Category / BU research

BU collaborates with BCP Council and Cambridge University on congestion modelling

BU research, Doctoral College, open access, Uncategorized

Bournemouth University (BU) collaborates with the Bournemouth Christchurch Poole (BCP) Council and Cambridge University on modeling traffic congestion propagation. The work, conducted by Dr. Wei Koong Chai and Ph.D. Candidate Assemgul Kozhabek from BU advocates the use of epidemic theory to model the spreading of traffic congestion in cities.

The team proposes a modified Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model that considers the road network structure for a more accurate representation of congestion spreading. Through an N-intertwined modeling framework and analysis using real-world traffic datasets from California and Los Angeles, the study demonstrates improved agreement with actual congestion conditions. The findings offer valuable insights for developing effective traffic congestion mitigation strategies.

Reference:

A. Kozhabek, W. K. Chai and G. Zheng, “Modeling Traffic Congestion Spreading Using a Topology-Based SIR Epidemic Model,” in IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 35813-35826, 2024, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3370474.

FST and BUBS Research Staff Association Reps wanted!

BU research, Research communication, Research Concordat, research staff

HR excellence in research logoThe BU Research Staff Association (RSA) is a forum to promote research culture at BU. Research staff from across BU are encouraged to attend, to network with others researchers, disseminate their work, discuss career opportunities, hear updates on how BU is implementing the Research Concordat, and give feedback or raise concerns that will help to develop and support the research community at BU.

We are looking to recruit FST and BUBS Faculty RSA Representatives.

The Faculty RSA reps role is to support the Institutional reps with the running of the BU RSA, attending the Research Concordat Steering Group, and Faculty Research and Professional Practice Committee Meetings, to provide an update on the BU RSA and feedback any comments or concerns.

Eligible research staff are those on research-only contracts – fixed-term or open-ended employment (not PTHP/casual contracts) who have at least one year remaining on their contract at the time of recruitment.

If you are interested in the FST RSA rep or BUBS  RSA rep role, please supply a few words to demonstrate your interest and availability in relation to the position. These should be submitted to the RDS Researchdev@bournemouth.ac.uk  by 5pm on Thursday 14 March 2024.

Please contact your RSA reps to chat about it if you have any queries.

BU is a University Gateway Partner for AHRC-funded StoryArcs Programme

BU research, humanities, Industry collaboration, Knowledge Exchange, Research news

A map of the UK with blue, purple, and pink dots noting locations relevant to the project. The text states "Across the UK, StoryArcs is exploring the deep structures and innovative uses of Story."Across the UK, 11 Story Associates are on a mission…

The StoryArcs Pilot Programme sees skilled individuals take on a presented challenge as they deepen their understanding of the value and potential of Story. Each of the 11 Story experts brings with them a range of skills in telling, analysing, and/or researching stories, and experience across multiple sectors, including creative writing, virtual reality, and community engagement.

We’re delighted to be a University Gateway Partner on the StoryArcs Programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The programme is led by Bambo Soyinka, the world’s first (and only) Professor of Story, at The Story Society, Bath Spa University.

Locally, Dr Kayla Jones is working with Local Trust to collect and preserve the community experiences generated by their “Big Local” funding project. She is based at Bournemouth University, and mentored by Lyle Skains.

With the help of the Story Associates, the StoryArcs Programme is conducting a deep exploration into the nature of Story Skills. They’re seeking to find out what Story Skills are, to define and categorise them, and to examine how they work to enable diverse and innovative benefits.

Discover more about StoryArcs and the Story Associates at: https://storyarcs.com/blog/meet-the-story-associates/

Congratulations to Prof. Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

BU research, international, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Professor of Social and Cultural Diversity, on the publication of her latest book An Historiography of Women’s Missionary Nursing Through the Lives of Two Sisters: Doing the Lord’s work in Kenya and South India (published by Routledge).

This book employs both ethnographic and secondary, archival data, drawing on a rich, fascinating trove of original material from the pre-1940s to the present day.  It offers a unique historiographic study of twentieth century Methodist missionary work and women’s active expression of faith, practised at the critical confluence of historical and global changes. The study focuses on two English Methodist missionary nursing Sisters and siblings, Audrey and Muriel Chalkely, whose words and experiences are captured in detail, foregrounding tumultuous socio-political changes of the end of Empire and post-Independence in twentieth century Kenya and South India.

This work presents a timely revision to prevailing postcolonial critiques in placing the fundamental importance of human relationships centre stage. Offering a detailed (auto)biographical and reflective narrative, this ‘herstory’ pivots on three main thematic strands relating to people, place and passion, where socio-cultural details are vividly explored. 

This book pays tribute to our former colleague, Professor Fran Biley.  As part of a wider oral history project entitled “Memories of Nursing” Fran Biley interviewed two British sisters who had retired to the South of England.  The two sisters, Muriel and Audrey, followed very similar missionary career paths in two different former British colonies.  Two sisters spent a total of 54 years working as Methodist missionaries in India and Kenya, one as a nurse, the other as a midwife.  Fran collected over 10 hours of interview data, as well as old videos, a suitcase of 35mm slides, albums full of old photographs, letters and personal papers from the two sisters.   Unfortunately, Fran died far too young in November 2012, before the rich data could be analysed.  Sara conducted further extensive interviews with Muriel and others who knew them, as well as undertaking a huge detective hunt to find a considerable amount of secondary data pertaining to the sisters and other Methodist missionaries across UK archives.  I am glad to be able to report that  Dr Muriel Chalkley, whose life is portrayed in the book, received an Honorary Doctorate from Bournemouth University in recognition of her services to nursing.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’ Health (CMWH)

 

The Conversation one-to-one training for academics – 19th March

BU research, Featured, Research communication, the conversation

BU is a partner of The Conversation, a news analysis and opinion website with content written by academics working with professional journalists.

As a partner organisation, BU academics can write for The Conversation on your areas of expertise. Conversation journalists are offering 1-2-1 training sessions for you to understand more about The Conversation, or to discuss and pitch an article to them.

A training session for staff is available on Tuesday 19 March from 10.30am – 12.30pm. Slots are available for BU academics to book for a 15-minute session with a journalist through the Eventbrite link below.

Book your slot 

Why write for The Conversation?

The Conversation is a great way to share research and informed comment on topical issues. Academics work with editors to write pieces, which can then be republished via a Creative Commons licence. Since we first partnered with The Conversation, articles by BU authors have had over 9.5 million reads and been republished by the likes of The i, Metro, National Geographic Indonesia and the Washington Post.

You can learn more about working with The Conversation on the Research and Knowledge Exchange Sharepoint site

British Council funded BU project SUNRISE on sustainability research: three upcoming events

BU research, BU2025, Events, PG research, Postgraduate Research

SUNRISE (Supporting ­­­University Network for Research in Sustainability Engagement) is a British Council funded managed by BU in collaboration with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

The project aims at inspiring and building capacity for sustainability research through hybrid cross-institutional student mobility events. Particularly, it focuses on leveraging student online and hybrid mobility to build capacity for research on sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

To achieve this, we will be hosting three cross-institutional hybrid conferences celebrating sustainability research carried out by staff, and undergraduate and postgraduate students in both universities. These will be demonstrating research addressing local and global challenges on five key themes:

 

Food nutrition and eating behaviour (SDG 2, 3, and 12)

Gender equality (SDG 5) 

Tourism and Hospitality (SDGs 3, 10, 12)  

Sustainability marketing and communication (all SDGs)  

Sustainability and employability (SDG 4, 5 and 8)  

 

The events will be delivered following the following schedule:

17 April 2024, 8-10 am (UK time) - researchers from both BU and USM will introduce the work they carry out on the themes above

9 May 2024, 8-10 am  (UK time) – we will host a student conference including live presentations and a virtual multimedia exhibition of UG and PG student research related to global challenges

Autumn 2024 - we will host a PGR conference including live presentations and a virtual multimedia exhibition of research related to global challenges

All events in the series will be run in a hybrid mode, i.e. they will be in-person at both the partner campuses with a virtual link between both universities capturing keynote presentations, online panel sessions and live pitches for research collaboration.

At BU, the project is managed by Dr Milena Bobeva (BUBS), Dr Reena Vijayakumaran (HSS), Prof Fiona Cownie (FMC), Dr Roberta Discetti (BUBS), and  Dr Daisy Fan (BUBS). Our partners at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) are Dr Vina Tan Phei Sean and Assoc Prof. Ng Theam Foo.

 

The Month in Research: February 2024

BU research, Featured, Featured academics, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, research staff

A cartoon image of black and white hands clapping on a yellow background

The Month in Research

The Month in Research is our monthly round-up sharing research and knowledge exchange successes from across the previous month, showcasing the amazing work taking place across BU.

Your achievements

Thank you to everyone who has used the online form to put forward their achievements, or those of colleagues, this month.

  • Dr Luciana Esteves (Faculty of Science and Technology) is part of a team of coastal scientists, artists and educators who worked on the writing/production of Coasts for Kids, a series of videos narrated by 6-8 year old children about coastal processes. Coasts for Kids won 1st place at the Climate Creatives Challenge #04 (Coastal Change), which received submissions from 56 countries. A video about the challenge and the winning entries can be found here: https://youtu.be/7fWiRj8pq48

Funding

 Congratulations to all those who have had funding for research and knowledge exchange projects and activities awarded in January. Highlights include:

  • Professor Janice Denegri-Knott (Faculty of Media and Communication) has been awarded c.£200,000 by Horizon Europe: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions for their project Mapping the full scope of consumer engagement on social media
  • Dr Richard Wallis (Faculty of Media and Communication) has been awarded c.£111,000 by the British Academy for their project Supportive offboarding: Developing new practices to support sustainable freelance careers in TV
  • Dr Anna Metzger (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£70,000 by the Royal Society for their project Perception of objects’ 3D shape – from active sensing to multisensory representations
  • Dr Simant Prakoonwit (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£35,000 by Innovate UK for their project Artificial Intelligence Content Moderation project

Publications

Congratulations to all those who have had work published across the last month. Below is a selection of publications from throughout February:

Content for The Month in Research has been collected using the research and knowledge exchange database (RED), the Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO) repository and submissions via The Month in Research online form. It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list. All information is correct as of 28.2.24.

Please use The Month in Research online form to share your highlights and achievements, or those of colleagues, for the next monthly round-up.

 

Team-based Learning for supported self-management of low back pain?

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Events, Fusion, innovation, NHS

Plus two upcoming TBL workshops next week – sign up!

TBL for supported self-management of low back pain

A team based in the Department of Nursing Science led by Dr Jonny Branney have began a research project to investigate the potential role of Team-based Learning (TBL – for more on TBL, please read on) in enhancing the supported self-management of patients with low back pain. The team will be working with Joe Barry, musculoskeletal physiotherapist, NHS Somerset, to implement this new approach in a 5-week course for patients with persistent back pain. The project began with a patient-public involvement (PPI) online consultation in February 2024, funded by NIHR RDS South West, where 10 expert patients gave their views on what was planned – and the plans have been modified and improved accordingly. The TBL pain classes will be implemented in April-May 2024. The team are eagerly awaiting the outcome of a bid for a TBLC Research Grant which would fund a researcher to interview the patients who attend the first class to learn from their experiences with a view to learning how best to scale up the innovation.

Connected to this research there are two TBL workshops running next week – if this has piqued your interest then please read on and we hope you can join us next week!

An introduction to Team-based Learning

Team-Based Learning (TBL)  is an evidence based flipped classroom teaching and learning strategy. With TBL, students are required to engage with pre-class materials before working through a test in class as an individual and then in a team of 5-6 students. This process helps to prepare the student teams to then engage with application exercises, where they apply their knowledge in making decisions to manage real-world scenarios relevant to their discipline. Think TBL might be a good fit for your teaching and learning approach? Fancy trying something different? Come and join us!

BOOK HERE!

Facilitators: Dr Jonny Branney, Principal Academic in Nursing and Clinical Sciences; Certified Consultant-Trainer in TBL

and Ryan Muldoon, Lecturer in Adult Nursing

Venue: BRANKSOME – Talbot Campus

Date: Wednesday 6th March 2024

Workshop 1: Fundamental Principles and Practices of TBL (10am – 12pm)

Learning outcomes:

  • Describe the essential elements of TBL
  • Explain clearly and concisely how and why TBL works
  • Evaluate the benefits of using TBL

Workshop 2: Evaluating Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) for Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs) and Application Activities (1pm – 3pm)

Learning outcomes:

  • Compare and contrast MCQs for RATs, exams and applications
  • Link MCQs to session learning outcomes
  • Identify common errors and barriers to writing effective MCQ questions

BOOK HERE!

Want to know more? Have a look here: www.teambasedlearning.org 

Hope to see you there!