Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
I am pleased to announce that I am holding drop in sessions in each school for the BU community to ask questions about eBU: Online Journal.
These sessions will be:
Mon 24th June – DEC 12 -2pm in P411
Mon 24th June – School of Applied Sciences 2-4pm in C122
Tues 25th June – HSC 9-11am in the Wellbeing Centre, B112 Bournemouth House
Tues 25th June – Business School 2-4pm in EB205
Thurs 27th June – School of Tourism 1.30-3.30 in P410
Fri 28th June – Media School 8-10am in CAG04
The first screenshot of the eBU interface has been exclusively leaked to the BU Research Blog, and is expected to go viral across the BU community over the next week.
eBU will provide both an internal and external forum for the development of research papers by undergraduate to Professor around the eight BU research themes:
– Creative & Digital Economies
– Culture & Society
– Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth
– Environmental Change & Biodiversity
– Green Economy & Sustainability
– Health, Wellbeing & Ageing
– Leisure & Recreation
– Technology & Design
Submissions will be open to immediate publication (in a safe internal environment) and open peer review by 2 appropriate BU academics. Authors will be encouraged to act upon these reviews by either reworking papers for submission to an external journal or by opting for publication on the external eBU site.
For BU academics this is a great opportunity to get critical appraisal on your research papers or ideas from colleagues. For academics it also an opportunity to encourage the submission of high quality student output, and possibly to facilitate the co-creation and co-production of publishable material to an external journal or to publish externally with eBU. For students, this is a fantastic opportunity to turn high quality essays or dissertations into scholarly outputs, which will be attractive to employers across many sectors and industries.
If you have any questions or would like to become involved in this exciting venture, please get in touch with me via email aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk or by telephone 01202 963025.
Following on from my last post ‘Developing a Working Paper at BU’ in January of this year, we are now within sight of having an exciting new online journal at BU. eBU will provide both an internal and external forum for the development of research papers by undergraduate to Professor around the eight BU research themes:
– Creative & Digital Economies
– Culture & Society
– Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth
– Environmental Change & Biodiversity
– Green Economy & Sustainability
– Health, Wellbeing & Ageing
– Leisure & Recreation
– Technology & Design
Submissions will be open to immediate publication (in a safe internal environment) and open peer review by 2 appropriate BU academics. Authors will be encouraged to act upon these reviews by either reworking papers for submission to an external journal or by opting for publication on the external eBU site.
For BU academics this is a great opportunity to get critical appraisal on your research papers or ideas from colleagues. For academics it also an opportunity to encourage the submission of high quality student output, and possibly to facilitate the co-creation and co-production of publishable material to an external journal or to publish externally with eBU. For students, this is a fantastic opportunity to turn high quality essays or dissertations into scholarly outputs, which will be attractive to employers across many sectors and industries.
It is anticipated that author guidelines will be circulated in the coming weeks, and staff and students alike should begin to think about how they could submit to eBU.
If you have any questions or would like to become involved in this exciting venture, please get in touch with me via email aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk or by telephone 01202 963025
A joint meeting was held on 24 April 2013 between the Creative & Digital Economies and Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth research themes. The idea behind the meeting was to cross-pollinate staff ideas and ensure that research themes do not become silos.
The meeting was well attended and colleagues from across different schools shared ideas for those who presented ‘elevator pitches’. Ideas were presented on funding applications or joint research papers and where they would like to work collaboratively with another member(s) of staff, colleagues within the meeting then held a discussion on ways to take it forward.
If you would like to come along to the next meeting, which will be held in June please sign up to the research theme email group via this link, completing the form at the bottom of the page.
We will post an update on the blog with the details of the next meeting soon.
The Business School has seen the arrival of its new Deputy Dean of Research, Andy Mullineux (formerly University of Birmingham) as Professor of Financial Economics. Additional to his wisdom he comes with an AHRC Research Award worth £687K. End of April he will be chairing a session and give a paper at the International Conference on the Global Financial Crisis in Southampton. At the same time the new Head of Department of Accounting, Finance & Economics, Jens Hölscher (formerly University of Brighton), came to Bournemouth as Professor of Economics. He can draw on research funds won under the EU’s Jean Monnet programme and will chair a session and give a paper at a conference on The Pacific Rim Economies in Seoul, South Korea, at the end of April. Both of them have high aspirations to boost the research culture within the school.
What do insurance and meerkats have in common? On the face of it – very little. For comparethemarket.com, the well-known insurance aggregator, the combination has proven to be extremely successful and has captured the public’s imagination. The campaign achieved its 12 months targets in just 9 weeks and Aleksandr, the main character, has his own Facebook fans, is followed on Twitter and has received numerous marriage proposals.
Comparethemarket.com, or should that be Comparethemeerkat.com, was just one of the advertising campaigns reviewed by Dr. Julie Robson at a recent presentation on “Changes in Insurance Advertising” for the Bournemouth Insurance Institute.
Julie’s talk examined how advertising content, structure and style have changed over time. Beginning with one of the earliest forms of insurance advertising, as early as the 1700s, where fire insurance plaques were placed on the front of the insured’s building, signifying which company the property was insured with. She then tracked through the decades of change in advertising to today’s advertisements looking at visual prominence; the use of puns, metaphors and ambiguity; emotional vs. rational appeals; and the increasing use of digital technology within the sector.
Julie also examined what advertising works in a recession and how to get the most from your marketing budget before going on to look at some of the trends for the near future.
The Insurance Institute of Bournemouth has over 1,000 members and is part of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), the leading professional body for the global financial services profession.
Dr. Julie Robson specialises in financial services marketing. She has presented her research at internal conferences and published in academic journals on a range of marketing topics in the banking, insurance, broker and Islamic finance sectors. She has secured grants from the ESRC and HEIF to support this work and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Bank Marketing. Julie is currently Chair of the Qualifications Examination and Assessments Committee of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and a past President and current Education Secretary for the Bournemouth Insurance Institute.
This project (sponsored by SMN Strand Santander Scholarships), is conducted by Dr.Ke Rong (Business School) and Dr.Nigel Williams(Tourism School) to initiate an university-industry research platform between UK-China for the emerging electric vehicle business ecosystem and business model research. This project would help BU secure an active position in the electric vehicle industry research. The research platform will integrate scholars of Santander Universities including two Chinese top universities (Tsinghua and CEIBS) and two UK top universities (Cambridge, Bath) as well as two committed EV companies. Based on this platform, the industrial fieldwork and one public seminar on EV industry development will be organized in China by engaging top scholars and practitioners which will expand BU’s reputation in China and UK. One journal paper of EV ecosystem would be developed based on our research.
For more information, please contact Dr Ke Rong (krong@bournemouth.ac.uk).
I (Dr.Ke Rong) as the principal investigator have received an award from the Bournemouth Small Grant scheme. This project has set up the collaborative research partnership with Dr.Yongjiang Shi (ys@eng.cam.ac.uk), the director of centre for international manufacturing of University of Cambridge. We have explored a new strategic management territory- business ecosystem in a multidisciplinary working environment by integrate the research methods from operation management (Dr.Yongjiang Shi’s expertise) and strategic management (Dr.Ke Rong’s expertise).
After ten months, we successfully completed the project. Specifically, our pilot research explored the evolution and construct of a business ecosystem. This pilot project also led to a funding bid by combining ideas in a multidisciplinary working environment ( strategic management and operation management) and fostering new and long term collaboration with prestigious universities like University of Cambridge. Two journal papers on the business ecosystem have been published and two others are submitted.
Besides, the co-investigator and I also organized a research seminar on ‘Shanzhai business ecosystem’ in the Academy of Management Annual conference in Boston, 08/2012. More than 20 worldwide scholars attended and they recognized that our business school had dedicated to this emerging research theme- Business Ecosystem.
A three-member Media School research team has been awarded a grant for research into Corporate Social Responsibility communication amongst employees.
Dr Tasos Theofilou, Dr Georgiana Grigore and Prof Tom Watson (L-R) gained the grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, a research center at the Penn State College of Communications.
They will be conducting a study in the UK and Romania to link with a previous study undertaken in Greece by Dr Theofilou. The study supports travel and the employment of research assistants for research in summer this year. Prof Watson, the project PI, has been named as a Page Legacy Scholar for 2013.
“Within the Media School’s Public Relations Research Group (the PRRes Gang), there is considerable expertise in CSR,” said Prof Watson.
“Dr Grigore is an organiser of an international CSR conference to be held at BU in the autumn, whilst Dr Theofilou is pioneering research into harnessing ‘scepticism’ as a factor in developing effective CSR communication within corporate organisations.
“This grant is very positive recognition of BU’s standing internationally within public relations and corporate communications research.”
# Arthur W. Page was a highly respected pioneer of public relations and corporate communications in the US from the late 1920s to the late 1940s at the telecoms giant, AT&T.
(L-R) Dr Tasos Theofilou, Dr Georgiana Grigore and Prof Tom Watson
Within the Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth BU research theme we have recently formed a small group looking at internal marketing.
Internal marketing is essentially inward facing marketing that engages with employees rather than external audiences such as customers. It is about treating staff as internal customers so that they understand and contribute to the vision and goals of the firm. Internal marketing is two-way communication process that can increase staff motivation, improve customer service and contribute the overall success of a firm. Internal marketing can also help with improving communication in all parts of the organisation and so improving overall brand values and resultant communication externally. Naturally, this theme involves the business disciplines of Marketing and HR, but we are also interested to hear from anyone who has an interest or expertise in this area who would like to get involved with this group.
If you are interested in joining this group or learning more about our plans then feel free to contact any of the group members: Julie Robson, Yasmin Sekhon, Lois Farquharson and Fabian Homberg.
I would like to make you aware of an exciting development at BU.
A multi-disciplinary group of BU academics has been meeting over the last 6 months in order to design a online journal that is capable of acting as a central focus for the dissemination of the high quality research and scholarly outputs from UG and PG dissertations, post graduate researchers, early career researchers and established academic staff. The group has designed a developmental working paper online journal that will support ‘would be’ authors and their potential publications. Although particular emphasis has been given to maximising high quality outputs of UG and PG students and early career academics, this online journal will be capable of supporting the potential of all those engaged in research and scholarship at BU.
Below are a series of Q & As:
What’s the name of the working paper?
The provisional title is eBU: Working Papers Online
How is the working paper structured?
The working paper will not be limited to any one discipline or allied to any one particular methodology, but will aim to publish articles driven by the key BU Research Themes: (Creative and Digital Economies, Culture and Society, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth, Environmental Change and Biodiversity, Green Economy and Sustainability, Health, Wellbeing and Ageing, Leisure and Recreation, Technology and Design). Apart from the build-up to launch, the working paper will have no deadlines or specific calls for papers. Instead, the working paper will work on a rolling submission process.
A set of author guidelines and details about formats are currently being considered and written. However, the guidelines are likely to accommodate a wide range of formats.
What are the submission processes for staff and students?
It is envisaged that staff will act as gatekeepers and encourage undergraduate and master’s students to submit high quality work into a format this is publishable. Post-graduate researchers and academic members of staff will be able to submit papers on their own accord.
After a short review from the editorial board, two designated BU academics will provide an initial quality check. The paper will then be uploaded to the internal intranet working paper site. This will allow any member of staff or student to read and offer feedback. However, within a few weeks the two designed reviewers will then provide a more comprehensive and detailed critical review. All reviews will take place in a safe, secure and INTERNAL environment. After a detailed review, students will then be encouraged to make any recommended changes and submit to external publication/or make their work available to be published on external working paper website.
This working paper is set to go live in March.
Further information
If anyone is interested in becoming involved in helping to create this online journal, and/or at an editorial level please get in touch with Andrew Harding (aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk), Andrew Adams (aadams@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Fiona Knight (fknight@bournemouth.ac.uk).
IP Pragmatics has been commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to carry out an evaluation of the impacts of the Lambert Toolkit – a set of decision tools and model agreements designed to improve collaboration between research establishments and business.
The IPO intends to use the outcomes of this evaluation to inform future policy development in relation to improving intellectual property deal-making and knowledge exchange. The findings of the research will be made publically available through the IPO.
As part of this work IP Pragmatics are undertaking a survey to seek your opinion. They would like to survey a good spread of companies of all sizes in a range of sectors, plus Universities, PSREs and other research organisations. IP Pragmatics are looking for opinions from both users and non-users of the toolkit, as well as those who have not come across the toolkit before. The survey should only take 15-20 minutes to complete and any responses provided will remain anonymous.
Please take the survey if you are involved with negotiation of research collaboration agreements.
BU has joined with other institutes in the South West to offer businesses help. Innovation Vouchers are supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) South West Competitiveness Programme 2007 to 2013. 
In a nut-shell, an Innovation Voucher provides funding for a business to work with an external expert from a University, College or Public Sector Research Establishment for the first time, gaining new knowledge to help their business innovate, develop and grow.
Are you in early conversations with a company with whom you have not worked before? Is the company a start-up, micro, small and medium-sized business (as defined by the EC*) located anywhere in the South West England Competitiveness Area (not Cornwall) with an an innovative idea? Do they trade in an ERDF-eligible sector (i.e. not agri-food, textiles or retail)? Would they benefit from up to 40% support for projects with a total value ranging from £3,000 to £10,000 for the business to buy in external expertise to develop ideas and improve performance? Do they need help during the application period – 1 October 2012 to early in 2015?
If so, Innovation Vouchers may be the way to introduce them to what BU has to offer? More information is available on the USW website.
Within BU, please contact your School’s BRO or Emily Cieciura (ecieciura@bournemouth.ac.uk)
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N.B. The Innovation Voucher project is part financed by the Competitiveness European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf.
Bournemouth University proudly sponsored the Entrepreneur of the Year award for another year. The application and judging process culminated in an awards ceremony and Gala Dinner for 530+ guests at the Lighthouse in Poole on 29th November, hosted by actress and impressionist Debra Stephenson.
The evening had a Bond theme to celebrate the ‘007th’ year that the Dorset Chamber of Commerce & Industry has organised the awards and the 50th anniversary of the James Bond character.
The Entrepreneur of the Year category attracted one of the highest number of entries. The applicants were diverse and covered a broad and varied range of businesses. The judging panel had the enjoyable, yet extremely challenging, task of narrowing the list down to just three finalists.
The judges were Professor Roger Palmer the Dean of the Business School, Professor Dean Patton the Head of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Mark Painter the Business Development Manager for the Business School. The three deserving finalists were Phil Whitehurst of Active Research, Duncan Cook of 3 Sided Cube and Paul Woods of Astute. Paul Woods was the eventual worthy winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Mark, Roger and Dean were joined at the Gala Dinner by Tim Lee, a non-Executive Director of BU, the three finalists and their guests.
More information regarding the Dorset Business Awards can be found at www.dorsetbusinessawards.co.uk
You are warmly invited to attend a series of business law seminars being organised by a group of academics in the Department of Law researching in Business Regulation & Institutions, Trade & Entrepreneurship (cBRITE), who will be working closely with the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth:
Stephen Copp “The codification of directors’ duties: raising or lowering standards?” 11.00 – 12.00pm Wednesday 5th December 2012 in PG142
Alison Cronin “White Collar Crime – Why the light touch? The case for a robust criminal law to reinforce ethical conduct in the commercial world” 1.00 – 2.00pm Wednesday 12th December 2012 in PG146
Sarah McKeown “A Common European Sales Law: Facilitating Cross-Border Trade for SMEs” 11.00 – 12.00pm Wednesday 19th December 2012 in PG142
For further details contact Dr Stephen Copp, Associate Professor, Department of Law, The Business School at scopp@bournemouth.ac.uk
Applications are invited to attend a unique research development workshop Advancing European Traditions of Entrepreneurship Studies A Research Development Workshop. This may be of particular interest to researchers in entrepreneurship, organisation studies or broader social sciences and humanities disciplines who are interested in looking at the phenomena of entrepreneurship from a variety of contexts and perspectives. Please note that the closing date for applications is 15 December 2012 and places are limited.
The aim of this meeting is to provide a creative space to consider experimental and novel approaches which advance theoretical understanding of the domain of entrepreneurship and its real-life practices, contexts and impacts. Drawing on multi-disciplinary perspectives, including social sciences and humanities approaches, opportunities are sought to expose conceptual anomalies in current entrepreneurship research, while developing debate in dialogue with the mainstream of entrepreneurship science.
Organised by the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, the workshop will take place at an out-of-town retreat venue to ensure opportunities for fruitful discussion. Doctoral candidates and early-career researchers who share questions and concerns related to enterprise and entrepreneurship, are particularly invited to apply to attend. This event is supported by the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) and the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE).
The workshop will take place 18th-19th March 2013 at Weetwood Hall Hotel, Leeds, UK
Confirmed Speakers
Prof. Bill Gartner (Clemson, USA); Prof. Friederike Welter (Jönköping, Sweden); Prof. Susan Marlow (Nottingham); Prof. Sara Carter (Strathclyde); Prof. Joep Cornelissen (Leeds); Prof. Simon Down (Anglia Ruskin); Prof. Denise Fletcher (Luxembourg); Prof. Helle Neergaard (Aarhus, Denmark); Dr Ellie Hamilton (Lancaster); Prof. Daniel Hjorth (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark); Prof. Robin Holt (Liverpool); Prof. Sarah Jack (Lancaster); Prof. Nelson Phillips (Imperial); Prof. Tony Watson (Nottingham); Prof. Chris Stayaert (St.Gallen, Switzerland); Dr Paul Tracey (Cambridge); Prof. David Rae (Lincoln); Prof. Ossie Jones (Liverpool); Prof. Colin Williams (Sheffield).
For more details and to apply, please visit: http://www.eventsforce.net/entrepstudies
Closing Date for Applications: 15 December 2012 Limited Places Available
The Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth Research Theme is holding its second meeting of the term on Thursday 29 November. The seminar will be held in the Executive Business Centre at 12:00 – 13:30. Lunch will be provided. The meeting will be informal and will be used as an opportunity to discuss current research and ideas for cross-collaboration.
We look forward to seeing you there – please confirm your attendance to Nikki Gloyns: ngloyns@bournemouth.ac.uk so that we can book lunch for you!
Yawning consistently poses a conundrum to neurologists and neuroscientists. Increasingly, evidence is found to link neurological disorders through the commonality of yawning episodes and contagious yawning. Despite discrete incidences (such as parakinesia brachialis oscitans) in brain stem ischaemic stroke patients, there is considerable debate over the reasons for yawning, with the mechanism of yawning still not fully understood. Cortisol is implicated in the stress response and fatigue; repetitive yawning may be the link between neurological disorders and with a strong correlation between yawning and a rise in cortisol levels. Evidence has now been found in support of the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis that proposes cortisol levels are elevated during yawning [1]. Additional data is in press, and further research is planned with longitudinal consideration to neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and stroke. Funding for such initiatives is currently being sought.
[1] Thompson, S.B.N., & Bishop, P., 2012. Born to yawn? Understanding yawning as a warning of the rise in cortisol levels: randomized trial. Interactive Journal of Medical Research, 1(5), e4:1-9. Doi: i-www.jmr.org/2012/e4/
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