Category / Technology & Design

Wanted! External Bid Writers

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

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

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

Examples of key funders include:

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

We look forward to hearing from you.

New blog on Open Access publishing

authoraid-2016Some months ago Andy Nobes asked my colleague Prof. Padam Simkhada and I if we could write a blog about why we had so many papers in freely available online journals in Nepal.  Andy is the Programme Officer, Research Development & Support at INASP, which is an international development charity based in Oxford working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

We had a whole range of immediate answers to Andy’s question, including ones like: we both love Nepal; we are on the editorial board of a few journals that are part of the NepJOL group; and editors invite us to submit articles and/or editorials. Moreover, we feel reasons for Open Access publishing are very similar to our key reasons for working in a low-income country like Nepal. These principles are (a) conducting applied academic research in low-income countries for the greater good; (b) helping to build research-capacity; and (c) telling the world about our research through quality academic publications.  This week saw the publication of our blog ‘Publishing in journals of the NepJOL family’ on the AuthorAid website, click here to read the post.

Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at Bournemouth University and Padam Simkhada, Professor of International Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and BU Visiting Faculty.

Researcher in residence programme

Technology in the hands

Open call

Digital Catapult and the RCUK Digital Economy (DE) Theme is now accepting applications for the Researchers in Residence Programme, to be hosted at the Digital Catapult Centre in London or at one of the local centres (Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Brighton and North East & Tees Valley).

Projects can either be applied or more strategic in nature:

Applied projects will generally be user-centred and focused on impact generation in the short to medium term. Proposals should be relevant to one or more of the current Digital Catapult technology layers.

Strategic projects will help shape current Digital Catapult projects, and drive the creation of new activities or projects relevant to Digital Catapult’s overall mission. Proposals that highlight potential new directions, new users and novel means of impact generation are encouraged. The focus should be impact generation in the broadest sense. Projects could be undertaken on either a full time basis or via a series of short secondments to Digital Catapult.

Eligibility: Open to those with a contract of employment at a UK university, or PhD students who have submitted their thesis by the closing date, Sunday 8 January 2017.

Timeline: The closing date is 23:59, Sunday 8 January 2017 with decisions due by early March. The programme will run until 2018, with two funding calls each year. The next round will open for applications in summer.

Funding: all residencies will benefit from a grant of up to £25,000 to cover expenses, including travel and accommodation.

Further information

Newsletter and more information about Digtal Catapult

 

 

SHIVA project progresses with innovation funding

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The SHIVA Project has received Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) that runs for 12 months from August 2016 until July 2017. (HEIF 5+1+1.)

The HEIF funding will be critical in terms of supporting the development of networks locally, nationally and beyond. The key aims will be to link user groups and stakeholders in education, health and wellbeing related to children, young people and adults, through the creative digital innovations offered by the SHIVA project.

This project which brought innovative virtual sculpting tools to children with complex disabilities, enabling them to partake in creative digital activities from which they had previously been excluded was recognised in the Time Higher Awards last November winning the Outstanding Digital Innovation in Teaching or Research Category.

Originally the SHIVA project on 3D modelling and 3D printing for young people with disabilities was funded by the EU Interreg programme with the duration from 2010 to 2015.

The original project team worked with the Victoria Education Centre (VEC) in Poole.  As the project ended in 2015, it was clear there was scope to take this project beyond the initial funding and the SHIVA project has successfully been awarded impact acceleration funding and more recently HEIF funding.

A new Research Assistant, Michelle Wu, an NCCA graduate (2016), is the latest member to join this team. Michelle will be involved in turning the SHIVA system into a deployable product with proper installation, configuration and usage instructions. This area of work will help make SHIVA accessible to all potential users in the UK and further afield and strengthen the potential for developing networks that will benefit from this award winning technology.

For more information on this project contact Alexander Pasko or Oleg Fryazinov within the Faculty of Media and Communication.

Jayne Codling within RKEO co-ordinates the HEIF project portfolio for BU. Feel free to contact Jayne if you have any questions regarding HEIF at BU or knowledge exchange activities including business engagement and innovation funding.

Bournemouth University Researchers Win ‘Innovation Oscar’ for Third Year in a Row

iet-awardBournemouth University researchers Professor Venky Dubey and Dr Neil Vaughan have won a prestigious Information Technology Award at the IET Innovation Awards for their Orthopaedic Simulator.

Funded by the Wessex Academic Health Science Network, the simulator allows surgeons to practice on a virtual engineering-based hip model, which will improve safety and durability in hip replacements.

With the growing aging population, there are 66,000 hip replacements performed annually in the UK. The simulator helps to improve surgeon’s accuracy and skill, by enabling them to practice, which will reduce the amount of surgeries which dislocate. This number currently stands at 20%.

As well as being a considerable resource for trainee surgeons, the device will also enable current surgeons to improve their accuracy. The simulator will allow NHS surgeons to focus more on their patients, by freeing up consultancy time and reducing training costs.

The IET Innovation awards are considered a ‘Technological Oscar’ in science, engineering and technology.

The judging panel commented, “The simulator was an excellent entry that is receiving international acclaim in the important application of 3D technologies within the global health industry.”

The simulator has been developed by research undertaken in a partnership between Bournemouth University and Royal Bournemouth and Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts.

When asked about the award Professor Dubey commented, “It is marvellous winning another innovation award. This is testimony of our hard work and ingenuity that we put in to our projects. This is the third year in a row that we have won the Innovation Awards,”

“This confirms that BU is second to none when it comes to innovation. We’d like to thank our collaborators and partners who have supported our projects over the years.”

ERASMUS+: And so it begins in Valencia

erasmusimage1Last week, Dr Ben Hicks (lecturer in Psychology and an associate of the Ageing and Dementia Institute) and Prof. Wen Tang (Head of Research in the Department of Creative Technology) attended the Kick-Off meeting in Valencia for their recently awarded Erasmus+ project. This two year study is led by Alzheimer’s Valencia and includes partners: Alzheimer’s Slovenia, Alzheimer’s Romania, Alzheimer’s Greece and IBV Valencia. The project aims to explore the use of ‘Serious Games’ for people living with dementia and to exchange best practice knowledge between the various EU countries. As part of the study, the research team will develop an online training platform that will enable people living with dementia and their care partners to access and use a range of ‘Serious Games’ that can support their well-being.

The preliminary meeting was an exciting affair with lively discussions between the partners as they outlined their aspirations for the project. Following a two-day meeting that included an unexpected trip to the Regional Parliament of Valencia to meet a representative of the Valencian Government for the European Union, the partners have been tasked with exploring up to date ‘Serious Games’ that are being used with people with dementia in their countries. The research team will initially compile a list of games and devices that are being used within the dementia community.  Following this, each country will host a series of workshops to assess the perceived impact of the games as well as understand best practice for their implementation. Once this information has been collected, work will begin on designing the e-training platform.

Over the next two years, meetings will be held in each of the four countries to enable the partners to continue to share their knowledge. So bring on Greece in March 2017!erasmusimage6

If you would like more details on the project please contact Ben on bhicks@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Fusion project leads to best paper award

Work by BU researchers examining the human aspects of Digital Rights Management has won a best paper award at the Fourth International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and IP Law. This is joint work carried out by Marcella Favale, Neil McDonald, Shamal Faily, and Christos Gatzidis.

This work, which resulted from research carried out during the FIF funded MADRIGAL project, examines the perspective of DRM from the perspective of content creators using qualitative socio-legal analysis.

In addition to this work, we were also invited to write an extended version of this paper for SCRIPTed, which is currently in press.

Well done Marcella and the rest of the MADRIGAL team!

New Publication: Businesses and mobile social media capability

Bournemouth University’s, Dr Elvira Bolat and Dr Kaouther Kooli, and Professor Len Tiu Wright from University of Huddersfield have published new article in Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing.

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“The study is amongst the first to provide insights into B2B firms’ practices of using mobile social media. This paper found that marketing and advertising firms use mobile social media for branding, sensing market, managing relationships and developing content. Mobile social media is treated by businesses as a strategic firm-specific capability that drives firms’ competitiveness, where imitation of such capability by competitors is limited because mobile social media skills are specific to individuals within organisations and mobile social media routines are manifested as a result of firm-specific mobile social media skills’ interactions.”

Access full article by clicking on the image below.

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Virtual reality based training simulator to help improve safety and durability in hip replacement, has been shortlisted for two awards.

A virtual reality based simulator to help improve safety and durability in hip replacement has been shortlisted for two Innovation Awards from the Institute of Engineering & Technology (IET). The Orthopaedic Simulator has been developed by research undertaken between Bournemouth University and Bournemouth and Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Do not hesitate to contact Victorian Bone Joint Specialist for a consultation if you’re noticing decreases in your range of motion.

Funded by Wessex Academic Health Science Network, the simulator allows surgeons to practice on a virtual engineering-based hip model. With the growing aging population, there are 66,000 hip replacements annually performed in the UK. This simulator helps to improve surgeon’s accuracy and skill, by enabling them to practice and reduce the amount of surgeries which dislocate. The number of surgeries that dislocate currently stands at 20%. As well as being a considerable resource for trainee surgeons, the device will also enable current surgeons to improve their accuracy. This means that the simulator allows NHS surgeons to focus more on their patients. The simulator was created by Professor Venky Dubey and Dr Neil Vaughan of Bournemouth University, which looking ahead will help the NHS to reduce their training costs and will free up consultancy time.

When asked to comment on the nominations Professor Dubey said, “We are very pleased to know that our project has been shortlisted yet again for Innovation Awards by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Previously we won the IET Innovation Award in 2013 for our Epidural Project then shortlisted for Neuropathy Project in 2015. This is confirmation of world-class research conducted by our team at BU and the innovation that we bring to the projects. Before shortlisting the Awarding Body visited us to see our innovations and this is even more glorifying that they endorsed the potential of our projects. We are quite delighted that with these recognitions many companies, investors and researchers are coming forward to work/collaborate with us.”

The categories the simulator has been nominated for are Information Technology and Model-based Engineering. The finalists were selected from 28 countries for this year’s Innovation Award. This is a fantastic achievement for the team at Bournemouth University. The awards ceremony will take place on 16 November at the Brewery, London.

For more information please take a look here.