Category / BU research

CQR Lunchtime Go Create! Seminar this Wed at 1pm RLH 409

BU research, Events, PG research, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized

Always engaging, the Centre for Qualitative Research’s Lunchtime Seminar Go Create! Series continues with:

Jen Leamon presenting

“Creating and sharing stories:

Students’ creation of digital stories in undergrad midwifery education”

Wednesday, 7 Nov

1-2 pm

Royal London House 409

(note change in location)

The seminars are always informal, interactive and afford lots of time for audience discussion!

Nepal paper by Lesley Milne (CMMPH)

BU research, Featured, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Congratulations to Lesley Milne, senior lecturer in midwifery, on the acceptance of her latest paper on maternity care in Nepal.  This new paper ‘Gender inequalities and childbearing: A qualitative study of two maternity units in Nepal’ will appear soon in the Open Access publication: Journal of Asian Midwives [1].   This is the second publication from a qualitative research study undertaken in two birthing facilities in Kathmandu Valley to examine barriers to women accessing these services from the perspective of hospital staff [2].

The study received financial support from Wellbeing of Women and the RCM (Royal College of Midwives) as Lesley won their first International Fellowship Award.   The study was a collaboration led by Lesley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) with two of FHSS’s Visiting Faculty, namely Prof. Padam Simkhada who is based at Liverpool John Moores University and Jillian Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate based at Poole NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust.

Well done!

Profs. Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

 

References

  1. Milne, L., Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P.P. (2018) Gender inequalities and childbearing: A qualitative study of two maternity units in Nepal, Journal of Asian Midwives (accepted).
  2. Milne, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Ireland, J. (2015) Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 15:142 www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/15/142 .

Research Professional – all you need to know

BU research, Funding opportunities

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

27th November 2018

22nd January 2019

26th February 2019

26th March 2019

23rd April 2019

21st May 2019

25th Jun 2019

23rd July 2019

27th August 2019

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

Fake e-cigarette liquid is putting vapers at risk – here’s how we can tackle the fraud

BU research, Featured, the conversation

 

File 20181031 76393 1su77vc.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Fotogrin/Shutterstock

Sulaf Assi, Bournemouth University

Over 35m people worldwide now use e-cigarettes, according to one estimate. In the US, this includes 4.5% of the adult population. But the rise in vaping has led to a trade in fake e-liquids – the mix of water, glycerol, propylene glycol, flavours and (usually) nicotine used to create the vapour of e-cigarettes.

Fake e-liquids are those that contain ingredients or incorrect concentrations of them that do not match those on the label. In particular, fakes often contain less or more nicotine than their labels claim, or impurities such as other drugs. The problem is that there is no current way to be sure exactly what is in an e-liquid, and no official certification scheme to guarantee that a label claim is accurate.

However, my colleagues and I are working on a way to use handheld scanning technology to spot fake e-liquids. This system could help to catch fraudsters because it does not just prove an e-liquid does not match its labelling but also provides a chemical “fingerprint” that can be linked back to its creators.

The internet has made it much easier for fraudsters to sell fake goods, and e-liquids are no exception. The problem is still new enough that we do not have good data on how common it is, but anecdotal evidence suggests many vapers are aware of the issue.

Nicotine e-liquids typically contain concentrations of between 0.1% and 2% of the drug, depending on the strength the vaper prefers. Current EU law means higher concentrations of nicotine than this are illegal. And manufacturers are required to declare any ingredient that accounts for more than 0.1% of its content.

Buying a fake e-liquid is not just annoying, it is potentially dangerous. It is rare for someone to consume so much nicotine that it becomes toxic, but it can happen. High doses of nicotine can result in unwanted stimulant effects such as hypertension (high blood pressure), tachycardia (unusually high heart rate), tremors and even seizures. Impurities in nicotine can also affect the body but this is difficult to predict and depends on what the impurity is and its concentration.

Handheld chemical scanners could reveal exactly what’s in an e-liquid.
Mr.1/Shutterstock

Having a portable technology that can authenticate products would help law enforcement officers identify fake e-liquids, catch the criminals supplying them and so prevent the health problems they cause. So we have tailored portable scanning technology already used to detect other counterfeit products including medicine and food, by creating a library of chemical signatures for e-liquids and the software to compare them to the scan results.

The technology works by firing near-infrared light at a sample. Different ingredients will reflect or absorb the light by different amounts. So measuring this reflection gives a spectrum that acts like a fingerprint, which we can use to identify the liquid’s physical and chemical properties. Our algorithms can then interpret this fingerprint and compare it to our library of other spectra to assess how likely it is that the liquid contains what the label says it does.

Using this kind of portable spectroscopic technology saves on the cost, labour and time of taking a sample into the laboratory, preparing and measuring it and then processing the data. Instead, our system can scan a sample and tell users how close a match it is to entries from the library – and so how much nicotine and other ingredients it contains – without the need for them to have specialist training. Collecting a signature takes a few seconds and the results are ready within a couple of minutes. The equipment is also stable in hot and cold climates and can be used in the field for long periods of time.

As portable versions of these instruments are already available for detecting fake drugs and tobacco, it would be easy to adapt them for law enforcement agents. All you need to do is develop the right library of chemical signatures to detect a variety of fake e-liquids, as we have started doing. Then the police can start cracking down on this potentially dangerous trade.The Conversation

Sulaf Assi, Senior lecturer in forensic sciences, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Good Clinical Practice refresher – Monday 12th November

BU research, Clinical Governance, NHS, Research Ethics, Research Training, Training

Are you currently undertaking research within the NHS and your Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training is due to expire? Or has it expired recently?

GCP certification lasts for two years, so if your training is due to expire, has expired, or you want to validate your learning, then take advantage of the upcoming refresher half day session, taking place at Poole Hospital on Monday 12th November, 9am – 12:30pm.

Spaces are still remaining, so if you’d like to enrol, get in touch with Research Ethics or the Wessex Clinical Research Network.

Forthcoming RKEDF events

BU research, Events, Funding opportunities, Fusion, pre-award, Research assessment, RKE development framework

We have some great events coming up over the next few weeks to help support you in your research activity within the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework (RKEDF)

We have also grouped the RKEDF events around your needs, so if, for example, you are an Early Career Researcher or need to know about external funding, you can click on the link to find all the RKEDF sessions that may assist you. You can also find related events by using the link on each session’s page.

November

Tuesday 6th November RKEDF: Research Ethics @ BU
Tuesday 6th November RKEDF: Impact Basics (FMC)
Wednesday 7th November RKEDF: Research Outputs – Writing Day
Wednesday 7th November RKEDF: Main Panel B UOA 11 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Wednesday 7th November RKEDF: Main Panel B – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Monday 12th November RKEDF: Main Panel B UOA 12 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Thursday 15th November RKEDF: Main Panel C UOA 14 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Thursday 15th November RKEDF: Main Panel C UOA 18 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Thursday 15th November RKEDF: Main Panel C UOA 23 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Thursday 15th November RKEDF: Main Panel C – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Friday 16th November RKEDF: Impact Basics (HSS)
Friday 16th November RKEDF: Impact Case Study Writing Retreat
Tuesday 20th November RKEDF: Impact Basics (FST)
Friday 23rd November RKEDF: SciVal Development – Scopus
Friday 23rd November RKEDF: SciVal Development – SciVal Introduction
Friday 23rd November RKEDF: SciVal Development – SciVal Intermediate
Friday 23rd November RKEDF: SciVal Development – SciVal for REF Purposes

December

Wednesday 5th December RKEDF: Writing Academy – Day 1 of 3
Monday 10th December RKEDF: Technical Bid Writing Workshop
Wednesday 12th December RKEDF: Main Panel D UOA 27 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Wednesday 12th December RKEDF: Main Panel D UOA 32 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Wednesday 12th December RKEDF: Main Panel D UOA 34 – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Wednesday 12th December RKEDF: Main Panel D – Improving the Quality Score of Your Output
Friday 14th December RKEDF: Impact Case Study Writing Retreat
Monday 17th December RKEDF: Main Panel A – Developing Impact Case Studies for your REF Panel: the good, bad and ugly
Tuesday 18th December RKEDF: Main Panel B – Developing Impact Case Studies for your REF Panel: the good, bad and ugly

The above list does not include events where attendance requires faculty nominations / applications or are part of the Early Career Researcher Network schedule for 18/19.

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.

If you have any queries, please get in touch!

Do you need help with your research application?

BU Challenges, BU research, policy, pre-award, Research news, RKE development framework

If you need help with your research application and can meet certain criteria, then you may be eligible to receive support from one of our External Application Reviewers (EARs).

With a new and simplified process, you can request this when you submit your Intention to Bid form, and you meet at least one of the following conditions:

  • The application is to a prestigious funder (UK research councils, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Royal Society, NIHR and EU Horizon 2020)
  • The application is to a strategically important funding call, including those in the BU2025 Strategic Investment Areas
  • NERC Standard Grants
  • One-off calls for multi-million pound bids (such as AHRC’s Creative Clusters Programme and Research England’s E3 call)
  • The applicant is a member of the BU Research Council Development Scheme and is applying to a UK Research Council call
  • The applicant is an ECR and is applying to a prestigious funder

Your Research Facilitator will then be in contact to discuss your needs. Approval will need to be given both by RKEO and your department before an EAR is appointed to support you.

If you do not meet the above conditions, help may still be available in certain circumstances. Additionally, certain calls may be eligible for external support from other sources. – please discuss these with your Research Facilitator.

Please note that this is an application reviewing service; the EARs will not write your bid for you.

 

Training opportunity – completing and submitting your IRAS application

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

Are you currently in the process of designing, setting up or planning your research study, and would like to extend your project into the NHS?

Yes? Then you may want to take advantage of this training opportunity.

Oliver Hopper (Research & Development Coordinator, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital) and Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor, R&KEO)  will be running a training session on how to use, and complete your own application within the IRAS system.

IRAS (Integrated Research Application System) is the system used to gain approvals from the NHS Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Authority, before rolling out your study to NHS Trusts. To support this, the session will include the background to research ethics and the approvals required for NHS research.

The session will also be interactive, and so as participants, you will have the opportunity to go through the form itself and complete the sections, with guidance on what the reviewers are expecting to see in your answers, and tips on how to best use the system.

The training will take place in Studland House – Lansdowne Campus, room 117 on Tuesday 6th November, at 13:00pm – 16:00pm.

There are 12 spaces available, so get in touch with Research Ethics if you would like to register your interest and book a place.

Icons and Inspirations: Alan, Tamsin and Alex

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Research Integritiy, writing

Left to right: Alan Sinfield, Tamsin Wilton and Alexander Doty

Whilst researching a new Level 5 ‘Media Perspective’ unit (Life Stores and the Media) for the Department of Media Production, I decided to discuss the concept of ‘dissident reading’ within the lectures, relating the work of Alan Sinfield in this area.  In doing this, I not only checked out if our library had the relevant book Cultural Politics – Queer Reading, which we did, but also I thought that I would just check out (online) what Alan is working on now.

Alan Sinfield had been a catalyst in my research journey, as way back in 2004 when I was in the final stages of my PhD, Alan had invited me to speak at a research seminar workshop at the University of Sussex.  I remember that Alan was a little critical of my interest in the ‘carnivalesque’, but largely supportive. That seminar offered me a great experience in developing my ideas for the eventual PhD at Bournemouth, and it provided me with a much-needed psychological boost, as the PhD submission date loomed. I remember at the time I had asked Alan some probing questions regarding his new research interests. Alan’s work was fundamental in developing gay and lesbian studies in theatre and popular culture. He replied that he was working on something new, concerning ageing.  It was remiss of me to not follow up on this, despite having more contact with the University of Sussex in other areas later on, such as working with Sharif Molabocus who contributed to two of my edited collection books, and also working there as an external PhD examiner.  On searching for Alan’s latest work, I discovered that he had passed away last year, aged 75.

In thinking through my meeting with Alan in 2004, I had not realized that soon after this he would retire, as Parkinson’s disease would effect his speech.  Now I maybe understand Alan’s interest in writing about ageing, at a time when his life must have been changing.  The loss of Alan also made me think about others in the LGBT and queer studies media research community who I have met that are no longer with us.

Before I was accepted to study my PhD at Bournemouth, I had applied to the University of the West of England.  When the panel interviewed me, I met Tamsin Wilton, whose ground-breaking book was entitled Immortal, Invisible: Lesbians and the Moving Image. While I did not get the doctoral scholarship at UWE, Tamsin confided in me that her research was mostly done within her own time, suggesting that at that time the department thought her work was ‘too radical’. Tamsin passed away in 2006, only a few years after we met, and I remember thinking how much we have lost in her passing, her work was revolutionary, and she genuinely encouraged me to press on with my research, in times when LGBT studies were less popular.

Besides the loss of Alan Sinfield and Tamsin Wilton, I cannot forget the sudden loss of Alexander Doty. Similar to meeting Alan and Tamsin early in my research journey, I briefly met Alex when he was presenting at the feminist Console-ing Passions Conference in Bristol in 2001, a conference that I would eventually co-organise this year at Bournemouth. In 2001, I was studying for an MA at Bristol, and I had never been to an academic conference before, but we were required as students to help out. I remember attending Alex’s paper on the TV series Will and Grace, and I had a brief conversation with him over coffee. Somehow, I made some links between his ideas, and those that I was studying, and I am forever grateful to Alex for his work, and his non-pretentious demeanour. Although if I am honest, I was a little in awe of him, and at the time I could have never imagined that I could have published my academic work.

So I think, often we encounter inspirational researchers along the way, at conferences, seminars, symposiums, and even in interviews. For me, the loss of Alan Sinfield, Tamsin Wilton and Alex Doty, almost seems too much to bear, as clearly they had far more to offer, despite their remaining stellar work. In the manner where I discussed the legacy of Pedro Zamora (the HIV/AIDS activist) and the meaning of a life cut short, theoretical and political ideals potentially live on. Our task is not only to remember all that potential, but also to continue it in any way we can.

 

Recent changes to the Intention to Bid form (ItB)

BU Challenges, BU research, humanities, policy, pre-award, Research news, RKE development framework

The ItB form is a mandatory document for completion by all BU staff as part of the internal approvals process for external RKE (Research and Knowledge Exchange) funding applications.

In line with the BU2025 Strategic Plan and the latest development from the RKE development framework initiatives, the ItB form has recently gone through some additions and modifications in order to incorporate these.

Please see below details of the changes:

1. Prestigious Research Funders PDRA and PGR Studentship scheme

The BU Prestigious Research Funders PDRA and PGR Studentship scheme provides internal investment for additional research staff/students on applications for external research funding from a list of prestigious funders. The scheme was first introduced in 2017, with a recent revision conducted in October 2018. The scheme guidance can be found here. If you are eligible, you can make use of this section on the ItB form to indicate if you wish to utilise this scheme.

2. External Application Reviewers

As part of the RKE Development Framework, academics now have the opportunity to engage with external application reviewers or external trainers with the aim to enhance research funding applications prior to submission. The scheme was first introduced in 2017, with a recent revision conducted in October 2018. The scheme guidance can be found here. If you are eligible, you can make use of this section on the ItB form to indicate if you wish to utilise this scheme. Your request will then be forwarded to the relevant Research Facilitator for consideration and action.

3. BU2025 Strategic Plan

In order to track BU’s progress and development against the BU2025 Strategic Plan, three new sub-sections have now been added to the ItB form so that we can efficiently capture and record information on research projects that meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals; research projects with strong elements of Social Science and/or Humanities; and research projects that align with the BU2025 Strategic Investment Areas.

The newly revised Intention to Bid form can be found here. The ItB form is a mandatory step as part of the internal approvals process for external funding applications and it is important for all sections to be completed when this is returned to your Funding Development Officer.

If you have further queries on how to complete the form or if you need help with completing the form, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your Funding Development Officers.

FHSS student awarded Chiropractor of the Year 2018-19

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Doctoral College, Featured, PG research, Research news, Student Engagement, student research, Uncategorized

Congratulations to Amy Miller!   At the British Chiropractic Council’s annual conference 13-14th October, Bournemouth University PhD student Amy Miller was awarded the British Chiropractic Association’s award of ‘Chiropractor of the Year 2018-19’ for her contributions to research and engagement. 

Amy is based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences  (FHSS).  Her PhD is investigating an inter-professional student-led breastfeeding clinic for student learning, and breastfeeding outcomes and experiences.  Amy is supervised by Associate Professor Sue Way, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery Dr. Alison Taylor and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen all based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). The British Chiropractic Association’s award for Chiropractor of the Year recognises individuals who have made a significant contribution to the profession.