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Open Call for HEIF Knowledge Exchange Project Applications 2024

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) February 2024 Open Call

HEIF funding is now available for innovative Knowledge Exchange projects.

Research England provide universities with funding for knowledge exchange (Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)) to enable them to support and develop a broad range of knowledge-based interactions and work with business, public and third sector organisations, community bodies and the wider public, to exchange knowledge and increase the economic and societal benefit from their work.

The primary purpose of the funding is to support a small number of projects which can include:

  • significant projects that are underway and require a further injection of funds;
  • existing knowledge exchange projects to develop these ideas to the next stage of development;
  • projects with ambition that require a seed funding, capacity building, proof-of-concept or launchpad (please note that follow-up funding to support further development of your successfully funded HEIF-projects will be available to apply for in the 2024-25 academic cycle; we encourage applications for this call as an opportunity to kick-start your work).

The HEIF FEBRUARY 2024 OPEN CALL fund supports the ambition of the UK Government’s Plan for Growth to support and incentivise creative ideas and technologies that will shape the UK’s future. Further developing BU’s work in this area will also enable us to support UKRI’s aims to support cooperation and collaboration, as well as developing our academic talent. The aim is to provide a platform for academics to take their knowledge exchange ideas to the next stage of development or to completion.

If you would like to discuss your application or your project’s eligibility, there will be a drop in session on Thursday 29th between 1pm – 2.30pm in the Reception Area of Dorset House (BUBS). Or you can contact Dr Wendelin Morrison, the Knowledge Exchange Manager by email wsmorrison@bournemouth.ac.uk

Key details

Amount: This year, £50000 of BU’s HEIF grant will be allocated through this open call, to support up to 6 knowledge exchange and innovation projects.

Timeframe: Projects should span a maximum of 4 months. The funds awarded must be spent by 31 July 2024.

Closing date: Friday, 8 March 2024

The link to the Guidance and Application form is below – please ensure you DOWNLOAD a copy to your own computer and do not edit directly on the SharePoint: HEIF February 2024 Open Call.docx

The Friday Prof-ile: John McAlaney

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

John McAlaney

John McAlaney

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Psychology, John McAlaney…

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

My research looks at how and why people choose to engage in risky behaviours, with a focus on how this is influenced by social processes. As part of this I do work on a range of topics including hacking, digital addiction, fake news and online gambling.

More broadly I am interested in how to challenge misperceptions that people have about those around them.

Often as humans we assume that our peers behave and think is much more negative way than is actually the case. By documenting these misperceptions and presenting them back to a target population you empower people to make informed decisions, which is known as the social norms approach.

I am drawn to this approach because, unlike some other behaviour change approaches, it does not dictate to people how they should behave.

What has been your career highlight to date?  

Being invited to 10 Downing Street in 2012 to talk about how we can use technology to implement the social norms approach and to counter harmful stereotypes about young people.

What are you working on at the moment?  

The biggest project I am involved in at the moment is a GambleAware funded project on behaviour change and transparency in online gambling. As part of this work I have recently been the academic lead on BU’s successful application to be included on the Gambling Commission’s Research, Education and Treatment (RET) list. We are the first university in the UK to be included on this list, and only the second in the world. Our inclusion on this list opens up many opportunities for us to continue research into ways to address the harms caused by problematic gambling.

I am also working on several projects relating to cybersecurity. This work is the basis of my ongoing participant as an academic expert in the UN Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I’ve always been interested in architecture, although I have terrible design skills. If that didn’t work out for me then I’d probably become a dog walker.

What do you do to unwind? 

Reading is something I find very relaxing – I would like to claim that I only reads the classics, but usually the more stressful a day I have the trashier my choice of book.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

I’m lucky to live within walking distance of the beach, which is great. I think I would struggle to live anywhere other than the coast now. Being from Scotland I still find the weather of the south coast to be a nice change.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

As someone who loves going to new places but dislikes the act of travel I would definitely choose teleportation.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

It would have to be my Kindle. I could happily pass the years by sitting, reading under a palm tree.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Very few things in life actually matter that much. That probably sounds quite nihilistic, but it an idea I increasingly embrace as I get older. Most of the dramas we have in our lives are things we won’t even remember in 10 years. Sometimes you are ahead, sometimes you are behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. Also, wear sunscreen.

The Friday Prof-ile: John Oliver

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.

A headshot image of Professor John Oliver

John Oliver

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Media Management, John Oliver…

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?

My current research has examined the hidden effects of crisis events on organisational innovation and performance. It’s been very successful in terms of businesses engaging with the findings and it has influenced the UK Government’s new Innovation Strategy (2021).

Why this topic? Well, my research has taken a highly original and perhaps unusual approach to the topic. Doing something new is what keeps me motivated!

What has been your career highlight to date?

Developing my current research idea on the hidden effects of a crisis on firm innovation and performance been a struggle because its based on a truly original approach. That has meant a lot of critical feedback and even derision from many circles. So, to have the research inform the UK Government’s new Innovation Strategy has been pleasing to say the least.

What are you working on at the moment? 

A lot! But, an ESRC grant and publications on business innovation in a post-pandemic environment.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

Management Consultant

What do you do to unwind?

Surfing, skateboarding, yoga and the gym

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?

The beach

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why? 

Time travel – how cool would that be?!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?

A surfboard

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Never, ever give in.

The Friday Prof-ile: Roman Gerodimos

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

A photo of Roman Gerodimos

Roman Gerodimos

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Global Current Affairs, Roman Gerodimos… 

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas? 

I’m interested in the relationship between the individual citizen and the world at large: the things that motivate us to engage with others, with politics, with global affairs, and the things that stop us from doing so: fear, disappointment, cynicism, apathy. I’ve been an avid consumer of politics and world news since I can remember myself and for a long time just assumed that everyone else would be, too. We know, of course, that that’s not true. Ironically though it is now perhaps more important than ever that people engage with politics and global issues; that we assume our share of responsibility for the future of the planet, and that we put themselves forward to lead.

Identifying those factors that can motivate us to engage – whether that is through psychology or a better understanding of history or communication and media or art or even user-oriented design – is key to finding and implementing solutions.

What has been your career highlight to date? 

I have several highlights, but if forced to choose I would pick two. One would be producing Deterrence – a feature-length documentary on European security and the past, present and future of NATO that we co-created with staff and students at BU. I’m very proud of our work. It was a very intense but unique experience, we got to cover a major NATO summit from the front row (quite literally), and I loved every minute of the creative and filmmaking process.

My other top highlight would be organising Human Library workshops at the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change – an annual summer school that BU co-founded back in 2007, which brings together students, faculty and leaders from all over the world. Creating a space with the simplest ingredients in which a hundred people, over the course of an evening, have some of the most meaningful, personal discussions of their lives is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

What are you working on at the moment? 

I’m just about to complete an edited volume on the relationship between shame and violence (Interdisciplinary Applications of Shame/Violence Theory: Breaking the Cycle, Palgrave Macmillan), which brings together brilliant contributors from different countries and disciplines so as to find innovative ways of breaking that cycle.

I’m also working on my next film project called A Probable Outcome – a meditation on fate, love, otherness and persistence – and on the associated research project on ‘Black women, dwarfs and other misfits of the Old West’ that is informing the script.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

For some reason most of my friends are architects – I seem to be collecting them – so maybe life is trying to tell me something!

However, if I weren’t an academic, I would probably be working as a full-time professional scriptwriter or filmmaker or composer for the screen. I love great writing, films and music, so it would be something creative.

I have to say, though, one of the privileges of working at the Faculty of Media & Communication is being able to develop my creative skills and my media and storytelling practice while being an academic. Not many universities give academics that kind of space and freedom, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck around for 20 years.

What do you do to unwind?

To misquote Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, ‘what is “unwind”‘? I’m joking, of course. I do unwind – I read a lot, I walk, and I love travelling and photography.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?

I think it is the university, actually. During the last couple of decades, I have seen how BU – through our diverse student population, our iconic new buildings across both campuses, and crucially our engagement with local businesses, charities and communities – has helped the town modernise and grow.

I think BU can play a leading role in providing space, convening capacity and creative input to nourish Bournemouth’s cultural life – working with artists to put together or support festivals and events, such as the Arts by the Sea festival.

BU is at the heart of a conurbation of three towns – Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch – with hundreds of thousands of residents, including children, students, and professionals. There is definitely the market and the demand for more culture and BU can help provide that.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why? 

My recent research has shown me the literally ubiquitous role of shame in driving negative emotions, such as anger, and violent aggression, including against the self. I’d like my superpower to be the ability to heal people: to make them aware of their own trauma and insecurity, and how that is driving their negative feelings about others and themselves, and how they can gain self-esteem and a sense of responsibility about others and about the world.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?

A typewriter. I love writing – no, let me rephrase: I couldn’t live without writing, it’s like therapy for me. The added bonus of a typewriter is that I wouldn’t have any distractions, so I could finally write a proper monograph.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I don’t have major regrets – I’ve always followed my heart and my gut instinct, so I wouldn’t change anything, at least career-wise. But I think we can always, always be better listeners, so I would advise me to be a better listener of the things not said – the omissions, the pauses – and a better observer of the things not seen. These can be as revealing as the things that are said and seen.

The Friday Prof-ile: Christa Van Raalte

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Film and Television, Christa Van Raalte… 

Headshot of Christa Van Raalte

Christa Van Raalte

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas? 

I have two distinct areas of research interest. I’m interested in strategies of narrative and representation in film and television texts – particularly, though not exclusively, the representation of women in popular action genres. For me analysing these texts is a kind of cultural archaeology, helping us understand something about the culture that has produced them – and is, in turn, informed by them.

I’m also interested in working conditions in the film and television industries, a more recent development that springs directly from involvement with students who are ambitious to work in those industries and graduates who find themselves facing unexpected challenges.

What has been your career highlight to date?  

Seeing work published in two leading journals and an important new book series as well as two well-received industry reports all within a few months – the cumulation, of course, of work over the past three years.

What are you working on at the moment?  

An article on bullying as a systemic issue in the U.K. television industry, a book chapter on the return of a septuagenarian Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate, and an AHRC funding bid…

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

Probably running a regional theatre

What do you do to unwind? 

Garden and walk.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

Our vibrant research culture and enthusiastic students

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

The ability to clone myself so I can do three jobs at once – because there is never enough time!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

A giant box of teabags – I can’t function without tea.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man (Sarah Hagi)

The Friday Prof-ile: Richard Paul

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Richard Paul… 

Headshot of Richard Paul

Richard Paul

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

I’m a bioanalytical chemist and my particular focus is the study of biomarkers for forensic and medical applications. Essentially, I apply chemistry and instrumentation to solve problems. What I love most about this discipline of chemistry is the variety. I could be developing techniques for forensic casework, searching for traces of drugs in the environment, or using chemistry to contribute to the early detection of cancer – it can be very diverse!

What has been your career highlight to date?  

A couple of years ago I was asked to design and implement an analytical protocol that would be capable of detecting traces of psychoactive drug fumes in indoor air in UK prisons.

There have been increasing complaints from staff working in prisons of secondary exposure to psychoactive drug fumes, and our work is contributing to the evidence base on this issue.  The technical challenges the research presents are very significant. Drug fumes from smoking are diluted within the air of a large building, and so are at very low concentrations. There are also issues of thermal degradation, and complicated logistics of deploying the technology within prisons that have made the project exceptionally challenging.

Working with the various organisations involved on this complex, high pressure commission has been very rewarding.

What are you working on at the moment?  

I lead a project researching skin cancer metabolomics. We’ve developed a non-invasive technique to capture and identify volatile chemicals released from skin cancer sites. We’ve just completed a trial to assess the viability of the technique on cancer patients, and are now wading through the results. Developing and testing the technique was tricky, but the results are quite exciting. We’re seeing a lot of interesting biomarkers, some of which could be quite significant.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I’d probably be an analytical chemist working in industry, but really nothing motivates me more than the variety and opportunities of the job as an academic.

What do you do to unwind? 

I’m fairly obsessed with guitars so if I’m not playing guitar, I’m reading about guitars. Music in general is important to me.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

If we’re talking about the town, then I’d say the beach. I’m not a local, so it still feels like a holiday destination sometimes! In terms of the university itself, I’d say the culture here and my colleagues across the faculty.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

The ability to control time and space. Surely the most useful on the superpower wish list!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

A 1959 Les Paul and a Marshall stack, plus some kind of everlasting power supply.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

When opportunities present themselves, say yes.

The Friday Prof-ile: Janice Denegri-Knott

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Consumer Culture & Behaviour, Janice Denegri-Knott… 

Black and white profile image of Janice Denegri-Knott

Janice Denegri-Knott

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?

My main research focus is the intersection between digital media and everyday living – in particular consumption. I have studied the role of platforms in stimulating desire for digital and material goods, and the value that people derive from their ongoing interactions with digital media.  In particular, I have been very keen to understand why there should be demand for digital goods and why people would form attachments to them – something that when I first began my studies, was deemed unorthodox, and even foolish. Throughout my career I have been a keen observer of transformations (positive and negative) happening at the very porous, or leaky, points of that intersection, where people and digital media come together.

My initial interest in the area came about as a result of an animated seminar I held with C&J students back in the early 2000s where we avidly discussed why somebody would ever buy a virtual chair that they couldn’t physically sit on.  From there on the examples became more extreme. Today, we have grown more accustomed to the idea that under certain conditions (uniqueness and scarcity), a digital piece of art like Pak’s ‘The Merge’ could have a transactional value of $91.8 million, or why 30,000 people across the world would want to pitch in together to buy it. Evidence of this shift abounds. Today, we have a vibrant market for Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) which have become very desirable investments. Just in the first four months of 2021 NFTs had been traded over 2 billion times, an increase of ten-fold from 2020.

What has been your career highlight to date?  

I am immensely proud of the many projects that I have carried out over the years in close collaboration with colleagues in the C&J Department in the Faculty of Media and Communication – Dr. Rebecca Jenkins, Dr. Chris Miles, Dr. Mel Gray, Dr. Sae Oshima and Stuart Armon.  We have delivered high impact research, supporting positive transformation in the promotion and media industries. In particular in areas to do with the monetisation of digital content (for ITV), and metrics to measure advertising effectiveness and rethinking recall and recognition as measures of attention. Of note is work undertaken for Exterion Media (now Global) and Transport for London (TfL) that helped Exterion Media secure a £2,000,000,000 contract to manage the TfL advertising estate, improved advertising effectiveness by format, location and time by 70%-80% and making advertising during travel journeys more relevant and enjoyable for 1,300,000,000 TfL users annually.

What are you working on at the moment?  

Right now I am working on two projects.  I am writing a couple of papers reporting findings from a British Academy/Leverhulme funded intergenerational study into the value parents, children and their grandparents ascribe to their digital possessions. Thanks to this study we have found that value is not wedded to meaning only – in terms of sentimental associations that remind people of loved ones or expresses aspects of their identity- as is the case for material possessions.  Value is also firmly rooted in affordances – what people anticipate their digital possession will enable them to achieve.  I am also working with a key player in the NFT market on a study of people’s desire for and attachment to NFTs across a diverse group of users.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I would be working with food – possibly running a Peruvian restaurant with the help of my husband and daughters.

What do you do to unwind? 

Long walks, meditation, long distance calls with family and impromptu dances in my kitchen with my daughters.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

Tele-transportation, so that I could beam myself to Peru and back (where my parents and family live)

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

My silk kaftan.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

To be less concerned in anticipating all that can be wrong with your research, and focus more on all that is good.

The Friday Prof-ile: Hywel Dix

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

Hywel Dix sat in an armchair

Hywel Dix

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in English, Hywel Dix… 

  • What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

Since an early age I have been interested in the relationship between literature, culture and political change in contemporary Britain, and this is the main focus of my work. I have published on this topic very extensively, most notably in Postmodern Fiction and the Break-Up of Britain (2010), After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-Up of Britain (Second Edition, 2013) and Multicultural Narratives: Traces and Perspectives, co-edited with Mustafa Kirca (2018)My broader research interests include modern and contemporary literature, critical cultural theory, authorial careers and autofiction. My monograph about literary careers entitled The Late-Career Novelist was published by Bloomsbury in 2017 and an edited collection of essays on Autofiction in English was published by Palgrave in 2018.

  • What has been your career highlight to date?  

Being invited to give the keynote address at the annual conference of France’s Société d’Etudes Anglaises Contemporaines, Paris Diderot University, in 2013. This might have been trumped by my invitation to give the keynote at a conference on Paulo Freire and Raymond Williams Centenary: Sparks of Transformation, held by UNICAMP, Sao Paulo in Brazil in 2021 – but this could only be given online due to the pandemic, so it was a bit less glamorous.

  • What are you working on at the moment?  

I recently completed a study entitled Compatriots or Competitors? Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish Writing and Brexit in Comparative Contexts for publication this yearI am currently working on a project about autofiction and cultural memory.

  • If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

Before working at Bournemouth University I was a Development Officer at Wales Millennium Centre, the largest theatre and arts centre in Britain outside London, and if I were not an academic I would probably still be working in arts development in some capacity. 

  • What do you do to unwind? 

The 3 Rs: reading, writing and running. A number of BU colleagues sponsored me in the London Marathon in 2018.

  • What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

Before I was interviewed at the university, I had never been to Bournemouth in my life and was as guilty as anyone of holding the stereotyped view of it as a place of retirement. The university has really helped change that image and made the population here much more diverse.

  • If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

I don’t really get the super hero genre. There’s no replacement for working hard. I wouldn’t mind being able to run a bit faster though.

  • If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

My collection of football memorabilia of the past 100 years or so – but it might need dust covers.

  • What advice would you give to your younger self? 

I was very serious and introverted when I was younger and would probably say: lighten up. 

The Friday Prof-ile: Fiona Coward

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Archaeological Sciences, Fiona Coward… 

Fiona Coward looking at the head of a dinosaur model

Fiona Coward

  • What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?

I’m interested in how humans evolved – not just our physiologies, but also our brains and behaviour. In particular, I’m interested in how human social lives have evolved; all primates and especially Great Apes, our closest living relatives, are highly social animals, but human social lives are global in scale, and I study how the way our ancestors made a living have shaped our sociality and cognition. I’m particularly interested in the role material culture – aka stuff, or objects – plays in this process. Are practices such as crafting, technology, trade, exchange and gifting a key part of what makes us human?

  • What has been your career highlight to date? 

Getting to walk casually through a door in the Natural History Museum marked ‘staff only’ and wander through the ‘backstage’ areas going through drawers!

  • What are you working on at the moment?

I’m looking at the origins of urban living. Humans as a species have been around for about 300,000 years and for most of that time we lived in very small groups that moved frequently across the landscape to find food by hunting and gathering. Why, then, in just the last 20,000 years or so (the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms!), have we suddenly become a majority urban, agricultural species? What were the implications of this change in lifeways for the wider ecosystem, and are there lessons we can learn from understanding how and why early villagers and farmers lived that might help mitigate our impact on the world today, and hence help us face the current climate crisis?

  • If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing? 

I would probably be a data analyst in the civil service – they offered me a job right after Bournemouth University did!

  • What do you do to unwind?

Reading, writing and watching fantasy and science fiction, and singing along (badly but loudly) to unfashionable music.

  • What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?

The seafront! Also, it’s a small, friendly community with lots of beautiful landscape easily accessible, but also in easy reach of bigger cities if required. Perfect!

  • If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why? 

An everlasting notebook and pen. OK, I cheated there a bit. If I’m not allowed to cheat, then a bar of Divine milk chocolate and gingerbread.

  • What advice would you give to your younger self? 

Not being a d**k does actually pay off!

The Friday Prof-ile: Tom Wainwright

Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Orthopaedics Tom Wainwright.

Tom Wainwright

Tom Wainwright

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

Primarily I am interested in helping to improve the treatment of patients with hip and knee arthritis. Firstly, looking at strategies and interventions that can help patients avoid the need for surgery, and then secondly, when surgery is indicated, looking at how surgical recovery can be optimised. Arthritis is a significant socioeconomic and health burden, and at a patient level can have a hugely detrimental effect on a patient’s quality of life and daily activities. It is therefore, in my opinion, both an interesting and important research topic.

What has been your career highlight to date? 

Being the lead author of the highly cited/downloaded ERAS Society international consensus guidelines for hip and knee replacement surgery. I was the first, and I am still, the only non-surgeon to ever lead the formation of an international ERAS Society guideline.

What are you working on at the moment? 

I am currently leading a number of externally-funded research studies. These include a trial of how best to provide physiotherapy for patients with hip arthritis, and two studies that will reveal brand new insights into the post-operative functional recovery trajectories of patients following hip and knee replacement.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I would probably be working clinically as a physiotherapist.

What do you do to unwind? 

Spend time doing activities outdoors with my family and friends. I like to run, bike, and spend time in the sea. I love to snowboard and surf, and play cricket and football. I also like to cook and travel.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

The beach and surrounding coastline and countryside. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful spot.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why? 

To be able to teleport! I could surf in Portugal before coming to work, and pop to Canada at the weekends to snowboard! It would also save on my carbon footprint and mean I don’t have to do any travel booking paperwork for work trips!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

A piano. I played as kid and would love to have the time to pick it up again and practice.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

Remember to be present, and enjoy the small moments.

The Friday Prof-ile: Sam Goodman

Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in English, Sam Goodman.

Sam Goodman

Sam Goodman

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?  

I have always been interested in Britishness and national identity, and this is the broad umbrella under which all my research has tended to take place, whether about twentieth-century and contemporary literature and culture, or the work I have done on alcohol, medicine, and colonial India.

I think I’ve always been interested in this subject because Britain has been in the midst of an identity crisis for what has seemed like the entirety of my adult life – this crisis has been going on since the end of the Second World War and the end of the British Empire but seemed to become acute from the 1990s onwards what with the nostalgia of ‘Cool Britannia’ and the growing popularity of historical fictions, the rebooting of so-called quintessentially British characters like James Bond, jubilees, the Olympics, and also the rhetoric leading up to Brexit. I suppose I’ve always been interested in (as Patrick Wright puts it) what it means to live in an old country, and how that affects the literature, culture and identities of the people within it.

What has been your career highlight to date?  

So many come to mind! In research terms, I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to go to conferences and visit archives in various parts of the world, and having the chance to read through Ian Fleming’s papers in the US, or J. G. Farrell’s manuscripts in Trinity College library, Dublin was really exciting. Appearing at the Hay Festival and all the work I have done with the BBC has definitely been a highlight too – especially attending the Leicester Square premiere of Spectre, even though I wasn’t allowed to talk about it for a week afterwards!

When it comes to teaching, it has to be the writing and development of the unit Media & Trauma with my colleague Ann Luce – working on this unit made me think differently not just about how I teach, but about how a trauma-informed approach to working with people and tackling challenging subjects makes such an enormous difference to student wellbeing and the campus community as well as society more widely.

What are you working on at the moment?  

As it happens, my latest book,  The Retrospective Raj: Medicine, Literature and History After Empire, was just published with Edinburgh University Press so I am at a point where I’m taking a (much-needed) breather and considering my next long term project. In the meantime, I’m editing a special issue for the Journal of the Social History of Medicine, I have just submitted a piece on colonial memoir to Literature & History, sent off a public-facing article for The Cats Protection magazine, and I am now working on an article on space and place in the novels of Graham Swift.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

Working with animals in some capacity. I always had notions of being a vet but was never good enough at science GCSE… I could definitely see myself working for a charity or for a foundation somewhere though.

What do you do to unwind? 

Anything that takes me away from looking at a screen! I’ve long been a runner, and like a lot of people I ran miles and miles in lockdown which was a great way to clear my head at the end of a working day, and meant I got to explore new places near me I’d never been to before. I’m also a drummer, much to the delight of my neighbours.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth? 

For me, it’s Charminster. I’ve always loved the international shops and restaurants of Charminster; I love to cook, so it’s a great place for ingredients and inspiration.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?  

Eidetic memory; it would make archival trips just so much easier…

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you? 

A cafetière and lifetime supply of dark roast; I’m approximately 70% coffee and wouldn’t survive without it.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Keep your vinyl; MiniDisc is a scam.

If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved. 

The Friday Prof-ile: Mel Hughes

Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Social Work, Mel Hughes.

Mel Hughes

Mel Hughes

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?   

As a social worker, I am interested in marginalised groups and communities currently under-served by health and social care research. My main interests in both education and research are in valuing the expertise of people with lived experience and using my platform as an educator and researcher to amplify these voices through co-produced and participatory methods.

What has been your career highlight to date?   

There are two that immediately come to mind. The first was seeing a copy in print (and on Amazon!) of the book I co-authored and edited with people with lived experience and social work colleagues on Statutory Social Work Interventions: The lived experience. It was a genuine collaboration, and it was exciting hearing from all the contributors as they received their copy in the post.

The second was receiving a phone call (whilst walking on the beach) from Advance HE to say I had been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. As an Associate Professor I am as passionate about education and the student experience as I am about professional practice and research. It felt like acknowledgment of my value as an educator.

What are you working on at the moment?   

I am co-authoring and editing a textbook on Social Exclusion in the UK: the lived experience and leading on a special issue of the British Journal of Social Work written by people with lived experience rather than about people with lived experience. I am also leading on an ESRC research bid on democratising public involvement in research, where we are seeking to build capacity of researchers to work alongside marginalised communities currently under-served by health and social care research.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing? 

I started my career as a social worker in substance use and mental health services. I would like to think I would still be in practice. I secretly crave the idea of being in the great outdoors on some sort of community project or farm.

What do you do to unwind?  

Walking, walking and walking (usually with a dog pulling me along)

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?  

The BU Social Work and PIER Partnership teams. I can honestly say I have never worked with a more supportive group of people.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?   

Invisibility. The quality that best combines the social work and academic role is curiosity (or being nosey). Oh to be a fly on the wall!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?  

A comfy bed.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

Stay true to your values.

If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved. 

The Friday Prof-ile: Bryce Dyer

Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

Bryce Dyer

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Product Development, Bryce Dyer 

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas? 

My research interest is the design or debate surrounding the technology we use for sport and physical activity. I love it as it bolts together my constant inquisitive inner dialogue and my hobbies.

What has been your career highlight to date? 

There have been a few, but winning and then giving the Brunel Award Lecture at the British Science Festival a few years ago was one that stood out for me. The talk brought together everything I’d done in teaching, research and my professional practice at that point in my career and I then had one of those great days where the talk went really well, I got a few laughs and I had a very large and positive crowd giving me a real grilling. It was a lot of fun.

What are you working on at the moment? 

I did a lot of research and projects on the run up to the 2021 Paralympic Games – I’m now writing them all up and publishing them all before my attention turns to seeking out new opportunities ahead of the next Olympic & Paralympic Games.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?

I would have pursued my ‘sliding doors’ decision of serving in the armed forces or have wanted to have been a professional athlete if I’d have been good enough. I was good enough to crawl through a ditch or go marching through the snow somewhere for hours on end but despite making a school team once for throwing the discus (due to what I still call one single ‘hand of god’ throw that could never be repeated), I never chose my parents well enough to have the physical capacity of being an Olympian.

What do you do to unwind?

Competitive sport and the training needed to then not come last doing it.

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?

The huge variety of terrain, geography, and landscapes within a small radius of the town.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why? 

Immortality. It’s always a struggle to have enough time to cram in everything I’m wanting to do. The list just keeps getting longer.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?

My MP3 player with an abundance of questionable choices of music on it (despite then having to come up with how I’m going to power it when the battery runs out).

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Just keep going – you’ll make all the right judgement calls in the end.

If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.