BU Research Blog

Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

2 July 2015

Protecting vulnerable older people from financial scams

Dr Lee-Ann Fenge

Staff from the National Centre for Post-qualifying Social Work (NCPQSW) are working collaboratively with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) to develop good practice guides and advice for professionals working with vulnerable citizens and their families/carers about responding to the risks posed by financial scams.

During the annual conference of the CTSI in Bournemouth this week Professor Keith Brown is running a workshop with Louise Baxter from the National Trading Standards Scams Team Manager entitled ‘Safeguarding, Mental Capacity and Scamming: The next Olive Cooke?

The aim is to raise awareness of the growing threat posed by a range of financial scams which target vulnerable older people including mass marketing fraud via the post, telephone and internet, as well as door step fraud.

In one sense we are all vulnerable to financial scams but citizens in the early stages of dementia who live alone are perhaps the most vulnerable. It is increasingly important that professionals working with older people become aware of the risks posed by financial scams and the Care Act (2014) explicitly mentions financial abuse as a safeguarding concern raising the profile of financial crime.

During the CTSI Conference the NCPQSW launched the updated version of the National Competency Framework for Safeguarding Adults, which is currently being developed in collaboration with Learn to Care, and partners across health, social services and trading standards. The new updated version will be available in August 2015 and enquires about purchasing copies of the framework can be made to swincewicz@bournemouth.ac.uk

The NCPQSW is committed to developing research in this area and the types of questions we are interested to find out more about include:

Does early intervention with scam victims allow them to remain independent and living in their own homes longer than victims who receive later or no intervention?

How do we define a ‘victim’ more carefully than just person who responded to a mailshot.

What are the on-going cost to victims, knock on effect of being scammed and how can we help the most chronic victims

If you are interested in helping us focus our research in this area, please click here to complete the online questionnaire.

1 July 2015

International Funding: Malaysian Urbanisation

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities Emily Cieciura

Malaysia-UK Research and Innovation Bridges Competition

Innovate UK, Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Malaysia Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) are to invest up to £14.4 million in collaborative research and development projects to stimulate innovation in response to Malaysia’s urbanisation challenges.

InnovateUK_LogoA_Interim_RGBx320govuk[1]

This competition focuses on finding new commercial solutions to challenges that Malaysia is facing as climate change increasingly impacts upon its cities and its urbanisation trajectory, with the solutions expected to emerge through the translation of existing, excellent research.

The aim of the competition is to bring together companies (small-to-medium-sized companies and/or larger businesses), research and technology organisations, academics, public sector bodies and charities from Malaysia and the UK for the joint industrial research to develop innovative products, processes or services that meet critical challenges existing within the following five sectors:

health and well-being
improving environmental resilience and energy security
future cities
agritech (used to solve explicit urban food and nutrition issues)
digital, innovation and creativity

This investment from the UK side has been made possible through the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills-managed Newton Fund.

The competition involves a two-stage application process.

Applicants must register by noon UK time 30 September 2015. The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon UK time on 7 October 2015.

There will be a briefing webinar for potential applicants. Further details will be provided on the call webpage and @NewtonFund.

Do let RKEO know if you intend to apply for this scheme so that we can support you, espcially with any business engagement requirements.

29 June 2015

GeoNet mapping for Social Change

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, REF Subjects, Research themes pgillingham

This time Dr. Steve McFarland visited us from the University of Tampa. Steve gave us a lot of interesting food for thought – I’d never considered before that maps historically have given more power to those who already have power. For example, city maps often included important landmarks and the houses of the wealthy, but slums were left as blank spaces. He then went on to describe some projects that have tried to redress this balance in the past few years. One project, ‘Queering the map’ , aimed to use maps to construct and affirm identities. Sometimes using maps has resulted in new concepts, such as environmental racism – through the work of Laura Pulido, who showed that toxic waste in LA tended to be released in areas inhabited by people of colour.

He then talked about some of his own work mapping the relative salaries of pthp lecturers in HEAs across America – rates of pay are very different across the country and it turned out that a pthp lecturer at his own university teaching 6 classes per year (as expected of a tenured academic) would just about make minimum wage. We had a very interesting discussion after the formal presentation, about the future of mapping crowdsourced information to help in disaster/crisis management. However, some people can be fearful of taking part in such projects as the maps could be subverted away from their originally intended use. For example, protestors could upload information to be mapped in real time to show where teargas is being deployed, and use this to stay away from police. However, the police could also potentially use these maps to target protesters. In this case however, the police are likely to have helicopter access, so the presence of a crowdsourced map would close the information gap between the two sides.

Ultimately, we discussed whether the growth in the use of maps has outpaced our ability to understand them. Going forwards, spatial literacy is likely to be just as important as numeracy, which is music to the ears of any geographer!

We would like to hear your thoughts on the GeoNet seminar series, please fill in our very short survey on https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HSY29L6

24 June 2015

Enhancing Sport Science Links Between BU and the German Sport University Cologne – Reflections on Research Visit

Knowledge Transfer, PG research tbreitbarth

Over the last three years, the Sport & Physical Activity Department has consistently strengthened research and teaching links between the German Sport University Cologne and Bournemouth (e.g. see this blog article)

As part of the research links, Dr Sylvain Laborde, a sport psychology researcher from the German Sport University Cologne, recently visited BU. Amongst other, he gave a talk on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and its uses within sport psychology.

Reflections from Emma Mosley (BU PhD researcher)

Emma, who ventured to Germany for one month in order to receive training at the renown Institute of Psychology last year (see blog article), reflects on Dr Laborde’s visit:

“The talk was extremely informative and insightful for myself as a budding researcher in the area. Later in the day Sylvain also ran a workshop which detailed how to use HRV equipment and how to interpret the data. This consisted of a practical based session to demonstrate the sensitively of the measures to both mental and physical stressors. This involved a mental arithmetic stress test, a physical excursion test and paced breathing – many thanks to Darren Britton for giving his body to science on this particular occasion!”

Reflections from Dr Sylvain Laborde (German Sport University Cologne)

Dr Laborde enjoyed his visit to BU and Bournemouth: “I visited Bournemouth University the first week of June 2015, during an Erasmus+ stay. My first contact with Bournemouth University was a very motivated PhD student, Emma Mosley, coming to me last year for an internship at the German Sport University in Cologne, to learn how to use heart rate variability (HRV) to investigate the role of athletes’ personality when performing under pressure. My goal for this week in Bournemouth was to focus 100% on the writing of a HRV theoretical paper, and I was provided with all the necessary conditions to achieve such goal: a silent office on Talbot Campus accessible 24/7 enabling deep focusing and allowing late evening thinking times; enjoying good food, good beer (always good for inspiration), and energising runs on the beach. I was very warmly welcomed and really appreciated the feedback provided by the multidisciplinary team after my talk on HRV in sport psychology.

I’d like to particularly thank Emma for all her efforts to make my stay as enjoyable and productive as possible, Dr Andrew Callaway for his input regarding HRV and shooting sports; Prof Remco Polman for his input regarding the links between HRV and coping; and finally Prof Alison McConnel for her input regarding HRV and inspiratory muscle training. Many ideas regarding future possible collaborations were born during this week, and I’m definitely looking forward to my next visit in Dorset and its wonderful coast!”

Processed with Moldiv

23 June 2015

Collaborative ethnography and undergraduate learning

Fusion, Public engagement, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, student research Rosie Read

The value of providing undergraduate students with experience of conducting first hand, empirical research is widely recognised. As a social anthropologist, I’ve long been interested enabling students to discover and engage in ethnographic research. I’m presently developing a new taught unit in which for our BA Sociology and BA Sociology and Anthropology students will carry out ethnographic projects developed in collaboration with local community organisations. This endeavour necessarily poses challenges. One of them is time. Undergrad students’ learning is divided into units delivered over semesters, but a semester is very short time frame in which to design, carry out and write up an ethnographic project. The other is the nature of the collaboration with the non-academic partner, whether that be an NGO, community group, local government partner etc. How can this collaboration be shaped in a way which is beneficial to both parties?

IUPUI students visiting a housing redevelopment scheme in a lower income neighbourhood, Indianapolis, February 2015.

This term I have visited IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis), USA. IUPUI is a public university in which dialogue and engagement between faculty and students, on the one hand, and citizens, organisations and businesses, on the other, is a priority for both teaching and research. My visits have provided me with an opportunity to see a diverse range of ways in which this dialogue is promoted and sustained. Here I will summarise some of the strategies I have seen in action at IUPUI which are most pertinent to the kinds of collaborative, community-engaged student ethnographic projects I hope to develop at BU.

1. Investing time
The importance of investing time in developing relationships with local organisations which will have a stake in the research cannot be overstated. Whoever the partner is and whatever the nature of the collaboration, the project is enormously enhanced when both parties make time to talk to each other, arrive at a suitable, realisable aim of the project, and figure out how they are going to achieve it within the fixed timescale. This is of course easy to state and much harder to realise, as it involves all parties investing a very scarce resource, time, into the process. I followed an ethnographic research methods course closely during my visits, a project exploring urban regeneration within a low-income neighbourhood. This made clear the benefits of that early investment of time. Both the academic course leader and management, staff and volunteers at the community development organisation in the local area set aside considerable time in identifying the possibilities and foci of student research projects, long before the teaching proper started. This communication and collaboration also continued throughout the course itself, adjusting to changing and contingent circumstances as the student research projects progressed.

2. Framing the question
Central to the process above is negotiating the research question; what is it that the students will research and why? The question needs to address the interests and priorities of both partners. It must contain the potential for students to formulate their empirical focus and interpret their data in the light of theories and critical questions within their disciplines, and to produce findings which are of some benefit or use to non-academic partners, organisations and citizens. At IUPUI, I found out about series of student projects on urban development issues such as poverty, homelessness, housing, city regeneration strategies, gentrification and food production and consumption, to name some of them. These kinds of topics resulted in findings and interpretations which had both critical value as pieces of academic work and practical value to local people and organisations.

3. Moving teaching to community settings
I closely followed two courses which were taught off-campus in community settings – one in a church / community centre, the other in a women’s correctional facility. The success of any ethnographic project hinges on proximity and familiarity and so establishing this sense of closeness is obviously of enormous value to students. Teaching in a setting within which students will find an immediate mutuality of interest in their engagement with the people and organisations they are going to study helps students think of themselves as ethnographers. It provides the basis for developing relationships, trust, access and cooperation within the community, and for fostering local understanding of what the project is about. This is also a valuable experience that students take with them into their future careers.

4. Finding (new) ways of disseminating the research findings
Academics at IUPUI employed many different means of disseminating their students’ research projects and findings, enabling it to reach audiences within but also well beyond the city itself. Students were strongly encouraged and sometimes financially supported to attend national and international conferences. Funding was raised for publishing pamphlets, books and eBooks about their empirical studies and findings. Time was invested in developing impressive academic blogs and websites about their research. I provide a few links to just some of this fantastic work below.
I have gained many insights, ideas and sense of possibilities from my visits to IUPUI, and I’d like to extend my warm thanks to all colleagues and students whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Special thanks to Professor Susan B. Hyatt, whose scholarship inspired my visits and who made the whole thing possible in a practical sense.

Links to some online examples of IUPUI collaborative student research and scholarship:

– The ‘Neighborhood of Saturdays’. Student research project about urban multi-ethnic neighborhood in Indianapolis.

– ‘Eastside Story: Portrait of a Neighborhood on the Suburban Frontier’: Student project exploring historical change and community identities in a suburban area of Indianapolis.

– ‘Urban Heritage? Archaeology and Homelessness in Indianapolis’. A student project using archaeological methods to explore experiences of homelessness.

– ‘Ransom Place’ project: Collaborative project on culture, consumption and race in an African American neighbourhood in Indianapolis: http://www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/ransom.html

– ‘Archaeology and Material Culture’: blog of Professor Paul Mullins.
https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/author/paulmullins/

23 June 2015

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Research themes nprajapati

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.

The Department of Health, including NIHR, invites tenders for its small business research initiative call on faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. The call aims to find innovative new products and services to help with faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. Tenderers should address prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management.

Phase 1 shows the technical feasibility of the proposed concept, and Phase 2 contracts are intended to develop and evaluate prototypes or demonstration units from the more promising technologies in Phase 1. Only those projects that have completed Phase 1 successfully will be eligible for Phase 2.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project over six months

Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15

NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders for minimising the impact of falling. This competition focuses on minimising the impact of falls and the fear of falling in older people, and should address a range of unmet needs, expressed as ‘what if’ scenarios, that could improve the care that clinicians are able to offer to patients in terms of outcomes, experience and efficiency. Fall prevention services provide assessment, strength and balance training, occupational therapist support, vision assessments and medicines review. Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15

NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders to address functional needs in the elderly. This competition aims to find technologies to help address, as well as provide solutions for, functional difficulties associated with patients, particularly the increasingly frail elderly suffering multi-morbidities (defined as suffering two or more chronic conditions). Technologies should be aligned to the three key challenges which are commonly associated with functional difficulties; these are: detecting frailty and monitoring deterioration; activities of daily living (including dressing above and below the waist, grooming, bathing and showering, light housework and preparing meals); and treatment burden, including adhering to disease management plans and lifestyle changes, as well as drug concordance, adherence and compliance. Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Newton Fund invite proposals for their collaborative call with China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam on rice research. This aims to build on the combined strengths of academic research groups within China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and the UK to work together on collaborative interdisciplinary and innovative basic, strategic or applied research that contributes to and underpins the long-term sustainable production of rice, and also an understanding that rice production sits alongside the provision of other ecosystem services. Projects of up to three years in duration and addressing the following challenges will be encouraged:

• Greater resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses;

• Improved resource use efficiency, including nitrogen, phosphorous and water;

• Improved quality of rice, including nutritional enhancement and grain quality;

• Novel research tool and technology development supporting the above areas, including systems biology, bioinformatics, screening and characterisation of germplasm for gene and trait discovery.

In addition to the challenges listed above, proposals will also be welcomed in the following areas and countries:

• Improved photosynthetic efficiency in rice (China, Thailand, UK)

• Environmentally sustainable rice cultivation systems (Thailand, Philippines, UK)

• Utilisation of rice by-products (Philippines, Vietnam, UK)

• Sustainably increasing the genetic yield potential of rice (China, UK)

Each proposal must involve at least one applicant based in the UK and one based in either China, the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam. All proposals are required to have a UK principal Investigator, in addition to a PI from one or more of the partner countries.

All applicants must adhere to the national eligibility rules for research proposals.

The total budget from BBSRC and NERC is worth up to £6.5 million, with matched funding from the partner agencies in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Projects may last up to a maximum of up to three years.

Closing date: 16:00, 13/08/15

The Natural and Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) are inviting research proposals under this ‘Understanding and Sustaining Brazilian Biome Resources’ call. This call is supported by the UK through the Newton Fund which forms part of the UK governments Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and is only open to joint UK-Brazil applications.

This call aims to improve the understanding of the role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems, the drivers and impact of change, and management and restoration options in Brazil. The call’s objectives are:

• Improve understanding of the role of biodiversity in major biome biogeochemical cycles at the whole-biome level;

• Explore the spatial correlations between ecosystem function in terms of biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of species of conservation concern, within a range of Brazilian ecosystems including forest and non-forest biomes;

• Critically assess the potential and trade-offs of ecosystem management and policy options to protect both key ecosystem functions and biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

Projects must undertake research at the biome spatial level, and should seek to utilise new or novel technological capability and make use of existing long term data sets that are available from other projects.

UK-based researchers associated with organisations eligible for NERC funding may apply. Brazilian researchers associated to public or non-profit higher education and research organisations in the state of São Paulo may apply.

NERC will provide up to £2 million at 80 per cent full economic cost for UK-based researchers with FAPESP providing matched equivalent effort to Brazilian researchers.

It is expected that two to three project proposals, lasting up to three years, will be funded.

Closing date: 16:00, 02/09/15

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council has extended the closing date for technical assessments and applications for their ARCHER leadership projects.

The previous deadline of 1 September has been extended to 7 September 2015. All other call details remain the same.

These awards provide direct access to the UK’s national supercomputing facility ARCHER for computationally intensive individual projects. Eligible projects may include the following:

• Leadership calculations that push the boundaries of scientific high performance computing;

• Calculations that require a large number of processing cores;

• High-risk, high-reward projects that rely heavily on high performance compute resource and have significant potential for large future impact;

• Substantial computational projects by experienced teams that need large compute resources, but do not rely on additional support by EPSRC or NERC;

• Pre-competitive computational production runs by non-academic research groups within sectors related to the remits of the ARCHER partner research councils.

Applicants should be individuals eligible to hold a full EPSRC or NERC grant, or persons of similar standing in industry or the third sector.

A total of 2m kAU is available, split between EPSRC and NERC remits at the ratio of 77 % EPSRC and 23 % NERC. Each applicant should apply for at least 100,000 kAU for a maximum period of two years.

Closing date: 16:00, 07/09/15

The Centre for Defence Enterprise and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory invite innovative proposals for their themed competition on ‘what’s inside that building’. This supports phase one research projects that aim to develop novel techniques which remotely provide information about the layout and situation inside a building, or underground facility from a range of at least 100 metres. Projects should develop and mature technology readiness level 2 to 3 concepts based on both direct sensing and inference from indirect measurements. In addition, they should address the following technology challenges: novel applications of traditional sensing methods; new technologies and approaches.

Proposals may include technologies that address the following:

• Detecting concealed manufacturing activity;

• Finding out about the internal structure of a building in preparation for entry, including walls, furniture and electrical equipment;

• Identifying illegal storage activities;

• Working out the number of people in a building and what they are doing;

• Detecting people who are hiding or being held against their will;

• Supporting disaster relief, for instance seeing under collapsed buildings.

Preference may be given to projects that produce a technology demonstration as opposed to projects that only deliver a written report.

The total budget for phase one of this competition is worth £650,000. There is no cap on proposals, however MOD is more likely to fund phase one projects worth between £50,000 and £100,000. Successful projects may receive an additional £500,000 for phase two of the competition, in which funding is awarded on a per-project basis. Proposals should focus on a short, sharp, proof of concept phase, typically lasting between 3 to 8 months.

Closing date: 17:00, 10/09/15

Nesta, in collaboration with Innovate UK, invites proposals for the Longitude prize. This rewards the development of a transformative point-of care diagnostic test to revolutionise the delivery of global healthcare and conserve antibiotics for future generations. The test must be accurate, rapid, affordable, easy to use and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. It should be able to identify when antibiotics are needed and, if they are, which ones to use.

Anyone and any organisation may enter. Teams must include a member who has a presence in the UK. The competition is only open to those who have developed a new diagnostic test.

The winner is awarded £8 million. £2m is awarded to support promising entries along the way. The prize money must be used to develop and market the winning solution.

Closing date: 30/09/15

Innovate UK’s IC tomorrow, in collaboration with several partners, invites proposals for its digital innovation contest on games. This supports the development of an innovative commercial prototype service or application across five areas which different areas of the games industry. Proposals should address one of the following challenges:

• Second-screen use in a game, supported by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE);

• Open street map data, supported by Crytek UK;

• New markets and perceptual computing, supported by Intel;

• Wider games distribution on mobile web, supported by Google Chrome;

• Games and cinema, supported by Odeon Cinema and Pinewood Studios.

Businesses based in the UK and EU may apply.

Five companies may receive up to £25,000 each. The total budget is £125,000.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 16/10/15

Follow-on funding from The Natural Environment Research Council

As the name suggests, the Follow-on Fund picks up where research programme and discovery science (responsive mode) grants leave off, and enables their commercial potential to be realised by further developing the research outputs.

Examples of activities funded include technology licensing, launching technology-based products or services, selling know-how based consultancy services, and the commercialisation of NERC-funded datasets.

Researchers who are receiving/have received NERC funding may apply. Proposals must build on the outputs of recent/previous NERC-funded research activity. Applicants are encouraged to seek input from potential commercial stakeholders and end-users before submitting an application. Projects do not have to be based on proprietary, patentable intellectual property, though all proposals must have demonstrable economic potential, and be likely to deliver some form of societal or environmental benefit.

Each proposal may receive up to £100,000 at 80 per cent full economic cost.

Closing date: 22/10/15

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

19 June 2015

BUDI hosts its second Masterclass

Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer epegrum

On Wednesday 17^th June BUDI hosted the second in its series of one-day Masterclasses, this time on “Financial & Legal Aspects of Dementia Care”.

It was a very thought-provoking day prompted by our set of highly knowledgeable guest speakers.

Our speakers included practising solicitors (Malcolm Skinner and Stuart Bradford), a recently retired independent financial advisor (Vivien Zarucki), and a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards manager (Esther Donald), who each have several years’ experience in their roles. They all provided interactive and stimulating sessions on the very practical and pertinent legal / financial issues that concern people affected by dementia and the common pitfalls to be avoided. The sessions included discussion of Power of Attorneys, the Mental Capacity Act, and the Care Cap due to come in force next year.

The feedback has been very positive and we are grateful for the contributions from our speakers. We now look forward to the next Masterclass!

The BUDI Masterclasses are open to BU staff and students to attend but advance booking is essential.

The next Masterclasses are:

Wednesday 30^th September – Creative Approaches in Dementia

Wednesday 2^nd December – Promoting Wellbeing at the End of Life

Should you require any further information or wish to book a space on either of these Masterclasses please contact us at budi@bournemouth.ac.uk .

19 June 2015

Climate Change and Security: Policing the Anthropocene Workshop

Public engagement afeigenbaum

Join us for a discussion on climate change, capitalism and security:

EB202 (Lansdowne Campus)
Friday 3 July
12:30-16:30

Sea levels rise, droughts, floods and superstorms destroy livelihoods and force migration. Entrenched in militarised security cultures, nature is rendered unstable, a risk, a threat to be mitigated and controlled. And those people, displaced and disenfranchised, are deemed by security discourses as byproducts. They too must be managed, subdued, contained. It is no longer only the boundless threat of terrorism that fuels xenophobic pursuits of absolute security, now too, the climate is coming. As hybrid, state-private security partnerships enter ever more profitable deals to secure borders, investment firms are busy weatherproofing the rich, and protest against the corporate purveyors of climate change continues to be violently cracked down. This workshop considers the contours of Policing the Anthropocene, interrogating the cross-sections of climate, capitalism and security.

With:
Dr Nafeez Ahmed Institute for Policy Research & Development
Dr Anja Kanngieser AUSCCER/ Department of Geography, University of Wollongong
Dr Steve Wright Politics and Applied Global Ethics, Leeds Beckett University

18 June 2015

European Fusion: An Early-career Academic’s Experience at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Exchange tbreitbarth

From Dr James Gavin — I began writing this Blog in Oslo Gardemoen Airport last Sunday when my evening flight was delayed, and have just got round to finishing it now after a week catching up with colleagues (and work!). Having begun lecturing at Bournemouth University in September 2014, I was excited by our international partnership with the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NSSS); particularly due to the institution’s reputation as a small, campus-based university capable of producing both innovative teaching, and high-impact research. Supported by Dr Tim Breitbarth, I was later awarded Fusion funding on the Erasmus staff mobility strand to visit the School for a week this June. Departing London Gatwick at 9.20 am on Sunday the allure of Scandinavia, and being seated next to a passenger with extreme airsickness, meant my arrival in Oslo Airport two hours later couldn’t come too soon.

The School is a located 30 minutes outside Oslo in Sognsvann, an idyllic forest used for cross-country skiing during the Winter. Established as the State Gymnastics School early last century, the government-funded university was surprisingly understated, yet as I soon found out, it’s timber-panelled façade housed laboratories dedicated to: Biomechanics, Strength testing, Exercise Physiology, Histochemistry, Immunology, Performance Analysis, as well as an aged environmental chamber and swimming flume. Staying at the campus-based Olympiatoppen Hotel (used by elite athletes and visiting academics), my week started with a chance, breakfast chat on blood doping with a Professor David Collins, who turned out to be the Institute of Coaching and Performance Director at UCLAN. Out of interest I attended the ‘public’ PhD viva he was examining that morning discussing: How can environmental resources contain or enhance athlete development? Supporting the values of BU Fusion, the PhD defence supported: 1) Research, through the dissemination of emerging findings, 2) Education, engaging students and promoting discussion, and 3) Professional Practice, by involving those external to the university. After this I was given a campus and departmental tour by the Prof Bojsen-Moller, which included an introduction to course frameworks and teaching facilities. BSc courses include: Physical Activity and Health, Sports Biology, Coaching and Sport Psychology and Sport Management/Physical Education. Unique to any UK institution, the NSSS holds the national responsibility for higher education and scientific research in these fields in Norway. Although well-funded, is it nationally-accountable and now receives competition from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and University of Stavanger.

Throughout the week I had opportunity to meet a range of academics and students (sitting in on a pre-lunch muscle biopsy!), gaining insight into their educational practices (three common 1^st year units, then five specialised units in 2^nd and 3^rd years/greater ‘transferability’ to courses in other departments after 1^st year) and course development. This allowed me to discuss potential future partnerships with BU for 1) Education, as their students are attracted to UK-based Exercise Science and Coaching courses, and 2) Research, as they are not limited by facilities, but time and skilled-personnel. Socio-cultural demands meant their BSc Sports Biology degree focussed on: Orienteering, Skiing, Hand-ball, Outdoors studies and Exercise Physiology. This was also evident through Research and Professional Practice, as it was a daily occurrence to have cross-country skiers and runners performance testing in the laboratories (a 4 m wide treadmill belt was embedded in the floor of one lab!). I was also fortunate to co-supervise undergraduates when laboratory testing junior cross-country skiiers. Having taught in similar fashion with Kelly Goodwin at BU, it was clear student learning processes were transferable, and I could adopt similar assessment processe.

The weekend’s down-time was spent in Oslo, taking in the National Gallery (Edvard Munch’s The Scream), the Royal Palace, Vigeland Park (Frogner Park) and…a chance, breakfast chat with David Elleray, the since-retired, English referee. My visit was a fantastic experience and I look forward to returning again in the near future to build upon the international partnership between BU and NSSS.

Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Sognsvann Lake

16 June 2015

The Politics of Societal Impact: Community Development and Critical Scholarship

Fusion, Public engagement, student research Rosie Read

How can we do research that engages with communities in a genuinely collaborative way? What kind of research produces findings which address critical questions about the structural issues and problems faced by communities, but which are also of practical and transformative benefit to them? If these two objectives pull researchers in different directions, what kind of balance can be struck between them?

These are questions I have been pondering during two visits this semester to IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis), in Indianapolis, USA. This is a university which places strong emphasis on the importance of community collaboration and engagement in scholarship and education. During two visits, I have particularly followed the community engaged work of Professor Susan Brin Hyatt.

I have known Professor Hyatt since June 2013, when she came to Bournemouth University to give a research seminar presentation about urban ethnographic research projects she and her students had undertaken in Indianapolis and Philadelphia (e.g., Hyatt et al 2012, Hyatt et al 2009. See also Hyatt 2001). During her visit we talked a lot about our common scholarly interests and discovered that we had a shared interest in the British Community Development Projects (CDPs) of the 1970s. The CDPs provide a very interesting example of the politics of using academic knowledge to bring about social change – or what we now call (societal) impact.

Meadow Well playground, 1976. Photography courtesy of Ken Grint. Available at IUPUI Digital Archive: http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/CDP/id/3685/rec/120

Initiated in 1969, the CDPs were a major social policy initiative, by the standards of then and now. There were twelve CDPs across the UK – mostly based in urban, industrial areas affected by economic decline, job loss and poverty. CDPs were set up with the aim of using community action to tackle various social problems associated with poverty and develop more integrated forms of service provision which responded to the local population’s needs. Each of the twelve CDPs incorporated a research team based in a university, and an action team based in the community, accountable to a local steering group. The idea was that social science knowledge and methods should both inform and support the development of local projects. The CDPs had an estimated budget of £5 million – a lot of money in those days. Most of the funding came from central government, but local CDPs operated with a high level of autonomy.

It is interesting to reflect on the CDPs from today’s vantage point. This was the creation of an ambitious infrastructure, across 12 regions, linking universities and academic researchers directly with community workers and activists in poor areas, with the explicit aim of enabling social science to inform social transformation. It is hard to imagine such a wide-ranging initiative emerging now, backed up by an equivalent budget from central government departments, in spite of widespread current concerns about growing use of food banks, zero hours contracts, high levels of in-work and child poverty and obscene income and housing inequalities; the kinds of problems which, some argue, are far more endemic now in the UK than they were in the 1970s.

Yet the CDP story is one in which two conflicting explanations of the causes of poverty unfolded (Loney 1983). The politicians and civil servants who set up the CDPs assumed a social pathology definition. They understood poverty to result essentially from the actions and beliefs of the poor themselves. From this viewpoint, what was needed was better, more joined up local services to help the poor to improve their skills and lifestyles, and become better adapted to the new economic realities of deindustrialisation. By contrast, those who worked for the CDPs quickly abandoned this definition of poverty in favour of a more structural perspective, attending to how social and economic policies reflected within corporate and government decision-making directly and indirectly gave rise to poverty and related social problems. In effect the CDP researchers, workers and activists refused to ‘localize’ the cause of the issues they tried to tackle. Their structural perspective informed how community action and research was used to engage, inform and mobilise local populations, and transform people’s lives for the better. This brought about many positive changes in areas in which CDPs were active and left some important legacies. However, this kind of impact was not what the government had in mind. CDPs were eventually wound down in the late 1970s, by which time politicians and senior government officials had mostly switched off from considering the implications of their findings for social policy at a wider level.

Although this was forty years ago, the CDPs have a strong contemporary resonance. Many of the problems tackled by the CDPs (poverty, insecure low paid work, unemployment) continue today, as do debates over how to deal with them. The activism and scholarship produced by the CDPs illustrates vividly how attempts to bring about positive change (to make an impact) in poor communities necessarily depends upon definitions of poverty which are always, inescapably political, whether or not they are recognised as such. As part of her research on British CDPs, Prof Hyatt and her colleagues at IUPUI have created a unique and extensive digital archive of many CDP reports, publications and photographs. This is an excellent resource for both teaching and research and I would like to recommend it to all colleagues interested in the issues discussed here.

References

Hyatt, SB., Linder, BJ., and Baurley, M. eds. 2012. The Neighborhood of Saturdays. Memories of a Multi-Ethnic Community on Indianapolis’ South Side. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing.

Hyatt, SB., Branstrator, DW., Baurley, M., Dagon M., and Yarian, S. eds. 2009. Eastside Story. Portrait of a Neighborhood on the Suburban Frontier. Indianapolis: Department of Anthropology IUPUI, Neighborhood Alliance Press.

Hyatt, Susan B., 2001. From Citizen to Volunteer. Neoliberal Governance and the Erasure of Poverty. In Judith Goode and Jeff Maskovsky, eds. The New Poverty Studies. The Ethnography of Power, Politics and Impoverished People in the United States. New York: New York University Press.

Loney, Martin 1983. Community Against Government. The British Community Development Project 1968-78. London: Heinemann

13 June 2015

Prof. Paul Lewis awarded OBE

Awarded & submitted bids Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Paul Lewis who is listed on this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Professor Lewis has been awarded his OBE for Services to Mothers, Midwives and Maternity Services. Bournemouth University celebrated the retirement of Professor Lewis in October 2011.¹ He had been leading midwifery education at Bournemouth University since 1995. The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) recognised his contribution to the midwifery profession by including his name on the Register of Honorary Fellows of the RCM.

Amongst his many contributions to the field, Prof. Lewis was a founding member of the journal The Practising Midwife. Just a few months ago Prof. Lewis co-authored a paper under the title ‘The loss of midwifery supervision: to mourn or rejoice?’ This paper was published in the March 2015 edition of The Practising Midwife. This paper ‘reflected on and discusses some of the possible consequences of the NMC’s decision to end statutory supervision of midwives in the UK.²

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

van Teijlingen, E., Tully, S. and Tobias, J.H., 2011. The retirement of the UK’s first male professor of midwifery – Paul Lewis. MIDIRS Essence (Dec. issue).
Lewis P, Freemantle D and Ireland J., 2015/ The loss of midwifery supervision: to mourn or rejoice? The Practising Midwife 18(4): 12-16.

12 June 2015

New BU authored paper in latest issue of Journal of Asian Midwives

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

The latest issue of the Journal of Asian Midwives includes an article Twinning in Nepal: the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Midwifery Society of Nepal working in partnership by BU Visiting Faculty and NHS Poole midwife Jillian Ireland, co-authored by Joy Kemp (RCM Global Professional Advisor) and BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in the UK has twinned with the Midwifery Society of Nepal (MIDSON) to help strengthen the latter, through its Global Midwifery Twinning Project (GMTP). The GMTP aims to strengthen midwifery and develop leadership, advocacy, and campaigning skills both at the level of the association and at the individual midwife level. Reciprocity is an important aspect of twinning as the RCM also hopes to strengthen midwifery in the UK through greater engagement of its members and a raised profile of global maternal and new-born health. This paper describes the importance of collaboration between established national midwifery organisations and newly established ones. It includes a case study outlining the experience of a UK midwifery volunteer in Nepal. The paper ends with some thoughts on the effects of the GMTP project on midwifery in Nepal.

This paper is part of a larger body of research work conducted by the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health in Nepal.

Reference:

Ireland, J, van Teijlingen, E, & Kemp, J. (2015) Twinning in Nepal: the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Midwifery Society of Nepal working in partnership. Journal of Asian Midwives. 2(1):26–33.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

12 June 2015

BUDI Financial & Legal Masterclass – 17 June

mobrien

There are still places left for BUDI’s upcoming one day Masterclass on the Financial and Legal aspects of Dementia, to be held at the EBC, Landsdowne Campus this Wednesday 17^th June.

We have a number of different speakers including Stuart Bradford from Coles Miller solicitors, Esther Donald from Bournemouth Borough Council, Malcolm Skinner, a legal writer for LexisNexis and Vivien Zarucki, an Independent Financial Advisor. It looks set to be an interesting and informative day with plenty of opportunity for participation and discussion.

Should you wish to book a place, please see the link below:-

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/budi-masterclass-financial-legal-aspects-of-dementia-care-tickets-15779535014

5 June 2015

WAN speaker event: ‘Inspiring our futures: High profile women at BU’

Research themes, Women's Academic Network Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

A lunchtime Women’s Academic Network (WAN) event on the 4th June to participate in a panel composed of three senior, high profile BU women proved to be one of our most popular WAN events. This drew in a wide audience of female academics of all ranks from across all the Faculties of the University. We were additionally honoured to have in the audience our VC, Professor John Vinney and the PVC for Global Engagement, Dr Sonal Minocha.

The panel included Sue Sutherland (OBE) Chair of the University Board, Professor Gail Thomas, Dean of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and Head of Centre Excellence Learning and Professor Christine Maggs, Dean of the Faculty of Science & Technology. The seminar topic focused on an interactive discussion of career progression, achievements and dealing with potholes, cul-de-sacs, obstacles and speeding highways along the way from the personal and professional perspectives of our three eminent speakers.

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree opened by the event by welcoming the audience, introducing the speakers and warmly acknowledging all the support provided by panel members and her fellow co-convenors, Associate Professor Dr Heather Savigny and Professor Chris Shiel– not forgetting every member of the WAN community, whose numbers across BU grow weekly. This has helped to make WAN a powerful and exhilarating vehicle for achieving equality in diversity at BU.

The honesty, humour, courage and grit of the speakers in talking so candidly about their road to success was a revelation to the audience who were both moved and liberated to engage fully in discussions with the panel, plying them with questions, comments and sharing their own stories. This was the opportunity to demonstrate that strength in leadership lies in being able to reveal human vulnerabilities and aspirations – a lesson that was deeply inspirational to everyone in the room.

The VC closed the event with his own account – personal, unembellished and moving, staying on to discuss with WAN members his own vision for the future in respect of our shared aims. We, co-convenors, were delighted that the success of this event as another step towards assisting our fellow female colleagues on their paths to progress where the superb examples offered by our outstanding panel received a myriad of compliments from our enthralled WAN participants.

Reminder: Next WAN event Chaired by VC Professor John Vinney, 7^th July, 5pm TAG02, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus.

Topic: Getting to the top: A grand plan or serendipity?

Speaker: Professor Judith Petts, CBE, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research & Enterprise, University of Southampton

Please note: this is an Open WAN Seminar – all academics, irrespective of gender, are warmly invited to attend. For full details of, and registration for Event: Prof Judith Petts, PVC Southampton, please see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/getting-to-the-top-a-grand-plan-or-serendipity-tickets-17003423698

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Dr Heather Savigny & Professor Chris Shiel,

WAN Co-convenors

4 June 2015

A talk by Julian McDougall – Wednesday 10th June

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance, PG research, Public engagement rfreeman

On Wednesday 10^th June, between 11.30am – 12.30pm in R303, Royal London House, Julian McDougall will be giving a talk on:

“What does the Unit of Assessment 25 mean for the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences?”

If you would like any further information on this talk, please contact Vanora on vhundley@bournemouth.ac.uk / 65206

1 June 2015

Birth paper cited one hundred times in Scopus

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

We have just been alerted that our paper has been cited for the hundredth time in Scopus. The paper ‘Maternity satisfaction studies and their limitations: “What is, must still be best’ was published in Birth. The paper originated from the Scottish Birth Study which we were both part of in our previous academic posts at the University of Aberdeen.

This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of satisfaction studies in the field of maternity care, including the issues that service users tend to value the status quo (i.e. What is must be best) . The implications are that innovations, of which users have no experience, may be rejected simply because they are unknown. The paper warns that problems may arise if satisfaction surveys are used to shape service provision. We advised that satisfaction surveys should be used with caution, and part of an array of tools. While involving service users is important in designing and organizing health services, there is still the risk that using satisfaction alone could end up promoting the status quo.

Professors Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Rennie, A-M, Graham. W., Fitzmaurice, A. (2003) Maternity satisfaction studies and their limitations: “What is, must still be best”, Birth 30: 75-82.

1 June 2015

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance, PG research, Public engagement rfreeman

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June 1-1.50pm, R301

Please feel free to come and listen to Jane Murphy present on Nutrition@BU.

Further information on this Seminar series can be found by clicking on the link below.

Impact Seminar dates 2015

There is no need to book – just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.

Jane looks forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

28 May 2015

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance, PG research, Public engagement rfreeman

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June 1-1.50pm, R301

Please feel free to come and listen to Jane Murphy present on Nutrition@BU.

Further information on this Seminar series can be found by clicking on the link below.

Impact Seminar dates 2015

There is no need to book – just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.

Jane looks forward to seeing you on the 3rd.

Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

International Funding: Malaysian Urbanisation

Enhancing Sport Science Links Between BU and the German Sport University Cologne – Reflections on Research Visit

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

BUDI hosts its second Masterclass

Climate Change and Security: Policing the Anthropocene Workshop

European Fusion: An Early-career Academic’s Experience at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Prof. Paul Lewis awarded OBE

New BU authored paper in latest issue of Journal of Asian Midwives

BUDI Financial & Legal Masterclass – 17 June

WAN speaker event: ‘Inspiring our futures: High profile women at BU’

A talk by Julian McDougall – Wednesday 10th June

Birth paper cited one hundred times in Scopus

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June

Lunchtime Seminar with Jane Murphy, Wednesday 3rd June

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