Category / Fusion

An Example of Research Informed Education

BU research, Fusion, Publishing, student research

I have been leading final year Design & Engineering “Advanced Technology & Innovation” unit. This is a 40 credit unit and 50% of the course work is assessed through a research publication.

During this unit the students had the opportunity to choose a topic for research within the area of coatings including nano coatings, structural integrity (corrosion simulation and modelling), thermodynamics, renewable energy and materials. These areas of research are supported through state-of-the-art experimental and analytical resources in Sustainable Design Research Centre and supported by significant industrial collaborations.

Final year design engineering students have been actively engaged with the research activity and were successful in publishing the following journal (open access) and conference papers.

Nugent, M., & Khan, Z. (2014). The effects of corrosion rate and manufacturing in the prevention of stress corrosion cracking on structural members of steel bridges. The Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering JCSE, 17(16). Retrieved from http://www.jcse.org/

Grover, M., & Khan, Z. (2014). The Comparison on Tool Wear, Surface Finish and Geometric Accuracy when turning EN8 Steel in Wet and Dry Conditions. In M. Grover (Ed.), World Congress on Engineering 2014: The 2014 International Conference of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management (pp. 1093-1097). Imperial College London: Newswood Limited International Association of Engineers. Retrieved from http://www.iaeng.org/WCE2014/index.html

Wilton-Smith, K., Khan, Z., Saeed, A., & Hadfield, M. (2014). Accelerated Corrosion tests of Waste-gated Turbocharger’s Adjustable and Fixed End Links. In High Performance and Optimum Design of Structures and Materials Vol. 137 (pp. 501-508). Southampton: Wessex Institute of Technology, UK. doi: 10.2495/HPSM140461

Dobson, P., & Khan, Z. (2013). Design considerations for carbon steel pipes materials’ selection applied in fossil powered plants subjected to wet-steam flow accelerated- corrosion review paper. Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering, 16, 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.scopus.com/source/sourceInfo.url?sourceId=12326&origin=recordpage

Denham, L., & Khan, Z. (2013). The prevention of corrosion and corrosion
stress cracking on structural members of
fixed deep sea oil rigs. The Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering, 16, 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.jcse.org/

The paper “The Comparison on Tool Wear, Surface Finish and Geometric Accuracy when turning EN8 Steel in Wet and Dry Conditions” was accepted in the World Congress on Engineering 2014 organised by International Association of Engineers (IAENG) at the Imperial College London 2-4 July 2014. This paper was presented at the conference. This paper has now been selected to be contributed as a book chapter which will be published by Springer.

“We are happy to inform you that Springer has invited us to publish the edited book [ Transactions on Engineering Technologies – World Congress on Engineering 2014] for our WCE 2014 and we are now inviting our WCE 2014 conference participants of selected papers for the edited book.” [extract from invitation].

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director Sustainable Design Research Centre

SciTech

 

Free money! Free money! Fusion Investment Fund closes soon.

Funding opportunities, Fusion, R & KE Operations

Okay so it’s not exactly free….you will have to do something for it but what if I told you that you will be hailed within BU, and who knows, maybe the world, as a researcher/support staff member extraordinaire! Your peers will bow down in the corridors in your honour, you will be met with applause when you enter the atrium.*

I know what you’re thinking….’This sounds brilliant! Where can I find out more?’ Just point your mouse here, my friend, and all will be revealed.

Applications close at 12pm this Friday 17th October, so don’t delay!

 

*This may not actually happen.

 

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

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland.

Cyber Security seminars for 2014-2015 start with a bang

BU research, Fusion

Yesterday, we held the first of this academic year’s cyber security seminars.  We hosted Dr John Lyle from Facebook, who spoke to a packed audience in the Barnes Lecture Theatre about some of the challenges fighting spam at Facebook.  After his talk, John described how impressed he was with some of the thought provoking questions raised by audience.

Our next seminar will be on Tuesday, 25th November and will be delivered by Dr Andrea Atzeni from the Computer and Network Security group at Politecnico di Torino.  Andrea will be visiting us that week as part of our Fusion funded Bournemouth European Network in Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS) project.  Watch this space for more details about  Andrea’s talk.

Our interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security is a wonderful opportunity to hear interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy.  Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.  We’re also interested in ideas about possible speakers or seminar topics, so please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

Understanding the constructions of the ‘other’: co-produced knowledge and understanding of ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’

BU research, Fusion, Research news, student research

Last year, I put together a small HEA individual grant to build upon our earlier research concerning terrorism and social work education, and civil unrest and welfare in Muslim countries. Unfortunately, the bid was unsuccessful but one should never let a good bid go to waste. Given that it was education focused, based around co-production and student enhancement – a ‘fusion’-based project! -I thought rather than try somewhere else for funding I would embed it into the third year undergraduate Sociology unit Terrorism, Protection & Society, where it would have sat if successful.

The project encourages active student engagement in learning, employing a methodology of co-production of knowledge in which skills to collaborate in producing critically informed and societally beneficial knowledge will be developed. Students are reading, critically, major UK newspapers, identifying and analysing those articles that mention ‘terrorists, terrorism or terror’ and associated concepts. From this they are engaged in identifying the processes by which our dominant cultural frames are constructed and can be challenged. The project findings, once 30-days worth of newspapers have been scoured for relevant articles, will be widely disseminated through the production of academic papers, a submission to eBU and through conference presentations.

Students following the Terrorism, Protection & Society module, engage in learning how the ‘other’, in this case ‘terrorist’, is constructed within popular debate and within the public media in the UK. As part of the project rooted within the unit, students will also analyse the media’s use of target terms (terrorist, terrorism, terror and so on) through a content and discourse analysis, and debate the potential consequences of this for contemporary society and for developing a deeper and more nuanced understanding that can assist in restraining social conflict, violence and the ‘othering’ of those who may be associated with core characteristics of ‘terrorists’ according to the socio-cultural master-narratives created by media representations.

Students will produce a paper with academic staff for the eBU on-line journal; most co-production of academic papers with students occurs at postgraduate level and this project has a degree of originality in promoting co-production of academic knowledge with undergraduate students, something we have done already in respect of edited books. Other academic outputs will be developed and students demonstrating interest and capacity will be invited to participate in their production.

Alongside the academic publications envisaged, this proposal meets BU’s fusion objectives in seeking also to add to the corpus of evidence of pedagogical benefits for students of knowledge co-creation and includes a focus on the student experience of the processes of learning.

Thus, as part of the teaching and learning students engage with, the project has wide reach and significance for student learning and pedagogical development by enhancing social and cultural understanding amongst students who will soon graduate, alongside producing autonomous and critically thinking individuals who can translate their learning and core skills into the employment market.

This week students energetically engaged with the preliminary data extraction and coding of those newspaper articles dealing with concepts and issues that were termed or could be termed as terror, terrorist, terrorism, extremism and so forth. The work undertaken helped to put in perspective some of the first two weeks’ lecture material and allowed the students to bring their own critical understandings to this complex and emotive area.

So far, the project has illuminated to me what an incredibly versatile and intellectually agile student body we have; people who will be an asset to the workforce of the future and a credit to our university! I am looking forward to the following weeks as the project unfurls.

 

Professor Jonathan Parker

 

Sociology students engaged in research

 

Want some money?

Funding opportunities, Fusion

I thought that might get your attention! The latest call of FIF (or the ‘Fusion Investment Fund’ for those of you who haven’t yet added this acronym to your vocabulary) closes in less than 2 weeks so if you haven’t applied yet or haven’t seen my previous blog post, let me give you the highlights:

So basically you could be given a pile of cash to enable you to do what you love! Pursue that dream of undertaking world-leading research or travel across the pond to work collaboratively with experts in your field. Become a hero and take your rightful place on that pedestal that your peers and students will put you on.*

Sound good? Find out more.

 

*BU cannot guarantee this.

 

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

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland.

Successful application for Fusion Investment Funding for study leave

BU research, Fusion

After a nervous wait, I was so excited when the anticipated email from the Fusion Investment Fund Committee popped into my in-box on the 7th August. With shaky fingers I clicked on the email, was this good news or not? Had I been successful in my bid for Fusion Investment funding? I was surprised and overjoyed to find the answer was yes!
I co-lead and coordinate the undergraduate student midwife caseloading initiative, a dynamic experiential practice-based learning strategy developed and pioneered by Bournemouth University (BU) in 1996. Caseloading practice requires students (supervised by a qualified midwife) to provide continuity of care for a small group of women throughout pregnancy, birth and the early days of parenting.
Given that it is now national policy that midwifery undergraduate students engage in caseloading it’s important to have an evidence-base on which to base best practice. Whilst there is robust evidence of women’s experiences of continuity from qualified midwives, there is a paucity of information regarding students. No formal research into women’s experiences of this approach to student involvement in care appears to have been undertaken in the UK.
My doctoral study aims to hear women’s personal stories to develop an understanding of how being part of a student midwife’s caseload may have impacted on their childbearing experience. Utilising qualitative methods, the study follows women’s experiences of continuity of care provision from a student midwife to identify themes of significance to the individual women in the study, and the women as a group. I am interested to hear women’s stories of how they develop and maintain relationships with the student, how they report the care provided in relation to their holistic needs and aspects of significance as identified by the women.
Six women have been recruited to the study. Participant stories are sought on three occasions; twice during pregnancy and once in the postnatal period. Data gathered is analysed using interpretive approaches within a narrative inquiry framework to identify themes of significance to the individual women within the study, and the women as a group.
It is imperative that midwifery education prepares students for employment within the ‘real world’ of midwifery practice. My study is embedded within the industry of midwifery; practice. Service user experience is central to quality practice provision and at the heart of student education. Through the fusion of research co-constructed with service users, practice and education, timely completion of my doctoral work has the potential to benefit students, women as service users, and professional practice.
My success in securing funding for study leave to write-up my doctoral thesis, will enable early dissemination of study findings to inform a currently limited evidence-base for best practice in student midwife caseloading. Dissemination of this knowledge will build on BUs footprint of scholarly work in this field. It will also enable me to be part of REF 2020 and help build critical mass in our next REF and reputation for midwifery/health at BU. Given the currently limited body of knowledge and growing interest surrounding student midwife caseloading practice, timely completion of my PhD also provides a platform for bidding the research councils. Little is known for example, of the emotional work of caseloading for students and midwifery mentors, or how best to prepare and support practitioners for this experience. Further work around service user perspectives is also required. These strands afford opportunity for co-working and c-constructing research projects with students, practitioners and service users. There is also the potential for collaborative work across HEIs in the UK, and countries offering similar educational schemes.
Thank you Fusion Investment Fund!

Fusion Investment Fund: Millennium Development Goal Fusion of Ideas Update!

Fusion

Back in February, Bournemouth University hosted an international conference thanks to the Fusion Investment Fund awarded to Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijingen, and Zoë Sheppard. It brought together clinicians, academics, policy makers, students, and other stakeholders to help set the future global midwifery agenda post the Millennium Development Goals.

A smaller follow-up meeting took place in June. The two days were spent discussing arising research ideas from the conference and collaborative funding opportunities to take forward. These networking events have indeed led to a number of outcomes including important local, national, and international links; collaborative publications in progress; a potential research programme; increased media coverage for the University; and the showcasing of students’ work thereby fusing research, education, policy and practice. These important outcomes will help ensure that midwifery continues to be on the global political agenda and raise the international profile of the University.

Fusion Investment Fund launch

Fusion, Uncategorized

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 £1.9m.

Want to know more?

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

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

 

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

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland.

 

PR historians meet in Brussels

Fusion, Uncategorized

Plans for future joint research were discussed at a meeting of the European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) in Brussels on September 12.

The network, which was established with Fusion Fund assistance in 2013, met during the annual EUPRERA Congress and was attended by 15 PR historians from Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and England.

In addition to developing joint bids to national and European funding sources, EPRHN members have been contributing to a PR history book series which is being edited by Professor Tom Watson of the Media School.

Other plans are research into WW1 propaganda and information campaigns, comparative studies, collaboration with researchers in political communication and nation branding fields, and the role of PR during 20th century European dictatorships.

“EPRHN works as a virtual organisation and is gathering momentum. The key to it becoming a sustained network is both funding and outcomes,” said Professor Watson. “At present, there are outcomes in the form of accessible online resources and publications. So more effort is going into research bids when opportunities arise.”

Grand Place de Bruxelles

ARTS in Research (AiR) Collaborative: Two days of creative scholarship

BU research, Featured, Fusion, PG research, Research news, Training

Shared objects/stories of a past (click on photo to enlarge)

“I can’t remember ever attending such an inspiring ‘in house’ event “.

The newly formed ARTS in Research Collaborative recently held two days of exploration of biography and ways and means of expressing the stories of others creatively and ethically. The workshop was entitled, “A Past/A Present” ARTS in Research (AiR) Workshop.

Using shared objects representing a time or event in each participant’s life, a ‘partner’ then created a five minute presentation of and from the storied materials. Participants in the two-days of exploration came from HSC, the Media School and DEC. Both faculty and postgrad students took part.

The brief was kept simple and instruction to a minimum. Organiser Kip Jones shared examples from his own work of finding ways and means of responding creatively to detailed data as well as time and material constraints. Other than that, participants engaged in a learning process through participation itself and the sharing of their experiences. The group has agreed to write up the encounter for a journal article.

 

  • “Thank you all for the incredible willingness to be inventive, creative and think/be  outside ‘the box'”.

  • “An illuminating two days of deep sharing. I was honoured to be there and look forward to more creative adventures together”.

  • “Inspiring. An artful and generative suspension of ‘normal’ activity”.

The ARTS in Research Collaborative’s next workshop is planned for November at The Lighthouse in Poole. Details to follow. It will be open to a wider audience and there will be a charge to attend, but BU faculty and students are encouraged to apply for training and/or development funding within their Schools.

ARTS in Research (AiR) still accepting new members!

AiR Workshop: telling stories (click on photo to enlarge)

 

 

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visits to Universitat de València

EU, Fusion

"Universitat valència vella" by Felivet - Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

 

Dr Bernhard Angele from the Faculty of Science and Technology has been awarded funding from the Santander strand of the Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships and collaborations with the Universitat de València (UV), Spain, a Santander Partner University. Bernhard has accepted an invitation by Professor Manuel Perea of the Faculty of Psychology and he will travel to Valencia on the September 15th for an initial three-day visit to give a talk, meet the members of Professor Perea’s research group, and set up a number of pilot studies.

 

Professor Perea will make a return visit to BU at the start of next year in order to present a talk here and meet with BU staff and postgraduates. Bernhard will make a second visit to Valencia in July 2015 and attend a symposium on Psycholinguistics hosted by the Faculty of Psychology. The primary goal of these visits will be to set up a research partnership and to initiate a number of pilot collaborative projects, which will involve both staff and postgraduate students at BU and UV. These pilot collaborations will establish a foundation for jointly seeking grant funding from the national and European research councils. Ultimately, these projects are hoped to lead to a long-term collaboration between the two universities, opening up possibilities for staff and student exchange as well as joint PhD supervision and making Universitat de València a partner in BU’s internationalisation effort.

UV is one of Spain’s leading academic institutions and was founded more than 500 years ago. Its 55,000 students are distributed across three campuses. The Faculty of Psychology is consistently ranked as one of the top three Psychology research centres nationally and one of the top 50 research centres in Europe. UV has a strong international orientation and participates in many international exchange programmes and networks.
For more information, please contact Bernhard Angele (bangele@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Image credit: “Universitat valència vella” by Felivet – Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Report on Fusion-funded internal secondment to BUDI

BU research, Fusion

I was awarded Fusion funding to spend the last six months working in the BU Dementia Institute (BUDI) on an internal secondment. This time has come to an end and a formal report has been submitted reporting on how the objectives have all been achieved. Here I’d like to share what I personally found to be most useful from the secondment.

 

I had several tasks to complete over the six months but the bulk of my time was spent on writing research grant proposals. In particular, I took the lead on an application for a project to develop and validate a novel intervention to help older people with dementia who have recently experienced a fall-related injury (currently under review with the National Institute of Health Research, Health Technology Assessment programme). The secondment was invaluable for writing this proposal in two ways. First, the sheer volume of work to be completed in writing the proposal demanded many hours of my time. Second, there were several aspects I had to get to grips with during the proposal writing including NHS sponsorship, arrangements for intellectual property, involving patients in our decision-making, etc., that the secondment provided the ideal environment to master all of this. This was great not only for completing the proposal but gave me the tools to subsequently write a different proposal for a different funder very quickly to meet the tight deadline.

 

I would therefore recommend internal secondments to colleagues who may have interests relevant to institutes / research centres outside of their school. It provides an opportunity to contribute to BU outside your immediate school and an opportunity to develop tools to not only achieve the task at hand but take back with you and use after the life of the secondment.

Those interested in an internal secondment to contribute to BUDI’s research and / or education should contact Professor Innes in the first instance.

 

Dr Samuel Nyman

BUDI and Department of Psychology

 

Flipping healthcare and research for service improvement! An inspiring FIF networking project

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Post-award

 

The idea for ‘flipping’ comes from education. It refers to the concept of students watching key content before they come to the classroom. Then when they do come together, they do so to grapple with and apply what they’ve been taught. This concept has been translated into healthcare by the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Maureen Bisognano. Instead of ‘what’s the matter?’ the flipped question becomes, ‘what matters to you?’. Put another way, healthcare needs to move from a system that does things to patients to one that works with them to achieve best results. These flipped changes imply that we need to work differently to improve things.

Realising we needed to do things differently with the traditional research-based Master’s dissertation is where we were three years ago. In a previous BU research blog we have written how, over the years, we struggled with the relevance of this type of dissertation to professional practice, in particular social work services. That was why we designed the National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work’s service improvement programme, which uses an academically robust, practice-based, service improvement methodology with a focus on professional judgement. Towards the end of this Fusion Investment Fund networking project we realised that we’d flipped research for service improvement.

Uniquely, our service improvement programme fuses service improvement focused education and research with professional practice and is now used across nearly all the School of Health and Social Care’s Master’s Framework. As a result, increasing numbers of students from a health background have been accessing the programme. Recognising our need as two social work lecturers to further understand, share and engage with the culture and strategic intent of key health organisations around the topic of service improvement, we created a series of high-level networking opportunities with organisations including:

Institute for Healthcare Improvement (Boston)

The Beryl Institute (Dallas)

The Health Foundation (London)

NHS Improving Quality (Leeds)

As well as meetings with Maureen Bisognano and Jason Wolf (President of the Beryl Institute), we followed up a number of local contacts in the UK and the US to see first-hand how their way of doing service improvement works out in practice. Therefore, as a result of this networking project, we have widened our national and international networks considerably. And  yes, we submitted a peer-reviewed journal article too; yes, we’ve written 5 blogs; and yes, we’ve updated our unit guides and improved the way we teach the programme; yes, we’ve fed back what we’ve learnt to others; and yes, we’ve thought of many ideas for future research projects – in one sense, these are not the main returns of enacting a project like this.  The key benefit has been the inspiration to do these things. And that has come from being willing to learn from others.

For all those on the edge of applying for a Fusion project, go for it! It’s been an inspiring few months and we’re grateful for the widening of our networks and related opportunities. We even learned how to tweet…wonders will never cease!

Dr Steven Keen

skeen@bournemouth.ac.uk

01202 962028

 

Dr Lynne Rutter

lrutter@bournemouth.ac.uk

01202 962019