Category / BU research

Introduction to Good Clinical Practice – Tuesday 17th March at Dorset County Hospital

BU research, Clinical Governance, data management, nhs, NHS, Research Ethics, research integrity, Research Training, Training

Are you interested in running your own research project within the NHS or healthcare? Good Clinical Practice, or ‘GCP’, is a requirement for those wishing to work on clinical research projects in a healthcare setting.

GCP is the international ethical, scientific and practical standard to which all clinical research is conducted. By undertaking GCP, you’re able to demonstrate the rights, safety and wellbeing of your research participants are protected, and that the data collected are reliable.

The next GCP full day session is scheduled for Tuesday 17th March, at Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester – 8:45am – 4:30pm.

The day will comprise of the following sessions:

  • Introduction to research and the GCP standards;
  • Preparing to deliver your study;
  • Identifying and recruiting participants – eligibility and informed consent;
  • Data collection and ongoing study delivery;
  • Safety reporting;
  • Study closure.

If you’re interested in booking a place, please contact Research Ethics.

Remember that support is on offer at BU if you are thinking of introducing your research ideas into the NHS – email the Research Ethics mailbox, and take a look at the Clinical Governance blog.

BRIAN Training

BRIAN, BU research, Publishing, Research communication, Research Training, Training

Nominating your outputs for the REF mock exercise

Thursday 27th February 14:00 -15:00 Talbot

BRIAN (Bournemouth Research Information And Networking) is BU’s publication management system.

BRIAN is also used to capture information regarding outputs to be submitted to the REF2021, and to the mock exercises related to REF2021.

This usage of BRIAN is the focus of this training session.

See here to book. Contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk if you have any queries.

 

Panel member recruitment: shaping the future of knowledge exchange at BU

BU research, Knowledge Exchange

In 2020, universities across England will be submitting to the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) for the first time.  The KEF will measure performance in seven different areas, including working with businesses, local growth and regeneration and skills, enterprise and entrepreneurship.  Research England (who will administer the KEF) intends for it to be a tool that will increase effectiveness in the use of public funding for KE, create a culture of continuous improvement in universities and increase awareness of the types of support universities can provide.

During the course of this year, universities will also be considering their responses to the new Knowledge Exchange Concordat; a joint initiative by Universities UK and GuildHE to help guide universities in making informed decisions in shaping their KE strategies.  The Concordat sets out eight guiding principles of themes for institutions to consider when creating/shaping/changing their KE provision.

To help BU prepare for these changes and to develop its knowledge exchange activities, a Knowledge Exchange Working Group is being established.  The group is being led by Ian Jones, Head of External Engagement and Professor Wen Tang, in her capacity as Chair of the HEIF Funding Panel.  We are currently recruiting for academic members of the group.

Role of working group members

We are looking make four academic appointments to the group, who will help to shape the future direction of knowledge exchange at Bournemouth University.  We are interested in recruiting staff who, between them, have taken part in a variety of knowledge exchange activities and who have worked with a wide range of non-academic organisations.

Members of the working group will be expected to work as part of team in order to review BU’s strengths and weaknesses in knowledge exchange and make recommendations for change.

The working group will meet c. 4 times per year.  Terms of reference for the working group can be downloaded here.

Application criteria

To apply for the role, please submit a short expression of interest (no more than 1 page) to the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Working Group (via knowledgeexchange@bournemouth.ac.uk), outlining how you meet the following criteria:

  • Experience of developing or leading a range of knowledge exchange activities (scored out of 5: Working group members are expected to have taken part in or led on a range of knowledge exchange activities as part of their research. Please give examples of these activities, outlining your role and what happened as a result of these activities.
  • Experience of working with a variety of different non-academic organisations (scored out of 5): We are looking to appoint academics who, between them, have worked with a variety of different types of organisations and with a wide range of different industries.  Please outline your experience and what it would bring to the working group.
  • Demonstrable interest in developing knowledge exchange at BU (scored out of 5): Working group members will be expected to work together to review BU’s strengths and weaknesses in knowledge exchange and make recommendations for change. Please state why you would like to be part of the group and how you would work to make it a success.

Application deadline

Please submit your application to knowledgeexchange@bournemouth.ac.uk by 5pm on Wednesday 11 March.

Review process

Applications will be reviewed by the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Panel during the week of 16 March.  Applicants will be contacted about the outcome during the week of 23 March.

 

 

Gender in Conflict Conference: WAN-funded event

BU research, conferences, hate crime, Research Centres, Women's Academic Network

On Wednesday 9 October 2019 Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and I hosted an international and intersectional conference involving staff, students and Erasmus colleagues to debate issues of gender, violence and conflict in contemporary societies. We were very fortunate to receive funding from the Women’s Academic Network for this event, and for additional guest speakers who will be visiting BU in the coming months to contribute to discussion on this theme.

The focus of our ‘Gender in Conflict’ conference was to provide a platform for discussion and reflection on conceptualisations of gender and violence that have heightened visibility in post-conflict environments. We asked contributors to consider what we can learn from questions of gendered violence in a fragile international context and whether international lessons can be applied to social environments in the UK.

The aims were:

  1. To de-colonise and de-exoticise knowledge about gendered violence in war and post-conflict contexts abroad by going beyond stereotypical assumptions and representations;
  2. To interpret contemporary UK conceptualisations of gendered violence through an alternative lens inspired by international experience.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity of the Erasmus-funded presence of two visiting Kosovar colleagues who presented at this event.  Dr Linda Gusia and Assoc. Prof. Nita Luci are the founders and directors of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research at University of Prishtina, Kosovo. They are highly visible women’s rights activists in Kosovo. The post-conflict situation in Kosovo poses unexpected challenges to equal rights not only arising from classic patriarchal cultural legacies but also from masculinity reiterations in the totalising field of international intervention.

We were also joined by two BU criminologists of our own Department for Social Sciences who are working in related fields: Jade Levell on gang crimes in the UK and Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari on agency and interventions within human trafficking in Nepal. This conference emerged from our own academic interests in questions of gendered hate crime in the UK (Dr Jane Healy) and on questions of social justice in transnational and post-conflict settings (Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers).

Stephanie welcomes participants

Stephanie opened the conference by encouraging contributors and audience members to reflect upon the transferability of interpreting phenomena we often consider in their specific contexts alone and the limitations arising from differences in our epistemological framings of analyses, contingent on such context and distinctions such as ‘the Global South’. Questions of cultural translation, power, language and positioning can be perceived or experienced as barriers to engagement, rather than opportunities to share best practice. The aims of the conference were to critically re-envisage our contemporary conceptualisations of such concepts on the basis of comparison and shared reflection.

Jade Levell was our first speaker, with a paper entitled:  “The competing masculinities of gang-involved men who experienced domestic violence/abuse in childhood”. Jade’s presentation, drawn from her PhD thesis, considers the conflicted and competing gender performances by marginalised men who have been drawn into gangs in the UK. She demonstrated how these men are performing hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to claim power where they have none. This is conveyed through a language and symbolic rhetoric of war and honour.

Jade Levell introduces her research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nita Luci then spoke about “Researching Gender in the Balkans” as she traced the recent history of gender studies research in Kosovo. Her presentation began during a period where few academics were interested in looking at gendered experiences in the region to the emergence of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research in contemporary Kosovo. Through this timeframe, she highlighted the simultaneous re-framing and changing conceptualisations of masculinities in Kosovo.

 

 

Visiting scholar Nita Luci from University of Prishtina

 

 

 

Linda Gusia’s paper took this conceptualisation further. In “Recognition of Sexual Violence in Kosovo after the War” Linda highlighted the conflict between the hyper visibility of war-time sexual violence and a complete silencing of questions of gender and nationalism before the war. She considered how sexual violence against women was propagated by men, as an attack on the nation’s male gaze. Through a nationalist lens the concept of heroism was the prevailing public image and discourse. There was limited space for women’s own conceptualisation of the war as their stories were reframed through a narrative of sacrifice, martyrdom and atonement.

Visiting scholar Linda Gusia

In her paper entitled “Exploring Child Vulnerabilities: pre- and post-disaster in Nepal”, Shovita Dhakal Adhikari demonstrated similar patterns of silencing of women’s and girl’s experiences of human trafficking in Nepal. Shovita critiqued the application of Westernised concepts and labels to Nepalese society, particularly in regard to discourses of vulnerable victims in need of ‘rescue and protect’. Here again, women’s bodies are being controlled as a method of protection.

BU’s Shovita Dhakal Adhikari shares her research on child trafficking narratives in Nepal

 

Lastly, Stephanie chaired a panel discussion of all of the speakers, entitled “Inverting the gaze: Juxtaposing gender and conflict in transitional societies abroad and the UK”. This produced a lively debate around concepts of competing masculinities, vulnerabilities and visibilities of marginalised voices that could be drawn from all case studies presented. The conference drew to a close with contributors and audience members agreeing that this was an energising and engaging series of papers that showcased similarities in constructions of gender and gendered violence, both in the UK and abroad.

Participant contributions

Two further speakers who were unable to attend this conference at short notice were re-scheduled to visit BU this academic year:

  • Dr Emma Milne from Plymouth presented on Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the failed mother on 13 February 2020.
  • Dr Hannah Mason-Bish will visit on 23 March 2020 to discuss Gender and Hate Crime.

For further details or discussion please contact: jhealy@bournemouth.ac.uk or sssievers@bournemouth.ac.uk

Nominate your outputs now for the BU REF Mock exercise 2020

BRIAN, BU Challenges, BU research, open access, Research assessment

The BU REF Mock Exercise 2020 has just been launched on BRIAN.

Please select up to 5 of your research outputs for inclusion in the exercise by 8th March. Instructions on how to do this would have been disseminated to you via email.

Selected outputs should:

  • Embody original research. For the purposes of the REF, research is defined as a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared. See Guidance on Submissions – Annex C, p.90;
  • Have been published after 1 January 2014;
  • Have been accepted for publication as a minimum and due to be published before 31 December 2020.

In some cases, additional supporting information will be needed to accompany your submission. Supporting information can be supplied either via the relevant textbox in BRIAN or, if preferred, uploaded as an attachment to your output, e.g. Word document or PDF. UOA-specific details of the REF requirements for supporting information are included in the guidance attached. See also Panel Criteria and Working Methods, Annex B, pp.90-92 and the related sections indicated.

For information on the REF2021 Submission process at Bournemouth University, please refer to the REF 2021 Code of Practice.

If you have queries about selecting outputs please feel free to contact ref@bournemouth.ac.uk (especially if it is a technical/BRIAN query) or a member of the UOA team who will be happy to help.

See your spine move in real-time motion at the AECC

BU research, innovation, Research communication, Research news

The Centre for Biomechanics Research (CBR) of the AECC University College, Bournemouth are seeking volunteers for their latest research study, investigating spine biomechanics in near real time.

CBR are currently looking for volunteers to help us with our latest piece of research into understanding the back in motion. We need over 100 volunteers to come forward to take part to ensure the project is a success so we can establish a database of spine mechanics in healthy adults. This is the biggest study of its kind and those who volunteer for this research study will get the chance to see their spine move in real-time.

Currently we focusing our recruitment for a sub-study comparing a commonly used skin based marker system, for measuring the spine in motion, to the gold standard of bone tracking using low dose video x-rays. For this study 15 females volunteers are needed to take part.

To find out more about this study please visit the study web-page here.

Who are we looking for?

For this research study, we are looking for people who:

  • Are over 30 and under 70 years of age
  • Have not had low back pain that has prevented normal activity for at least 1 day in the past year
  • Have not had an abdominal/pelvic/lumbar spine surgery in the past 2 years
  • Have not had any medical radiation exposure in the past year or exposure in the past 2 years with a
    dose of greater than 8mSv (defined as CT scan of Chest, Abdomen or Pelvis or Interventional procedures under radiological control i.e. angiography).
  • Have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 30
  • Are not pregnant
  • Willing to participate and able to freely give informed consent.

Next steps

If you are interested in being involved in this project please visit the study web-page here or you can also learn more about this project through the participant information booklet here.
If you would like to register your interest please download the pre-study form here.
For any questions, or to send us your completed pre-study form, please contact us at cbrstudies@aecc.ac.uk

This study has received a favourable ethical opinion from HRA South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee. 
REC reference: 10/H0106/65.

RDS Academic and Researcher Induction

BU research, Research Training, RKE development framework

The Research Development and Support (RDS) invite all ‘new to BU’ academics and researchers to an induction.

Signpost with the words Help, Support, Advice, Guidance and Assistance on the direction arrows, against a bright blue cloudy sky.This event provides an overview of all the practical information staff need to begin developing their research plans at BU, using both internal and external networks; to develop and disseminate research outcomes; and maximising the available funding opportunities.Objectives

  • The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level
  • To provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU

Indicative content

  • An overview of research at BU and how RDS can help/support academic staff
  • The importance of horizon-scanning, signposting relevant internal and external funding opportunities and clarifying the applications process
  • How to grow a R&KE portfolio, including academic development schemes
  • How to develop internal and external research networks
  • Key points on research ethics and developing research outputs
  • Getting started with Knowledge Exchange and business engagement

For more information about the event, please see the following link.  The twelfth induction will be held on Wednesday, 25th March 2020 in Melbury House, 5th Floor, Garden Room.

Title Date Time Location
Research Development & Support (RDS) Research Induction Wednesday 25th March 2020 9.00 – 12.00 Lansdowne Campus

9.00-9.15 – Coffee/tea and cake/fruit will be available on arrival

9.15 – RDS academic induction (with a break at 10.45)

11.25 – Organisational Development upcoming development opportunities

11.30 – Opportunity for one to one interaction with RDS staff

12.00 – Close

There will also be literature and information packs available.

If you would like to attend the induction then please book your place through Organisational Development and you can also visit their pages here.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you.

Regards,

The RDS team

Corrosion Condition Monitoring

BU research, Impact, innovation, international, Publishing

Collaborative research with The Tank Museum in terms of experimental investigations to evaluate and analyse corrosion induced damage to high value assets led to further collaborations with NASA Materials & Corrosion Control Branch and BAE Systems. The experimental research provided valuable data to develop precision based mathematical models in collaboration with Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) Ministry of Defence (MOD) to predict and prognose fracture, electrochemical and coating failures in military vehicles. Further work was conducted to develop in-situ and remote sensing, prediction and prognosis models incorporating advanced sensing techniques to predict and prognose corrosion, coating and fracture led failures.

Subject of this study

Subject of this study

In a separate research additional work has led to state-of-the-art novel sensor design and has been recently patented (GB2018/053368). A framework of remote sensing techniques have been developed and has been adopted by Analatom Inc. USA which are successfully applied in several key installations in the US.

Telescopic Electrochemical Cell (TEC) for Non-Destructive Corrosion Testing of Coated Substrate. Patent number GB2018/053368

Since 2009 a suite of numerical models – and published algorithms and methodologies that have enabled other researchers to reproduce the methods – have been developed at NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling (NCEM) Research Group (previously SDRC[1]) to simulate corrosion failures in large complex engineering structures and to predict averaged material properties, typically measured in laboratory experiments, such as hardness and corrosion resistance.

Experimental work at NCEM was started in 2009 with a focus on corrosion issues and expanded to multidisciplinary research with new grants from several key stakeholders into wear-corrosion, nanocoating failure, fracture mechanics, in-situ and remote sensing techniques. This research was led and conducted by Professor Zulfiqar A Khan and his team including Dr Adil Saeed, Dr Mian Hammad Nazir, Dr Jawwad Latif and several other PGRs and Post Docs.

At the start of project, research was conducted to analyse corrosion and tribological failures in The Tank Museum Bovington military tanks. Based on collected data, (3.5 years of live data, over 153k data points) numerical models were developed for simulating corrosion failures in nonconductive polymeric coatings applied to large engineering structures such as automotive and aerospace applications. These models represented the failing structure as bending cantilever beam subjected to mechanical and/or thermal loading which produces both residual and diffusion-induced stresses in beam. These numerical models were later extended to include nano-composite metal and sea water resistant coatings.

These structures are affected by corrosion

This numerical modelling technology developed at NCEM was combined with remote sensing techniques, which enabled predictions in static structures and high value mobile assets substituting conventional methods which require expensive & time consuming experimental setup and laborious while often unreliable visual inspection. The technology allowed faster structural analyses with greater reliability and precision compared to experiments in turn saving money, labour and time. Further developments included the performance enhancement of coatings under extreme temperatures and pressures. Recent plans are to extend the model capabilities to simulate the effects of deep zone residual stresses on corrosion failures.

Coating delamination issues due to corrosion

This research has developed state of the art cells fabricated by using a special magnetic aluminium compound, which is highly electrically conductive and resistant to corrosion. The research has commissioned for deploying this novel sensing technology for micro-defects detection, corrosion rate measurement and condition assessment of defective coatings. This technology has been successfully tested and commissioned in automotive, hazardous compartments with polymeric coatings and bridges to assess their coating condition in terms of their structural integrity. Post design testing involved the installation of these cells, running diagnostics, data acquisition, and macro-graphs to predict structural defects and the resulting corrosion rate. Taking above research further, an NDT apparatus for use in sensing the electromechanical state of an object was invented to monitor the health/condition of coatings.

Further details can be found in [1, 2, and 3]. If you have interest in the above subjects or have questions and would like to discuss then contact Professor Zulfiqar A Khan.

[1] Sustainable Design Research Centre

New publication on essential fatty acids in donor human milk in the UK

BU research, PG research, Research news, Uncategorized

Congratulations to FHSS PhD student Isabell Nessel who published part of her integrated PhD thesis in the Journal for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition last week.

The paper “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2-Centre Cross-Sectional Study” resulted from a collaboration between BU (Isabell Nessel, Prof Jane Murphy, Dr Simon Dyall – now at the University of Roehampton), Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Prof Minesh Khashu), and St. George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Dr Laura De Rooy) (1). Full text can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jpen.1773

This paper shows for the first time that donor human milk in the UK has very low levels of essential fatty acids, which are important for brain and eye development. Furthermore, donor human milk has higher lipid degradation than preterm and term breast milk. This could have important implications for preterm infant nutrition as exclusive unfortified donor human milk feeding might not be suitable long term and may contribute to the development of major neonatal morbidities.

This study followed from a narrative review Isabell and her supervisors Prof Minesh Khashu and Dr Simon Dyall published last year, which suggested that current human milk banking practices might have detrimental effects on essential fatty acid quality and quantity in donor human milk (2).

Isabell

inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Reference

  • Nessel, Isabell, et al. “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2‐Centre Cross‐Sectional Study.” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition(2020).
  • Nessel, Isabell, Minesh Khashu, and Simon C. Dyall. “The effects of storage conditions on long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, lipid mediators, and antioxidants in donor human milk–a review.” Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids(2019).

NERC standard grants (July 2020 deadline) – internal competition launched

BU research, Funding opportunities

NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures available here.

As at January 2020, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. The next available standard grant round is July 2020. The deadline for internal Expressions of Interest (EoI) which will be used to determine which application will be submitted is 27th March 2020.  The EoI form, BU policy for NERC Demand Management Measures and process for selecting an application can be found here: I:\RDS\Public\NERC Demand Management 2020.

NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RDS submit applications through Je-S on behalf of applicants, RDS will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Following the internal competition, the Principal Investigator will have access to support from RDS, and will work closely with Research Facilitators and Funding Development Officers to develop the application. Access to external bid writers will also be available.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RDS Contacts

Please contact Lisa Andrews, RDS Research Facilitator – andrewsl@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.