Category / Fusion

Fusion Investment Fund – is it for you?

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

Lots of people know about the Fusion Investment Fund (or FIF as it’s affectionately known!). Since 2012 we’ve awarded £2m spread across more than 200 projects. Here are a couple of facts that you might not know though…

Professional Services staff can apply for FIF too

FIF is open to professional services staff as well as academic staff. If you have a great idea which could change the way we work here at BU and move us towards our Fusion goals, then we want to hear from you!

What sort of ideas?

Well, in the past, FIF has supported these projects from Professional Services staff…

Under the Staff mobility and networking strand we have supplied funding for:

  • Visiting US partners to conduct research about / promotion of Summer Schools
  • My Community: Our Heritage workshops at the British Science Festival 2013

Under the Co-creation and co-production strand we have supported:

  • BU Lego Challenge
  • Sharing PAL: Students sharing their experiences of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) to create collaboration, engagement and learning
  • Global Skills: articulating international experiences in academic and professional contexts

Interested? Then do get in touch. See the links at the bottom of this post.

Erasmus for training

Did you know that our Erasmus funding is available for those who want to take training abroad as well as those who want to teach? Every year our academic staff visit European institutions to teach, exchange ideas and build their networks. What’s less well known is that staff (both academic and professional services staff) can apply for funding to go to a European Higher Education institution, or enterprise, to train, learn new techniques, share best practice and widen your horizons.

Erasmus provides up to €1,000 towards your travel and subsistence costs when travelling to another EU member country.

Priority will be given to staff who have not previously received funding from this strand so, if you’ve never considered it before, now might be your chance!

Want to find out more?

Well, hurry! Applications close this Friday at 12 noon. Visit the FIF website for further details and for information about how to apply. Sue Townrow, the FIF Co-ordinator, is available on both campuses this week so, if you’d like to meet, please get in touch. You can also contact us by email with any queries.

FIF – maybe it’s for you after all?!

Fusion Investment Fund open for applications

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

FIF is open!

Excuse me? You don’t know what FIF is?

FIF stands for the Fusion Investment Fund. It is designed to support staff in developing as researchers, educators and practitioners. Since its inception in 2012, FIF has funded over 200 projects with awards totalling more than £2m.

Want to know more?

Two funding strands are available to staff: Co-creation and co-production strand (CC&CP), and Staff mobility and networking strand (SMN).

For all the policy documents, Fund FAQs and information about applying, please visit the FIF website.

Please direct all initial enquiries to the Fusion Investment Fund Co-ordinator, Sue Townrow, at Fusion Fund.

 

Working creatively to explore abuse in young people’s relationships – the CATCAM project

BU research, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, student research

There is increasing awareness of the risks that young people face in terms of abusive personal relationships and intimate partner violence (IPV), and the Home Office has recently widened the definition the government uses to include abuse against those aged 16-17 as well as adults

Intimate partner violence concerns physical violence directed against a partner and often includes sexual violence and psychological abuse (Jewkes, 2002). This is a global issue and increasing concern is now being expressed about IPV in teenage and young people’s relationships (Keenan-Miller et al. 2007). US research suggests that 66 % of college-aged dating students experience at least one incident of IVP (Smith et al. 2003).

CATCAM picThe project which has received Fusion Funding from BU aims to:

  • Develop creative methodologies/animation to explore the nature of abuse in young people’s relationships;
  • Explore how such methods might be used in domestic abuse prevention education

To date we have had two creative workshops which have used a range of materials and motion capture to produce a short piece of animation visualising mood and emotion. Those involved have enjoyed trying newapproaches to express and visualise meaning associated with relationships and abuse. It is great to be a co-learner in this process and to be taken out of my comfort zone as we are encouraged to use ‘visualisation’ techniques in a co-produced piece of work. Here are some examples of some of our visualisation work to date.

For more information on the CATCAM project please contact:

Dr. Lee-Ann Fenge lfenge@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

What do Fishbone, Amusement Park and Apigee have in common?

BU research, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, R & KE Operations, Research communication

They are all tools for digital storytelling. On Thursday May 14th, the Fusion-funded, inter-faculty BU Datalabs team presented at Interdisciplinary Research Week. Guests from across the University and beyond came to learn about digital storytelling and how visual data stories can better communicate the significance of research findings to policy-makers and the public.

Weathering the rain, the event kicked off with a reflective exercise called ‘Analogue Twitter.’ Participants were asked to write down a story of their research in 140 characters or less. From sports management to midwifery, research stories spanned the disciplines.

To get things going, Senior Lecturer in Digital Storytelling, Dr. Brad Gyori brought his expertise in interactive media, and his experience as the Head Writer of the Emmy award winning show Talk Soup, to introduce the audience to the many storytelling patterns that have emerged with the rise and innovation of digital platforms. Digital storytelling can range from Fishbone narratives that have one main linear narrative with suggested diversions, to the Amusement Park that offers loosely clustered, different perspectives with no central hub, as we see in Highrise: Out of my Window.

Next up, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, a Senior Lecturer from the Faculty of Media and Communications, introduced the audience to the power of storytelling with maps and infographics. Drawing from her own tear gas project and others’ expertise, she explored how visuals can act as ‘infobait’, drive curiosity, and interrupt dominant narratives.

After lunch, BU Datalabs project partner Malachy Browne from the social media journalism outfit reportedly shared insights and strategies for using online tools to do investigative research, share your findings, and dig deeper into social data. From apigee for APIs to mine social media data, to wolframalpha that can return the weather from any date in history, Browne made connections between the tools of his trade and the possibilities for expanding our digital methods in academia.

For more information on the BU Datalabs project, email: afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk  If you would like to get involved, we will be hosting a meeting open to all staff and students in early July. Details to follow. 

Fusion Fund – Study Leave – Manuscript submitted

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Post-award, Publishing, Research communication, Research news

A little while back (August 2014-Jan 2015) I had Fusion Investment study leave to work on my manuscript ‘Straight Girls and Queer Guys: the Hetero Media Gaze in Film and Television’.  Just wanted to follow up from this, to advise that the manuscript has now been submitted to Edinburgh University Press, and its on its way for production.  I expect it will be a few months before its eventually published, but its such a relief to actually finish it.  The research process was most engaging, and as with all concepts it changes and modifies, as a ‘work in progress’.

Here is a taster of the agreed back cover:

“Exploring the archetypal representation of the straight girl with the queer guy in film and television culture from 1948 to the present day, Straight Girls and Queer Guys considers the process of the ‘hetero media gaze’ and the way it contextualizes sexual diversity and gender identity. Offering both an historical foundation and a rigorous conceptual framework, Christopher Pullen draws on a range of case studies, including the films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, the performances of Kenneth Williams, televisions shows such as Glee, Sex and the City and Will and Grace, the work of Derek Jarman, and the role of the gay best friend in Hollywood film. Critiquing the representation of the straight girl and the queer guy for its relation to both power and otherness, this is a provocative study that frames a theoretical model which can be applied across diverse media forms.”

Now I am on to my next book project, the educational biography of Pedro Zamora.

GeoNet Low Carbon Cities

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

Luca D’Acci presented our third GeoNet seminar about the need for ‘Low Carbon Cities’. With cities accounting for 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, it is clear that something needs to change and low carbon cities could be the answer.

 

The benefits of low carbon cities can be seen in cities such as Copenhagen. Copenhagen has become one of the ‘greenest’ cities in Europe through its innovative use of energy efficient technology and design. Copenhagen is also a compact city. D’Acci suggests a key change to support the conversion to a low carbon city is reducing urban sprawl. Furthermore, a car-based transport model results in increased costs; for example, Houston spends 14% of its GDP on transport, versus only 4% in Copenhagen.

 

Therefore, remodelling a city’s shape and form could be the answer to a more energy efficient world. Containing urban sprawl, developing energy efficient buildings and encouraging ‘greener’ transport systems could contribute to establishing a successful low carbon city. Benefits of these changes have been predicted. Investments of $1.7 billion in domestic energy efficiency could generate annual savings of $626 million, which is a payback time of only 3 years. In addition, 2 million jobs would be created by the new low carbon technological industry. Furthermore, health benefits and a significant reduction in pollution related illnesses would result in a higher standard of living and a better quality of life.

 

Next we went on to discuss how these cities could be implemented. I personally found it interesting that we could look to the past for ideas to shape the future. The Greeks and Romans designed their central hubs around unity, variety, compactness and nature, all of which are characteristics that we want to emulate in our cities today. Futuristic transport using renewable energy sources, building multifunctioning, independent cellular cities, and simply changing to energy saving light bulbs are all ways of creating a low carbon city. However, it is evident that a change in attitude will be important to ensure success.

 

An interesting discussion with the audience followed with most agreeing that low carbon cities are necessary for sustainable development. However, many agreed that the changing of attitudes would be difficult to achieve in existing cities. Despite this, it is important that we find the best solution to regenerate cities, in order to create a sustainable future and provide a template for developing countries to model their new low carbon cities.

Charlotte Unwin, GeoNet Intern