Category / Research themes

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

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

 

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.

Global Food Security – new programme of research to be announced

Funding opportunities

 Chicken and globe

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

Driverless vehicles: apply now for business innovation funding

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange

Bruce photo

 

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

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Transfer

andrew archery

 

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

Small Event Grants – Contemporary European Studies UACES

Funding opportunities

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…

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Digital Project Grants – Awards up to £40,000

Digital Project Grants – Awards up to £40,000

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art invites applications for its digital project grants. These provide institutions and individuals help to support a curator or research scholar undertaking a digital research project which will lead to a digital or online project. Closing date 30th September 2015. Projects may include: online exhibition or curation…

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Marie Sklodowska-Curie Project – ENEFOR

Awarded & submitted bids

We would like to welcome you to our Marie Sklodowska – Curie project “ENEFOR”. We proudly present you our website (http://enefor.eu) and we look forward for a live discussion on the project’s output!

This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement (No 658494). The project started on April 2015 and it will be completed on April 2017.
This exciting and innovative project aims to develop new econometric model frameworks to forecast oil price and oil price volatility, which will be successful in enhancing internal consistency, forecasting accuracy and easiness to communicate extracting added-value (in terms of predictability) information from the ultra high sampling frequency. In addition, this project aims to use the forecasted oil price volatility to predict the economic policy uncertainty in Europe, given that oil price shocks exert significant impact on the effectiveness of economic policy.

The Midwifery quilt online- URA scheme funded project

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

As part of my EdD thesis on ‘The essence of the art of a midwife..’ http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/16560/    I created a reflexive textile quilt, with each of the squares representing an entry in my research diary. Whenever I have been to conferences with my quilt the question has always been asked ‘what do the squares mean’? Though I anticipate that anyone looking at it will gather their own interpretation of the squares my stories behind them are now accessible online. In the spring of this year I applied, and was pleased to receive, funding from the BU Undergraduate research assistantship scheme in order to create a web site for the quilt. For the past six weeks George Upson undergraduate student from the BA (Hons) Media Production course has been active in designing and creating the web site with me and learning about the world of academia in a small way. I am indebted to him for his creative abilities and to Garratt Lynch and Richard Wallis for their early support in the process, and also for the URA scheme!

The Midwifery quilt maybe accessed here http://www.midwiferyquilt.co.uk/

Dr Jenny Hall

Ethical fundraising : Protecting vulnerable adults from aggressive fundraising techniques

Festival of Learning, Research Ethics

Dr Lee-Ann Fenge

Dr Lee-Ann Fenge

There is growing awareness in the government and media of the importance of recognising and responding to the risks posed by financial abuse of vulnerable older people. My last two blogs have focused on financial scams and mass marketing fraud, but it is now becoming recognised that the charity sector are also employing dubious marketing techniques to elicit money from vulnerable individuals.

The marketing techniques and fundraising methods of charities have come under the spotlight since the death of Olive Cooke, 92, in May. Although her family insist that the numerous approaches she received from charities were not to blame for her death, the fact that she received 267 charity letters in one month alone started alarm bells ringing. Some charities working with emotionally upsetting issues (such as animal cruelty) sometimes employ shocking imagery which has been described as psychoactive advertising (Bennett, 2015). These types of marketing approaches seek to evoke a positive emotional response to fundraising, but can be upsetting for those who receive such material through the post.
As a result of governmental concern about the fundraising methods employed by some charities, changes will be
introduced as amendments to the Charities Bill. This new legislation will tighten rules on how fundraisers approach people who are vulnerable, and how vulnerable adults should be protected from high-pressure marketing tactics.

Some charities have already responded to these concerns by suspending operations with call centres which use
high pressure fundraising techniques.It is interesting to note that although the government is seeking to put a brake on aggressive fundraising techniques, this comes at a time when the remit of the Charity Commission to effectively regulate the sector has been reduced due to budget reductions following the UK Treasury’s Comprehensive Spending Review 2014–15. This has resulted in a reduction in the Commission’s regulatory engagement with charities. As part of the government response to concerns about unethical fundraising tactics, Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), will chair an urgent review of fundraising self-regulation.

It is important that the charity sector develop good practice guidance which embraces the responsibility to safeguard vulnerable groups, and put an end to working with companies which use aggressive fundraising techniques.

The National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work at BU is currently 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. We will be hosting an event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science on 10th November to explore with the sector how we develop better responses to safeguarding those most at risk of financial exploitation. Details of how to book onto this event will be posted in the near future.

Reference:

Bennett, R. (2015) Individual characteristics and the arousal of mixed emotions: consequences for the effectiveness of charity fundraising advertisements, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 20: 188–209