BU Research Blog

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August 20, 2015

Sports England Hackathon Challenge!

I’m trying to get a team of six together for the UK’s first sport hackathon. The challenge is to create an app that facilitates social change through sport at the Sport England Sport Technology Awards Hackathon. It will take place over 25 hours on 2-3 October 2015 during which time teams will have just 24 hours to develop their concept that will help a particular demographic group become more physically active.

The winning team will be awarded a bursary of £10,000 to help them build the app.

If you’re interested can you please get in touch with me, Clare at: cfarrance@bournemouth.ac.uk

Team registration closes on 7^th September. Would be great to have a BU team there!

More details can be found at:

http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/news/06-08-2015/uk%E2%80%99s-first-sports-hackathon-launches

August 20, 2015

Fusion Investment Fund: Neuroscience has found that emotions are a primary factor in learning to change behaviour: A project to apply and study these findings in many areas of practice (for example, public health, sports science, youth work, neurological rehabilitation, special education, and potentially many others).

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund scarter

We were very fortunate to receive Fusion funding for our collaboration between colleagues and students in Health and Social Sciences, Sports Science, and a variety of external practice partners. Essentially the funding will enable us to obtain psychophysiological recording equipment to be used to measure emotional responses in a wide variety of learning and training settings. Below is a screenshot of a typical recording from this kind of equipment.

Huge progress has been made over the last couple of decades in our understanding of emotion and feelings. A compelling conclusion from this enormous body of work is the primacy of emotion in how we operate in the world. Darwin knew this, as did Freud, but many still cling to the notion of the achievements of homo sapiens (“wise man”!) as founded on cognition and rational thinking. For them, feelings are a vestigial remnant of our evolutionary past, not dissimilar to the appendix – no longer having any purpose, and also potentially a threat to our well being.

Affective neuroscience completely opposes this so-called rational approach: emotions and feelings guided our survival in our evolutionary past, but the big news is that they still do! Accumulations of theory and research from fields such as affective neuroscience, positive psychology, and health psychology support this simple but crucial switch in emphasis. Some everyday practice reveals the primacy of emotion, for example emotionally skilled doctors tend to bring about better health outcomes for their patients, children are taught to pay attention to their ‘uh oh’ signs (involuntary emotional responses of sweaty palms and heart beating faster) to keep them safe. So emotions are not the redundant and fickle “appendix” of our behavioural systems, but in fact are their driving force.

Despite an array of pragmatic findings about the way emotions and feelings work, this largely ‘pure’ body of neuroscience has not been directly applied to any particular field of practice. This project aims to correct that omission. The applications of affective science to how we learn and change our behaviour are potentially enormous, as the physiological emotional measures offer a straightforward ‘window’ into the person’s emotional responses.

The Fusion funding enables us to build on one of the applications, through running a study developing a previous pilot. This will be based on a form of training using natural horsemanship that has been demonstrated to be very successful in behaviour change for young offenders and young people who do not engage with school. This is an example of what it looks like (thanks to TheHorseCourse for the picture):

The equipment, and experience gained through carrying out the initial study, will also allow for projects with other practice partners to go ahead, for example, work with people with acquired brain injuries, and children with profound learning disabilities. If any of this interests you, please get in touch with Sid Carter or Emma Kavanagh, and we’d be glad to tell you more.

August 18, 2015

Fusion Investment Fund — Introducing the Bournemouth-Athens Network in Critical Infrastructure Security (BANCIS)

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund Shamal Faily

Although largely invisible to us, our lives are dependent on critical infrastructure (CI). CI is made up of roads, rail, pipelines, power lines, together with buildings, technology, and people. Some of this infrastructure is modern, but much of it is ageing and interconnected in so many ways that we fail to realise our dependency on CI or its dependencies until its loss disrupts our day-to-day lives.

This dependency has not been lost on governments, which now invest significant sums on securing this infrastructure from cybersecurity threats. Unfortunately, in most cases, this investment entails bolting security mechanisms onto existing infrastructure. Such investment decisions are made by people with little knowledge of the infrastructure they are securing and, has such, little visibility of the impact that poorly designed security might have on the day-to-day delivery of these critical services. Moreover, because technology innovation does not evolve at the same pace in different cultures, and security which mitigate the risks faced by critical infrastructure in one country may not be as effective in another. The reason for these differences are myriad, and range from differences in working practices to expectations about the scale of infrastructure being secured. There is, therefore, a need to evaluate security solutions against specification exemplars based on these nuanced, representative environments. However, to develop exemplars of such environments requires data collection and knowledge sharing about nuances associated with particular forms of critical infrastructure for different cultures.

The Bournemouth-Athens Network in Critical Infrastructure Security (BANCIS) project will examine and model the nuances associated with two forms of critical infrastructure in different national cultures. It will do so by building a network between Cybersecurity researchers at BU, and the Information Security & Critical Infrastructure Protection Laboratory at Athens University of Economics & Business (AUB). These nuances will be modelled as specification exemplars of UK and Greek water and rail companies. By developing these exemplars, researchers and practitioners will be able to conduct a cost-effective evaluation of new ideas based on realistic CI environments. The exemplars will also help students appreciate the challenges associated with designing security for complex, real-world systems. The exemplars will be modelled using the CAIRIS security design tool; this is an open-source software product maintained by researchers at BU. The data necessary to build these exemplars will be collected over a series of visits by AUB researchers to BU, and BU researcher to AUB.

Please contact Shamal Faily if you’re interested in finding out more about BANCIS, or getting involved in the project.

August 14, 2015

FREE – Places for BU Staff and PhD Students for Creative Approaches in Dementia Masterclass

Research themes, Training mobrien

BUDI have a few free places available for BU staff and PhD Students to attend its masterclass entitled “Creative Approaches in Dementia” being held on Wednesday 30 September. This masterclass will be an interactive session which will be exploring the power and potential of creativity in supporting good practice and positive experiences of living with dementia.

Our speakers are:

Derek Eland, artist; Jonny Fluffypunk, poet; Andrew Baker, musician and Sharon Muiruri, drama specialist.

To read the flyer please click here . To book your free place please contact Dr Samuel Nyman at snyman@bournemouth.ac.uk

August 14, 2015

Latest Funding Opportunities!

BU research, Funding opportunities, Public engagement, Research news nprajapati

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

British Academy

Mid-career fellowships

Through Mid-Career Fellowships, the British Academy intends both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences.

The aim of the scheme is to allow successful applicants to obtain time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments. The time bought by the scheme should be devoted to the completion of a major piece of research, and the Academy will also look for evidence of a clear commitment to a strategy of public engagement with and communication of the results of the research during the period of the Fellowship.

The awards support outstanding individual researchers and outstanding communicators who will promote public engagement and understanding of the humanities and social sciences. Applicants should set out in their proposals specific plans for the dissemination of their research to a broad audience, in addition to publication in the usual academic press and journals. Awards will be judged both on the excellence of the research proposed and on the capacity of the applicant to communicate with a broad audience. Applicants are invited to indicate ways in which their proposed programme will contribute to advances in understanding, including public understanding, in their subject area and to the identification of appropriate strategic priorities in the social sciences and humanities.

These Fellowships are covered under the Full Economic Costing (FEC) regime, but the Academy’s contribution to the salary of the Mid-Career Fellow will be capped at an upper limit of £80,000. It is not expected that the total value of an award will exceed £160,000 (BA contribution to FEC). Awards can be held over a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 12 months, beginning in the autumn of 2016.

Please refer to Funder’s website for eligibility criteria

Closing date: 16/09/15 17:00

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

The aim of the British Academy in making these awards is to offer opportunities for outstanding early career researchers to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in a university environment which will develop their curriculum vitae and improve their prospects of obtaining permanent lecturing posts by the end of the Fellowship. The primary emphasis is on completion of a significant piece of publishable research, which will be assisted by full membership of an academic community of established scholars working in similar fields.

Applicants must be supported by the UK host institution in which they wish to hold the Fellowship

Please see Funder’s website for eligibility criteria

45 awards are expected to be offered and awards are for 3 years.

Awards are offered on a Full Economic Costing basis. There is no fixed amount awarded for the Fellowships and the value of award will vary depending on the host institution. Awards cover the salary of the Postdoctoral Fellow to work full-time on the Fellowship, small-scale research expenses (up to a maximum of £6,000), costs towards the time of a mentor (equivalent to one hour per month for the 36 months of the Fellowship) and the host institution’s estates and indirect costs.

Applicants must be supported by one self-nominated referee. The referee should normally be the external examiner or, if not available, someone else who is as external to the applicant as possible.

Closing Date: (for outline applications) 07/10/15 17:00

44th International Congress of Americanists Fund

Surplus funds resulting from the 44th International Congress of Americanists, held in Manchester in 1982, were entrusted to the British Academy. Grants are offered for travel expenses in connection with a research project relating to Latin American studies and may support British scholars or scholars from Latin America.

Applications may only be submitted by scholars resident in the UK.
Maximum Award: £1,000
Closing date: 14/10/15

Elie Kedourie Memorial Fund

The object of this fund, established by the family of Elie Kedourie, FBA, is to promote the study of Middle Eastern and Modern European History, and the History of Political Thought by recent postdoctoral scholars of any nationality. Awards are offered to support any aspect of research, including travel and publication. Funds are not available to support travel to or attendance at conferences, workshops, or seminars, either in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.

Maximum Award: £1,000

Closing date: 14/10/15

Elisabeth Barker Fund

The Fund was established in memory of Elisabeth Barker (1910-1986), diplomatic correspondent and historian of modern Europe. This fund is intended to support studies in recent European history, particularly the history of Central and Eastern Europe. Grants may be made for individual, or collaborative projects and may support British scholars, or scholars from other European countries.

Maximum Award: £1,000

Closing date: 14/10/15

Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship

The British Academy invites applications for the Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship. This Fellowship enables an established scholar to have time away from their normal teaching and administrative responsibilities for one year to concentrate on a major piece of research that is related to “human studies, widely interpreted”.

This call is repeated every 2 years.

Closing date 18/11/15 17:00

British Academy/Leverhulme Trust

Senior Research Fellowships

The Academy continues to offer the Senior Research Fellowship scheme, with funding generously provided by the Leverhulme Trust (on a non-FEC basis). This enables mid-career scholars to have one year’s research leave with funding being provided to cover the costs of replacement teaching. There is an annual closing date in the autumn.

Eligibility: The Academy takes no account of an applicant’s age or current status (e.g. Professor, Lecturer) in determining eligibility for these awards. Rather, in all cases, award-holders are expected to be able to disseminate the results of their research not only through publications, but also through feeding into their future academic career after the end of the awards. Any field of study in the humanities and social sciences is suitable for support.

Closing Date: 18/11/15 17:00

British Council

Researcher Links workshops in the Philippines on sustainable cities

We have grants for early-career researchers to participate in a workshop in the Philippines entitled ‘Process Systems Engineering Approaches for the Provision of Supplies and Utilities for Sustainable Cities’.

The workshop is part of Researcher Links, funded under the Newton Fund, and is being organised by the University of Nottingham (UK) and De La Salle University (Philippines).

The grants will cover all transport, accommodation and meals. Participants are encouraged to purchase adequate travel insurance (not covered by grant).

Please refer to the Funder’s website for full details and eligibility criteria.

Closing date: 08/11/15

CRACK IT Challenges 2015

The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is an independent scientific organisation that supports the UK science base through the application of the 3Rs.

CRACK IT Challenges is a challenge-led funding competition from the NC3Rs which is designed to fund collaborations between industry, academics and SMEs; minimise the use of animals in research; support the development of marketable products and/or improved business processes.

This year the Challenges are funded by the NC3Rs and Dstl with in-kind contributions from the Challenge Sponsors (for example, data, access to compounds and equipment).

This year the NC3Rs intends to launch two Challenges: the first one is called ‘METABODERM’ where successful completion of this Challenge will deliver new capability to understand/interpret human relevant skin metabolism, including rates of metabolism in the skin and approaches towards metabolite identification.

The second Challenfe is called ‘InMutaGene’ where successful completion of this Challenge will result in the development of a new platform to address the risks of insertional mutagenesis/oncogenesis and to improve the efficiency of translational research in gene therapy.

Please refer to the Funder’s website for further information on these Challenges

Closing date: (for Registration) 04/11/15 12:00

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme

Biotechnology YES, now in its 20th year, is an innovative competition developed to raise awareness of the commercialisation of ideas among early career researchers. The competition is funded by sponsorship and aims to encourage an entrepreneurial culture in the UK postgraduate and postdoctoral base for the benefit of the UK bioeconomy. The competition is organised jointly by The University of Nottingham – The Haydn Green Institute and Innovation and Skills Group, BBSRC.

Over the course of a three day residential workshop, teams will develop a business plan for a company based on a hypothetical but plausible idea based on real markets. The workshop comprises presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry and culminates in the presentation of the business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’ drawn from industry and academia. Up to three teams from each workshop are selected to progress to the final stage in London.

In addition to the general Biotechnology YES workshops there are several themed workshops which are run in conjunction with industry: the Plants, Microbial and Environmental Workshop, hosted by Syngenta; the Biomedical Workshop, hosted by GSK and the Stevenage Biosciences Catalyst; and new for this year, the Food, Nutrition and Wellbeing workshop, hosted by Unilever. The Royal Society of Chemistry is also sponsoring a Chemistry YES workshop for the third year.

The benefits of taking part include a prize fund of £5,000, including a first prize of £2,500, a trip to the USA, and an invitation to the BIA Gala dinner. As well as enhancing their CVs, participants will develop and improve transferable skills such as communication, time-management, negotiation and team-building. There will be opportunities for networking with industry professionals, and increasing your commercial awareness and technology transfer knowledge.

Closing date: September 2015 – exact date to be confirmed

Economic and Social Research Council

Training Bursaries

The ESRC wishes to improve the standards of research methods and to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses in research methods across the UK social science community.

Bursaries are available for up to £1,000 each to enable staff in the UK social science community engaged in research, teaching research methods or supervising research to update their research skills. Contract researchers working in HEIs are also eligible for the bursaries.

Please refer to funder’s website at link above for eligibility criteria

Maximum award: £1000

Closing date: 15/08/15 17:00

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Balance Network Funding

The Balance Network invites proposals for activities within the themes of ‘work-life balance in the digital age’ which support the network’s aims of collaboration and impact. These events will form part of the network’s programme of activities between November 2015 and April 2016. A maximum of £35k will be awarded in total, and we anticipate the majority of successful proposals will be under £4k. We aim to fund at least one activity led by an early career researcher.

All events funded through this invitation will feed into BEYOND BALANCE, a one-day large-scale Balance Network event taking place Monday 27 June 2016 at IET London, Savoy Place. Details will be circulated via the bulletin and made available on the funder’s website.

Maximum award: £4000

Closing date: 15/09/15 17:00

Healthcare technologies impact fellowships

Please note the above dates are indicative only and are subject to change

This is an advance notice that EPSRC will be issuing a call in early September 2015, inviting recently funded EPSRC fellows who have a permanent post to apply for funding to progress the outputs of their fellowship towards impact within a healthcare application. Proposal should align to one of the four Healthcare Technologies Grand Challenges. The fellowship can be a maximum of 24 months in duration. A budget of around £2.5 million will be available to support the call. EPSRC expects to fund 4 – 6 Healthcare Technology Impact Fellowships depending on demand and available budget.

This call is open to all EPSRC fellows holding a permanent post, whose fellowship end dates are in the period 01 July 2014 – 30 September 2016. Prospective applicants are encouraged to discuss their proposal with the call contacts (see below) at the earliest opportunity.

Please refer to the Funder’s website for full details.

Healthcare Technologies Programme Grants

Please note the above dates are indicative only and are subject to change.

This is an advance notice that EPSRC’s Healthcare Technologies theme will shortly be issuing a call for ‘Healthcare Technologies Programme Grants’. The full call document will be available by early September.

The Healthcare Technologies Theme has recently announced a new long term strategy, and in order to deliver on this, the EPSRC invites applications for Programme Grant proposals that seek to address significant major research challenges that align to the Healthcare Technologies Grand Challenges of: Developing Future Therapies – Supporting the development of novel therapies with technologies to enhance efficacy, minimise costs and reduce risk to patients (note: this specifically relates to drug, biological, cell and regenerative therapies); Frontiers of Physical Intervention – Restoring function, and optimising surgery and other physical interventions to achieve high precision with minimal invasiveness; Optimising Treatment – Optimising care through effective diagnosis, patient-specific prediction and evidence-based intervention; Transforming Community Health and Care – Using real-time information to support self-management of health and wellbeing, and to facilitate timely interventions.

Applications should also draw on one or more of the cross-cutting capabilities of:

Advanced materials

Disruptive technologies for sensing and analysis

Future manufacturing technologies

Medical device design and innovation

Novel computational and mathematical sciences

Novel imaging technologies

Programme Grants are a flexible mechanism to provide funding to world-leading research groups to address significant major research challenges and are intended to support a variety of activities focussing on one strategic research theme. It is expected that proposals will be interdisciplinary and collaborative.

Please refer to the Funder’s website for further information on the Programme Grants scheme, including details of the peer review process and assessment criteria.

Applicants must discuss their suitability for Programme Grant funding with one of the EPSRC contacts for this call before submitting an Outline application.

Up to £15 million will be available to fund 3-5 Programme Grants through this call for proposals.

Closing date: (for Outline) 27/10/15 16.00

Systems Integration of energy supply and demand

The RCUK Energy Programme is bringing together engineers and physical scientists from across the energy sector to tackle the research challenges involved in integrating the energy supply, storage, transmission and demand sectors.

The RCUK Energy Programme seeks to encourage cross energy-sector collaboration designed to enable future energy systems integration. This integration will help the UK meet its ambitious 2050 emission targets (the UK is legally committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by at least 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels) and address the energy trilemma by providing resilient, affordable and sustainable future energy systems.

In this call we seek applications for research addressing the co-evolution of supply and demand across an integrated network over the next 35 years – in order help identify potential solutions and frame the challenges. Proposals should pull together existing and complimentary research from across the whole energy-sector to add meaningfully additionally and context.

All proposals must cover research covering the entire energy sector from supply to demand, and can include storage, across the energy networks of electricity, heat and gas.

Up to £5 million is available for this call with EPSRC looking to fund a research centre. The successful proposal must clearly identify how the research will complement and add to existing RCUK Energy Programme investments, in particular the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). Applicants are strongly encouraged to open a dialog with existing RCUK Energy Programme investments before submitting an application.

Maximum award: £5 million

Closing date: 24 /09/15 16:00

Medical Research Council

Confidence in Concept Scheme

Ensuring that fundamental science is translated into new therapies, diagnostics and medical devices is central to our mission. The Confidence in Concept scheme aims to accelerate the transition from discovery science to the early stages of therapeutic/biomarker development by providing locally-administered, responsive and flexible funding to support preliminary translational work.

The award can be used flexibly by the institution to support a number of preliminary-stage translational projects. The projects supported should aim to provide sufficient preliminary data to establish the viability of an approach –– before seeking more substantive funding (e.g. from the Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS).

Applicants are encouraged to explore how awards could be used to develop academic-industry interactions. People exchange (in either direction) is permitted, where focused on the delivery of specific project objectives. Other routes (e.g. co-funding projects, developing early-stage collaborations) are also encouraged. Standard terms and conditions apply (see in particular the “MICA” webpage).

Institutions may apply for an award between £250k and £1.2m.

We anticipate that individual projects funded from an institution’s award will be of the order of £50-100k and approximately 6-12 months in length, although this will be dictated by the needs of each project.

Institutional awards will be of 24 months duration. Successful institutions are expected to allocate funds to projects within the first 12 months of the award.

Closing date: 15/10/15 16:00

Proximity to discovery – industry engagement fund

This Fund is designed to provide flexible funding for innovative ways to enable the initial development of academic-industry collaborations.

MRC’s Confidence in Concept (CiC) scheme provides responsive and flexible funding to support preliminary work aimed at assembling the data to support an application for a translational project grant. CiC permits academic-industry collaboration where focused on the delivery of the specific project objectives. The Proximity to Discovery: Industry Engagement Fund aligns with CiC to further enable research organisations to establish academic industry relationships. Short term people exchanges between industry and academia are seen as a key way of exchanging skills and knowledge and developing a longer term working relationship. Proximity to Discovery: Industry Engagement Fund can be used for people and knowledge exchange at the very earliest stage of a collaboration and may not necessarily be aligned to a specific project objective.

Please refer to Funder’s website for further details and examples of potential uses.

Institutions may apply to this scheme and CiC in the same round. The two applications do not need to be led by the same individual but the applying institution will need to present a persuasive case that the proposed governance structures will be coherent.

Institutions applying to the scheme must be able to demonstrate that they have sufficient critical mass to be able to deliver engagement with industrial partners that will result in partnership opportunities.

Applications are not expected to be in excess of £250k and are to be spent within 18 months of the award starting.

Only one application per institution is permitted. It is expected that applications will be led by one or more senior members of the institution (e.g. Dean of Medical School or equivalent).

A total budget of £15M is available to support CinC and Proximity to Discovery: Industry Engagement Fund.

Natural Environment Research Council

Antimicrobial resistance in the real world

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in the Real World is a programme under the AMR Cross-Council Initiative. This call is co-funded by NERC, the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), and has potential co-funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

This programme aims to address the need for a greater understanding of the role of the outdoor environment and host microbiome in influencing the evolution, acquisition and spread of antibacterial resistance, and as a reservoir for resistance. The programme is restricted to antibacterials and resistant bacteria or resistance genes, of relevance to bacteria of clinical and/or veterinary importance. Research supported can be based in agricultural, aquaculture, wastewater and natural environments, the human and animal host microbiome, and also includes elements of the way people and human communities interact with the environment.

Research Grants should be up to £1.5m (100% FEC), with funding for up to four years’ duration, and projects starting no later than 1 May 2016 and complete by 31 March 2020.

Maximum award: £1.5million at 100%fEC

Closing date: (for outline) 06/10/15 16:00

Sustaining Water Resources for Food, Energy & Ecosystem Services in India

NERC and India’s Earth System Science Organisation (ESSO) – Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) jointly invite proposals for research on sustaining water resources for food, energy & ecosystem services in India. This collaboration is supported by the Newton-Bhabha Fund, established by the governments of the UK and India to provide a framework for increasing research and innovation collaborations that support sustainable economic growth, and builds on existing NERC-MoES activities.

Proposals are sought for interdisciplinary collaborative research projects involving UK and Indian researchers. The focus should be on the main hydrological processes and how they interact within one of the 3 case study regions: the Himalayas, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, or Peninsular India.

Up to £3m is available from NERC for this call with up to £1m (80% FEC) available for the UK contribution to each of the case studies, which will be matched by MoES in terms of research effort.

Closing date: (for Notification of Intent) 07/09/15 16:00

Research Councils UK

RCUK-CONICYT Research Partnerships Call: UK – Chile Call for Proposals

Research Councils UK (RCUK) and National Commission for Scientific Research and Technology (CONICYT) are pleased to invite applications to the RCUK-CONICYT Research Partnerships Call.

This initiative will provide funding for high-quality collaborative research projects between UK and Chilean researchers which contribute to the economic development and welfare of Chile and to developing countries more broadly. We invite proposals which address the following topics:

Disaster Management
Diet and health
Education, Inequality and Social Reform
Sustainable Aquaculture for Nutrition and Food Security

The objective is to deliver significant 2-3 year research funding for internationally competitive and innovative collaborative projects between researchers from Chile and the UK that will allow the pursuit of shared research interests.

Proposals within the themes listed above are welcomed from across the remits of the UK Research Councils. Recognising the multidisciplinary nature of the thematic areas, the development of interdisciplinary collaborations is particularly welcome.

Consortia should consider how their proposal makes the best use of available expertise in the UK and Chile, the added value of collaboration and how the proposal will meet the ODA requirements of this Newton Fund activity. Whilst still currently on the OECD DAC list, Chile may graduate from the list in the next few years and, as a result, and a condition of the Newton Fund, proposals must contribute towards the economic development and welfare of Chile and articulate a broader applicability to the issues of poor people globally.

Closing date: 08/10/15 16:00

Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust Centres

Funding for world-leading groups proposing novel and innovative ways of tackling important research and translational questions.

The Wellcome Trust awards Centre status to programmes that we expect to catalyse and enable world-leading research and innovation in fields that are central to our mission. We expect our support to allow Centres to achieve exceptional impact in any or all of basic research; translation into clinical practice; health product research and development; and public policy.

We currently fund eight Centres at UK universities and four Medical Engineering Centres.

We are now offering other groups the opportunity to become Wellcome Trust Centres. We invite eligible institutions in the UK and Republic of Ireland to submit Letters of Interest proposing new Centres, for a competition to be decided in late 2016. We will also consider renewal applications from existing Centres.

We encourage Centres to develop specific innovation and translation strategies and to support effective programmes of public engagement, and to identify the necessary resources.

Our existing Centres work in four broad areas of biomedical science – neuroscience; cell and developmental biology; genetics/genomics; and infectious disease – and in medical engineering.

For this new competition, we will consider proposals in any area relevant to the Trust’s mission, including the humanities and social sciences as well as basic biomedical research and translation.

Centres will normally be funded for five years, with the possibility of competitive renewal (we expect to make the next set of awards in 2021).

Please refer to the Funder’s website for further details of what costs the fund will support; what is expected of the host institution; key stages and dates of the application process.

This is a one-off call for applications.

Closing date: (for Letter of Interest) 21/09/15 12.00

August 14, 2015

Creative Skillset – news & updates – August 2015

Business Engagement jcodling

View all of these stories and more in full:

News

* Trailblazer apprenticeships on the way: Help build your ideal apprentice

* Tick talent takes jobs: Why to Pick the Tick as we celebrate our graduates’ success

* Film and TV Launchpad: A stellar line-up for our Tick graduates

Opportunities

* Are you in the 500?: Digital companies can pledge a vacancy for the Tech London 500 talent pool

* Film Trainee Finder: Film placements open!

* The Old Vic 12 hit Hiive: New competition for directors, playwrights, producers, and designers

Events

* Edinburgh TV Festival: We’re sponsoring with inspirational diversity sessions

* Into Film Festival: Open students’ eyes at over 2,500 free screenings for 5-19s

* Open Doors Meetups: 16-24? Find your digital career at our next company-hosted meetup

About Creative Skillset

August 14, 2015

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visit to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Fusion Investment Fund, Global engagement bangele

The seal of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst

I have reveived funding from the Santander strand of the Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships and collaborations with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA a Santander Partner University.

In early 2016, Professor Adrian Staub from UMass, one of the leading experts on eye movements in reading and psycholinguistics, will visit BU order to present a talk here and meet with BU staff and postgraduates. Prof. Staub will also present a short workshop on distributional analysis techniques, which should be of interest to many PGRs and staff. I will make a return visit to UMass in spring. We hope that this exchange will enable us to begin work on a number of collaborations.

UMass Amherst is the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system, which is one of the USA’s leading public university systems. UMass has 28,635 students, 6,383 of them postgraduates. Both the Department of Psychology and the Department of Linguistics at UMass are consistently rated as some of the best departments nationwide.

Bernhard Angele

August 14, 2015

Successful completion: Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visit to the University of Valencia, Spain

BU research, Fusion Investment Fund, Global engagement bangele

Valencia, near the conference site

Thanks to the Fusion Investment Fund (Santander), I was able to organise two visits between Bournemouth University and the University of Valencia in Spain. The first visit was by Prof. Manuel Perea to BU. Prof. Perea gave a talk at the Psychology Research Seminar which was very well received and attended by staff, postgraduate, and undergraduate students. We also planned a series of collaboratory experiments. Subsequently, I visited UV from July 1st to July 13th 2015. This visit enabled me to attend the 12th International Symposium of Psycholinguistics (organised by Prof. Perea) and present a talk there. Additionally, we presented two posters resulting from collaborations with Prof. Perea and his students and associated staff at the conference. I was able to network with most of the top Spanish researchers in Psychology of Language and Psycholinguistics, many of which are interested in collaborations with BU. For the moment, I will work on expanding the collaboration with the University of Valencia. Ideally, we would like to enable undergraduate and postgraduate students from both universities to be able to visit the other and gain valuable experiences and knowledge.

UV is one of Spain’s leading academic institutions and was founded more than 500 years ago. Its 55,000 students are distributed across three campuses. The Faculty of Psychology is consistently ranked as one of the top three Psychology research centres nationally and one of the top 50 research centres in Europe. UV has a strong international orientation and participates in many international exchange programmes and networks.

Bernhard Angele

Giving a talk at the Psycholinguistics Symposium in Valencia.

August 11, 2015

New publication by BU PhD student Jib Acharya

BU research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to FHSS Ph.D. student Mr. Jib Acharya, whose paper ‘Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal’ has just been published in the Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare [1]. The academic paper, based on his Ph.D. thesis, reports on his mixed-methods Public Health study addressing attitudes and knowledge of mothers of young children (pre-school aged) in one particular district in Nepal. The research comprises a quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups. Jib Acharya, who is originally from Nepal, compares and contrasts the attitudes, knowledge and behaviour of poor rural and poor urban women (=mothers) in that district. The research is supervised by Dr. Jane Murphy, Dr. Martin Hind and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Acharya, J., van Teijlingen, E., Murphy, J., Hind, M. (2015) Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal, Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare 1(2): 97-118.

August 11, 2015

Fusion Investment Fund 2014/15: Upskilling the Engineering Workforce – an update

Awarded & submitted bids, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund psewell

In December 2014 we received funding from the Fusion Investment Fund for a project which we hoped would allow us to strengthen strategic partnerships with local/national engineering companies (see previous posting). We are happy to report that the project has been a success.

Over the past few months we have been working with the Missions Systems division of Cobham PLC, based in Wimborne, and four of their employees, who are also students on our innovative Flexible Learning MEng (Hons) Engineering degree, to develop a Professional Registration Mentoring Scheme. Cobham was an ideal company to work with as it is the third largest aerospace and defence employer in the UK with over 12000 employees globally and 500 employees at the Wimborne site alone.

The main outcome of the project has been the development of the structure of the scheme, scheme material and promotional material.

In addition, a Festival of Learning lecture was developed entitled: ‘what professional engineers do and how to become one’. The lecture was attended by a mix of children and their parents who wished to find out more about embarking on engineering as a career and engineering employees from a range of industries who wished to find out more about how to develop themselves professionally. Promotional flyers for the professional registration mentoring scheme were provided to the engineering employees to take back to their companies. It is hoped interest from employers in the scheme will be generated from the event.

The scheme has also been integrated into the flexible learning engineering degree curriculum through the Level 6 unit Advanced Engineering and Level 7 unit MEng Project. Students studying on the degree will be mentored for up to a year after graduation to provide professional development opportunities by achieving professional registration. Thus, preparing the individual with key skills for the workplace and creating sought after individuals who will be recognised as the future leaders in their field.

Finally, a strong link has been developed with Cobham which is expected to carry on after this project. The links and reputation of BU developed through this project will be used to build the relationship with Cobham to ensure the apprentices progress to BU to complete their academic studies on the FdEng Engineering and MEng Engineering degrees.

A future goal, once established regionally, is to secure recognition for the scheme from an appropriate professional body. This will then provide the credibility to expand the scheme nationally

Please do feel free to get in touch with us if you would like further information.

Dr Phil Sewell – (Principal Investigator) – Acting Head of Design and Engineering Department/Associate Professor – psewell@bournemouth.ac.uk

Dr Tania Humphries-Smith – Associate Professor – thumphri@bournemouth.ac.uk

August 11, 2015

Consider the editor!

BU research, Featured academics, Global engagement, Publishing, Research communication, Research Integritiy, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

The most recent edition of the international journal Women & Birth includes a discussion paper highlighting the role of the academic journal editor, an often misunderstood ‘job’ in academic scholarship [1]. The Bournemouth University authors of this paper are all three active as journal editors and sit on several editorial boards of scientific journals. The role of the journal editor may not be well known by budding authors. The purpose of this article is to explain the editor’s role in order to encourage future participation in reviewing and publication.

This latest paper is part of a series of articles written by staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on academic writing [2-4]. These ‘how-to-do’ papers offer advice to junior researchers and postgraduate students. Several of the papers in this series are co-authored with Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty, including Dr. Brijesh Sathian (based in Nepal), Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University), Ms. Jillian Ireland (Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust), Prof. Debra Bick ( King’s College, London), Dr. Bibha Simkhada (Inter, Nepal) and Dr. Emma Pitchforth (RAND Europe, Cambridge). The range of publications includes papers on advice for article titles [5], tricky issues such as authorship and author order [6-7], selecting the most appropriate journal for your paper [8] and writing up qualitative research [9]. Whilst a further paper offers advice on writing an abstract for a scientific conference [10].

Edwin van Teijlingen, Vanora Hundley & Jenny Hall

CMMPH

Twitter: @EvTeijlingen @VanoraHundley @hallmum5

References:

Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1): 1-5.
van Teijlingen, E., P.P., Simkhada, B., Ireland, J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 2(4): 213-215.
van Teijlingen, E., P.P., Rizyal, A. (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? Health Renaissance 10 (1): 1-4.
van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 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.
Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11(2): 98-101.
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.
Pitchforth, E., Porter, M., van Teijlingen, E.R., Forrest Keenan, K. (2005) Writing up and presenting qualitative research in family planning and reproductive health care, Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 31 (2): 132-135.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, B.D. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu University Medical Journal 11(3): 262-265.

August 10, 2015

GeoNet cultural heritage landscapes and deathscapes

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Exchange, REF Subjects, Research themes pgillingham

In our last GeoNet seminar Craig Young and Tim Darville discussed cultural heritage landscapes and deathscapes, followed by Anne Luce who examined the presentation of suicide in the media.

Craig Young introduced the seminar discussing the evolving patterns of death and the changing social attitudes towards death. The physical absence of the dead body is becoming significantly apparent when illustrating the changes in the memorialisation of the dead. For example, new ways of scattering ashes such as sending in to space, converting it in to diamonds as a permanent keepsake and using social media to contact others to help spread ashes to different continents. An increase in the memorialisation at the site of death in the form of roadside shrines indicates a shift away from official ceremonies to more informal and open displays of grief.

Tim Darville, who has recently published on life, death, ritual and regional identity in Britain c. 1600 BC, discussed the relationship and practices between the living and dead. He used Stonehenge as an example. I found it interesting to discover that Stonehenge originated as a burial ground, and as a monument to the dead. Darville went on to explain links between the spatial orientations of the stone structures with the celestial calendar. The landscape changes from contained to dispersed, each holding its own celestial meaning as a burial site.

Anne Luce carried on the discussion talking about suicide in the media. Changes in attitude towards suicides have resulted in more high profile suicides reported in the media. For example, the Bridgend suicides in Wales 2008 were presented by the media as a suicide cult, therefore being picked up by the international press. The growth in social media sites, such as Facebook, has led to personal and public displays of remembrance in the form of memorial pages, which in some instances has led to an increased awareness of online bullying as a main cause of suicide.

Charlotte Unwin, GeoNet Intern

August 4, 2015

Understanding how people with depression think about how the past could have turned out differently

BU research, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund kthomas

The period of funding from the BU Fusion Investment Fund (Co-Creation and Co-Production Strand) has just finished for my joint psychology and psychiatry research project into the role of counterfactual thinking in depression. Counterfactual thinking is thinking about how the past could have been different. It is closely tied-up with the emotion of regret but can help people prepare to deal more effectively with similar situations in the future. For example, a person who thinks that an intimate relationship that failed would have survived if they had taken more account of how their partner was feeling (counterfactual thinking) can adapt their behaviour accordingly in their next intimate relationship in order to try to prevent the breakdown of the relationship and ensure its longevity.

My collaborator on the Fusion-funded project is Dr Paul Walters who’s a Consultant Psychiatrist for Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust (DHUFT) based at Weymouth. A student from the Psychology Department’s Foundations in Clinical Psychology Master’s degree course (Stephen Richer) worked on the project by interviewing DHUFT patients who are diagnosed with depression. The project ran from December 2013 to July 2015, in which time a total of 29 patients were assessed. Although the project funding has ended, participant recruitment will continue until the required number of 65 participants is reached, which should be by October 2015.

Preliminary analysis of the data from the project suggests that the patients assessed tend to focus on aspects of the self (e.g., personality characteristics) when thinking counterfactually about a negative social event from their past. This finding contrasts with the counterfactual thoughts of people that have not received a formal clinical diagnosis of depression who, our previous research has found, tend to focus more on factors that are external to the self (e.g., other people’s behaviour) when mentally ‘undoing’ a previous negative social event. Once the data are collected from all 65 participants with depression, more meaningful comparisons between the counterfactual thoughts of depressed and non-depressed people will be drawn. Ultimately, Paul Walters and I hope that the findings of the project will aid in the refinement of the cognitive behavioural therapies that psychiatrists and clinical psychologists administer for the treatment of depression. Once the results of the data from all 65 participants have been analysed and written-up for publication, Paul and I plan to submit a funding bid to the National Institute of Health Research for a follow-on intervention project into tailoring cognitive behavioural therapies for depression based on the factors that influence the counterfactual thoughts of the patients with depression.

Overall, the BU Fusion funding has been immensely beneficial for engaging students and a key external stakeholder in the local community (DHUFT) in a valuable piece of applied research that has important psychotherapeutic implications for mental health patients and professional best practice implications for mental healthcare professionals.

Thank you, Fusion Investment Fund, I couldn’t have done the research without you.

Dr Kevin Thomas, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology.

August 3, 2015

Institute for Small Business and Entrpreneurship Research and Knowledge Exchange (RAKE) Fund

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Research news jcodling

ISBE Research and Knowledge Exchange (RAKE) Fund – Anchor Institutions

The Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Research and Knowledge Exchange (RAKE) fund is an initiative kindly supported by; the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); Lloyds Banking Group, the Federation of Small Business (FSB), British Academy of Management (BAM) administered through ISBE. This initiative aims to encourage and support research activities from academics, third sector organisations, consultants and practitioners with the ambition of drawing together and generating an entrepreneurial community of practice to facilitate knowledge exchange and transfer.

Proposals are invited that explore ways in which anchor institutions and wider fee-based professional service providers can support small firms to develop their entrepreneurial capabilities.

For more information click here

Call closes 14 August.

August 3, 2015

Global Food Security – new programme of research to be announced

Funding opportunities, Research news jcodling

The Global Food Security (GFS) Programme will soon be announcing a new five-year interdisciplinary programme of research.

The programme has been co-designed by BBSRC, ESRC, NERC, Defra and FSA, in partnership with wider stakeholders, and will address a major food security challenge: Resilience of the UK Food System in a Global Context

For more information click here

August 3, 2015

Driverless vehicles: apply now for business innovation funding

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team jcodling

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is to invest in new vehicle developments in the areas of connectivity, autonomy and customer interaction, and to support new business models.
Businesses can apply for a share of £20 million to develop new products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles.

the competition is now open and the registration deadline is at noon on 23 September 2015
a briefing to highlight the main features of the competition will be held in London on 4 August 2015

For more information click here

August 3, 2015

August 2015 Business Briefing is now live! – Creative, Digital & Design Briefing

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer jcodling

This is a monthly publication that provides a digest of useful information about funding, financing, support and events to assist creative, digital and design businesses with their innovation and growth strategies. A great source of information to keep up to speed with what is happening in this sector.

Creative, Digital & Design Business Briefing – August 2015

Including Virtual & Augmented Reality – £210K IC tomorrow contest

Internet of Things Cites Demonstrator – up to £10m funding

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – up to £20m funding

July 30, 2015

Small Event Grants – Contemporary European Studies UACES

Funding opportunities jcodling

Are you a member of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies? Successful applicants for Small Event Grants will receive up to £1,000 of funding for one-off events, typically conferences or workshops. Closing date Friday 18th September 2015. Proposals are welcome on any aspect of contemporary European Studies, particularly interdisciplinary proposals which encourage the participation…

Read more →

Category / Research themes

Sports England Hackathon Challenge!

Fusion Investment Fund — Introducing the Bournemouth-Athens Network in Critical Infrastructure Security (BANCIS)

FREE – Places for BU Staff and PhD Students for Creative Approaches in Dementia Masterclass

Latest Funding Opportunities!

Creative Skillset – news & updates – August 2015

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visit to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Successful completion: Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visit to the University of Valencia, Spain

Fusion Investment Fund 2014/15: Upskilling the Engineering Workforce – an update

GeoNet cultural heritage landscapes and deathscapes

Understanding how people with depression think about how the past could have turned out differently

Institute for Small Business and Entrpreneurship Research and Knowledge Exchange (RAKE) Fund

Global Food Security – new programme of research to be announced

Driverless vehicles: apply now for business innovation funding

August 2015 Business Briefing is now live! – Creative, Digital & Design Briefing

Small Event Grants – Contemporary European Studies UACES

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