Category / Fusion

Fusion Funding

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

A new Fusion project will shortly be starting in the School of Applied Sciences run by Dan Franklin and Genoveva Esteban. Concentrating on cyanobacteria (‘blue-green algae’) the team will attempt to isolate out new strains of cyanobacteria into culture at BU. Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that can turn freshwater ecosystems a vivid green colour. Cyanobacteria growth in reservoirs and lakes already causes substantial economic losses and amenity problems and the ultimate aim of the project is to investigate the properties of cells such that new management measures can be pioneered. The team will make multiple isolations of cyanobacteria from local lakes in order to establish new laboratory strains of cyanobacteria, including toxic species such as Microcystis. These will then be used to facilitate experiments on ways to inhibit cyanobacteria growth.                                                   

For more information please contact dfranklin@bournemouth.ac.uk

Images BU culture of Microcystis:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture credit: Ian Chapman, BU

Microcystis growth in nature:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See glerl.noaa.gov

Grant to develop trans-national partnerships for Cyberpsychology education and research

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

I was delighted to be awarded a FIF Staff Networking and Mobility grant to develop international links with staff and students in Canada, Australia and Malta in the three areas of e-learning, employability and Cyberpsychology. During the visits I will set-up cross-University online discussions, for students to discuss how psychology theory and methods can be used to understand online behaviour. This will not only develop students’ global awareness and key technological skills, but the activity will also generate research data to inform cross-cultural understanding of online phenomena. Also during the visits, I’m looking forward to learning more about the work of Australian academics into the concept of ‘Psychological literacy’ to bring this into my own employability teaching. Finally, I have been invited to disseminate my own work on psychology teaching and learning through guest talks and staff workshops at each University and I will also be coordinating a Symposium during the International Conference on Teaching of Psychology in Vancouver. A longer term aim is to develop links with these universities to explore psychology student placements. This is going to be a busy 6 months;-)

Fusion Investment Fund – Decreasing spatial disorientation: towards dementia-friendly environments

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

Dr Jan Wiener (DEC) and myself are delighted to have been awarded Fusion funding to develop a student driven research programme to investigate navigation and orientation skills in people with dementia.

Spatial disorientation is among the earliest indicators of dementia, an increasingly common condition in our ageing society that currently costs the UK £23 billion annually. We aim to develop an inter-disciplinary eye-tracking research programme to investigate factors that affect spatial disorientation in people with dementia. Data gathered will be used to formulate design principles for dementia-friendly care homes, potentially reducing care costs, and leading to new knowledge with significance and reach.

To record gaze when solving wayfinding tasks, we will combine eye-tracking, head tracking and virtual reality (VR) technology. Participants will stand or sit in front of an array of large monitors arranged in a semi-circle that subtends their entire horizontal visual field and affords natural viewing behaviour. In order to create this unique and technically advanced research environment, students from DEC, HSC and the Media School will collaborate as researchers, increasing their skills through immersive experience on a well-designed, cutting-edge research programme.

This will give ambitious students with different backgrounds a unique opportunity to work co-operatively as part of a high-level, well-resourced multi-disciplinary team. We will share the knowledge we gain on improving dementia care home design with the academic community, practitioners, service providers, and the general public. These links will in turn enable us to form strategic local and national partnerships to ensure that the knowledge gained has an impact on professional practice.

Dr Mariela Gaete Reyes (HSC/BUDI) & Dr Jan Wiener (DEC)

Renewable energy and renewable technology within the BU fusion and cross-school collaboration initiative

BU research, Fusion

This cross-school fusion event is an opportunity to hear about renewable energy initiatives that are engaging the local community and businesses.  A multi-disciplinary network has been developed that engages students with practitioners, real world issues and the development of practical solutions.  In the presentations we will discuss the student experience and how this initiative is developing the transferable skills needed for employment in the 21st century.  You will also hear about the multi-disciplinary network that has been created to focus on renewable energy and renewable technology, current activities and future potential.  There will be an opportunity for informal discussion with those involved and for networking with local businesses and community organisations.

The event will take place on Thursday, 14 February from 1300-1530 in The Octagon, Sir Michael Cobham Library. For a full programme and more detail, please click here.

To book your place, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk.

BFX

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

In November 2012 the VFX Hub – a HEIF funded initiative from BU and AUB, launched BFX, a 5-day festival of Animation and Visual Effects that will be held annually in Bournemouth.

One of the highlights of BFX will be a competition which aims to discover the best new talent in Visual Effects and will run from July to mid August 2013, with the winners being announced during the festival in September. Competitors will be expected to form teams of 4-6 members and will have to submit a written creative and technical treatment that explains in detail how they intend to produce an animated or VFX sequence in answer one of five specific briefs. Following the recent award of Fusion Funding the VFX Hub team will be presenting BFX to an international audience at FMX in Stuttgart during April, as well as pitching the competition to Animation and VFX students at several other UK Universities in the coming weeks – with the aim of attracting teams from at least 8 other institutions. The teams will live on campus at BU free-of-charge for the duration of the competition and each member will receive a £70 per week stipend towards their cost of living expenses. The work produced by the teams will mentored throughout the 6-weeks by professionals from Soho VFX companies Framestore, Double Negative, Cinesite, MPC and The Mill.

The rest of the festival itinerary will be updated on the website as events, venues and personalities are confirmed; it will include master classes, workshops, screenings, an exhibition and advice on careers and education.

Fusion supports new collaborative research project about the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro

BU research, Fusion, Uncategorized

 “Hello, hello, band from Ipanema – big hug! Hello, hello, girl from the favela – big hug!”. These are the lyrics of ‘Aquele Abraço’ (That Embrace), an iconic song in the samba genre performed at the closing ceremony of London 2012 to mark the transition for the Rio 2016 Olympics. The song celebrates all the neighbourhoods of the city, the wealthy Ipanema, but also the favelas (slums or shantytowns) by ‘sending a hug’, a form of friendly greeting in Brazil. It can be inferred that, just like the song, the Olympics are embracing the whole city and vice-versa. But how can mega-events such as the Olympics be truly socially inclusive? To what extent are the perspectives of the city’s impoverished communities being taken into account – being heard and seen – in the decision making process?

A new research project sets out to investigate issues of social inclusion, marginality and the ways in which the residents experience the on-going transformations of the city during the preparations for the Olympics through the senses of hearing and seeing. Funded by the Fusion Staff Networking and Mobility (SMN) fund, Dr Andrea Medrado, from the Media School, will travel to Rio de Janeiro in May 2013 in order to establish collaborations between Bournemouth University and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Whilst in Rio, Andrea will work with UFRJ’s Community Communications Studies Lab (LECC- Laboratório de Estudos de Comunicação Comunitária), which is led by Professor Raquel Paiva and is one of the most prominent in this field in the country. She will then share some of the lessons learned from the communities in Rio with students at BU, particularly those with an interest in social communications and community or student-led media. The project also has the participation of Dr Carrie Hodges and Dr Janice Denegri-Knott, who specialise in emerging promotional cultures in Latin America and are members of BU’s Emerging Consumer Cultures Research Group.

Besides developing stronger ties with universities in Brazil, the goal is to liaise with the Brazilian Olympic Committee, NGOs and the city hall of Rio de Janeiro in order to share research findings and insights. If you would like more information about this project, please contact Andrea Medrado at amedrado@bournemouth.ac.uk. Along with many colleagues in the Media School, she is also keen on initiating a cross-school research group on the Olympics and Paralympics.

Socially-Adaptive Cloud gets the 3 Bs

BU research, Fusion

 

Brasilia-Birmingham-Bournemouth Social-Adaptation in the Cloud The BBB Project

This project creates a community of interest which involves academics from the computing groups of University of Brasilia, University of Birmingham , and Bournemouth University . The three groups are focused on Software Engineering research and this project involves exchange visits and the establishment of joint work.  BBB co-operatively initiates a timely thread of research on “Socially-Adaptive Cloud SaaS”. We are investigating core engineering foundations required to enable end-users to formulate Software-as-a–Service adaptation decisions at runtime. This focuses on the collection of users’ feedback about the quality of SaaS which could be used by the SaaS to adapt autonomously.

BBB welcomes any potential collaboration with interested academic and industrial institutes to exchange knowledge and join us to work in this area.

The project is funded by the The Fusion Investment Fund Staff Mobility & Networking (SMN) Strand of Bournemouth University.

 

 

Euro PR history network backed by Fusion

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, EU, Featured academics, Fusion, Uncategorized

IHPRC at EBC - Scene for first EPRHN meeting

A proposal to develop an innovative Europe-wide network of researchers in the history of public relations field has been supported by the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF).

The European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) was formed in mid-2012 by Prof Tom Watson and backed by EUPRERA (European Public Relations Education & Research Association) as a priority project for the next three years. It was set up to identify archives and resources, undertake collaborative research, and prepare bids to European research bodies and PR industry organisations.

The field of public relations history has been developed at BU over the past four years, mainly through the establishment of the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC).

Prof Watson said: “there has been increasing interest in the conference and PR historical research in Europe over the past 3-4 years but it has largely focused on national histories, personalities or phenomena. Collaborative research, across national boundaries, has yet to emerge. There is little shared knowledge of archival resources, where they exist or can be created.”

So far, 35 academics and practitioners from 12 countries have shown their interest in EPRHN. Its first publication, a catalogue of archives and resources in seven countries has just been published.  A EPRHN planning meeting will be held at BU after IHPRC in June.

Within The Media School, the network will also help develop European aspects of the Centre for Media History (CMH). CMH is already developing relationships with universities in Sweden and northern Germany. CMH and EPRHN will, it is hoped, foster the recruitment of PGR students interested in media and communication historical research.

The Fusion funding will allow EPRHN to hold a planning event at BU after IHPRC in late June and for Prof Watson and Dr Tasos Theofilou, who is working with him on both PR history projects, to attend EUPRERA’s annual conference in Barcelona in October. At EUPRERA, they will hold the network’s first formal meeting and workshop. [Photos by Minna-Liisa Nurmilaasko, PROCOM Finland].

IHPRC 2012

Working with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Themis Foundation in Andorra. School of Tourism’s Adele Ladkin on her FIF Staff Mobility Funding

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

In September of last year, Professor Adele Ladkin received funding from the FIF staff mobility strand to undertake two visits to the UNWTO.Themis Foundation Headquarters in Andorra. 

As part of its Capacity Building Programme, UNWTO.Themis provides educational courses for tourism industry experts.  Due to the demand for different topics, subject experts from the tourism industry and public sector are recruited as facilitators to deliver the courses.

Adele has just returned from her first visit to Andorra where she and Ms Sònia Figueras, the UNWTO.Capacity Programme manager at the UNWTO.Themis Foundation have been writing a teaching guide, and developing an intensive training course for the facilitators.

As a provider of educational courses, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is committed to sharing best practice in tourism teaching and learning. The purpose of the course is to assist and train facilitators to provide UNWTO Themis courses.  Along with practical guidance, the course aims to ensure that facilitators understand and articulate the philosophy and strategic issues of the UNWTO, UNWTO.Themis and their programmes.

The visit provided an excellent opportunity for knowledge exchange, with Adele gaining an insight into the latest educational activities being undertaken by UNWTO.Themis, and for her to share her expertise in developing tourism educational materials.  As Adele states:  “This has been a very intensive visit with us working collectively on the educational materials.  It also gave me the opportunity to discuss the potential for further research collaboration, which is great news for the School of Tourism and BU.”  Adele will return to Andorra for the second visit later in the year.

Women in academia and FIF SMN Funding

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

 There are currently 18, 465 professors across British Academia; only 3,790 (20.5%) are female.  The number of female professors has increased by 1.5% since 2010[i]. At this rate of increase (0.75% per year) it will take 119 years for women to achieve equal numbers in the professoriate (and that is assuming the total number of professors stays the same!). At the same time the ratio of women to men is roughly equal at undergraduate level.  At Phd the number of women starts to decline, through to postdoctoral, to lecture, to SL to professor. We might imagine this as an inverted pyramid.

With these concerns in mind, I have recently been asked to edit a symposium in the journal European Political Science (which I will now co-edit with Stephen Bates [University of Birmingham]) about the status of women in political science.  While there are clearly issues which impact upon women’s careers across the academy (and I have written about this elsewhere),  the aim of our symposium is to map the way in which women are positioned in my own discipline, political science, across Europe.  Space and resources have meant that we are beginning with a ‘snapshot’ with contributions from Finland, Germany, Spain and the UK and authors will be asked to map the ‘state of play’ in political science in their own country.  From here the intention is to then move to a discussion about what possibilities and opportunities lie ahead for women.  While the symposium is about political science, there are clearly wider themes applicable beyond our discipline; about women in academia more generally their opportunities for entrance, engagement and progression.

 The FIF SMN networking grant gives me the opportunity to attend the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Gender and Politics Conference in Barcelona.  Here I am hoping to meet with the ECPR Gender and Politics Group steering committee and discuss the ways in which European Political Science currently seeks to tackle this issue. We are also hoping to apply for funding for a full scale data collection project, looking at best practice elsewhere and developing tools and recommendations to support and promote women within the profession.

 

 

[i] 2012 data from Higher Education Statistics Agency; 2010 data from the Equality Challenge Unit

Fusion Investment Funding – An educational game for nursing student engagement in caring for people with dementia

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

Dr Christos Gatzidis (DEC) and myself, along with BUDI colleagues Michele Board and Patricia McParland are delighted to have been awarded funding to develop an educational game for nursing students. Thanks to the funding we will be able to recruit a Research Assistant who will develop technical aspects of an interactive 3D virtual game which will respond to a European Union Directive for including dementia education in pre-registration nursing programmes.
Colleagues from HSC and BUDI will help in the preparation of detailed information to be incorporated in the game. Its veracity (and user-friendliness) will be assessed by people who have dementia and those who care for them. We will be presenting our developed game to a number of audiences, both in person and in print, once the project has reached completion in 2014 and will be offering updates along the way.

Rick Fisher, HSC

Buzz around Rufus Stone continues to create academic, cinematic and community impact

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

“Anyone of any age and background can sit and watch this film, understand it, learn from it and emotionally connect to it”.— Dr Patricia Leavy in The Qualitative Report

The short film, Rufus Stone, (Kip Jones, Author and Executive Producer), seems to move from strength to strength. The movie was based on research as part of Research Councils UK funded research at Bournemouth University and a project of the national New Dynamics of Ageing programme.

                       Harry Kershaw, Martha Myers-Lowe &Tom Kane

Rufus Stone was screened as part of an ESRC Festival of Social Science event at BU in November for representatives of health and social care organisations. Participants went away from the day of activities with new knowledge about growing older as gay or lesbian in rural settings. Attendees each received a set of Method Deck cards produced by the research team to encourage their own groups in discussion and activities around these issues.

A Masterclass is in the planning stages for late April where representatives from both statutory and voluntary groups can come to Bournemouth for two days, learn about our research, view the film and take part in exercises drawn from the Method Deck. They then will be equipped to return to their groups with training in organising their own meaningful exercises around interfacing with older gay and lesbian citizens in their organisations. By partaking in the two days of activities, participants will receive copies of the Method Deck and the film. Stay tuned for details.

Freshers on HSC’s “Exploring Evidence to Guide Practice’ unit as well as Social Work students have had recent screenings as part of their learning experiences. There will be future opportunities for BU students to take advantage of this ‘home grown’ successful learning resource.

The film was screened in January at Birkbeck/University of London’s very modern Gordon Square cinema in Bloomsbury for their Doing Critical Social Research seminar series.  A lively discussion followed with what seemed a very appreciative audience.

Cambridge University welcomes Rufus to the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse cinema on the 22nd of February at 4 p.m. as part of their Arts and Science Researcher Forum. A Q&A with Jones and Rufus Stone’s director, Josh Appignanesi, will follow the screening, BU’s Trevor Hearing will moderate.

There will be a screening of Rufus Stone in March at Talbot campus hosted by BU Media School’s Narrative Group. Following the film, Jones will discuss the use of narrative research, biography and autobiography in creating the film’s story and script.  Great chance to catch the film if you haven’t seen it already. 18 March, Kimmeridge (KG03) at 1 p.m.

Community screenings at local cinemas in Poole and Wareham are set for the BU Festival of Learning on June 5th at the Lighthouse and June 12th at the Rex. Both start at 1 p.m. with refreshments and conversation to follow. We are particularly hoping to draw crowds of a range of ages and backgrounds from local communities.

                       William Gaunt, Lin Blakley & Niall Buggy

For information, registration and/or ticket details for all future screenings, check the sidebar on Rufus Stone the movie BU microsite.

Buzz around the film has also hit the net. The Sociological Imagination features the trailer for the film on its pages and discusses ‘Turning Research into Film’. The Qualitative Report frequently features updates about Rufus Stone in its Weekly Report and recently ran a review of the film by author and educator, Patricia Leavy.

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) “Impact of Social Science” web pages recently interviewed Kip Jones about Rufus Stone. Topics covered include: “How did Rufus Stone come about?” “What is the relationship between the research and the film?” and “What advice to you have for social scientists interested in using tools from the arts?” 5 Minutes with Kip Jones: “we engage in the creative process and open new doors for communication”.

As well as winning two awards at the prestigious Rhode Island International Film Festival last summer, the film has also recently featured in the Torin (Italy) Film Festival and the UK Jewish Film Festival in London.

An academic article by HSC’s Kip Jones, Lee-Ann Fenge, Rosie Read and Marilyn Cash goes live in Forum: Qualitative Social Research, an on-line journal, shortly. The paper outlines the research behind the film, then presents in-depth life stories of four of the research participants.

Jones has also recently published , “Connecting Research with Communities through Performative Social Science”, which makes a case for the potential of arts-based social science to reach audiences and engage communities.

FIF – The Poole & Purbeck Portal

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

The Poole and Purbeck Portal is a new inter-school collaboration between the School of Applied Sciences, the Media School and the National Centre for Computer Animation – made possible by the Fusion Investment Fund.

The Portal will be launching in February, creating a shop window to showcase excellence in research from both our Academics, and our Students – further cementing BU’s leadership in the region. The Portal will engage the key stakeholders in the area; and work with the local community to provide the answers to the big questions relating to the regions rich natural environment, heritage and future.

Through the engagement of key stakeholders, new partnerships will emerge – students will benefit from work placements, research projects, and potentially graduate employment. The university will benefit from these new collaborations by, for example, increased consultancy projects.

The Portal itself was constructed within the ethos of the Fusion Fund – 2nd year media students were recruited to design and build the website, Red Balloon & the VFX Hub were commissioned to create a film-integrated animation promotional video, opening up cross collaborative streams across the University.

Fusion Investment Funding – Devils and Dolls Reseach Project

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion

Jim Pope and myself are extremely pleased to have gained Fusion Funding for our ‘Devils and Dolls’ research project.  This project will investigate children’s responses to Roald Dahl’s (anti)heroines, looking at Matilda and The Magic Finger. 

We have arranged to visit four local primary schools to conduct workshops with their current Year 6 students.  Our methodology will employ a qualitative approach through a range of activities to be conducted in-class with groups of Year Six children.  These hour-long sessions will revolve around discussing key scenes from the book and film and asking the children to give written and verbal opinions on whether these characters are heroic; how they are similar to/different from other heroes, and so forth. We currently estimate we will be running the session with around 100-200 children during the spring term.

We will be presenting our research as a conference paper (full abstract below) at the ‘Devils and Dolls’ conference (Bristol University, 27 March 2013) and intend to write our findings up into a full article over the summer.  We’re very excited about this project which we think is an excellent opportunity to engage in primary research into a severely under-represented area: the responses of child readers to children’s fiction and its uses in education.  We’re also especially delighted to have received this funding as it will enable us to make new networking contacts with local schools that will benefit BU in future research in this area.  The study will directly inform our future teaching on Children’s Literature unit (BA English Level I) and we hope the proposed outputs will also promote the research and media teaching being done here at BU at both a national and international level.

Lost little girls (with scary powers): how do children respond to Roald Dahl’s heroines?

Jim Pope and Julia Round

Bournemouth University

Depictions of the child in literature for children are often stereotyped and dichotomous: for every Dennis the Menace there is a Peter Perfect, and it often seems there is little in between the two poles. But the depiction of the individual child can contain a similar tension within itself and some child characters (Matilda, The Magic Finger) are shown to have the capability for innocence and destruction in equal measure. These children are neither saintly nor monstrous, and thus they don’t easily fit the stereotypes of children’s literature.  How do children interpret and respond to these characters?

This paper considers examples of the ‘little girl’ who, despite innocent appearance, can wreak great destruction.  It begins by summarising critical opinion on the subject and the narrative stances of Dahl (whose morals and messages are generally very clear and didactic).  Extracts, clips and theory are used to demonstrate that such characters cannot be clearly defined as a ‘devil’ or a ‘doll’ and that in fact there is a great deal of tension within each character.  These dichotomies are explored and reflected upon using relevant extracts and clips.

However, ‘lit crit’ like this all too often begins and ends with a point of view or an argument to be built. When critics talk authoritatively about the tones, styles, messages and impacts of children’s lit, they are writing from the perspective of an adult with things to say. The response of adult critics is itself in a multiply dichotomous position – the adult commenting on the child’s interpretation of the child character created by an adult. How far do we wish to go with such conflicted criticism? Should we not instead consider how modern child readers understand these modern heroines – are they pleased to see characters like these behaving badly (sometimes) yet still winning? 

The paper concludes with presentation of findings from a small reader-response study, in which we discussed extracts and clips from the books with groups of child readers.  Their responses and reactions to these characters are used to reflect upon the critics’ conclusions and the texts themselves.

Fusion supports new PR research collaboration in Asia

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Featured, Featured academics, Fusion, REF Subjects, Research news, Research themes, Uncategorized

Prof Tom Watson teaching at Chulalongkorn University

For several years, the Media School (TMS) has been developing a relationship with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Chula, as it is known, is rated as the No.1 university in the kingdom.

The SMN award allows the development of a collaborative project between TMS and the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chula to organise an academic conference on public relations in Asia in Bangkok on November 18-19.
The conference will provide a platform for academic research on public relations history, current theory and practice, and future trends. In particular, it will investigate Asian (i.e. non Anglo-American) perspectives of public relations and will be the first dedicated conference to do so.

Prof Tom Watson, who is a co-chair of the conference, says the SMN funding “will lead to the development of a sustainable academic and research partnership between the two universities. It will enable BU staff participation in cross-cultural research with Thai colleagues. The conference will also place BU in a leadership role on research into cross-cultural communications and international public relations.”

Dr Ana Adi is working with Prof Watson on the project. She taught at Chula in mid-2012 on a staff exchange. She and at least one other TMS academic will be attending the conference and presenting papers.

The conference collaboration started with attendance by Chula’s Dr Napawan Tantivejakul at the International History of Public Relations Conference 2011 at BU, which began a dialogue about a joint conference with an Asian focus. This was cemented when Prof Watson visited Chula in November last year as a visiting professor and negotiated the arrangements. It is hoped that there will be 16 speakers, plus two keynotes, and 50 delegates at the November event.