Category / BU research

Publishing case studies in high quality journals

BU research

case study image

The Influences on Consumer Behaviour cluster are pleased to a session on ‘Publishing case studies in high quality journals‘ with Professor Jillian Dawes Farquhar

Date: 19th July 2017

Time: 1pm to 5pm

Venue: Sandbanks Hotel, 15 Banks Road, Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset, BH13 7PS

Despite the benefits that case studies offer, many management researchers (and particularly those in marketing) still face an uphill battle when trying to get their papers published in top quality journals.  This session aims to identify the reason why and offers insight into how to address case study rigour. Drawing on a study of selected high quality case studies, lessons are identified to help all case study researchers to improve their case study papers.

This session will be of interest to those undertaking (or considering undertaking) case study research as well as those using qualitative methods.  The session will be interactive so please bring along papers/details of case study research that you are currently working on.

Note, places are limited to 30 delegates.  If you are unable to make your own way to the venue, please let the organisers know and we will look to arrange transport.

To reserve your place please contact: Prof. Juliet Memery.  Email: jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk

£100 million Rutherford Fund to attract best researchers to the UK

BU research, Funding opportunities

Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson today (4 July 2017) confirmed the government is investing £100 million to attract highly skilled researchers to the UK through its new Ernest Rutherford Fund.

The Rutherford Fund will provide fellowships for early-career and senior researchers, from the developed world and from emerging research powerhouses such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico, helping to maintain the UK’s position as a world-leader in science and research.

View the announcement from Innovate UK to see what Jo Johnson said at the launch event.

Research and innovation is at the heart of the government’s Industrial Strategy. At the 2016 Autumn Statement, the government announced a significant increase in public research and development spending, totalling £4.7 billion. This will provide an additional £2 billion a year by 2020 to 2021 – an increase of around 20% to total government spending, and more than any increase in any Parliament since 1979.

In April 2017 the Business Secretary Greg Clark announced the creation of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) with £1 billion of support over the next 4 years. To support delivery of the ISCF, the government announced at the Spring Budget it will invest £250 million over the next 4 years to continue to build the pipeline of high-skilled research talent.

The ISCF was created to ensure research and innovation takes centre stage in the government’s Industrial Strategy, with investment earmarked for technologies where the UK can build on its world-leading strengths and help innovative businesses to tap into large and growing global markets, as well as the industries of the future.

The fund is being administered by Innovate UK and the Research Councils until the new body UK Research and Investment (UKRI) is formed in 2018. UKRI, under the leadership of its recently appointed Chief Executive Sir Mark Walport, will play a key role in strengthening the UK’s competitiveness through the Industrial Strategy.

Building resilience to natural disasters using financial instruments – Networking Event &Funding Call

BU research, Funding opportunities

Call closes: 16:00 on 26 September 2017

ESRC and UK Aid (DFID) logoNERC, the Department for International Development, and the Economic & Social Research Council invite proposals to address the topic building resilience to natural disasters using financial instruments. Funding is available to apply existing environmental and social science research to inform the design, development, refinement and validation of financing instruments to help developing countries respond and recover from extreme weather and natural disasters.

The overarching goal of these projects is to have impact on the developing world. To achieve this, projects must work with practitioner project partners who have a role in the design, development and application of innovative financing mechanisms for developing countries (eg non-governmental organisations, policymakers, disaster risk management actors, insurance companies).

NERC funding for this call will form part of the UK’s official development assistance (ODA) commitment, and proposals should demonstrate their primary purpose is to promote the economic development and welfare of countries on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development’s Development Assistance Committee list of ODA recipients.

The programme will support both:

  • feasibility studies of up to £100,000 (at 100% full economic cost) and up to six months in duration
  • longer projects of up to £350,000 (at 100% full economic cost) and up to 24 months in duration.

Successful projects are expected to start no later than 1 January 2018.

If you are interested in applying to this call then please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance.

Networking and brokerage event

In order to bring together academics and potential project partners, a one-day networking event will be held at the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel in London on 28 July 2017. For further information and details of how to register your interest in attending this event, please see the networking event page.

Please note that attendance at this networking event is not a pre-requisite for the submission of proposals to this call.

Further information

Further information on this call and details of how to submit a proposal will be available to download shortly.

Contact

Lisa Bettington
Programme Manager – Innovation
01793 411630

Photo of the Week: Sherlock’s Window- In search of an odourless growth medium

BU research

Sherlock's Window: In search of an odourless growth medium

Sherlock’s Window: In search of an odourless growth medium

Our next instalment of the ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Dr Andrew Whittington‘s image of a third instar blowfly larva (maggot).  The series is a weekly instalment, which features an image taken by our fantastic BU staff and students. The photos give a glimpse into some of the fascinating work our researchers have been doing across BU and the wider community.

A key aspect of forensic investigation is the assessment of the ‘window of opportunity’ during which death took place. Estimations using insects (e.g. blowflies) increase accuracy. Using blowflies to determine post-mortem period requires an understanding of the temperature dependent growth patterns that they develop through their life cycle. In order to understand this, blowfly larvae are reared on growth media in the laboratory.

Sherlock’s Window is a HEIF funded project at BU which aims to produce an odourless growth medium that can be rolled out internationally for use in forensic investigation. Illustrated here is the head of a third instar blowfly larva. Maggots have no eyes, but the protrusions at the tip of the mouth area are palps, used for feeling and manipulating food particles. The rows of black barbs that are visible are used to pull the maggot forward through the food substrate.

If you’d like find out more about the research or the photo itself then please contact Dr Whittington.

This photo was originally an entry to the 2017 Research Photography Competition. If you have any other questions about the Photo of the Week series or the competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk

EPSRC seeks applicants for strategic advisory bodies

BU research, Research news

EPSRC logoThe Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is welcoming applications for membership of its strategic advisory bodies.

Applicants are sought from academia, industry and other stakeholders to advise the organisation on research and training strategy as members of the Strategic Advisory Teams (SATs). As well as the standard vacancies, EPSRC is looking to appoint non-academic members to each SAT team from business, industry, third sector or government organisations, whose role is focused on managing the use of academic research to deliver innovation, economic growth or societal change.

The recruitment process for SAT applications is open until 16.00hrs on Friday, 04 August, 2017. Applications will be through an online form (see below).

Appointments for SAT members will begin on Monday, 01 January, 2018, and will run for three years, with the possibility of an extension for up to a further three years. SAT members are paid a fee for each activity they are involved in, and are reimbursed for travel and subsistence expenses when attending meetings.

Commenting on what SAT membership entails, Dr Ruth Mallors-Ray OBE, Chief Operating Officer of the Aerospace Technology Institute and current Chair of EPSRC‘s Engineering SAT, said: A SAT member is an individual who, whilst a specialist in one area, is able to see beyond that specialism and act as an independent contributor to the work of the EPSRC. A SAT member listens to the work of EPSRC and then offers challenges or insights to the process of the work.

The SAT member often looks at the recommendations of EPSRC or the strategies of EPSRC and asks questions such as: how have you arrived at this recommendation? Have you been universal in your application of approach, so that the outcomes and recommendations have been arrived at through research, analysis and evidence gathering? A SAT member needs to be open to broader consensus across strategic thinking for EPSRC.

 

Need some time away from the office to write your winning funding application?

BU research, Events, RKE development framework

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are hosting a Bid Writing Retreat on Monday 24th July 2017.

This session is part of a two day event that combines advice and guidance on writing grant applications, delivered by external bid writing experts ThinkWrite. If you were unable to attend day one, you are still welcome to attend day two. One-to-one support will be available to develop applications for funding.

All academics and researchers are welcome to attend.  Participants must have a funding application they plan to submit within 12 months. The application can be to any funder.

Places are limited, so book now to avoid disappointment. For more information and to book your space please see the RKE Development Framework page for this event.

For any other queries please contact Lisa Gale-Andrews, RKEO Research Facilitator.

Research Professional – all you need to know

BU research, Funding opportunities

Research-Professional-logoEvery 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:

25th July 2017

22nd August 2017

26th September 2017

24th October 2017

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.

Festival of learning 2017: “Human Psychology: When your mind is in my mind”.

BU research, Events, Festival of Learning

Evolutionarily, human beings are shaped as social animals and often engage in interpersonal interactions. Recent findings in psychology suggest that one person’s cognition and behaviour could be shaped by another person who performs similar tasks along with that person. The influenced cognitive abilities include memory, attention, face cognition, and action. During this talk, we will introduce some of these scientific findings and the theories behind, along with their potential implications for our everyday life. You will also have the chance to see psychological experiments in action, and to try some of them on-site (if you are willing to volunteer for that :P).

If you are curious about it and want to come along, please try the link below, where you book the tickets for the event and join as on the talk.

Date: Saturday 8 July
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Talbot Campus

https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/human-psychology-when-your-mind-is-in-my-mind/

Innovative narrative concept now available across several platforms

BU research, PG research, Research news, Uncategorized

FHSS’ Prof Lee-Ann Fenge & Dr. Kip Jones

FHSS’ Kip Jones and Lee-Ann Fenge are pleased to announce that their article , “Gift Stories How Do We Retell the Stories that Research Participants Give Us?” is now available across several platforms.  Along with the open-access version from Creative Approaches to Research now being available, it can be downloaded on Academia.edu and BRIAN.

Jones and Fenge comment: “We can no longer afford to ignore the great advances made in representation of qualitative data. These have been overwhelmingly demonstrated by the successes achieved in auto-ethnography, poetic enquiry, ethno-drama, film, Performative Social Science and/or other arts-based efforts in research and dissemination”.

Narrative methods contribute greatly to the advances made in qualitative research. A narrative style should also be promoted in publications and presentations. This study on older LGBT citizens in rural Britain highlights this by means of a report on one part of that study—a Focus Group.

Narrative researchers are natural storytellers and need to foreground this when reporting studies for publication. Qualitative research is always about story reporting and story making, and narrative research (listening to and retelling stories) is a key democratising factor in qualitative social science research.

Festival of Learning event – Making a difference: BU research in our community – 11th of July

BU research, Events, Festival of Learning

RKEO and the LLS Academic Liaison team have organised an event for the Festival of Learning. The details are below.

                                     Making a difference: BU research in our community 

Where: Bournemouth Library, 22 the Triangle, Bournemouth, BH2 5RQ

When: 11th of July, 3pm to 7pm.

What are BU researchers working on, how is it making a difference and how can you access it?  Have you ever wondered what research BU undertakes and how it’s shaping our community? Join a team of academics, librarians and research experts to explore some of their projects and how you can access their publicly funded research.

Some of the many exciting topics Bournemouth University academics have been researching include the psychology of sport performance, the development of material culture and social networking in ancient civilisations, community based exercise interventions in older people and advertising.

The event will comprise:

  • Inspirational talks by Bournemouth University academics
  • Practical workshops on how to access quality research papers
  • Exhibition of static materials

All welcome. We look forward to seeing you (and friends and family) on this exciting event!

More information here: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/making-a-difference-bu-research-in-our-community/

BU’s PGR Isabell Nessel at the Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton

BU research, PG research, Uncategorized

 I had the pleasure of spending the last three weeks in the Department of Life Sciences (University of Roehampton), working with Dr Giulia Corona and Dr Volker Behrends. We successfully validated an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method to analyse lipid peroxidation products (breakdown products of fats) in human urine samples.

Our ultimate goal is to identify the time-course of oxidative stress and subsequent breakdown of lipids in neonates, by analysing urinary lipid peroxides, to facilitate evidence-based approaches to antioxidant support in preterm neonates. My supervisors Dr Simon Dyall and Prof Minesh Khashu and I are currently developing a pilot study in cooperation with Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to test the feasibility of measuring these products in urine samples from preterm neonates. However, before moving on to preterm samples, the method had to be tested and validated, using adult urine samples.

The project was made possible by an HSS Seed Corn fund obtained by Dr Simon Dyall, the PGR fund of Isabell Nessel, the collaboration with Dr Giulia Corona and Dr Volker Behrends at the Department of Life Sciences (University of Roehampton) and collaboration with Dr Thierry Durand and his group from the Institute des Biomolecules Max Mousseroux, (Montpellier, France) who generously provided the standards used in this analysis. I am grateful that I had this opportunity to further develop my research skills and to learn a new state-of-the-art technique and would like to thank all involved for making this possible!

If you would like to learn more about our research please feel free to contact me at inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Isabell

BU research recognised by The Renal Association Investigator Award at UK Kidney Week 2017

BU research, Impact, Research communication, Research news, student research

BU research, (led by me, Dr Paul Hartley), was recognised at UK Kidney Week in Liverpool last week. We were invited to speak about our fruit fly model of human renal disease, work that has been variously supported by grants from the British Heart Foundation and Kidney Research UK. The conference was an excellent opportunity to showcase the model and highlight our current collaborations with consultant-scientists based at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital as well as a number of different groups at the University of Bristol, the University of Osnabruck in Germany, Harvard Children’s Hospital and the University of Edinburgh. The research work is based in Dorset House labs and is supported by a wide network of talented people within BU as well as our undergrad and post-grad students.

CQR Summer Surgery Sessions about to begin again!

BU research, PG research, Research news, Uncategorized

Last Summer the Centre for Qualitative Research organised a series of short (half hour) surgery sessions where participants could ask us any questions that they might have about qualitative methods and their research. If we didn’t have the answer, we have a list of CQR Members who often do!

Dr Kip Jones, Centre Director and Deputy Director, Caroline Ellis-Hill will offer sessions this Summer!

To book a half hour (in person) with Kip at Royal London House on a Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon, just email kipworld@gmail.com with your possible date. Kip will get back to you with a time.

To book a a half hour (via Skype only) with Caroline on a Wednesday morning, email cehill@bournemouth.ac.uk with our possible date. Caroline will get back to you with a time and Skype arrangements. (We particularly hope that colleagues and students at Yeovil and Portsmouth will take advantage of this particular distance resource.)

CQR members have expertise in a wide range of methods. If necessary, through the surgery process we can connect you up with a particular resourceful person.

  • Research as Film/Film as Research
  • Photo-elicitation
  • Grounded Theory
  • Performance Poetry
  • Ethics
  • Interviewing
  • Focus Groups
  • Ethnography
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Autobiography
  • Auto-ethnography
  • Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method
  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Arts-based methods
  • Telephone interviews
  • Questionnaire design
  • NVIVO
  • Performance Poetry
  • Reflexivity
  • Performative Social Science

Sessions will generally run through July and the first half of August.

These sessions seemed to work quite well last Summer. We hope that you will find them a valuable assistance. No need to be a CQR member (but you may want to become one!)

Kip and Caroline

Photo of the Week: Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

BU research

Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

Our next instalment of the ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Dr Neetesh Saxena‘s image of research being undertaken to improve vehicle transportation safety and security. The series is a weekly instalment which features an image taken by our fantastic BU staff and students. The photos give a glimpse into some of the fascinating work our researchers have been doing across BU and the wider community.

This research involves securing communications efficiently among vehicles (electrical vehicles, petrol/gas vehicles, and hybrid vehicles) between the vehicles and the road side equipment. This work ensures the availability of critical information to these vehicles that will ultimately help in reducing road accidents and injuries. This work is carried out in collaboration with Georgia Tech and BU.

If you’d like find out more about the research or the photo itself then please contact Dr Saxena.

This photo was originally an entry to the 2017 Research Photography Competition. If you have any other questions about the Photo of the Week series or the competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk