Category / Fusion

Student Research Opportunity

Fusion, international, Knowledge Exchange, Research Integritiy, Student Engagement, student research

As the new academic year begins, so does the recruitment process for a new cohort of Missing Persons Indicator Project researchers. This year, as well as recruiting law students to the project, we are presenting this opportunity to budding researchers across the university. Notably, a new collaboration between the FMC and BUBS has emerged, enhancing the interdisciplinary approach of the project.

 

In collaboration with the International Commission on Missing Persons, students have begun the process of collating indicators to capture the way States engage with, and seek to solve, missing persons cases. These indicators range from understanding contextual factors that could have contributed to a surge of missing persons cases, such as conflict or natural disasters, to international treaty ratification, to domestic legislation.

 

In light of recent headlines concerning conflicts across the globe, students have likely been exposed to stories that highlight the pressing issues of our time, such as missing persons. This voluntary research project offers them a unique opportunity to engage with work that has real-world significance, showing how research can extend beyond the university to make a meaningful impact.

 

Our expectations:

  • Dedicate approximately 8 hours a month to the project (flexible around university commitments).
  • Attend in-person meetings, skills workshops and data collating sessions.
  • Be keen to develop research skills.
  • Work respectfully within a diverse team.

 

 

Student experience:

  • Support into real-world research with lasting impact.
  • Assist in articulating the project into written form to enhance employability.
  • Optional research skills workshops.
  • Inter-disciplinary learning.
  • Feedback opportunities.
  • A well-stocked snack cupboard.

 

If you feel this opportunity would benefit students in your faculty, discipline, or program, please email indicators@bournemouth.ac.uk to request the necessary recruitment paperwork or to arrange a drop-in talk for your students.

 

Impact of virtual reality on the well-being and travel experiences of people affected by dementia

BU Challenges, Fusion, Fusion themes, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, REF Subjects, Student Engagement

I am undertaking a research placement as part of my studies on the MSc Foundations of Clinical Psychology. In my role as a research assistant, I have been working on a project that aimed to introduce the idea of travelling using Virtual Reality headsets for people with dementia and their caregivers/ family members. Virtual reality (VR) technology presents a promising means of bridging geographical divides and empowering individuals with dementia to participate in their communities in ways that were not possible prior to diagnosis. Additionally, research has demonstrated the value of virtual reality in helping people with dementia remember their past, revisit their hometown, or most treasured vacation spots. The purpose of this project is to evaluate how virtual reality can support people with dementia with travel and explore the impact on their wellbeing.

This is a collaborative pilot research study involving BU staff from the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) (Dr. Michelle Heward, Dr. Catherine Talbot, Dr. Michele Board, Dr Aisling Flynn, Lyndsey Bradley) and the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR) (Dr. Daisy Fan, Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis) alongside colleagues from PramaLife (Sue Warr and Jo Keats) and is funded with QR funding from the Department of Psychology. We collected data on campus, and I was able to support this and had an opportunity to engage with the participants. The participants were asked to come to 2 sessions. The first session consisted of a session in the Blended Learning Interactive Simulation Suite, also known as the BLISS room. In this room, the participants and their caregivers were given the chance to play interactive VR games of their choice on the walls or visit different parts of the UK, such as London and Oxford. The second session consisted of using the VR headsets, where the participants were able to use the headsets themselves, which allows them to virtually experience other parts of the world, by looking around and having access to a 360 view, of a location of their choosing, whether that be somewhere they had never been to or reminisce about places they have been.

Given this immense opportunity to relive and reminisce about their previous experiences around the world, and their respective homes, the reception was overall a positive one. The participants left feeling positive about having virtually visited places from their past and having engaged with places they have never been to or would like to go to in the future. They provided some useful insights and feedback to inform future research in this area. We now move towards analysing and publishing the data.

Roshin Sibu

For more information about this project please email Michelle mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk

Third INRC Symposium: Interdisciplinary Computational and Clinical Approaches at the Edge of Brain Research

Fusion, international, Knowledge Exchange, REF Subjects

Last month, we celebrated the third symposium of the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Centre at the Inspire Lecture Theatre, entitled “Interdisciplinary Computational and Clinical Approaches at the Edge of Brain Research”.

This year, our symposium revolved around two linking themes: applied machine learning for understanding neuroscientific data and translational neuroscience. We choose to contrast these two themes because they show the breadth of areas of the centre and steer the debate on potential synergies.

The event started with an exciting talk by Prof. Miguel Maravall (director of the Sussex Neuroscience Centre of Excellence, Sussex University).  Dr Maravall presented new experiments testing the idea that the function of the somatosensory cortex -beyond processing input information about an object’s features- represents the decision to act and even the outcomes of such actions. The recording of this lecture is available here.

Next, the first session concentrated on computational approaches. In this focused session, we enjoyed three talks. The opening talk by Michak Gnacek (Emteq Labs Emteq Labs, Brighton and Centre for Digital Entertainment, BU) showcased his appealing results on affect recognition in Virtual Reality leveraging multimodal physiological recordings and continual machine learning. The second speaker was Dr Géza Gergely Ambrus (Department of Psychology, BU). Dr Ambrus presented gripping new findings that extend the application of multivariate pattern analysis beyond face perception to other facial characteristics to explore underlying neural mechanisms. Finally, Dr Matteo Toscani (Department of Psychology, BU) discussed a series of intriguing studies over the recent years on unsupervised learning approaches -such as avant-grade deep autoencoders- for inferring haptic material properties.

After this first session, Prof. Jonathan Cole (University Hospital Dorset, NHS) opened the second session centred on clinical neuroscience. In his inspiring talk, Dr Cole discussed his research on patients with congenital and acquired complete absence of touch and movement/position, showing how the absence of these senses leads to different alterations in proprioception. Next, Prof. Caroline Edmonds (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of East London) presented a fascinating study on real-life implications of co-occurring memory impairments in children with neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. The study evaluated memory function in school-aged children with this condition who received hypothermia treatment and survived without extensive neuromotor impairment.

To conclude the symposium, Prof. Birgit Gurr (Community Brain Injury and Adult Neuropsychology Services Dorset at Dorset HealthCare University, NHS) and Dr Ellen Seiss (Department of Psychology, BU) introduced a compelling evaluation of the dynamic information processing programme, encompassing mental exercises fostering the recovery of patients from a stroke.

After the symposium, we visited the Multimodal Immersive Neuro-sensing lab for natural neuro-behavioural measurement (MINE), led by Dr Xun He.

All in the INRC would like to wholeheartedly thank the speaker and the attendees for the fascinating talks and exciting debates we had. If you are interested in getting in touch, contributing or joining the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Centre, please do not hesitate to contact Ellen Seiss (eseiss@bourenmouth.ac.uk) or Emili Balaguer-Ballester (eb-ballester@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Thank you again for your interest, and we are looking forward to seeing you in our upcoming activities.

Kind regards,

Ellen and Emili, on behalf of all of us at the INRC

 

WEDNESDAY 26th – DISCUSS, COLLABORATE & CONTEMPLATE  TO INNOVATE

Fusion, HEIF, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

NEED SOME TIME & SPACE TO

DISCUSS, COLLABORATE & CONTEMPLATE  TO INNOVATE? 

THE INNOVATION COMMON ROOM

is at Fusion again THIS WEEK – SAME TIME, SAME SPACE

Wednesday 26th June, 12.30 – 3.30, FG04

A RELAXED PLACE FOR RESEARCHERS TO

MEET, DISCUSS & MENTOR

over tea, coffee and biscuits

Academics can invite their Post-Graduate Students

This is the final Innovation Common Room for this academic year.

THE INNOVATION COMMON ROOM

will return in September for the 2024-25 year

Research Knowledge Exchange Culture: Making it Happen

Contact the BU Knowledge Exchange Manager, if you need to know more

wmorrison@bournemouth.ac.uk

New Nature paper by IMSET researchers

BRIAN, Fusion, open accecss, open access

An internationally significant and ground-breaking paper has appeared in the journal Nature, led by Dr Phil Riris of the Institute for the Modelling of Socio-Environmental Transitions.

The work investigates 30,000 years of population resilience, with contributions from collaborating scholars from 14 institutions in 7 countries. The paper marks a watershed in our understanding of how people in the past adapted to, and overcame, disturbances. It is available in open access.

A schematic diagram of disturbances and population responses

Left: A sketch of an archaeological population time series with downturns and metrics obtained during the analysis. Right: Example types and groups of disturbances noted in the literature.

The key finding of the paper is that land use – the kinds of subsistence practices, mobility regimes, and extent of infrastructure investments – enhanced both how often a population experienced downturns and their ability to recover from them. In particular, agricultural and agropastoral societies in prehistory were especially likely to suffer demographic busts. However, they also displayed an improved ability over time to “bounce back”.

This result has wide-ranging implications for the development of sustainable land use practices, as traditional lifeways may have intrinsic rates of failure “baked into” their function and operation. The paper speculates that, similar to resilient ecosystems or ecological communities, such localised, small-scale, or short-term failures in human socio-environmental systems may contribute to building improved long-term resilience for the system as a whole.

Artistic impression of some of the types of disturbances experienced by ancient societies.

Importantly, these patterns only reveal themselves in the macro-scale comparison of independent case studies, and take multiple decades or even centuries to unfold. Archaeology is the only field able to tackle these timescales systematically, and underscores the value and contribution of the historical sciences to resilience-building and sustainability challenges in the present.

URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07354-8

The research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/X002217/1).

 

Student numbers in the next decade

BU Challenges, Fusion, Fusion themes, innovation, international

In contrast to recent student numbers intake across the country FT has published an article stating that, undergraduate numbers will see a rise in England in the next decade. [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved].

Total numbers have a direct relation to several factors including but not limited to overseas students, and both financial and planning challenges faced by international students. Various geographical regions for example South and Southeast Asia are conventionally more leaning towards traditional degrees for example engineering and medicine. Particular interest in these degrees is stemmed by primary and secondary education systems, national skill gaps and more widely societal impacts. Despite, a brief decline in the numbers of international students a pattern in terms of various disciplines varies according to available data. In order to attract and sustain international student numbers core engineering and medical/ medicine degrees will remain significant centripetal force.

FT also reported that, this year universities will make a loss on each domestic student unless there is a change in fees policy [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved]. In addition, a more diverse repositioning in terms of educational provisions is needed, such as strategic priorities for engineering & technology degrees, innovation in delivery models and methods of gradually but completely decoupling from textbooks taught system to a more flexible intuitive, research informed and practice-based education in partnership with industry which is fit for solving real world impact bearing problems. In turn safeguarding graduates’ future, placing their learning experience at the heart of education-research interface to guarantee higher levels of employability and job satisfaction.

HEIs are also facing a challenge in terms of financial sustainability as reported, the sector is struggling to recruit the higher-paying foreign students it relies on to subsidise lossmaking domestic places [FT 07 April 24]. A two-pronged approach would be needed to address these challenges. Firstly, repositioning in terms of facilities and resources to introduce, apply and integrate more state-of-the-art modelling and simulation techniques for practice, practical and experimental elements of teaching in engineering and technology degrees and initiating a phased transition from dependency on conventional hardware tools e.g. expensive machines to realise releasing economies of scale. Secondly, more robust, simpler and well understood parallels and transitioning pathways between HEIs and primary to higher secondary education are needed.

FT added that, “At the same time, government spending on skills will be 23 per cent below 2009—10 levels, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank.” [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved]. Collaborating closely with industrial partners and stakeholders’ skills gaps can be strategically prioritised for medium to long term needs, and educational provisions would need reshaping to integrate with research portfolio, UNSDGs, socio-economic, environmental impacts and relevant REF Unit of Assessment (UoA).

FT reported that, “The apprenticeship levy introduced in 2017 has also failed to deliver the expected boost to training, according to London Economics.” [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved]. This is an important pathway for filling the skill shortages and also bridging the gap between theory and practice. A steady rise in flexible learning engineering degree students’ numbers, have been observed. These students are industry professionals who join these degrees at L5/6 level for a BEng/MEng flexible learning program. In addition to academic benefits these professionals achieve academic benchmark qualifications for professional registrations with professional institutions. This is one of the best available models to address skill shortages with a flexible high-quality delivery and academic provisions underpinned by research.

A stronger and broader engineering sector in collaboration with industry partners and professional institutions to develop futuristic engineering degrees to contribute to economic growth and its sustainability with an upward trajectory to address real concerns that, “tackling (of) the UK’s entrenched skills shortages and low economic productivity.” [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved] is important.

Telescopic Electrochemical Cell (TEC) for Non-Destructive Corrosion Testing of Coated Substrate. Patent number GB2018/053368

FT also mentioned in its latest article that, “Policymakers should also remove the cap on FE college places in order to “level up” education, (Lord Jo Johnson), added, providing more opportunities.” [APRIL 7 2024. Looming rise in student numbers sparks calls for skills reform in England. Peter Foster and Anna Gross. © The Financial Times Limited 2013. All Rights Reserved]. This can be looked into within the context of above-mentioned points in terms of establishing more defined parallels between HEIs and from primary to higher secondary education. A rethink to consider schools’ post code model for HEIs entry will help in levelling up.

Keywords: education, numbers, overseas students, engineering, skills, industry, professions.

 

Zulfiqar A Khan

Professor of Design, Engineering & Computing

NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling Research Group Lead

Email: zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

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

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, innovation, NHS

Plus two upcoming TBL workshops next week – sign up!

TBL for supported self-management of low back pain

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

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

An introduction to Team-based Learning

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

BOOK HERE!

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

and Ryan Muldoon, Lecturer in Adult Nursing

Venue: BRANKSOME – Talbot Campus

Date: Wednesday 6th March 2024

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

Learning outcomes:

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

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

Learning outcomes:

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

BOOK HERE!

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

Hope to see you there!

Embedding Fairtrade in teaching and research: a panel discussion with the Fairtrade Foundation

Business Engagement, Fusion, Fusion themes, Student Engagement

Dear all,

As part of our BU Fairtrade weeks 2024, we are delighted to invite you to a panel discussion dedicated to academics with an interest in sustainability, to explore connections with Fairtrade through collaboration with the Fairtrade Foundation.  

Date: February 27th at 2 pm – Fusion Building, room F305 (in-person only event).

BU is a Fairtrade University; we received the accreditation in 2022 with the highest possible score (3 stars out of 3) and we are among a very small group of universities worldwide to have achieved this. There are plenty of ways for academics to get involved with Fairtrade that will be explored in a panel discussion with the following speakers: 

Elena Fernandez-Lee, Education Campaigning Manager at the Fairtrade Foundation: Elena will talk about the Fairtrade University scheme, discussing best practices to embed Fairtrade in teaching and research, and highlighting potential areas of collaboration with BU academics. Elena will also share about the Foundation’s new campaigns about climate justice and decolonization of the curriculum, and outline ways for BU academics to get involved. 

Izzy Chalk, BU Sustainability Officer: Izzy will talk about BU’s journey to becoming accredited as a 3-star Fairtrade university, outlining best practices in embedding Fairtrade in the curriculum and emphasising further areas of collaboration between the Sustainability team and BU academics. 

Dr Roberta Discetti, BU Fairtrade academic representative: Roberta will share some research-informed practices related to Fairtrade engagement, including NGO/academics cooperation, student co-creation, and multi-stakeholder collaborative initiatives. 

The panel discussion will be followed by an optional 30-minute networking where we will have the opportunity to connect with our guest speaker Elena and discuss different ways of expanding the integration of Fairtrade in sustainability teaching and research. This event is open to all BU and AUB academics, to maximise opportunities for collaboration across departments and faculties.