Wednesday 20th November 11:00 – 14:00 in Bournemouth House (Lansdowne)
The Trust provide a range of research grants and fellowships for Humanities and Social Sciences. During this visit their representatives will provide an overview of the Trust, it’s remit, the types of funding offered, their decision-making processes and timeframes, and discuss the planning of a Leverhulme Trust application.
The presentation will be followed by Q& A and a networking lunch.
The intended learning outcomes of this session are:
To learn about the Leverhulme Trust, its remit and the type of funding offered
To be able to determine whether or not the Leverhulme Trust is an appropriate funder for your research project
Congratulations to Dr. Pramod Regmi in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) who is the lead author of the paper “Hormone use among Nepali transgender women: A qualitative study” which has just been accepted for publication in BMJ Open (Impact Factor 2.376). The paper highlights that there is a dearth of information on transgender individuals in Nepal, particularly studies exploring their use of hormone therapies. This qualitative study therefore explored: (a) how hormones are used; (b) types of hormones used; and (c) side-effects experienced by transgender women after hormone use. This is the first study in Nepal of its kind addressing this important public health issue.
The paper was co-authored by Sanjeev Neupane, Sujan Marahatta and Edwin van Teijlingen. Prof. Sujan Marahatta is based at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences in Nepal. Bournemouth University has a long-standing collaboration with Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences. Whilst Mr. Sanjeev Raj Neupane is based at the charity Save the Children in Kathmandu.
Reference:
Regmi, P., Neupane, S., van Teijlingen, E., Marahatta, S. Hormone use in the male-to-female transgender population in Nepal: A qualitative study, BMJ Open (accepted).
Please see the latest newsletter from the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU). We hope you find it interesting. This is our ‘last’ newsletter and covers content from last year, we are shortly introducing new quarterly ‘BUCRU Bulletins’ with more recent content to be disseminated digitally.
BUCRU supports researchers to improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of research locally by supporting grant applications and providing on-going support in funded projects, as well as developing our own programme of research. 2018 was an exciting year for BUCRU including being awarded a further 5 years of funding from National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to continue our work as the RDS (Research Design Service) South West. We’ve also submitted 14 grant applications, have 23 peer-reviewed publications and over £800,000 in grant involvement.
You can find out more within the newsletter, including news from our colleagues in the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education or visit: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru
And don’t forget, your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us, call us on 61939 or send us an email.
Following on from last year’s successful Research Leadership Programme, (consistently rated 4+ out of 5), we are running a similar programme in 2019-20. This programme supports the development of all academics including Early Career Researchers, Mid-Career Academics, Senior Research Leaders and Associate Professors.
Participants will :
Be helped to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to lead teams to successfully deliver funded research projects, in line with stakeholder and funder requirements.
Gain an understanding of effective team leadership and team working within a research context in order to be able to devise strategies to get the best out of teams in the challenging environment of research.
Be equipped with an understanding of their strengths and limitations in order to be confident in developing their leadership skills in line with their career stage and future aspirations and be more confident to expand their funded research activities.
Quotes from last year :
“Totally relevant to tasks we have to undertake and very enjoyable learning experience”, (Early Career);
“Excellent workshop, learned a lot of useful information I didn’t know”, (Mid-Career); and
“Fantastic tools were given for future leaders both in research and academic leadership”, (Senior Research Leader).
Nominations will be required from Heads of Department in line with the training needs of the individual. No form is needed – an email will be fine, sent to RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Nominations need to be received by 30th November 2019. If you have any queries, please contact RKEDF@Bournemouth.ac.uk
(Please be aware that is NOT a course on bid writing.)
The polling agency Ipsos MORI has, for many years, asked people in Britain every month what they think are the most important issues facing the country. In December 2015, only six months before the EU referendum and after nearly three years of anticipating it, just 1% of the sample cited Europe as the most important issue of the day. By April 2019 that figure had jumped to 59%.
If Brexit really is the issue which has riven the British public, dividing it into two irreconcilable blocs, why was it so low down the list of urgent concerns at the end of 2015? And not only then: the percentage of people rating it as a major issue had remained in the single digits for more than a decade.
This data does not support a view of Britain’s relationship with Europe as the cause of a longstanding and deep split within the British people. Instead it points to the referendum and the propaganda around it – before and since – as causing the split. Prior to 2016, although people differed in their views of Europe – sometimes strongly – it was never, for most, the overriding issue which it has become.
Much commentary has suggested that Brexit is a proxy issue, or the spark for an uprising of the “left-behind” against a self-serving elite. While inequality and immigration are important to understanding Brexit, this sort of analysis does not provide us with a full explanation for its current all-consuming primacy. It has been suggested that hostility to immigration has been in sharp decline since 2010, and so the referendum vote was not driven by an onrushing wave of such feeling. Nor can the theory of the Brexit vote as expressing the pain of those “left behind” by globalisation explain the Leave votes that came from people who lead comfortable and secure lives.
So how can we explain the sudden emergence, in all its breadth and fury, of both popular support for Brexit – previously a passion mainly of a europhobic, and sometimes xenophobic, fringe – and opposition to it?
According to British Social Attitudes data, between 1992 and 2015 there was a slow and unsteady growth in euroscepticism. We can attribute this, at least in part, to a background throb of anti-EU propaganda in sections of the British press. But then there was a huge leap in anti-EU feeling. In 2015, only 22% wanted to leave the EU yet, as we know, 52% voted to leave in the referendum held the following year. This inflation of europhobia, which provoked alarm among Remainers, was more or less simultaneous with the rapid installation, noted above, of Brexit as the major national issue.
Socio-political analysis stops short of a full understanding of these two big changes in public opinion. There were no events in the world to which people were responding as they coalesced into opposing camps – except the referendum itself, and the rhetoric which had crystallised around it. Brexit is a major example of a shift which took place almost entirely within what we can call the emotional public sphere, the mood and preoccupations of a national public, which is often heavily shaped by dominant media agendas and messages.
People who had previously felt either indifferent or mildly negative towards the EU were encouraged to feel outrage – first at the alleged drain of UK resources into the EU and the political suffocation it was claimed we were subjected to, then at the “treachery” of those politicians who would seek to thwart the popular vote.
Remainers, for their part, found a new focus for suspicion and negativity towards the culturally unwashed, as some tended to see the bulk of the Leave vote. Told that they were all in irreconcilable conflict with each other, many of the British people believed it and felt it.
However, media effects need psychological underpinning. Media content cannot shape our outlooks unless it speaks to some need already present in us. The referendum invited people to identify with one of two sides, to find a clear home in the bewildering flux of today’s complexities and uncertainties. On both sides, membership of a community of self-confidence and self-righteousness seemed to beckon, an antidote to the widespread sense of precarity and confusion. The Brexit question offered people the increasingly scarce experience of being sure, clear and together with others. In a world where it can be increasingly difficult to feel at home, and to know what we should be doing, this is a powerfully attractive experience – none the less so for being, in this case, illusory.
This regressive surge into tribalistic unity of purpose was led by the Brexiteers. But Remainers have subscribed all-too readily to the melodramatic, self-fulfilling headlines that say Britain has plunged into a civil war.
Of course, the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe is a real and important issue, but behind all that there is a toxicity at work on both sides of the “Brexit divide”. A small anti-EU minority laid the fuse, but the rest of the public proved highly combustible. Getting to the bottom of how and why Brexit has blown up as it has will be essential to the work of repairing and improving British democracy.
The ‘photo of the week’ is a weekly series featuring photographs taken by BU academics and students for our Research Photography Competition which took place earlier this year.
These provide a snapshot into some of the incredible research taking place across the BU community.
‘Safe swim: Supporting physical activity and well being for transgender young people’
This qualitative research project involves a local Bournemouth-based transgender group. It focuses on their swim-related activities to explore the benefits of water-based physical activity. Statistics demonstrate that LGBT+ have higher levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal feelings as a consequence of feeling isolated, and experiences of rejection and bullying. Transphobia and public scrutiny of transgender bodies negatively impacts the daily lives of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. There is evidence that swimming as a form of physical activity can enhance subjective well being. However, the places of sport and physical activity, specifically swimming pools are not always welcoming to transgender and gender non-conforming participants. Currently, the group privately hires a local pool and by invitation the researchers (Caudwell and Stewart) have attended on four occasions. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews have identified that group members look forward to and enjoy attending the sessions. The photograph celebrates members of the group being physically active and playful in the in-door place of a swimming pool. Aside: The group have given their consent for the photograph to be submitted to the Research Photography Competition.
(The researchers have obtained BU ethical clearance for the research project. The researchers completed the swimming pool’s required procedure to take photographs)
If you have any questions about the Photo of the Week series or the Research Photography Competition please email: research@bournemouth.ac.uk
Facial composites are computerised visual likenesses, created by witnesses and victims of crimes, to resemble perpetrators. These images are released to the public in the course of an appeal, in the hope that someone familiar with the offender will report their identification to the police. While facial composites are only constructed in situations where the offender is unfamiliar to the victim and the offence serious, recent statistics show that upwards of 2,500 criminal investigations have made use of these images since 2013.
In this month’s Café Scientifique, Dr Emma Portch discussed how researchers can work collaboratively with forensic practitioners to improve the recognisability of these images. Emma highlighted that researchers can influence three separate stages of the composite construction process: (1) pre-construction cognitive interview techniques, (2) construction mechanics, and (3) post-production display of images.
Do construction systems mimic the way in which humans recognise unfamiliar faces? Emma detailed the difference between feature-based and holistic computerised composite systems. While feature-based systems require the witness to piece together a likeness, by selecting and editing from a database of individual photographed features (e.g. noses and mouths), holistic systems allow the witness to select whole-face representations, with selections bred together to preserve important configural similarities (i.e. the relative distances between features). Emma described how holistic systems better mirror the way in which we recognise faces in everyday life and demonstrated how further enhancement techniques can be used to boost the accuracy of images created this way (e.g. removing or blurring external facial features).
Are facial descriptions detrimental to subsequent facial recognition? Descriptions of the offender’s face are often critical to the process of composite construction and ACPO stipulate that composites should not be created if the witness cannot provide one. However, Emma revealed that providing a detailed facial description can sometimes make it more difficult to recognise when a composite has reached a good level of visual likeness. This so-called verbal overshadowing effect may arise as providing a verbal description of the face instates a suboptimal feature-based processing style, at odds with the holistic style needed to recognise that a composite well-resembles the offender. Emma discussed ways to alleviate verbal overshadowing, specifically focusing on promising results with a newer type of holistic interviewing.
How can we ensure that facial composites are recognised by those familiar with the offender? Composites are a useful investigative tool insofar as they can be identified by officers and members of the public familiar with the offender. Emma outlined the importance of post-production of images prior to media release, describing how different techniques could be used to occlude commonly error-prone regions of the image, and upregulate distinctive and accurate regions, respectively.
Dr Emma Portch reflects on her experience of speaking at Cafe Scientifique: ‘Public engagement is a vital exercise for communicating research findings to those who benefit from it most. The Café Scientifique team organised an excellent event and the attendees keep me on my toes with interesting and insightful questions and discussion’.
The next Café Scientifique will take place at Café Boscanova on Tuesday 5 November from 7:30pm until 9pm (doors open at 6:30pm)
There’s no need to register, make sure you get there early though as seats fill up fast!
Find out more about Café Scientifique and sign up to our mailing list to hear about other research events: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/cafe-sci
Professor Sangeeta Khorana has been invited to speak at the 2019 South West Economic Forum. The event, scheduled for 10 October 2019 in Evershot Dorset, will focus on how local businesses are driving the local economy.
Professor Khorana will provide an update on the revised tariff schedule and state of play of current trade arrangements after Brexit to local businesses.
Other distinguished speakers include: Rebecca Stevens MBE (the first British woman to climb Mt Everest and the Seven Summits), Alistair Handyside MBE (Higher Wiscombe Eco Holidays Cottages), Nick Palmer (Managing Director and majority shareholder of EPS Services & Tooling Ltd) and Rubert Hollaway (founder of Conker’s signature Dorset Dry gin).
This discussion forum is a ‘spin-out’ event following the Conference ‘Deep Transformations and the Future of Organisations’ (6-7 December). It would be the very first event aiming to bridge UK-Japan researchers who are specialised in the research field of the B2B and business transformation in the globalised era.
Two presenters are invited to this colloquial from Japan, Professor Takemoto (Innovation & Management Laboratory, Fukui University) and Mr Ikematsu, (Consultant/Researcher, ex strategist for Fujitsu).
Professor Takemoto will talk about the revitalisation projects with entrepreneurial movements in Fukui area, referring to the concepts of ‘Creative destruction’ and ‘Planned Happenstance Theory’.
Mr Ikematsu will talk about his experiences from the marketing and economical points of view, presenting the ‘straggles’ to change Fujitsu from the B2B model firm to the B2C model firm. His presentation will be also a good case of innovation dilemma and network externalities.
The colloquial will be carried out via the Skype conference method. Dr Hiroko Oe will act as a facilitator for this colloquial and Dr Kaouther Kooli will perform as a supervisor for this event who liaises the outcome from the main Conference the week before.
BU ECRs and the PG students will be invited to the colloquial, too. Dr. Ediz Akcay (Lecturer in Digital Marketing) and Dr Yan Liang (Lecturer in Strategy) will be there as discussants.
This colloquial will provide unique and interesting views from the different cultural context of Japanese cases, including some key topics of the UN SDGs (e.g., Goal 9 ‘Industry, innovation and infrastructure’, Goal 11 ‘Sustainable cities and communities’, and Goal 17 ‘Partnerships for the goals’).
You can see all the Organisational Development and RKEDF events in one place on the handy calendar of events.
Please note that all sessions are now targeted, so look closely at the event page to ensure that the event is suitable for you. In addition, RKEDF events now require the approval of your Head of Department (or other nominated approver). Please follow the instructions given on the event page and the template email for you to initiate the booking request.
Weeks after the collapse of his restaurant group and the loss of 1,000 jobs, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver announced that he was creating an “ethical” B Corporation or “B Corp”, a sort of company certification designed to show its holder gives equal weight to people, planet and profit. While it has loosely the same aim as the “triple bottom line” of the social enterprise model, B Corp certification is available to for-profit companies that apply to B Lab, a non-global profit organisation, and pay for it.
B Lab was founded in 2006 by Stanford University alumni and businessmen Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, and former investment banker and Stanford colleague, Andrew Kassoy. There are now more than 2,900 certified B Corps in more than 60 countries, cutting across industries and sectors. Through extensive lobbying and promotion it has expanded worldwide through new local offices. With the number of B Corps opening under the organisation’s UK arm growing at 14% a year, is this really a new way of doing business?
People, planet and profit
On the face of it, the certification should indicate a company’s environmental performance, employee relationships, diversity, involvement in the local community, and the impact a company’s product or service has on those it serves. This in turn can attract staff and consumers seeking socially responsible businesses, boost an established public company’s stock price, and help investors find companies that balance profit and purpose.
In the B Lab certification process, a businesses must sign a “Declaration of Interdependence”, committing it to using “business as a force for good.” The company must modify its governing bylaws to allow directors to “consider stakeholders besides shareholders in company decision-making”. Companies must also disclose information on “any sensitive practices, fines, and sanctions related to the company or its partners”. Certification is done chiefly over the phone, with around 10% selected for more in-depth review. Companies must re-certify every three years.
While B Corp claims that certification balances the interests of shareholders with the interests of workers, customers, communities and the environment, B Corp standards are not legally enforceable. Neither the board nor the corporation are liable for damages if a company fails to meet them. Even the changes in company bylaws remain secret. A business can fill out the initial B Corp Impact Assessment in a few hours, and complete the certification process in between four and eight weeks, finally paying a certification fee of between US$500 and US$50,000, depending on revenue.
B Corp certification is available to any for-profit business around the globe as long as it’s been operating for at least 12 months. Certification is initially self-assessed, and doesn’t override the profit-driven focus of the company.
A cash-generating machine?
B Lab has raised over US$32m since launch, and receives much of its funding from major foundations and organisations such as Prudential, Deloitte LLP, the Rockefeller Foundation, and even the US Agency for International Development. In 2017 it received about US$6m in certification fees, and US$5.6m in donations. Its board members primarily come from the business sector, with B Lab paying US$6m in salaries and compensation in 2017.
In the face of this highly cash-generative activity, B Lab’s rhetoric (“lead a movement”) fails to spell out compelling reasons for certification. B Lab claims that traditional corporations cannot be socially responsible, because they open themselves to liability for not following shareholders interests. But there is no law that explicitly requires directors of businesses to maximise shareholder revenue to the exclusion of all other corporate objectives. European (EU Directive 2014/95/EU) and UK law already push companies to practice sustainability reporting, and British firms have always had the flexibility to amend their articles of association with shareholder consent to reflect their social responsibilities. Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, for example, changed its Articles of Association to state that it “strives to conduct its activities in a financially, environmentally and socially responsible way”.
My research into one of the earliest certified B Corps, CouchSurfing.com, shows how certification can be used to pacify angry consumers and attract investors. Certified companies can simply walk away if they feel being a B Corp no longer suits their profit-making aims or strategy, or if it threatens short-term shareholder profitability. The online marketplace Etsy is one that walked away, while others dropped certification after being bought out by larger companies that had other plans.
There is no directory of former B Corporations that dropped certification or had it removed. The closed nature of a private certifying body that sets and regulates its own standards is problematic, even if well intentioned, and especially so if it seeks to control the process by which certified businesses are held accountable. Certified corporations are as accountable to B Lab as they are to their stakeholders. The lack of full transparency and rigorous vetting in the face of its aggressive expansion indicates that B Lab’s certification should not be seen as a reliable method for certifying corporations to some standard, from the perspective of either the general public, investors or regulators.
Which isn’t to say that the efforts haven’t been worthwhile. B Lab could re-focus and promote new global benchmarks and corporate structures such as low-profit limited liability companies (L3Cs) in the US, or community interest companies (CICs) and multi-stakeholder co‑operatives in the UK. Rather than striving to become a political-economic actor spending millions on creating and marketing a private company certification offering brand building and expensive workshops, B Lab might consider whether its market-driven certification offers solutions to market-produced problems.
Jamie Oliver is largely transparent in his business values and commitment to social responsibility. He would be better to say “goodbye and big love as ever” to B Lab as he did in his goodbye letter to staff, and focus instead on working with co-operatives, worker and community-owned businesses, and other non-profits that are building a new economy now – without the need to buy a certificate.
A new study of Media Production graduates’ long-term career trajectories exposes industry’s high levels of wastage.
Like consumable goods that come labelled with a ‘best before’ date, it seems that media careers may also come with a limited shelf-life. Research published this week suggests that media industries have a problem with long-term retention. The study is one of a series we have undertaken to investigate the career trajectories of our students. The more that we understand about their post-BU working lives, the better we can prepare them for the world of work, and the more effectively we can be the critical friend providing much-needed thought-leadership for industry.
The study took as its focus the BA Media Production (BAMP) ‘Class of ‘95’: the cohort of Media Production students who arrived at Bournemouth at the point at which the institution received its university status. These BU first-generation graduates are now in mid-career, and their working lives have spanned a period of unprecedented upheaval within the industries that they aspired to work in. The study has exposed a feature of media work that has wider implications for the way media industries operate.
We have long known that media work is not for the faint-of-heart, and that the transition from University into work can be extremely challenging. Many previous studies (including our own) have attempted to examine some of the difficulties graduates face, particularly during the early stages of their careers. In this study we set out to understand the way in which the demands of media work are experienced through the prism of age, and life stage. We were able to interview a sample of 28 of these graduates: just over one third of the ’95 cohort.
What we learned surprised us. We had thought that the major challenges of media work were those experienced in early career. What we found caused us to question this presumption. Although we confirmed much of what previous studies have highlighted about early careers, sustaining the relentless pressures of such work over the longer-term transpired to be just as significant a problem. Many of our contributors talked fondly, and sometimes passionately, about work they had found to be enormously rewarding, but this ‘labour of love’ had become increasingly difficult to sustain over time. The rate of attrition by mid-career is striking. This presents an important challenge to the media industries. Whilst they become increasingly reliant on well-educated, highly motivated neophytes who are inexpensive, willing, and able to be flexible and self-exploiting, they are heamorrhaging experience, honed skills, and organizational memory. This is a development that, ultimately, cannot be for the good of the individual worker, the media organisations in which they work, or the Creative Industries as a sector.
This autumn the Dutch journal for midwives Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen published a paper on the risk associated with thinking in terms of risks [1]. Dr. Marianne J Nieuwenhuijze is the lead author of this paper written in Dutch. Marianne is associated with the Research Centre Midwifery Science at the Academie Verloskunde Maastricht (the Netherlands). Her co-authors are BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and Dr. Helen Bryers who is Honorary Public Health Specialist (Midwife) at NHS Highland. The paper builds on earlier work around the concept of the social/medical model in pregnancy and childbirth [2-7].
References:
Nieuwenhuijze, M., van Teijlingen, E., Mackenzie-Bryers, H. (2019) In risiko’s denken is niety zonder risiko (In Dutch: Thinking in terms of risk, it not with its risk). Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 43 (4): 6-9.
Brailey, S., Luyben, A., Firth, L., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Women, midwives and a medical model of maternity care in Switzerland, Int J Childbirth7(3): 117-125.
van Teijlingen, E. (2017) The medical and social model of childbirth, Kontakt 19 (2): e73-e74
MacKenzie Bryers H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.
Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, Practising Midwife16 (11): 17-20.
van Teijlingen E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociol Res Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
The Doctoral and Advanced NIHR Fellowship Awards are now open to support individuals to undertake exciting and impactful research on their trajectory to becoming future leaders.
Now with increased flexibility and options to include clinical time, they support people at various points of their development from initial pre-doctoral training to senior post-doctoral research.
The NIHR has also partnered with seven charities to offer jointly-funded Partnership Fellowships at Doctoral and Advanced (post-doctoral) levels to utilise the strengths and expertise of both partners.
What do the Doctoral and Advanced Fellowships offer?
The NIHR Doctoral Fellowship is a three year full-time award that supports individuals from all professional backgrounds to undertake a PhD in an area of NIHR research. This Fellowship may be taken up on a part-time basis between 50-100% whole time equivalent (WTE).
Clinical applicants can include up to 20% clinical time as part of the Fellowship.
Need help with your application? Find out tips from Professor Gary Frost, Chair of the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship Selection Committee.
The NIHR Advanced Fellowship is for those at post-doctoral level and aimed at several specific points of a researcher’s career development. It is between 2 and 5 years and can be completed on a full or part-time basis (between 50-100% WTE).
They are also available with a ‘clinical academic’ option where clinical applicants can request up to 40% of their time be dedicated to clinical service/development, which would be covered by the award.
Last year the NIHR Academy announced it would partner with leading UK medical research charities for the first-time, to offer jointly funded NIHR-Charity Partnership Fellowships at both Doctoral and Advanced (post-doctoral) level.
The aim, as part of the newly restructured NIHR Fellowships programme is to harness the strengths and expertise of both partners by adding value and quality in order to make the greatest impact.
Jointly funded NIHR Charity Partnership Fellowships enable researchers to:
Be part of an active and supportive research community; maintaining and building a relationship with both the NIHR and charity partner.
Engage with and receive valuable input from patient groups, making the most of the patient engagement/involvement opportunities available.
Gain greater research exposure through a variety of media and communication channels.
Potential events/conferences/networking opportunities available from the NIHR Academy and charity partner.
Please note that Doctoral and Advanced Fellowships now have two rounds per annum that open in April and October.
And don’t forget, your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us, call us on 61939 or send us an email.
Staff, students and colleagues are warmly invited to an inspiring and engaging half-day conference on Wednesday 9 October from 1pm (BG11, Lansdowne Campus). Speakers include visiting colleagues from Kosovo and BU academic staff. The conference opens with an informal networking lunch, followed by presentations and panel discussion.
The focus of this conference is to discuss and debate whether issues of gender, violence and conflict that have heightened visibility in post-conflict environments, can be recognised similarly in the UK. By asking what we can learn from questions of gendered violence in a fragile international context and whether these can be applied to our social environments in the UK, the aims are:
To de-exoticise gendered violence in war and post-conflict contexts abroad by going beyond stereotypical assumptions and representations;
To interpret contemporary UK conceptualisations of gendered violence through an alternative lens inspired by international experience.
We are fortunate to have the opportunity of the Erasmus-funded presence of two visiting Kosovar colleagues who are presenting 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 active for women’s rights in the public sphere of in Kosovo. This 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, post-conflict intervention.
We are also joined by two BU criminologists of the Department for Social Sciences who are working in related fields of gendered gang crimes: Jade Levell on gang crimes in the UK) and Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari on questions of human trafficking in Nepal. This conference arises from our own academic interests in questions of gendered hate crime in the UK (Dr Jane Healy) and on transnational and post-conflict questions of social justice (Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers).
1.00: Arrivals and networking lunch
2.00: Welcome by Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, WAN, and by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Centre for Marginalised Voices
2.15: Jade Levell, BU: “The competing masculinities of gang-involved men who experienced domestic violence/abuse in childhood”
2.45: Nita Luci, Univ. of Prishtina: “Researching Gender in the Balkans”
2.55: Break for tea and coffee
3.15: Linda Gusia, Univ. of Prishtina: “Recognition of Sexual Violence in Kosovo after the War”
3.45: Shovita Dhakal Adhikari: “Exploring Child Vulnerabilities: pre- and post-disaster in Nepal”
4.00: Panel Discussion: “Inverting the gaze: Juxtaposing gender and conflict in transitional societies abroad and the UK”
The current round of ACORN funding is open, and the closing date for applications is 30th October. For those considering applying, this workshop is for you!
Monday 21st October 15:00 – 17:00 at the Talbot Campus in the CREATE Lecture Theatre (Fusion)
The ACORN fund is internal to BU and is aimed at giving Early Career Researchers an opportunity to hone both application and project management skills and an opportunity to receive constructive feedback from the funding panel members. Details of the scheme are available in the Acorn Fund Policy and there is a separate ACORN Fund application form.
What do dinosaurs and the fossil footprints of our ancient human ancestors have to do with catching criminals?
Researchers at Bournemouth University have travelled the world over the last few years documenting fossil footprints both of humans and extinct animals. We read the story in the traces left in the rock record, to tell the story of how different animals interacted, how they walked and behaved. We have developed freeware to help capture these traces in 3D and analyse them using some cool mathematical techniques including machine learning. Recently we have shown how our American ancestors hunted giant ground sloth, and how patterns of human locomotion have changed as our ancestors in Africa evolved. Take this know-how, the mathematical tools and computer software we have developed to translate our research into forensic practice, and you have modern tools for the police to track criminals via their footprints.
Want to find out more? Come and see us at New Scientist Live 10-13 Oct 2019 ExCeL, London. Stand 524.
Tuesday saw the launch of the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) for Wessex. This exciting development brings together health and care organisations (including NHS Trusts, universities, Clinical Research Network, Academic Health Science Network, voluntary organisations) to respond to the needs of the people living in Wessex.
The day was opened by Professor Alison Richardson, Director of ARC Wessex who highlighted the challenges faced in Wessex and the four ARC themes designed to address them. There were short presentations of some of the innovative initial projects within the themes: Janis Baird – food product placement; Peter Griffiths – workforce; Stephen Lim – physical activity for older adults; Stephanie Health – Wessex Activation and Self-Management (WASP).
This was followed by a question and answer session with partners from across Wessex (Chair Sandy Ciccognani):
Dr. Chris Kipps – University of Southampton
Bill Gillespie – Academic Health Science Network
Prof. Vanora Hundley – Bournemouth University
Richard Samuel – Hampshire and Isle of Wight STP
Dr. Mark Tighe – Poole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Future work will focus on developing new projects within the four ARC themes and colleagues may wish to contact the theme leads to establish collaborative networks. The four themes and leads are:
Aging and Dementia – Theme Lead Prof. Helen Roberts
Long Term Conditions – Theme Lead Prof. Maria Stokes
Healthy Communities – Themes Lead Prof. Julie Parkes
Health Systems & Workforce – Theme Lead Dr. Tom Monks