Category / Research themes

Visiting Spanish historian researches PR archives

Since June 30, Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain has been a visiting scholar at BU, based in the Corporate & Marketing Communications academic group in The Media School.

During a four-week period, she has undertaken detailed research in the archive of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), which was the first major PR association established in Europe in 1955. The IPRA archive was developed by Professor Tom Watson in 2011.

It is an important source of information about PR’s evolution in the immediate post-World War 2 world and the field’s international expansion in the second half of the 20th century.

“Archives like that of IPRA are always difficult to find and provide essential material for PR historians,” said Professor Rodriguez Salcedo. She has also undertaken research at BU’s Library, including its special collection of historic PR books. As a result of her research, she and Professor Watson are exploring future research collaboration on the development of the PR sector in Europe, especially philosophical and practices approaches that evolved separately from the US.

Professor Rodriguez Salcedo also observed Professor Watson’s editorial and reviewing roles in developing a six-book series, ‘National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations’ which is being published by Palgrave-Macmillan. She will be a contributor to the fifth book of the series, ‘Western Europe Perspectives’, with a chapter on the history of public relations in Spain.

During her stay Professor Rodriguez Salcedo, who is a member of the European Public Relations History Network, attended the 5th International History of Public Relations Conference at BU on July 2-3, at which she delivered a paper on the formation of the first Spanish PR consultancy and chaired a conference session.

Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo discusses the IPRA archive with its founder, Professor Tom Watson

 

The virtual and the field: enhancing visualisation in archaeology using serious game technologies

Fusion

Forensic Experiemtn Level 1The FIF funded collaborative project between the Creative Technology and Archaeology Frameworks has produced its first output.

 

The aims of the project are to:

  • Initiate collaboration between the Creative Technology and Archaeology and Anthropology academic groups.
  • Enable Games Technology students to perform interdisciplinary projects with Archaeology students (e.g. the creation of virtual 3D environments or 3D artefacts).
  • Provide Archaeology and Anthropology students with 3D research, teaching and learning resources produced with serious game technologies.

 

In the first of a series of projects a Games Technology student has collaborated with a Forensic Archaeology student to produce 3D environments for use in experiments investigating how individuals interpret and respond to features in the environment. We are now looking to participants to perform the experiment. Please email djohn@bournemouth.ac.uk or i7208298@bournemouth.ac.uk if you want to take part in the experiment.

BU presenters at Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development, Melbourne, Australia

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Professor Jonathan Parker presented their research at the Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development, in Melbourne, Australia, 9th-12th July 2014.

In a well-received paper concerning the importance of student social workers learning about the causes, impacts and ways of working with the consequences of terrorism, and the problems of rigidity in the current English curriculum, conference delegates were introduced to a two-year study which revealed that student participants felt that a more extensive and sensitive range of intervention tools needed to be taught and deployed via a coherent and nuanced understanding of the geo-political dimensions surrounding the construction of ‘global terrorism’, together with its potential impact on local populations and vulnerable communities. Research findings highlighted the importance of earlier generic community-based and therapeutic approaches, which were favoured above contemporary neoliberal emphases in English social work education concerning assessment, safeguarding and social policing.  Addressing these findings would demand a much needed rebalancing of the curriculum to reinstate essential practitioner skills transferrable to a range of situations and crises – skills that have long been viewed as integral to the social work role by the international community. This research was published earlier in 2014 in the journal Social Policy & Social Work in Transition, DOI: 10.1921/4704030201, http://essential.metapress.com/content/26170w57262444gp/ and was reported in the Guardian on 25th June 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2014/jun/24/how-can-social-work-education-address-terrorism?CMP=new_1194.

The second presentation reported aspects of the highly successful UK-Malaysian study of reactions to and cross-cultural learning from international placements, research that has challenged preconceived notions of anti-oppressive practices and demonstrates the need to move beyond post-colonial analyses of Western social work towards a post-post-colonial dialectic of shared and cultural appropriate practices. This research, funded by a British Council PMI2 grant, took place over three-years, with three separate cohorts of students supported by two Malaysian universities, Universiti Sains Malaysia on the peninsular and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in Borneo. The success of this study which combined research rigour focusing on  pedagogy with student mobility opportunities has been affirmed by the British Council as one of their most successful funded projects. This study has to-date produced a raft of publications: 2 book chapters, 5 peer-reviewed papers and 5 international conference presentations, including one keynote lecture. The latest research paper has just been published in the prestigious European Jounral of Social Work, Jonathan Parker, Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Azlinda Azman, Dolly Paul Carlo & Clare Cutler (2014): Problematising international placements as a site of intercultural learning, European Journal of Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2014.925849.

Jonathan Parker and Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

WordCamp comes to BU

This weekend BU has been playing host to a fantastic group of the nation’s best and brightest WordPress Developers for the 7th annual WordCamp UK event. The event is a chance for the community of WordPress developers to come together, share ideas and experiences, and provide each other with support and advice.  Over 100 people attended the event, coming both from the local conurbation, and from further afield – in particular one gentleman had come all the way from Spain!

Arriving Saturday morning I had the basics of WordPress down, having previously developed a free website for a local community event that consists of a few different pages and a blog feed.  Talks have been submitted to the running order by the attendees of the conference in advance, giving people a selection of topics to pick and choose from depending on their interests.  Sessions have been hugely varied, for example: “A beginners guide to web accessibility”, “Learning to sell your services as a web designer”, “Designing with data”, and “How not to launch a startup”.  One of the most helpful sessions from my perspective as a novice WordPress user was a series of 5 minute lightening talks on topics such as the importance of password security (to find out how long it would take a hacker to crack your password head to How big is your haystack?), how to set up a developer event, and a poetic recital of how to problem solve your website issues.

As well as attending the talks I’ve also benefitted from one of one tuition from other attendees on how I can develop sites offline and what plugins I could add to sites to make them more interesting and useful for the end user, all for no extra cost.  Overall this has been a fantastic insight into the power of WordPress and how I can use it to support my own projects and events at a minimal cost.   Considering tickets were just £10, I think there has been fantastic value in the weekend’s activities and I would recommend to anyone with an interest in WordPress (professionally or privately) to consider attending future WordCamps around the country. 

SDRC newly appointed visiting professor

Fusion

SDRC has developed significant portfolio of industrially funded research, national and international collaborations and visiting faculty. BU has recently appointed Professor Bob Cripps as visiting professor.

He is currently a Director of Longitude Consulting Engineering part of London Offshore Consultants (LOC) which was established to provide independent, high quality marine and engineering consultancy to the shipping and offshore industries.

Professor Cripps was previously Director Engineering College for BAE Systems Surface Ships responsible for developing and maintaining BAE Systems Surface Ships academic and engineering reputation as being world class and he was responsible for setting up University Technology Partnerships at six key UK universities.

Prior to this, Professor Cripps was Technical Director at VT Halmatic responsible for all technical aspects including boat design/engineering and composite development. He was Engineering Manager at RNLI for 18 years responsible for the design and development of all classes of lifeboat (offshore and inshore), launching equipment and moorings. He was instrumental in the development of the latest generation of lifeboats namely, Severn, Trent, Tamar and Atlantic 85 class lifeboats. He was also responsible for all research and development undertaken by the RNLI and he established the Advanced Technology Partnership between the RNLI and the University of Southampton in 2000.

Professor Cripps is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the Principles of Engineering Design at the University of Southampton. He is well known for his work in the design and development of small craft and the use of composite materials in marine applications and this was recognised with the award of an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Bournemouth University in 2005. Particular areas of interest and expertise are the development and integration of methods and processes to enable designers to utilise latest technical developments simply at an early stage of the design process.

Professor Cripps was instrumental in introducing different NDE methods into the construction and in-service inspection of composites hulls and this was recognised by The British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing with the 2002 NEMET Award for outstanding examples of effective use of NDT.

He was a Senior Ship Surveyor with Lloyds Register of Shipping for nearly 13 years in the Research and Development Group and the Plan Approval Department. Graduating in 1976 from University of Southampton with a BSc.(Hons) Ship Science, Professor Cripps is also a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (FRINA), Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (FIMarEST), Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI), a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and European Engineer (EurIng).

If you would like to know more about the SDRC academic activity, please contact

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director SDRC

South Asian midwifery at ICM 2014

Publishing

Photo from UNFPA Lao PDR

In early June I published a short overview of Bournemouth University’s contribution to the ICM (International Congress of Midwives) conference in Prague (Czech Republic) (see: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/05/cmmph-strong-presence-at-icm-conference/ ).  In addition we highlighted the Nepal contribution in a separate BU Research Blog (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/03/46-sharma-s-sicuri-e-belizan-jm-van-teijlingen-e-simkhada-p-stephens-j-hundley-v-angell-c-getting-women-to-care-in-nepal-a-difference-in-difference-analysis-of-a-health-prom/ ).   Today a belated update of our presence at the Special Session on South Asian Midwifery at the ICM conference last month, as I just received photos from our friends at UNFPA Lao PDR.

South Asia posters at ICM conference (photo: UNFPA Lao PDR)

One of the speakers at the South Asian Midwifery session was our friend Kiran Bajracharya, president of the Midwifery Society of Nepal (MIDSON).  Several of our posters describing our work in Nepal were on display.  Bournemouth University friends were involved in the organisation of the event, such as Swedish midwife Malin Bogren and the editor of the newly launched midwifery journal Journal of Asian Midwifery, Dr. Rafat Jan. The session was concluded by another BU collaborator Petra the Hoope-Bender of Integrare.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

17thJuly CHIRP workshop – Online behaviour change interventions: Introduction to LifeGuide

Research themes

LifeGuide is open-source software that is designed to allow researchers with little or no programming experience to develop, modify and evaluate web-based interventions.  At the workshop you will get a chance to learn about LifeGuide’s features, see examples of existing LifeGuide interventions and gain hands-on experience of using the software.

You can learn more about the LifeGuide software here: https://www.lifeguideonline.org/ Although it is not essential, you may find it useful to visit the website and perhaps try out the tool so you can bring any specific questions you may have with you. 

Places on the workshop are limited and booking is essential, it is open to any members of staff but they do need to book a place by emailing me on swilliams@bournemouth.ac.uk

Please reply if you have any questions or would like to reserve a place at the workshop.

LifeGuide workshop advert

Creative England Teams up with Playstation on Accelerator Programme

Funding opportunities

 

As part of its ongoing support for the games industry in England, Creative England’s  GamesLab Campus programme will invest a total of £250,000 into five Games companies (£50,000 each) to support the development of new and innovative entertainment experiences on PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®Vita.

This package of investment will be complemented by a bespoke programme of business support and other technical and fringe benefits including the provision of PS3, PS4 & PS Vita Dev Kits1.

This announcement was made earlier this week at the Develop Conference 2014 , For more information, including how to apply, will be available shortly on our Games section Follow GamesLab on Twitter at @CEGameslab.

Mentoring support available for emergent or established creative companies

Can you answer yes to all these questions or work with a company that can?

  • Are you a  registered company in the UK
  • Have you been trading for a minimum of three years
  • Working within one or more of these sectors – advertising, film, TV, digital media
  • Have a turnover of £1m.

Ideally your company or the business you are working within will be in the following position:

  • Have a scalable business model
  • Seeking to reach the next stage of development
  • Looking to expand a product or service range; expand into new markets nationally or internationally; develop IP
  • Have a good leadership team in place.

The above are desirable criteria. If the £1m turnover is not met but there are ambitions to grow and expand the business, you can still apply as there will be other opportunities in the future. The next round starts in September 2014.

So if you are or you know an ambitious creative company with an appetite for growth and would like practical advice on overcoming the challenges of growing a creative business – why not apply for a mentor?

Click here to  find out more  

If you are interested and meet the criteria, click here for more information  or if you want to find out more details, email NESTA at cbmn@nesta.org.uk or call 020 7438 2635.

To find out more about NESTA click here

Rich-cores in networks

The next of our research seminars will take place on Wednesday the 23rd of July, 14:00 at PG10 (Poole House)

Our guest speaker is Dr Athen Ma, Senior Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London; Invited by our colleague Dr Darius Krol

The title of her exciting talk is “Rich-cores in networks”  a topic which is of wide interest way beyond computing ; for instance in areas such as Social Networks, Biology etc.

Abstract: “A core comprises of a group of central and densely connected nodes which governs the overall behaviour of a network, and it is recognised as one of the key meso-scale structures in complex networks. Profiling this meso-scale structure currently relies on a limited number of methods which are often complex and parameter dependent or require a null model, and as a result, scalability issues are likely to arise when dealing with very large networks together with the need for subjective adjustment of parameters. The notion of a rich-club describes nodes which are essentially the hub of a network, as they play a dominating role in structural and functional properties. The definition of a rich-club naturally emphasises high degree nodes and divides a network into two subgroups. Here, we develop a method to characterise a rich core in networks by theoretically coupling the underlying principle of a rich-club with the escape time of a random walker. The method is fast, scalable to large networks and completely parameter free. In particular, we show that the evolution of the core in World Trade and C. elegans networks correspond to responses to historical events and key stages in the physical development respectively.”

I very much encourage to the persons interested in the topic to attend. Coffee and cakes will be served.

Best wishes, Emili

Emili Balaguer-Ballester, PhD

Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University

Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg

Wellcome Trust Grant Success for Dr. Anna Feigenbaum

CMC Media School Lecturer and CEMP Fellow, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, was awarded a Wellcome Trust Small Grant in Medical Humanities for her project ‘Communicating Medical Knowledge in the History of Tear Gas’. Aiming to inform new medical knowledge about tear gas, as well as provide resources for policy-makers and key stakeholders, this research project examines changing and contested notions around the health effects of tear gases for law enforcement purposes. Using a case study approach and archival methods, the project explores how medical experts have communicated medical knowledge around tear gas, shaping policies and legislation, from the Geneva Convention to the European Union ban on trade in instruments of torture. Outputs for this project include a contracted book with Verso and an open access website of tools and resources. Dr. Feigenbaum’s work on tear gas has been quoted in the Guardian, The Financial Times, New Internationalist and Vice magazine, as well as in international publications in Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey and Italy. Dr. Feigenbaum is always interested in building new interdisciplinary collaborations. If you are interested in this area of research, be in touch! afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk

New CEMP Bulletin

Funding opportunities

Here’s the new CEMP research bulletin, the last of this academic year.CEMP bulletin July August 2014

As always, if you are interested in working with us to respond to any of the funding calls here, or if you have an idea for a project that CEMP could help with, please contact Julian, Richard or one of the CEMP Fellows (Milena Bobeva, Anna Feigenbaum, Richard Wallis, Neal White, Ashley Woodfall).