have conducted a great number of studies on the health and well-being of migrant workers from Nepal. This includes a paper ‘A comparison of chronic kidney risk among returnee Nepalese migrant workers in the countries of Gulf and Malaysia and non-migrants in Nepal: a population-based cross-sectional study’ whixh was recently accepted for publication in BMC Nephrology. With a grant from the COLT Foundation, our BU team led the first large-scale population-based interdisciplinary study examining kidney health among Nepalese migrants. Conducted in mid-2023 in one of Nepal’s highest out-migration districts, the forthcoming study compared risks between migrants and non-migrants from the same community [1]. Our study identified significantly higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity among male migrant workers compared to non-migrants. Interestingly, smoking and alcohol consumption were more common among non-migrant men. However, one in seven male migrants reported consuming potentially hazardous counterfeit or home-brewed alcohol while abroad. The findings suggest that both adverse working environments and lifestyle factors may contribute to increased heart disease among migrant workers.
Both Dr. Regmi and Prof. van Teijlingen are based in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) and in the last five years alone they have published over twenty publications about the health and well-being of migrant workers [2-21].
References
Universities are increasingly recognised as anchor institutions within entrepreneurial ecosystems, shaping how innovation emerges and how new ventures develop. Beyond research and teaching, universities now act as hubs where ideas, talent and industry intersect to support venture creation and technological innovation (Guerrero et al., 2014). In the context of technology entrepreneurship, this role becomes particularly significant.
A guest session within the MBA Technology Entrepreneurship unit at Bournemouth University Business School highlighted this intersection between academic learning and real-world venture building. Andrew Olowude, Chief Technical Officer of Xenet AI, joined MBA students to discuss the realities of building AI-driven ventures. Yet the central lesson from the session was not about algorithms or computing architectures. It was about entrepreneurial mindset.
Technology entrepreneurship is often misunderstood as being driven primarily by technological breakthroughs. In practice, many ventures fail because founders focus on what technology can do rather than what markets actually need. Entrepreneurship research consistently shows that venture creation requires iterative learning and market discovery, where founders test assumptions and respond to user feedback in uncertain environments (Fisher, 2012; Shepherd & Gruber, 2021). During the discussion with students, one idea captured this principle particularly well: listening to the market with intention. Rather than attaching technology to an idea simply because it exists, entrepreneurs must identify whether there is genuine market pull for the solution. In this sense, technology becomes an enabler of value creation, not the starting point of the venture.
Understanding how innovations spread is therefore essential to technology entrepreneurship education. One of the most influential frameworks explaining this process is Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory, which describes how innovations move from early adopters to mainstream users, the early majority. Building on Rogers’ work, Geoffrey Moore (1991; 2014) introduced the concept of “Crossing the Chasm,” describing the difficulty many technology ventures face when attempting to move from early adopters to the broader market. The transition requires a shift from technological enthusiasm to clear problem- solution fit and demonstrable value. For technology entrepreneurs, the lesson is simple but powerful: innovation does not succeed because technology works; it succeeds because people adopt it.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence has also brought renewed attention to the ethical dimensions of technology entrepreneurship. Increasingly, scholars argue that founders must consider the societal implications of the technologies they create, including issues of bias, transparency and social impact (George et al., 2021; Markman et al., 2016). Technology entrepreneurship therefore sits at the intersection of technical capability, market understanding and responsible innovation. Entrepreneurs must not only build technologies that function, but technologies that contribute meaningfully to society.
This is precisely where universities play a vital role. Entrepreneurial universities help shape innovation ecosystems by mobilising knowledge, talent, partnerships and infrastructure to support venture creation (Löfsten, 2025; Wang, 2026). Through incubators, industry collaborations and entrepreneurship programmes, universities increasingly act as innovation hubs that connect research with market application.
Equally important is how entrepreneurship is taught. Traditional lecture-based approaches are increasingly being complemented by experiential learning environments where students engage directly with real-world problems, industry partners and venture creation processes (Motta et al., 2023; Monllor et al., 2024). Such approaches mirror how entrepreneurs actually learn — through experimentation, reflection and iteration. Guest engagements with founders and technology leaders therefore become an important part of entrepreneurship education. They help students see beyond theoretical frameworks and understand the lived realities of venture creation: uncertainty, pivoting and the constant need to align technological possibility with market demand.
As artificial intelligence and digital technologies continue to reshape industries, the responsibility of universities within entrepreneurial ecosystems will only deepen. Preparing students for this environment requires more than teaching technological tools. It requires cultivating entrepreneurial judgement ;the ability to interpret market signals, recognise ethical implications and translate technological potential into meaningful innovation. Technology entrepreneurship, ultimately, is not about technology alone. It is about people, problems and the thoughtful application of technology to solve them.
References:
Audretsch, D.B., Belitski, M. & Caiazza, R. (2021). Start-ups, Innovation and Knowledge Spillovers. Journal of Technology Transfer, 46, 1995–2016 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-021-09846-5
Fisher, G. (2012). Effectuation, causation, and bricolage: A behavioral comparison of emerging theories in entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(5), 1019–1051.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00537.x
George, G., Merrill, R. K., & Schillebeeckx, S. J. D. (2021). Digital sustainability and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 45(5), 999–1027.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258719899425
Guerrero, M., Urbano, D., Cunningham, J. A., & Organ, D. (2014). Entrepreneurial universities in two European regions: A case study comparison. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 39(3), 415–434.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-012-9287-2
Löfsten, H. How Entrepreneurial are Universities? (2025). A Typological Analysis of Swedish Higher Education Institutions. Higher Education Policy, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-025-00428-w
Markman, G. D., Russo, M., Lumpkin, G. T., Jennings, P. D., & Mair, J. (2016). Entrepreneurship as a platform for pursuing multiple goals. Journal of Management Studies, 53, 673-694. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12214
Monllor, J., Michels, N., & Adderley, S. (2024). Pivoting an Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning Module Online: Applying a Concrete Experience Framework. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 7(4), 416-438.
Motta, V. F., & Galina, S. V. R. (2023). Experiential Learning in Entrepreneurship Education: A Systematic Literature Review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 121, Article 103919.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103919
Moore, G. A. (2014). Crossing the chasm (3rd ed.). Harper Business.
Rogers, E. M. (1962). Diffusion of innovations. 3rd ed Free Press.
Shepherd, D. A., & Gruber, M. (2021). The Lean Startup Framework: Closing the Academic–Practitioner Divide. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 45(5), 967-998.
Wang, Q., Kim, N., Thrush, B. C., & Ochoa, R. (2026). Minority-Serving Institutions as Entrepreneurial Universities: Evidence from an Underserved Region. The Professional Geographer, 78(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2025.2581610
The editor of Frontiers in Public Health have accepted our latest article from the EPPOCH study. This latest paper ‘Prenatal substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: Associations with depression, anxiety, and pandemic stressors‘ focuses on the use of substances in pregnancy in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. Our previous EPPOCH paper, in line with several other population-based studies, highlighted that COVID-19 was associated with high levels of depression and anxiety during pregnancy in the UK [2].
This new publication reports on a cross-sectional analysis of baseline EPPOCH data (n = 3292; June – Nov. 2020). Participants reported alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and illicit drug use before and after recognition of pregnancy, alongside validated measures of depression, anxiety, pregnancy-related anxiety, and pandemic stressors. Linear regression models examined associations between mental health, COVID-19 stressors, and substance use after pregnancy recognition. A qualitative thematic analysis of 380 open-ended responses explored perceptions of substance use post-pregnancy recognition. Results: Alcohol was the most commonly used substance before pregnancy. Following pregnancy recognition, tobacco (8.75%) and alcohol (8.60%) were the most frequently reported substances, followed by cannabis (1.49%) and illicit drugs (0.12%). Tobacco use after pregnancy recognition was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms and pandemic stressors, including perceived personal health threat and not receiving necessary care. Prenatal co-use of substances was associated with higher depressive symptoms and pandemic-related financial difficulties. Qualitative themes included continued substance use until pregnancy detection, vaping as a perceived safer-use strategy, and midwifery advice influencing prenatal substance use decisions.
In this large UK pregnancy cohort recruited during the COVID-19 pandemic, substance use following pregnancy recognition – particularly tobacco – was linked to depression and pandemic-related stressors. These findings highlight the importance of equipping midwives and other healthcare professionals with clear, evidence-based guidance on prenatal substance use, particularly during global health crises.
This interdisciplinary project is led by Dr. Melanie Conrad in Germany. The lead author for the paper is Ph.D. candidate Swarali Datye, whilst three members of the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH): Dr. Latha Vinayakarao and Prof. Minesh Khashu both working in University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust (UHD) and both Visiting Faculty at BU and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen are team members and co-authors on this paper.
References:
MBA students on Bournemouth University’s Level 7 unit Entrepreneurship: Technology-Driven Ventures & User-Centred Business Solutions began their learning journey not in a lecture theatre, but in Sherborne, Dorset at the stunning Sherborne Boys School.
Hosted by the steering committee behind the emerging Turing Centre initiative, our students were immersed in a live civic project inspired by the legacy of Alan Turing. The Turing Centre vision is explicitly future-facing: to inspire young people in digital technology, create an innovation hub and enterprise zone, support pathways into employment and skills, and function as a social, cultural, and economic asset for Sherborne and beyond . Rather than analysing this as a completed case , students encountered an evolving initiative shaped by institutional constraints, funding realities, stakeholder ambitions, and technological uncertainty. After exploring Sherborne’s historical and civic context, they worked in teams on four strategic challenges: translating vision into a viable business model, developing fundraising logic, shaping promotion and positioning, and evaluating financial, economic, and social sustainability. Their proposals were presented directly to members of the steering group.
This was not accidental. It reflects a deliberate pedagogical choice.
Entrepreneurship education has, for some time now, been trying to move beyond the “inspiration” model, the idea that if students feel energised enough, something entrepreneurial will magically happen. Contemporary scholarship instead emphasises competence, judgement and disciplined practice (Neck & Corbett, 2018). Hägg and Gabrielsson’s (2020) systematic review traces this shift clearly: from knowledge transmission to experiential and practice-based designs. But they also sound a note of caution. Experience alone is not enough. Without theoretical integration, it risks becoming energetic but shallow.
Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle — experience, reflection, conceptualisation, experimentation — is frequently invoked in business education. Yet critics have long warned that “learning by doing” can quietly become “doing without thinking” (Kayes, 2002). Morris (2020) similarly argues that Kolb’s framework is often applied in a simplified manner, neglecting the epistemic depth required for higher-order learning. In other words, activity is not the same as analysis.
The Sherborne engagement was therefore designed not as a field trip in the traditional sense, nor as consultancy theatre, but as structured immersion before interrogation. Students encountered ambiguity first; stakeholder tensions, funding constraints, institutional realities, technological ambition, and only afterwards will they begin systematically analysing what they have seen. Over the two weeks beginning 2 March, that initial immersion will be subjected to scrutiny. Entrepreneurship theory, user-centred design frameworks, and sustainability debates will not sit alongside the experience; they will probe it. Assumptions made in Sherborne will be tested. Enthusiasm will be examined. Gaps in evidence will be exposed.
Assessment design is crucial in holding this intellectual line. Research on authentic assessment demonstrates that tasks resembling professional practice enhance capability only when academic standards remain explicit and evaluative judgement is foregrounded (Villarroel et al., 2018). In this unit, students are required not merely to propose a technology-enabled, user-centred venture, but to justify its feasibility, scalability, ethical implications, and community impact through scholarly argument.
This matters particularly in technology entrepreneurship, where uncertainty, adoption dynamics and unintended consequences are structural features rather than unfortunate accidents. Pittaway and Cope (2007) argue that effective entrepreneurship education must expose learners to uncertainty while supporting reflective sensemaking. The Sherborne visit functions precisely as such a productive disorientation.
For this MBA cohort, Sherborne now becomes an anchor point. They are not beginning with abstract frameworks detached from context. They are beginning with lived complexity. The task ahead is not to apply tools mechanically, but to develop disciplined judgement by integrating technology, commercial logic and community value with intellectual rigour rather than optimism alone.
Experiential learning, when critically structured and theoretically grounded, does not dilute academic depth. It sharpens it.
References:
Hägg, G., & Gabrielsson, J. (2020). A systematic literature review of the evolution of pedagogy in entrepreneurial education research. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 26(5), 829–861. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-04-2018-0272
Hägg, G., & Kurczewska, A. (2016). Connecting the dots: A discussion on key concepts in contemporary entrepreneurship education. Education + Training, 58(7/8), 700–714. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-12-2015-0115
Kayes, D. C. (2002). Experiential learning and its critics: Preserving the role of experience in management learning and education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 1(2), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2002.8509336
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Morris, T. H. (2020). Experiential learning – A systematic review and revision of Kolb’s model. Interactive Learning Environments, 28(8), 1064–1077. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2019.1570279
Neck, H. M., & Corbett, A. C. (2018). The scholarship of teaching and learning entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 1(1), 8–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515127417737286
Pittaway, L., & Cope, J. (2007). Entrepreneurship education: A systematic review of the evidence. International Small Business Journal, 25(5), 479–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266242607080656
Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S., Bruna, D., Bruna, C., & Herrera-Seda, C. (2018). Authentic assessment: Creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(5), 840–854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1412396
Last week we opened the Evidence Synthesis Centre in the School of Medical Sciences at Kathmandu University in Nepal. The centre is part of a wider initiative is funded by The British Academy and supported in the field by Green Tara Nepal. Earlier parts of this initiative included online workshop on systematic reviewing and evidence synthesis as well as face-to-face training in Nepal late last year. The project involved Bournemouth University’s Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen both in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences. 
This capacity-building project is led by Prof. Padam Simkhada from the University of Huddersfield and takes place at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS). This new Fellowship scheme is an international collaboration led by the University of Huddersfield in the UK, in close collaboration with Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (in Nepal), the Nepal Health Research Council, and several UK universities: Bournemouth University, the University of Sheffield, Canterbury Christ Church University, Keele University and the University of Chester. The Evidence Synthesis Centre and The British Academy grant grew out of an editorial written four years ago and published in the Journal of the Nepal Health Research Council [1]. The wider British Academy funded project on strengthening evidence synthesis for health policy-making in Nepal has been described in two recent publications [2-3].
References:
Prof. Sujan Marahatta from Nepal will be presenting at Bournemouth University about Competency-based education of health professionals in Nepal. He will be speaking on Monday March 9th in a session jointly organised by the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) and the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-Term Health (CWLTH). The session will be in the Bournemouth Gateway Building (BGB) room 407 from 10.00 till 12.00. Prof. Marahatta is currently the Director of the Medical Education Commission in Nepal overseeing the education on the country of a wide range of health professionals including nurses and midwives. Prof. Marahatta is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (FHEMS)and has been so for nearly a decade. He is also a co-author on many publications with several past and present academics in the Faculty of Health, Environment and Medical Sciences [1-20]. Former BU academics with whom Prof. Marahatta is a co-author include: Bibha Simkhada, Nirmal Aryal, Malcolm McIver, Preeti Mahato, Elaine Asbridge, Jana Kuncova, and Anneyce Knight, whilst co-authors currently based at BU include: Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Carol Clark, Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Vanora Hundley, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
References:
Congratulations to Jonathan Parker, Ivan Gray, Andrew Morris and Sally Lee, the editors of the fourth edition of Newly-Qualified Social Workers: A Practice Guide to the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment [1]. This new edition has eleven chapters. Apart from the various chapters produced or co-produced by the editors, this 2026 text also include a chapter by two further Bournemouth University academics, including Dr. Richard Williams and Dr. Louise Oliver. The latter contributed ‘Chapter 7: Research and NQSW: Developing yourself as a research minded and critically reflective practitioner’.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences
Reference:
Providing the evidence base to support conservation actions that protect species and habitats in aquatic ecosystems is a key task in the Fish Ecology and Conservation Research Cluster (FishE). This week, five articles published or accepted for publication will contribute strongly to this evidence base, with the work co-created with a number of funders and collaborating organisations.
Sotiris Meletiou’s PhD is on the conservation biology and management of the critically endangered European eel in Cyprus – which is at the eastern edge of their range and far away from their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea (Atlantic Ocean). Until now, an eel management plan was not required for Cyprus as any eels present were not believed to metamorphose into adult silver eels and not emigrate back to their spawning grounds. Sotiris’ new paper in the Journal of Fish Biology demonstrates that silver eels are indeed present in Cyprus and do attempt to emigrate to sea, and so should drive the formation of a management plan that should result in greater eel protection and conservation in the eastern Mediterranean.
Simone Cittadino’s research is assessing how freshwater fish respond to saline incursion events from the sea into lowland rivers. these events driven by high spring tides, exacerbated by climate change driven rising sea levels and weather events. His new paper in Hydrobiologia assesses the general movements of a key fish species in the Norfolk Broads, the common bream, highlighting the importance of high habitat connectivity for their movements across this large protected wetland. This work will provide a strong basis for the rest of his PhD research.
Phillip Haubrock, a Marie Curie Incoming postdoctoral Fellow, identified how conservation efforts across the world have been affected by research that is limited by political borders and the restricted availability of data. He and his co-authors argue in Conservation Biology that supra-national and better open-data governance should be capable of overcoming this and lead to better conservation outcomes.
Two articles just accepted for publication this week also contribute strongly to the conservation evidence base. Jonas Palder’s first publication from his PhD was accepted in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, which assessed the increased mortality risk for threatened European shads caused by human constructed barriers within rivers. Robert Britton worked with Gabby Valle, one of our School’s 2024/25 MSc Biodiversity Conservation students, to get her research project data published, which was assessing the risk of a biological invasion in Britain by the globally invasive and ecologically damaging common carp. Their manuscript has also just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Fish Biology.
Congratulations to all involved!
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BU academics publish in Nepal national newspaper
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