BU Research Blog

February 5, 2017

CPD study findings presented in Kathmandu

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Featured academics, Fusion, international, Public engagement, Research news, Training, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Today we offered preliminary feedback to key stakeholders in Kathmandu as part of our research into CPD (Continuous Professional Development) for nurses in Nepal. Today’s presentation is party funded by LJMU (Liverpool John Moores University) and partly funded by BU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL). Late 2016 CEL funded the qualitative part of our research project. In this CPD project we work with representatives of the Ministry of Health , the Ministry of Education, the Nepal Nursing Association and the Nursing Council, and providers of Nursing Education (both Government-run universities and private colleges).

Today key presenter was BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada (based at LJMU). The event was opened by Associate Professor Chandra Kala Sharma, who is also the president of the Nepal Nursing Association (lighting the traditional lamp in photo right).

Our BU contributors, Dr. Catherine Angell and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, are both based in the Centre for Midwifery and Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). We are grateful to our collaborators in Nepal, especially Dr. Sujan Marahatta at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, for organising this event in our absence. The CPD research project is truly a FUSION project in the field of nursing & midwifery since it links Research in the field of Education to help improve Practice in Nepal. Further information can be found on a previous blog post, click here!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

January 28, 2017

New paper CMMPH PhD student Sheetal Sharma

BU research, Global engagement, international, open access, PG research, Publishing, Research news, Student Engagement, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Focus groups in open air in rural Nepal, (c) Sheetal Sharma

Congratulations to Sheetal Sharma, postgraduate student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) whose latest paper on the process of the research in her PhD fieldwork was accepted today by the Journal of Asian Midwives [1]. Sheetal used an innovative mixed-methods evaluation which was applied to a long-running maternity intervention in rural Nepal. The intervention has been supported for nearly seven years by Green Tara Trust, a Buddhist charity based in London. Sheetal’s supervisors are supervisors are Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Catherine Angell (all in CMMPH) and Prof. Padam Simkhada, who is Visiting Faculty in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and based at Liverpool John Moores University.

This paper is part of a larger body of health research work conducted by CMMPH in Nepal.

Reference:

Sharma, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Stephens J, Hundley, V., Angell, C. (2017) Evaluation of Maternity Care Intervention in Rural Nepal: Lessons learnt, Journal of Asian Midwives (accepted Jan. 2017).

January 27, 2017

Migrant & Refugee Leisure Spaces and Community Well-being project

Awarded & submitted bids, BRIAN, BU research, Fusion, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Research communication jchoe

‘We Love EU: Migrant & Refugee Leisure Spaces and Community Well-being’ project

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Bournemouth University academics and community organization partners had a first meeting for an internally funded project (QR Fund), ‘We Love EU: Migrant and Refugee Leisure Spaces and Community Well-being’ on January 25. The ‘We love EU’ project is focused on building research capacity to respond to policy changes with regard to migrant wellbeing and Brexit. The project is based in the Department of Events and Leisure (Faculty of Management) and hence the project has a leisure focus. Previous research indicates that leisure spaces and practices are productive to marginalised and excluded communities and individuals in terms of generating resilience and well-being.

The BU academics are: Janet Dickinson, Jayne Caudwell, Kat King and Jaeyeon Choe (Department of Events and Leisure), Adele Ladkin (Department of Tourism and Hospitality), Darren Lilleker (Media School), Nicola De Martini Ugolotti (Department of Sport and Physical Activity), Rosie Read and Holly Crossen-White (Faculty of Health and Social Sciences). We have come together as a very interdisciplinary group with different backgrounds and knowledge. The external partners are: Sally Watkins and Sandy Kirkby from Bside, Nathalie Sherring from Dorset Race Equality Rep, Trudie Cole from Poole Museum, Samineh Richardson, researcher with Citizen’s Advice Bureau, Steph Farr from Corporate Policy and Performance Officer (Syrian Resettlement Programme), Mark Forsyth, Cenan Chappell and Gwen Scolding from the British Red Cross / City of Sanctuary. The partners are working with refugees/migrants or involved with community leisure related activities to explore how we can make research work as a tool to help and address current challenges.

In our three hour meeting, we primarily discussed the community input for the project and planning for collaborative activities to make a broad and meaningful impact. The community partners shared their challenges and issues working with migrant and refugee communities in Dorset. For example, they reported that one of the challenges migrants are facing is ‘Uncertainty’ and we should seek ‘two-way integration’ and think about how to encourage the two way integration. It was a good opportunity to think of what integration or inclusion really means, and how we should approach these concepts. Discussion centred around addressing community partner challenges, including organizing awareness, conducting research projects and publicizing or communicating some significant issues through various media.

The productive meeting revealed many collaboration opportunities with the community along with potential short-medium to long term positive impacts. For example, the community partners value the development of a network and we will organize a community art event with b-Side during Refugee Week (19-25, June 2017). As the organizations have lots of hands-on research opportunities, we are also thinking of liaising with our students to get them involved in research projects alongside community organizations. I personally thought that there is great hope if 20 community partners and academics are passionately discussing what we can we do about these issues on a cold foggy Wednesday for three long hours.

We just have to keep asking, what makes migrants feel belonging, and try to understand what they need, and how leisure spaces (public or private) can help them feel more welcome and healthy.

We look forward to co-producing positive impacts in our community and beyond through this project.

Please follow us on twitter @migrantspaces or join us on Facebook, ‘Migrant Leisure Spaces’ if you are interested in our work or want to share your stories or comments.

#migrantleisurespaces

Janet Dickinson, Jayne Caudwell, Kat King & Jaeyeon Choe

January 27, 2017

HE policy update w/e 27th January 2017

conferences, EU, Events, innovation, international, policy, Research Training, Student Engagement, Training jforster

Industrial Strategy Green Paper

The Government launched the Industrial Strategy Green Paper and consultation this week. The paper focuses on improving Britain’s innovation and productivity in key areas alongside upskilling the workforce to become world leading. The government suggest a number of areas of industry specialism that should be supported:

clean energy
robotics
healthcare
space technology
quantum technology
advanced computing and communications

The document frequently references the role of Universities as innovation leaders pushing for commercialisation and greater productive cooperation with business. It states that the ‘neglect of technical education’ should be redressed and insinuates that higher-level technical education will be pushed towards the new Institutes of Technology (£170 government investment announced – see below). There is an emphasis on rebalancing the difference in Britain’s economic geography through infrastructure investment. In addition, it criticises how UK research funding is currently heavily invested in the ‘golden triangle’ (Oxford, Cambridge, London) and calls to build on research strengths in businesses as well as other universities. The strategy has a strong focus on STEM and Wonkhe have reported that The British Academy are urging the government not to forget investment in social sciences and humanities teaching and research, which they argue are vital to the continued development of the UK’s services sectors.

The consultation ends in April, we’ll be in touch shortly about how you can contribute to a BU response.

While the strategy has only just been launched it was preceded by the announcement of the new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (Nov 2016) and consultative workshops. The workshops aimed to ensure that the challenges identified match UK business capability and are based on the best available evidence for scientific and commercial success on the global stage. The challenges mirror the industry specialisms proposed in the green paper but also mention the creative industries and integrated cities. The workshops conclude this week, implementation plans are expected to follow from the government and the first challenge is expected to be announced in March.

In an interesting article in The Conversation Graham Galbraith, VC at Portsmouth, urges Universities to shun new institutions for innovation and instead form a network of hubs building on relationships with employers, skills organisations and FE colleges. Furthermore he resists the government’s distinction between academic and technical education, seeing the productivity answer through flexible routes to university study and developing skills courses that employers need in accessible ways. He believes the university sector would deliver this far more quickly than new Institutes of Technology. Galbraith also criticises REF 2021: “The government wants the UK to be better at commercialising its world-class, basic research. But the… require[ment]…to include all academic staff…will have the effect of making universities re-balance their staff’s priorities so that there is more focus only on peer-reviewed research and less on outward-facing activities like business collaborations.”

Brexit –The Supreme Court has ruled that Parliament must vote to trigger Article 50 which begins the Brexit process. The government timescale is to trigger Article 50 by end of March and to this end they have introduced a European Withdrawal Bill (EWB). The European Withdrawal Bill gives the PM the power to notify the European Council of the UK’s intention to withdrawn from the EU through the required Act of Parliament. It is being fast tracked through Parliament. Parliamentary time is scheduled for 31 Jan, 1 Feb, 6-8 Feb. The House of Commons Education Select Committee continues visits to Universities (Oxford, UCL) to examine impact of Brexit on HE. At the UCL visit (Wednesday) Michael Arthur (Provost) broke the UCAS data embargo revealing a 7% drop in EU applicants in the current cycle. The Guardian leads with ‘first decrease after almost a decade of unbroken growth blamed on… Brexit’. Committee Chair, Neil Carmichael is reported on Twitter as asking whether HE needs a sector-specific Brexit deal – panel response ‘yes absolutely!’

Higher Education and Research Bill (HERB) – The Lords continue to scrutinise the HERB carefully with the long list of amendments. The list has stopped growing quite so quickly but new amendments proposed this week include one to set up a new UKRI visa department that will sponsor academics (507ZA). So far apart form the first one, no amendments other than government amendments have been passed, but the level of debate and the length of the list suggests that there may have to be some concessions by the government. James Younger, the government lead on the Bill in the Lords, wrote to Peers on 25^th January about the bill.

Given the timing of the Brexit discussions, Wonkhe speculate that to achieve the timescales for the Bill and to clear sufficient parliamentary time for the European Withdrawal Bill to be passed the government may make concessions on HERB. Key discussions this week:

NSS statistically unfit for TEF – Lord Lipsey discussed the statistical inadequacies of NSS and the implication for this as a TEF metric. “The NSS in the TEF is using—or rather, abusing—statistics for a purpose for which the NSS was never designed.” Lipsey acknowledged that the Government have gently retreated from the emphasis on NSS scores – in their latest instructions to assessors they stated: “assessors should be careful not to overweight information coming from the NSS“. This was reinforced by Chris Husbands, Chair of TEF, who informed a meeting at the House of Commons this week that his team would “not be overweighting the NSS” when awarding ratings this year. The proposed amendment was withdrawn after Viscount Younger: stressed the NSS was not the primary source of information for the TEF and that the framework was about much more than metrics. “Providers submit additional evidence alongside their metrics, and this evidence will be given significant weight by the panel”. HE continued: “we cannot ignore the only credible, widely used metrics that captures students’ views”.
There were also debates about the gold/silver/bronze ratings and the government provided reassurance that Bronze was “above a high quality baseline”. This contradicts statements made by some in DfE before the final specification was agreed about Bronze institutions “needing improvement”. The panel have praised positive communication on this subject.
Validation – The government have issued a factsheet for the Lords on Validation which provides explanation from the perspective of an alternative provider seeking to enter a validation arrangement. It describes Clause 46 of HERB, which gives the Office for Students (OfS) power to commission authorised HE providers to provide validation if other providers decline. It states such authorised providers are free to choose whether they wish offer this service, however once an arrangement is in place the OfS could require them to validate award) delivered by other registered HE providers. The commissioned arrangement would be made public. The controversial Clause 47 which appoints OfS as the validator of last resort was also discussed. The controversy arises as OfS isn’t an academic institution and doesn’t hold Degree Awarding Powers. The OfS will advise the Secretary of State (SoS) if intervention is required (likely through an evidence based report and stakeholder consultation) and the SoS would then authorise the intervention through regulation which is subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Contract Cheating – The amendment proposed by Lord Storey on contract cheating was withdrawn following Government reassurance. Lord Storey provided a passionate discourse including detailed sector information and cheating statistics. Baroness Goldie confirmed that the Government were addressing cheating referencing the (Aug 2016 published) QAA investigation and Jo Johnson’s commitment to close working to progress the recommendations. She revealed that the Minster would shortly announce a new initiative to tackle cheating in conjunction with QAA, Universities UK, NUS and HEFCE.

TEF

The 15 page written submissions for year 2 of the TEF were finalised and submitted this week, and this was the final opportunity for institutions to opt out of the TEF. Although there may have been others who have not published their positions, most Scottish Universities have opted out, as well as the Open University. Given the difference in the Scottish funding system they have less to gain from the TEF – but the 4 who have opted in have noted international reputation as a crucial factor. The OU explain their non-participation is due to the poor fit of the metrics with their social mobility demographic.

And the future of the TEF? According to Research Professional, a German academic has criticised the way that teaching excellence funding is being used in Germany.

“Whereas lower-ranked universities have tended to spread their funding from the programme thinly across faculties and courses, higher-ranked institutions have had the luxury of being able to focus on priority areas, the analysis found.

“You are starting to see emerging differences between disciplines taught at different universities,” Bloch told Times Higher Education on 17 January. For the first time, elite universities are starting to build up strong institutional identities when it comes to teaching, in an effort to get further ahead.

“It will be a long time before we reach the stratification that you see in the American system [around teaching], but we are seeing a difference for the first time in how resources in teaching are distributed,” he said.

UCAS 2016 entrants report – this data includes applications, offers and placed rates by sex, area background (LPN-polar 3), and ethnicity. BU’s report can be selected from the drop down menu towards the end of the webpage. The Guardian reports on the lower offer rates to black applicants. Wonkhe covers the HEIs that have a significant upward or downward trend in acceptances

Research Impact training: Parliament are running a Research, Impact and the UK Parliament event in Bristol on Wednesday 1 March. It covers the basics of the Parliamentary process and how academics can engage with parliament through their knowledge and research to inform scrutiny and legislation, including the impact of influencing policy to support REF submissions.

January 25, 2017

Augmented Reality Technology for Minimally Invasive Surgery

BU research, student research djohn

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.

Speaker: Long Chen

Title: Augmented Reality Technology for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 1^st February 2017

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

Abstract: This research presentation will demonstrate a novel approach of using augmented reality technology to provide rich additional information in for Minimally Invasive Surgery. The research addresses a number of challenges in terms of dealing with monocular visual sensor, and 3D surface reconstruction via state of the art computer vision algorithm. In recent years, laparoscopic scene tracking and surface reconstruction has been a focus of investigation to provide rich additional information to aid the surgical process. In this project, we developed an AR framework to compensate the depth perception issue of monocular laparoscopic scenes. Monocular laparoscopic techniques are arguably the most common techniques used in minimally invasive surgical paradigm. Yet, it is one of the technically demanding procedures from surgeons, and in which information is provided primarily through the video outputted from endoscopes. The major challenge in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) such as laparoscopy is the lack of depth perception. We developed a robust 3D surface reconstruction and augmented reality with depth perception on the reconstructed scene by using the state-of-the-art visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm for the sparse salient point clouds detection. We then develop a robust global 3D surface reconstruction framework to obtain smooth surfaces from the unstructured sparse point cloud. The evaluation results illustrating the potential of our algorithm for depth augmentation and depth-correct augmented reality in Minimally Invasive Surgery.

We hope to see you there.

January 23, 2017

#realworldresearch Campaign

BU research, Research news cmartins

Great news for the Faculty of Management and Department of Tourism and Hospitality, this month, Emeralds #realworldresearch follows the theme of ‘Happy New You’ and includes a paper published in the British Food Journal:

Lorraine Brown, John Edwards, Heather Hartwell, (2013) “Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal”, British Food Journal, Vol. 115 Iss: 2, pp.196 – 208

Further information on the campaign can be seen here:

http://bit.ly/2jDVl53

This article will be on free access until the 17th February 2017

January 21, 2017

Scottish Government publishes Maternity Review

Featured academics, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Public engagement, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday the Scottish Government has published its national maternity review ‘The Best Start – A Five Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland’. The report has been widely welcomed and gained, among others, the full support from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). Mary Ross-Davie, RCM Director for Scotland noted: “This is a defining moment for maternity services in Scotland and will be a seismic shift for our maternity services. The plan has the potential to revolutionise maternity care, to deliver safer and better services for women, babies and their families, and to improve the health of our population.”

The Best Start recognises that maternity and neonatal services matter to the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s people. The report’s underpinning is more of a social model of childbirth as it observes that “The health, development, social, and economic consequences of childbirth and the early weeks of life are profound, and the impact, both positive and negative, is felt by individual families and communities as well as across the whole of society.”

Having lived for 25 years in Scotland I am happy to have made a small contribution to this import report.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

January 17, 2017

It’s a girl, and then there is silence…..

BU research, Events, Global engagement, Impact, international, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Research news, Training, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

The second day of THET training showed again that gender is a critical issue in Nawalparasi, southern Nepal. We asked the ANMs about things they had changed in their own practice. Several ANMs said that they had changed the way they worked. Now they see that having a baby girl can be a significant mental health issue as it causes the women a lot of stress. Interestingly, it also caused them as health workers considerable stress The ANMs said that they had started to counsel families of girl children. They say they emphasise that it is okay to have girls.

This ties in with feedback comments from yesterday in a different group of trainees. In Sunday’s training, one ANM answered when asked about stress at work, that she finds it stressful that a room falls silent when a baby girl is born. She commented that this happens when the family is obviously hoping for a boy. She added that at the very moment a baby girl is born, the family immediately falls silent. She said that this is a great source of stress to her as a health worker.

Coincidently next door to the training venue in Nawalparasi a Hindu wedding has been taking place today. This colourful spectacle represents different roles and expectations of men and women, the bride and the groom, but also the other guests here in Nepal. Weddings everywhere are ceremonies that reflect society. Seeing the wedding from close by and listening to the ANMs over these last two days, we reflected at the end of today that these ANMs are acting bravely in raising such a culturally sensitive issue in their practice, in this largely patriarchal rural society.

Flora Douglas & Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

January 16, 2017

Nuffield Research Placements: A ‘win-win’

BU research, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement Francesco Ferraro

Every year the Nuffield Research Placements provides to over 1,000 students the opportunity to work alongside professional scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. As a PGR student in FHSS, I want to share my experience of being involved in the scheme last summer, and hopefully, to inspire you to consider doing likewise in 2017.

The Nuffield-funded scheme encourages and supports school students to undertake work placements in universities, with the purpose of inspiring the future generation of researchers.

The placements are a unique opportunity to give a 17 year-old the chance to discover what a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths) might be like, which is particularly valuable for those with no family history of attending university or working in a STEM environment.

Personally, I believe that the choices we make in life are strongly related with the people we meet, and the placements are an opportunity to share your enthusiasm for your research with impressionable minds.

Cast your own mind back to when you were 17 what did you know about research as a career? Did anyone motivate and inspired you? How did you get where you are today?

I was involved in hosting two Nuffield Research Placements students last summer. Under the guidance and support of Professors Alison McConnell, Professor Tom Wainwright, Dr James Gavin and Rachel Delourme (STEM Advisor & Sustainability Co-ordinator at Cornwall Council), I took responsibility for coordinating the placement projects of Jamie Singleton and Freddie Corrie-Deane.

I found the experience really motivating and far from distracting me from my work routine, the placement made a valuable contribution. The students’ work helped me in defining my project and refining the research processes associated with my first study of my PhD. In this regard, I would highly recommend the value of the placements, which helped me practically, and also helped to develop my skills as a mentor.

The placements were also very valuable to the students, and below are a few thoughts in Freddie and Jamie’s own words:

Freddie:

“Joining a research study, I knew I was in for a hefty chunk of reading, and with a pessimistic outlook I thought it would all be dry and bland, and that it would be the source of countless days of boredom. Thankfully I was wrong, and while I did have to spend an obligatory day or two reading background information, studies and manuals; the rest of this placement has been involved with the workings of brand-new machinery in the Orthopaedic Research Institute and going out into the local community to talk with people, both of which have been challenging and engaging in all of the right ways to make this experience an enjoyable one.

Our engagement in the community started very early into the placement, on the second day in fact, when we tagged along with Francesco (Our PhD Student overseer/mentor) to an area of sheltered housing to help him give a talk on his study, it was some really good hands on experience (it didn’t hurt that we were offered a biscuit or two). Following this line of talking to people, Jamie and I have spent the last couple of days walking around the gardens by the seaside talking to people and filling out surveys.

We have also spent a day or two engrossed in the outstanding labs in the Orthopedic Research Institute, equipped with an amazing range of equipment from a pair of surgery VR simulators that bring in experts and surgeons from all over Europe, to the intricate and ever useful Primus Machine which has more potential and customisable positions than there are hours in the day and so understandably has just as many uses.”

Jamie:

“During the past two weeks at Bournemouth University, we have had lots of hands on experience and witnessed the fun sides of research and also, the not-quite side. The latter, quite funnily enough, involved vast amounts of background reading and studying of protocols. The more enjoyable hands on experience however, consisted of being introduced to and working in the Orthopedic Research Institute Labs testing out protocols. Much to our disappointment… we had to use numerous fun and expensive pieces of equipment, it was at this point we knew this was the right place to be.

Amongst playing around with expensive machinery such as the PrimusRS and the Virtual Reality machines, we got to do some real work. This work was tough yet enriching and consisted of explaining what the research was about and why it is essential to a sheltered community, and of course when asked, accepting the offer for tea and biscuits. Visiting the shelter did give me an insight into the recruitment process for research projects, and I was quite surprised of how laid back it was.

Next, this time for real we did have work to do such as reading protocols, resources, and informative documents needed to produce our review which was not the most exciting experience however, it was made up for by the interesting walks we went on, through the Lower Gardens, in order to gather vital information that we needed for our project analysis of the PASE questionnaire.”

In conclusion, the placement are a ‘win win’ and a a great opportunity for all PGRs, not simply to share your knowledge, but also to inspire young scientists and to help them to make the first step on a career in science. Wouldn’t it be great to think that you might be one of those inspiration people who make a difference to a young person’s aspirations?

If you want to know more about the placement,please contact:

Rachel Delourme at rdelourme@cornwall.gov.uk

January 15, 2017

BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Flora Douglas speaking as THET volunteer in Nepal

BU research, international, Knowledge Exchange, Research news, Training, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Today we had our first training session of the final THET mental health in maternity care project. UK volunteer Dr. Flora Douglas spoke about key aspects of health promotion and focused particularly on notions of community-based approaches. Flora is based at the University of Aberdeen and she is also a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). This was her first visit to Nepal. She was inspired to volunteer as she had been a MSc supervisor some years ago on a project that related to the Green Tara Nepal health promotion intervention. Bournemouth University has been working with Green Tara Trust, a Buddhist charity based in London for many years.

Yesterday Flora had visited one of the 20 birthing centres in Nawalparasi, the district where the THET training takes place. Flora was very humbled by the experiences of the community-based maternity care workers in the light of many constrains. She said: “I have seen pictures of such birthing centres and read about them in the literature, but it is not until you see them first hand that you realise how staff have to work with such limited resources.

The attendees, who are nearly ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives) were highly enthusiastic and very keen to discuss and learn. They shared some very personal and touching stories about their practice. Flora added: “I am very struck by their understanding of the importance of the social and cultural determinants of both psychical and mental health.” Many found they had learnt something in previous THET sessions in 2016 about communication with women and counselling family members about mental health, and perhaps most importantly, listening more to women. Last, but not least, Flora commented on the dedication of the participants: “At least two of the participants told me they travelled ten hours to get here for our one-day workshop. This really shocked me, particularly having seen the quality of the roads and public transport!”

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

January 15, 2017

Training preparation in rural Nepal

BU research, Global engagement, international, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday we come down from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, to our THET training area in Nawalparasi. Today we are starting our sixth and last training session on the Mental health training for community-based maternity care providers. Interesting we are starting training on a Sunday as Nepal is largely a Hindu country and most workers have only a one-day weekend (which is the Saturday). This BU-led project is a collaboration between the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), Tribhuvan University (Nepal’s oldest university) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The project receives funding from DFID, and is managed through THET and supported locally in Nepal by a charity Green Tara Nepal.

The landscape in the photo gives an idea of how rural this part of Nepal is. Nawalparasi is situated in the south of Nepal the India border. It is also largely very flat, not like the Nepal most people envisage namely that of the Himalayans and of Mount Everest. The flatness makes a Dutchman feel at home though.

The project depends on volunteers who work in the health sector in the UK to come out and spend their time and energy preparing and delivering the training. Our project also could not work without the logistical support from Green Tara Nepal and our academic colleagues at Tribhuvan University. The last photo shows one of the UK volunteers Dr. Flora Douglas with the translator Shiwani Manandhar on the way to the training venue.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (from Nepal)

CMMPH

January 12, 2017

Wanted! External Bid Writers

EU, Events, Funding opportunities, Grants Academy, international, Knowledge Exchange, REF Subjects, Research news, Research Training, RKE development framework, Training Emily Cieciura

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, Bournemouth University is expanding its pool of external bid writing expertise, through a tendering process.

If you have worked with a good bid writer or, as an external subscriber to this blog, you have written successful research funding applications, please contactus in the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office

We are particularly interested in those who can provide short courses, one-to-one support, bid writing retreats, application review or a range of these and related activities.

Examples of key funders include:

British Academy
European Commission funds including Horizon 2020
Innovate UK
Leverhulme Trust
National Institutes of Health and other US Federal funders
Research Councils
Royal Society
Wellcome Trust
etc.

We look forward to hearing from you.

January 11, 2017

FHSS Dr. Pramod Regmi speaking in India

BU research, conferences, Events, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, PG research, Research news, student research, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Two BU papers and a poster at the International Conference on Transforming Lives & Healthcare through Technology

On 9^th January 2017, I presented a paper entitled ‘Qualitative research in health technology assessment’ in a scientific session at the International Conference on Transforming Lives and Health Care through Technology (TLHTicon 2017), Wardha, India. This paper was prepared jointly with by Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and BU’s Visiting Prof Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University). At the same conference Mrs. Preeti Mahato’s poster on ‘Factors affecting health facility delivery in rural Nawalparasi, Nepal’ was also displayed. Preeti is a PhD student in FHSS. In another scientific session, BU visiting faculty Prof Padam Simkhada presented a paper around global public health and health technology assessment. Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Pramod Regmi co-authored this presentation.

The conference, which attracted more than 180 oral scientific papers and 97 posters, was organized jointly by Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, DU, Datta Meghe Institute of Engineering, Technology & Research and Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering in association with the Global Consortium for Public Health Research. The Global Consortium for Public Health Research was recently formed [1]. Prof Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr Pramod Regmi, both from HSS, BU are part of it among the 14 academics/researchers from UK, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and few other Low and Middle-Income Countries. Some of them are BU visiting faculty too. Unfortunately, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen could not get a visa in time for India, so he recorded a good-luck message. This pre-recorded message was played to the conference goers.

I found the scientific sessions were a nice blend of scientific talks, plenary sessions, symposia and scientific track sessions. Overall, this conference provided a much-needed platform for academicians, researchers, practitioners and professionals from medical, engineering and industry to disseminate their innovations in interdisciplinary field of health sciences through technology. The conference show-cased innovations in health-care through technology, which shall be useful in transforming lives of people in Low and Middle Income Countries. In these two days; I have been able to all refreshed with thought-provoking & informative talks rendered by experienced researchers around technology in health care.

Dr Pramod Regmi, Post Doc Research Fellow, HSS

Reference:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P.R. et al., 2016. Need and scope of global partnership on public health research. Journal of Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences University, 11 (2), 202-204.

January 11, 2017

Two-day Questionnaire Design Masterclass – Spaces still available

BU research, EU, Fusion, Guidance, PG research, Public engagement, Research news, Uncategorized rfreeman

Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Need help designing a questionnaire?

This two-day Masterclass will help you get started through a series of expert lectures, group discussion, and hands-on sessions, covering both tool development and administration.

Who should attend: Postgraduate researchers/professionals interested in developing a questionnaire
Schedule: 10am – 4pm, 23—24 January 2017
Venue: Executive Business Centre (EB702, EB705), Bournemouth University

Facilitators:

Professor Vanora Hundley – Professor of Midwifery

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen – Professor of Reproductive Health

Dr Zoe Sheppard – Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods

Booking information:

The fee of £200.00 includes two days with the course facilitators, refreshments and class materials. Please note that resources will be provided electronically and that accommodation and travel costs are not included.

BU staff/PGRs – To book on please contact rfreeman@bournemouth.ac.uk

External delegates – please register online at:

https://questionnairemasterclass.eventbrite.co.uk (places limited)

January 10, 2017

Writing academic papers: Workshop in Nepal

BU research, Global engagement, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Public engagement, Publishing, Research communication, Training, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University has been working on a small research project with Pourakhi, a voluntary organisation which helps female migrant workers returning to Nepal, for over a year. Pourakhi advocates for the rights of women migrant workers. Last week they invited me to present a workshop session on Academic Writing & Publishing, this morning I run such workshop. The content of the workshop is based on years of experience of running similar workshops at Bournemouth University, many Higher Education colleges across Nepal and a COST-funded workshop in Malta a few years ago. The eight people (staff and volunteers) who attended the workshop were generally inquisitive and keen to get their work into print. Most of the paper we have written about aspects of academic writing and the publishing process have been published in Open Access journals. [1-8] Therefore, we can easily give workshop attendees copies and/or give them the links to the online version on the web.

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Hundley V, van Teijlingen E, Simkhada P (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11 (2):98-101 www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Download/vol-11-2/Page_99_101_Editorial.pdf
Pitchforth E, Porter M, Teijlingen van E, et al. (2005) Writing up & presenting qualitative research in family planning & reproductive health care, J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 31(2): 132-135.
Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Hundley V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11 (1):1-5. www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Pp_1_5_Guest_Editorial.pdf
van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal J Epidemiol 4(1): 344-347.
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.
van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada PP, Rizyal A (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? (Guest Editorial) Health Renaissance 10 (1): 1-4.
van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada. PP, Simkhada, B, Ireland J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal J Epidemiol 2(4): 213-215 http://nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/7093/6388
Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.

January 9, 2017

Reporting back from the BSA Auto/Biography Christmas Conference!

BU research, conferences scollard

“I say tomato, You say tomato”. Is Autoethnography Auto/Biography by any other name?

Prior to our holiday break, Dr Judith Chapman and Dr Sarah Collard presented their research at the recent British Sociological Association (BSA) Auto/Biography Conference in London. This was a novel presentation, not limited to following a power point, but involving discussions with one other and the audience about the differences between the two research methods of autoethnography and auto/biography.

As they recently presented on this topic at the Centre for Qualitative Research lunchtime seminar, Judith and Sarah felt warmed up for the conversation and debates that occurred when presenting and discussing the topic in front of an audience of methodological experts within this area! After each shared their own experiences of conducting either authethnography or auto/biography, they opened it up to the audience to debate the merits of the two methods. An exciting and interesting dialogue with the audience ensued, with the ethical considerations of each method being fervently discussed, as well as the challenges of deciding what can be classified as autoethnography or auto/biography. There was no lull in the exchange of views and conference members applauded the informative and interactive element of our presentation.

After our presentation, we were able to forge links with others at the conference and were requested to share our work even more! It was very exciting to be so well received and have such a positive response to the presentation. However, there was no overall consensus and we agreed to differ on the syllabic emphasis of “tomato”!

January 9, 2017

More media coverage in Nepal

BU research, conferences, Events, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, Public engagement, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Following our health promotion dissemination meeting in Kathmandu last week, we had considerable national media coverage in Nepal. Since I wrote about of this media coverage on the BU Research Blog we have been informed about some further press coverage.

Apparently we appeared on Mountain Television, but I haven’t see the programme myself yet. On January 4th we had a very short piece in The Himalayan Times , a piece which incidentally also failed to mentioned Bournemouth University. Over the weekend we had a little write up in a magazine called New Spotlight (see photo).I have also included the original colour photo as the magazine’s copy looks unclear.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

January 7, 2017

Research collaboration meeting with Pourakhi in Kathmandu

BU research, data management, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday we meet in Kathmandu with colleagues working for Pourakhi. Pourakhi is a charity, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), that helps to advocate for the rights of women who returned to Nepal after migrating for employment. The name Pourakhi, which means self-reliant in Nepali, represents the idea that the organisation is largely run and supported by Nepali women who had migrated abroad for employment.

Globalization and trade liberation have opened up opportunities in the international labour market for women in Nepal. Lack of job opportunity in Nepal and poverty have put a growing demand on women to economically support their family. This means many Nepali women are leaving the country to work abroad. In doing so they contribute to the economic prosperity of their families and also in the poverty alleviation of their country through remittances. However, working abroad comes at a cost, as it is not always easy, especially for women.

The Faculty of Health & Social Sciences at Bournemouth University (Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen) and Liverpool John Moores University (Prof. Padam Simkhada, who is also Visiting Faculty at FHSS) have been working with Pourakhi over the past years and half. The main aim of this collaboration is to set up a proper database of women who return to Nepal, based on paper records collected by Pourakhi and use this data to publish academic papers and reports on the issue. The first academic paper based on data collected up to 2014 has already been submitted.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

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