Category / BU research

Brexit and Bills- what it means for the HE Sector and Research.

With a new Prime Minister, new Government department restructures, the second reading of the Higher Education and Research Bill and Brexit, there is a lot of change around the corner for universities and research.

Now that responsibility for higher education has been transferred to the Department for Education, whilst research and science are under the remit of the newly named Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, there are concerns that universities and research and science will become unaligned. The government has attempted to dilute some of these fears by ensuring that the Minister of State for Universities and Science, which is still held by Jo Johnson MP, jointly looks after both universities and science across both government departments.

In addition, leaving the European Union has already sparked concerns for the higher education sector, and in particular for research. On the 25th July Jo Johnson MP attended the European Science Open Forum in Manchester. He spoke of reports that UK participants are being asked not to lead or participate in Horizon 2020 project bids and went on to reassure that the UK remains an EU member during the 2-year renegotiation period, which includes the rights and obligations that derive from this. He also stated that the UK remains fully open to scientists and researchers from across the EU.

Concerns among the sector are still very much present, the Times Higher Education reported worries around possible changes to the way the European Research Council (ERC) could distribute funds. Currently, money is distributed on the basis of excellence, meaning the UK does comparably well in relation to other EU nations, however this could change after Brexit if the ERC decided to run a more redistributive approach- rather than excellence focused. Additionally, the Guardian found cases of British academics being asked to leave EU funded projects or to step down from leadership roles because they are considered a financial liability.

The second reading of the Higher Education and Research Bill also touched on the implications of leaving the EU. Jo Johnson MP said that he is working closely with Brussels, and is grateful to the commitment of his European counterparts that the UK will not be discriminated against. Justine Greening, the new Secretary of State for Education confirmed that the new UK Research and Innovation body (UKRI), which will see the research councils being grouped together, is critical in providing a unified voice to represent the interests of research and innovation when negotiating our new relationship with the EU.

The Higher Education and Research Bill has also prompted concerns around Innovate UK, with the Bill controversially proposing it is included in the new UKRI. This change has not gone unnoticed and the The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee recently ran an inquiry into the implications. The committee has informed the government that the plans to incorporate Innovate UK into UKRI are “wrong and endanger its important business-facing focus.” The inquiry argues that innovation is not a linear process and merging Innovate UK with UKRI runs the risk of linking innovation with science and research too formally. The inquiry is currently waiting for a reply from the Universities and Science Minister, Jo Johnson MP.

In addition, the outcome of Lord Stern’s review of the REF has been published. The report sets out 12 recommendations for the REF, but broadly supports the REF as a way to deliver quality-related research funding. You can view my previous blog post about this here.

Lord Stern’s REF Review- the outcome

The outcome of Lord Stern’s independent review of the REF has been published. You can view the report here. The recommendations from the report are as follows.

1.       All research active staff should be returned in the REF (and allocated to a unit of assessment).

2.       Outputs should be submitted at Unit of Assessment level with a set average number per FTE but with flexibility for some faculty members to submit more and others less than the average (this hopes to shift the spotlight from the individual to the Unit of Assessment).

3.       Outputs should not be portable (to encourage a long- term approach to investment).

4.       Panels should continue to assess on the basis of peer review. However, metrics should be provided to support panel members in their assessment, and panels should be transparent about their use.

5.       Institutions should be given more flexibility to showcase their interdisciplinary and collaborative impacts by submitting ‘institutional’ level impact case studies, part of a new institutional level assessment(for a more strategic approach).

6.       Impact should be based on research of demonstrable quality. However, case studies could be linked to a research activity and a body of work as well as to a broad range of research outputs.

7.       Guidance on the REF should make it clear that impact case studies should not be narrowly interpreted, need not solely focus on socioeconomic impacts but should also include impact on government policy, on public engagement and understanding, on cultural life, on academic impacts outside the field, and impacts on teaching (the report recommends that research leading to impact on curricula and/ or pedagogy should be included).

8.       A new, institutional level Environment assessment should include an account of the institution’s future research environment strategy, a statement of how it supports high quality research and research-related activities, including its support for interdisciplinary and cross-institutional initiatives and impact. It should form part of the institutional assessment and should be assessed by a specialist, cross-disciplinary panel. (Institutional-level environment statement will allow for a more holistic view of the HEI).

9.       That individual Unit of Assessment environment statements are condensed, made complementary to the institutional level environment statement and include those key metrics on research intensity specific to the Unit of Assessment.

10.   Where possible, REF data and metrics should be open, standardised and combinable with other research funders’ data collection processes in order to streamline data collection requirements and reduce the cost of compiling and submitting information (to reduce burden and improve transparency).

11.   That Government, and UKRI, could make more strategic use of REF, to better understand the health of the UK research base, our research resources and areas of high potential for future development, and to build the case for strong investment in research in the UK (to help with the UKRI’s aim of being the strategic voice for research in the UK).

12.   Government should ensure that there is no increased administrative burden to Higher Education Institutions from interactions between the TEF and REF, and that they together strengthen the vital relationship between teaching and research in HEIs (the report notes that successful institutions do not separate teaching and research missions, a common dataset that can describe university research and teaching staff is recommended).

Making the Most of Writing Week Part 7: BUCRU – not just for Writing Week!

We’re coming to the end of Writing Week in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and by now you will have made a good start or have put the finishing touches to your academic writing projects. Over the last week, we have given you some tips on writing grant applications and highlighted some of the expertise within BUCRU. If you didn’t get the chance to pop in and see us we thought it would be useful to remind you what we’re about and how we can help.

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across the University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. We do this by:

  • Helping researchers develop high quality applications for external research funding (including small grants)
  • Ongoing involvement in funded research projects
  • A “pay-as-you-go” consultation service for other work.

How can we help?

BUCRU can provide help in the following areas:

  • Study design
  • Quantitative and qualitative research methods
  • Statistics, data management and data analysis
  • Patient and public involvement in research
  • Trial management
  • Ethics, governance and other regulatory issues
  • Linking University and NHS researchers

Our support is available to Bournemouth University staff and people working locally in the NHS, and depending on the support you require, is mostly free of charge. There are no general restrictions on topic area or professional background of the researcher.

If you would like support in developing your research please get in touch through bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or by calling us on 01202 961939. Please see our website for further information, details of our current and previous projects and a link to our recent newsletter.

Research in the news: one hour of activity needed to offset harmful effects of sitting at a desk

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BU’s Dr Erika Borkoles has provided expert assessment of research recently published in the Lancet, exploring the links between a sedentary lifestyle and moderate exercise.  This has been widely picked up by the media, including the New Scientist and the Guardian.  Below, she explains the research and its significance.

 

Many scientist in the field of sport, exercise and physical activity have been frustrated for years about why people don’t exercise, play sport, or enjoy daily physical activity, such as moderate intensity walking, even though those who are regularly active they feel the physical, social, and mental benefits.

One of the main problems was providing strong scientific evidence base for showing health benefits of being active. Research has been fraught with trying to work out, the frequency, intensity, lengths of time and the type of activity, whether it is aerobic, strengths based or a combination of the two. Then there was the issue of how the activity of daily living contributes to the structured physical activity’s effect on health.

More recently, research has shown that sedentariness is a separate consideration from being physical active. Sedentariness is now associated with sitting time, and prolonged sitting has been deemed to have significant health risk regardless of physical activity pattern.

The scientific data available is still contradictory, but the recent harmonised meta-analysis by Professor Ulf Ekelund and his colleagues published in the Lancet is providing a reasonably robust evidence that moderate physical activity of 60-75 minutes a day, every day can significantly reduce all-cause mortality risks. The unique point of this meta-analysis is that the authors acknowledge that sedentariness and being active co-exists in one’s life. It might be that someone has a very sedentary job (e.g. truck driver who will perhaps sit more than 8 hours a day) but if they can fit in regularly moderate intensity activity, their risk of dying is significantly reduced.

Interestingly, when the data was scrutinised, those who watched TV for 3 hours a day or more, being active only provided health benefits in the highest activity bands. If TV viewing exceeded more than 5 hours per day, moderate physical activity was not protective.

The good news is that Ekelund et al’s research is providing reasonable scientific evidence for being active is something we should all practice and would benefit from. The main message is from current research findings are: if you job requires prolonged sitting, try to break it up at least once an hour by walking about, making a cup of tea or walk outside for a couple of minutes, but also continue to build in at least 60 minutes of daily moderate activity in your life.

Dr Borkoles provided expert assessment of the Eklund et al’s research, which can be read here.

Nominations for the 2016 John Maddox Prize and London Media Workshop

2016 John Maddox Prize for Standing up for Science
Nominations for the 2016 John Maddox Prize close on Monday, 1st August. 

Now in its fifth year, the prize recognises the work of an individual anywhere in the world who promotes sound science and evidence on a matter of public interest, facing difficulty or hostility in doing so. Details on how to nominate are online here: bit.ly/Maddox2016

The prize is a joint initiative of Nature, where Sir John was editor for 22 years; the Kohn Foundation, whose founder Sir Ralph Kohn was a personal friend of Sir John’s, particularly through their Fellowship of the Royal Society; and Sense About Science, where Sir John served as a trustee until his death in 2009. A passionate and tireless communicator and defender of science, Maddox engaged with difficult debates, inspiring others to do the same. As a writer and editor, he changed attitudes and perceptions, and strove for better understanding and appreciation of science throughout his long working life.

London media workshop

I also wanted to send a reminder that applications for the next Standing up for Science media workshop are now open. The workshop will be at the Francis Crick Institute, central London on Friday 16th September. This full day event is free and for early career researchers and scientists in all sciences, engineering and medicine (PhD students, post-docs or equivalent in first job). Here is the flyer and application form

 

Making the Most of Writing Week Part 6: What to do with your data

You don’t have to spend Writing Week working on grant applications. You may already have a dataset and now you finally have some time to do something with it. But where to start? It’s often a good idea to go back to your original research questions/aims/objectives. As we said yesterday, a well thought out research question can help shape your analysis strategy.
Hopefully you will have a record of which variables you were measuring and how data were coded. Were any calculations performed using the raw data to create new variables? How were these done? This is all part of good data management. To find out more visit the information pages created by the Library and Learning Support Team.
Once you are reacquainted with your data, it’s often a good idea (in the case of quantitative data) to start plotting graphs to find out more. Always keep in mind the original aims of the study, it’s easy to wander down a path of distraction. If you are feeling confused by all of this or, have got yourself lost down a data track, the BUCRU team are at hand to help.
Peter Thomas is available on Tuesday and Wednesday while Sharon Docherty is available Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. Why not drop us an email or pop by to see us in R505?

Making the Most of Writing Week Part 5: Designing your study

So you have formed a strong team, chosen a funder and involved some service users to help develop a research idea with impact. What’s next?
Step 5 is designing your study. The heart of a good piece of research is a strong research question with clear aims and achievable objectives. Sounds easy, right? This is often one of the most difficult aspects of any research project. If you then add having to align your ideas with the priorities of your chosen funder, this task becomes a bit more difficult. However, it is worth the effort. Spending time putting together well constructed research questions will make designing the rest of the study much easier and will even help you formulate your data analysis strategy.
If all of this sounds a bit daunting, never fear because BUCRU are at hand to help. Did you know that some of the members of BUCRU form the Bournemouth branch of NIHR Research Design Service (RDS)? The RDS is here to advise and provide practical support for anyone developing a research grant application to a national, peer reviewed funding competition in the fields of applied health or social care. You can find the Bournemouth team in Royal London House.
If you need help with the design of your study (particularly if it is quantitative) Peter Thomas is available on Tuesday and Wednesday while Sharon Docherty is available Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. Why not drop us an email or pop by to see us in R505?

Making the Most of Writing Week Part 4: Research grant applications – not THAT PPI

With the start of FHSS writing week, we are continuing our series of blogs providing you with some (hopefully) useful advice on how to make the best of this dedicated time. Remember, there are members of the BUCRU team available during this week to help you (i.e. anyone interested in health research) along the way.

Once you have decided on a funder, an important (but sometimes overlooked) aspect of working up a grant application is the planning and documenting of the involvement of service users/patients/relevant groups or organisations (Public Patient Involvement or PPI) ie the people most likely to have a vested interest in the research you are intending to do. Indeed, many major national funders, including the NIHR, require detailed evidence of how service users have been involved. But do you know who to approach? When? How? What can service users be involved with? What can they add? Sometimes it’s relatively straightforward to identify appropriate individuals and organisations. Other occasions can call for more creativity. Hot tip: everything takes longer to arrange than you might think. Allow a minimum of 6 weeks to plan, consult service users and feedback from the PPI consultation to your colleagues.

If you’d like some advice about planning PPI and conducting service user consultations for a project Helen Allen (helena@bournemouth.ac.uk) will be pleased to advise you. Helen is available on Tuesday 26th.

Research Data Management and you!

Research Data Management is a hot topic, especially when applying for grants. We all have our own strategies for managing our data as a product of research. Sometimes data management is in the form of a box or filing cabinet in a locked office, an external hard drive, purchased cloud storage or a hard drive. Whilst this approach is comfortable and familiar, it’s unlikely to comply with funder requirements neither currently nor in the future.

The Library has a created a guide that will help with navigating the diverse requirements of grant funding councils, writing data management plans and all its intricacies. The guide, ‘Research Data Management’ is available here .

We welcome your feedback about this resource, please contact rdm@bournemouth.ac.uk.

There is also a very informative youtube video Data Sharing and Management posted by NYU Health Sciences Library.

Midwifery-led antenatal care models

BU academics in CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinal Health) have been working with colleagues across the UK in the so-called McTempo Collaboration on mapping the key characteristics of midwifery-led antenatal care models. This week BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth published our paper that brings this evidence together [1].  The lead author of the paper, Dr. Andrew Symon, is based at the University of Dundee his co-authors are based at the University of Stirling, UCLAN, Queen’s University, Belfast, NHS Education for Scotland and Bournemouth University.  The McTempo (Models of Care: The Effects on Maternal and Perinatal Outcomes) collaboration is a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research grouping established to explore and evaluate differentcare models used in maternity care.

Symon et al 2016 frameworkOur specific aim in this paper was to map the characteristics of antenatal care models tested in Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to a new evidence-based framework for quality maternal and newborn care (QMNC) [2]. This offers the opportunity to identify systematically the characteristics of care delivery that may be generalizable across contexts, thereby enhancing implementation.  The paper concludes: “The QMNC framework facilitates assessment of the characteristics of antenatal care models. It is vital tounderstand all the characteristics of multi-faceted interventions such as care models; not only what is done but why itis done, by whom, and how this differed from the standard care package. By applying the QMNC framework we have established a foundation for future reports of intervention studies so that the characteristics of individual models can be evaluated, and the impact of any differences appraised.”

The paper has been published in an Open Access journal and is, therefore, easily available across the globe.

 

References:

  1. Symon, A., Pringle, J., Cheyne, H., Downe, S., Hundley, V., Lee, E., Lynn, F., McFadden, A., McNeill, J., Renfrew, M., Ross-Davie, M., van Teijlingen, E., Whitford, H, Alderdice, F. (2016) Midwifery-led antenatal care models: Mapping a systematic review to an evidence-based quality framework to identify key components and characteristics of care BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 168 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/16/168
  2. Renfrew MJ, McFadden A, Bastos MH, Campbell J, Channon AA, Cheung NF, Audebert Delage Silva DR, Downe S, Kennedy HP, Malata A, et al. (2014) Midwifery and quality care: findings from a new evidence-informed framework for maternal and newborn care. The Lancet, 384(9948): 1129-1145.

Working with Students’ Unions for Widening Participation

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The Fair Access Research project is having a busy summer! Hot on the heals of the powerful workshop Visible Students/Invisible Needs, we’ve been working with SUBU on the Partnerships for Widening Participation project.

This week we filmed some video clips with our new full-time officers and colleagues from across the university. Next week we’ve invited experts from the HE sector to come and participate in a workshop exploring why working with Students’ Unions matters for widening participation.

We are trying to nurture a culture of solidarity, trust and care to help transform what higher education looks like. 

invisible students

We want to explore how the sector is working and learning together for widening participation research, policy and practice. We’ve designed a survey to find out how the policies and ideas of widening participation are being learnt and lived in different organisations.

Feel free to share this survey with colleagues working in all areas of higher education. If you want to know more about the survey, get in touch with Maggie  or Alex.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the Fair Access Research project through the year.

For more information about the Fair Access Research project please email the Principle Investigators, Dr Vanessa Heaslip and Dr Clive Hunt.

 

 

IFOMPT 2016

ifmopt-2016

I was delighted to present this month at a large international conference, IFOMPT 2016, in Glasgow. The International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) is an international body composed of many national groups specialising in post-graduate musculoskeletal physiotherapy. This is the first time the IFOMPT Conference, which is held every four years, has been hosted in the UK since 1988. This conference presented an ideal opportunity to promote the reputation of BU, the new Orthopaedic Research Institute, and AECC (where the research was undertaken).
I gave a poster presentation on work related to my PhD research into the mechanism of spinal manipulation in the treatment of neck pain. I was really pleased that there was a good bit of interest in the poster and I made useful contacts in Japan, China, USA – and Bournemouth! I was able to tempt some people I admire to my poster by posting the picture below on Twitter and sending to the Twitterati I knew were at the conference – social media works (I was not begging for attention, honest).

Come and see my poster!

Come and see my poster!

The other cool bit of technology I used for the first time at this conference was the conference app – no conference abstract booklet to have to carry around in a tacky conference bag for a couple of days.

Is a paper copy of conference proceedings now a thing of the past?

Is a paper copy of conference proceedings now a thing of the past?

The app had everything – the full itinerary, abstracts (including those of the 190 posters), and there were biographies and contact details for all the speakers and most of the delegates too. Networking can be exhausting and intimidating – this enabled me to contact people directly whom I wanted to discuss my research with and contributed to an excellent conference experience.
If you’d like to know more about the conference, or my research into the mechanism of spinal manipulation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. (You can get a copy of my poster by clicking here).

Dr Jonny Branney
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences
jbranney@bournemouth.ac.uk

Public engagement opportunity for conservation researchers

Public engagement opportunity for academics and PGRS!

On September 14th we are running a lecture day in the EBC with a conservation theme, open to the public and members of the U3a (University of the 3rd Age). We are looking for speakers to present an hour long lecture. It’s a brilliant opportunity to share your research/area of expertise to the public and can open some thought provoking discussion.

If you’re interested in being a part of the lecture day, please contact Katie Breadmore: kbreadmore@bournemouth.ac.uk/61356

Call For Contributions: Engage 2016

Engage is the NCCPE’s annual conference, held in Bristol each year and providing an opportunity for all those interested in HEI public engagement to come together, to be inspired, challenged and refreshed.

Engage 2016 will be taking place on the 29th & 30th November, and they are now inviting expressions of interest from anyone who would like to make a contribution to the programme.

Featuring the finalists for this year’s Engage competition, the conference will celebrate the diversity of engaged practice across the UK. The conference will provide an opportunity both to take stock and to move forwards with our engagement work. Encouraging new ways of thinking about engagement and how to support it, the conference will provide stimulation and challenge, inspiring us to develop quality practice. What are the opportunities and challenges going forward? How can we draw on expertise inside and outside the sector to inform our thinking and our approach?

The NCCPE are looking for workshops, interactive experiences, dialogue events, performances, and conversations that catalyse new ways of thinking.

Contributions can be formatted as either a 1 hour workshop or a 10 minute interactive contribution, and must contribute to one or more of the following themes:

  • Culture change: creating a culture where engagement is valued and supported
  • Effective practice: sharing insights into high quality engagement practice
  • Engaged research: creating impactful research
  • Engaged students: the role of engagement within teaching and learning
  • New ideas: taking our thinking forward about the role of engagement within higher education

For more details, and to submit a session proposal, please see their website. The deadline for submissions is 13th September.

For more information, please contact Naomi Kay – nkay@bournemouth.ac.uk

Making the Most of Writing Week Part 3: Research grant applications – choosing a funder

Since next week (25-29 July) is Writing Week in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (but anyone interested in health research can come and see us), we’ll be giving you some tips on ways to make the most of the dedicated writing time as well as letting you know which members of the BU Clinical Research Unit team can help you and when they are available (see table below).

availability

In yesterday’s post we covered how we can help you build a research team. Step 3 focuses on choosing a suitable funder for your research project. You may be an established researcher with several grants already under your belt and a fair idea about the funders that are appropriate for your area of research. Whatever stage you’re at it’s important to target the right funder. Ensure your research idea fits with the funder’s strategic aims and priorities. Do they fund solely quantitative research, or do they prefer a mixed-methods approach? Do they have open investigator-led calls or commissioned calls only? Although it’s not all about the money, ensure the funder has a sufficient funding limit for your project – an under-costed project will be obvious to a funder and is unlikely to be successful.

If you’re not sure where to start Lisa Gale-Andrews (lgaleandrews@bournemouth.ac.uk) can help identify suitable health research funders for your project. She will be available all day Monday-Thursday during Writing Week if you’d like to pop in (R506).

There’s more to come on grant applications over the next few days including research design, and the importance of patient and public involvement (PPI).