Category / Guidance

Introduction to IP – European IPR Helpdesk Webinar

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange

The European IPR Helpdesk is running a number of webinars over the next few months and RKEO are registering and promoting those relevant to BU’s activities.

The next webinar Introduction to IP will be next Wednesday:

dev_framework08/2/17     9:30 AM     Location:  Fusion Building F106

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

Please arrive at 9:15am for a prompt 9:30 start with the webinar duration being one hour. We have the room booked for a longer time so that we can have a post-webinar discussion afterwards, if appropriate. Please only register on the European IPR Helpdesk link if you will be joining the webinar from your own desk rather than joining us.

You can also check the European IPR Helpdesk Calendar for all their events. RKEO will be attempting to secure one of the limited webinar slots for each one which is relevant to BU – details of future webinars, where BU is registered, will be posted on this blog. In the meantime, please find out more about the work of the European IPR Helpdesk.

If you would like to attend this event, please do so via the Organisation Development page for this event.

Catering is not provided, but do feel free to arrive coffee in hand.rkeo-rke-working-with-business

The event is delivered as part of the RKE Development Framework.

 

*New* Successful Application Library

Guidance

booksRKEO are pleased to announce that we have just launched a new successful application library, which is available to all BU staff through MyBU in the BU: Research and Knowledge Exchange Framework Community.  It is a collection of successful applications that BU staff have made to research councils, the European Union, charities, government departments and other funding sources. 

These applications have resulted in successfully funded bids and have been made available to Bournemouth University staff with the aim of assisting them with their future applications. When using the library, please be especially mindful that requirements of grant proposals and schemes may have changed since these proposals were submitted, and therefore, it is essential that you always consult the latest funder guidelines for information on current requirements for applications.

To view the documents within the Application Library please click on the titles/headings within the library.  The Application Library is presently being updated with further applications, however, there are still plenty for you to view.

Please note the following usage policy: The examples are for use by Bournemouth University members of staff only and Principal Investigators have given their approval to share their applications on this basis. (Please also note: Any information that is deemed confidential in these documents has been deleted)

RKEO are grateful to all those who have generously allowed access to their applications for others to benefit from.  We will be contacting more successful applicants to see if they too will contribute to the library.  If you would be willing to allow your application to be added to the library then please get in touch with Dianne Goodman, RKEO Funding Development Coordinator.

RKEO Academic and Researcher Induction

Guidance

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) invite all ‘new to BU’ academics and researchers to an induction.

Signpost with the words Help, Support, Advice, Guidance and Assistance on the direction arrows, against a bright blue cloudy sky.This event provides an overview of all the practical information staff need to begin developing their research plans at BU, using both internal and external networks; to develop and disseminate research outcomes; and maximising the available funding opportunities.

Objectives

  • The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level
  • To provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU

Indicative content

  • An overview of research at BU and how R&KEO can help/support academic staff
  • The importance of horizon-scanning, signposting relevant internal and external funding opportunities and clarifying the applications process
  • How to grow a R&KE portfolio, including academic development schemes
  • How to develop internal and external research networks
  • Key points on research ethics and developing research outputs
  • Getting started with Knowledge Exchange and business engagement

For more information about the event, please see the following link: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/research-lifecycle/developing-your-proposal/

The sixth induction will be held on Tuesday, 7th March 2017 on the 4th floor of Melbury House.

Title Date Time Location
Research & Knowledge Exchange Office (R&KEO) Research Induction Tuesday 7th March 2017 9.00 – 12.00 Lansdowne Campus

9.00-9.15 – Coffee/tea and cake/fruit will be available on arrival

9.15 – RKEO academic induction (with a break at 10.45)

11.25 – Organisational Development upcoming development opportunities

11.30 – Opportunity for one to one interaction with RKEO staff

12.00 – Close

There will also be literature and information packs available.

If you would like to attend the induction then please book your place through Organisational Development and you can also visit their pages here. We will directly contact those who have started at BU in the last five months.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you.

Regards,

The RKEO teamRKEO

Publish Open Access in Springer Journals for Free!

Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open-Access-logoBU has an agreement with Springer which enables its authors to publish articles open access in one of the Springer Open Choice journals at no additional cost.

There are hundreds of titles included in this agreement, some of which are – Hydrobiologia, European Journal of Nutrition, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Climatic Change, Marine Biology and the Journal of Business Ethics. A full list of the journals included can be found here

To make sure that your article is covered by this new agreement, when your article has been accepted for publication, Springer will ask you to confirm the following:

  • My article has been accepted by an Open Choice eligible journal
  • I am the corresponding author (please use your institutional email address not your personal one)
  • I am affiliated with an eligible UK institution (select your institutions name)
  • My article matches one of these types: OriginalPaper, ReviewPaper, BriefCommunication or ContinuingEducation

Springer will then verify these details with us and then your article will be made available in open access with a CC BY licence.

Please note that 30 Open Choice journals are not included in this agreement as they do not offer CC BY licensing.

If you have any questions about the agreement or the process, please contact OpenAccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

Publish Open Access in Springer Journals for Free!

Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open-Access-logoBU has an agreement with Springer which enables its authors to publish articles open access in one of the Springer Open Choice journals at no additional cost.

There are hundreds of titles included in this agreement, some of which are – Hydrobiologia, European Journal of Nutrition, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Climatic Change, Marine Biology and the Journal of Business Ethics. A full list of the journals included can be found here

To make sure that your article is covered by this new agreement, when your article has been accepted for publication, Springer will ask you to confirm the following:

  • My article has been accepted by an Open Choice eligible journal
  • I am the corresponding author (please use your institutional email address not your personal one)
  • I am affiliated with an eligible UK institution (select your institutions name)
  • My article matches one of these types: OriginalPaper, ReviewPaper, BriefCommunication or ContinuingEducation

Springer will then verify these details with us and then your article will be made available in open access with a CC BY licence.

Please note that 30 Open Choice journals are not included in this agreement as they do not offer CC BY licensing.

If you have any questions about the agreement or the process, please contact OpenAccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

How to Write a 4* Article

BRIAN, Guidance, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Training, writing

Prof. Mark Reed

A fortnight ago Prof Mark Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and the man behind Fast Track Impact, tweeted some thoughts on how to write a 4* paper for the REF. He went on to explain his thinking in more detail in a guest post on the Research Fundementals blog, the post is published here with the authors permission.

_____________
How do you write a 4* paper for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)? It is a question I’ve asked myself with some urgency since the Stern Review shredded my REF submission by not allowing me to bring my papers with me this year to my new position at Newcastle University.

Obviously the answer is going to differ depending on your discipline, but I think there are a few simple things that everyone can do to maximize their chances of getting a top graded research output.

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’ve actually done original, significant and rigorous work – if you haven’t then there is no point in reading any further. However, as I am increasingly asked to pre-review papers for colleagues across a range of disciplines, I am seeing examples of people who write up work as a 2* or 3* paper that has the potential to get a better score. I should point out that I believe that there is an important role for 1* and 2* papers, and that I regularly write these on purpose to address a problem of national significance and frame it for the specific, narrow audience that is likely to be able to benefit most from my work. However, whether I like it or not, as a Professor in a research-intensive University, there is an expectation that I will be submitted as a 4* researcher, which means I need a few 4* papers as well.

You can see some more detailed thoughts on what I think makes 4* for different types of paper in this Tweet:

As you’ll see from the discussion under that tweet though, my more detailed thoughts probably only apply to Units of Assessment across panels A-C, and probably isn’t relevant to the arts and humanities.

Having said this, I think there are a number of things we can all do to maximize the chances of our work being viewed favourably by REF panelists.

  1. Write to the criteria: when I was learning to drive, my instructor told me that in the test I should make sure I moved my head when I was looking in the rear view mirror, to make sure the examiner noticed I was using my mirrors. We’re all used to writing to the criteria of funding calls, and in fact we are all perfectly used to writing papers to the criteria of our target journals. In the last REF, research outputs were judged against three criteria: originality, significance and rigour. Whatever the interpretation of these criteria in your discipline, have you made it explicit to REF panelists reading your work exactly what is original, and why it is so original? Have you explained and effectively justified the significance of your work? And have you included evidence that your methods, analysis and interpretation is rigorous, even if you have to use supplementary material to include extra detail about your methods and data to get around journal word limits?
  1. Get REF feedback before you submit your work for publication: find out who is going to be reviewing research outputs for REF internally within your Unit of Assessment at your institution and ask them to review your work before you submit it. They may be able to make recommendations about how you might improve the paper in light of the REF criteria. Sometimes a little bit of extra work on the framing of your research in relation to wider contexts and issues can help articulate the significance of your work, and with additional reading and thinking, you may be able to position your work more effectively in relation to previous work to demonstrate its originality more clearly. Adding a few extra details to your methods and results may re-assure readers and reviewers that your approach is indeed rigorous. This is not just about doing world-leading research; it is about demonstrating to the world that your work is indeed world-leading. For me, these criteria are nothing new and are worth paying attention to, whether or not we are interested in REF. Meeting these three criteria will increase the chances that you get through peer-review and will increase the likelihood that your work gets cited.
  1. Analyse and discuss good practice in your own area: the only way to really “get your eye in” for REF is to actually look at examples of good and poor practice in your own area. Below, I’ve described how you can design an exercise to do this with your colleagues. You can do it yourself and learn a lot, but from my own experience, you learn a lot more by doing this as a discussion exercise with colleagues who work in your area. If you can, take notes from your discussion and try and distill some of the key lessons, so you can learn collectively as a group and more effectively review and support each others’ work.

How to organize a discussion to work out what makes a 4* paper in your area:

  • Identify top scoring institutions for your Unit of Assessment (UOA): download the REF2014 results, filter for your UOA (columns E or F), then filter so it only shows you the outputs (column J), and then filter for 4* (column L), showing only the institutions from your UOA that had the highest percentage of 4* outputs. Now for those institutions, look across the table (columns L-P) to see which has the highest proportion of outputs at either 3* or 4*. For example, an institution may have 80% of its outputs graded at 4* and 15% graded at 3*, meaning that 95% of its outputs were graded at 3-4*
  • Download a selection of papers from the top scoring institutions: go to your UOA on the REF website, find and click on the institutions you’ve identified in step 1, under “view submission data”, click on “research outputs”, copy and paste output titles into Google Scholar (or your search engine of choice) and download the articles. You may want to select outputs randomly, or you may want to go through more selectively, identifying outputs that are close to the areas your group specialize in
  • Repeat for low scoring institutions so you can compare and contrast high and low scoring outputs
  • Discuss examples: print copies of the high and low scoring outputs, labeled clearly, and in your next UOA meeting, let everyone choose a high and a low-scoring example. Given them 10-15 minutes to quickly read the outputs (focusing on title, abstract, introduction, figures and conclusions so you’re not there all day) and then ask the group (or small groups if there are many of you) to discuss the key factors that they think distinguish between high and low scoring outputs. Get your group(s) to distill the key principles that they think are most useful and disseminate these more widely to the group, so that anyone who wasn’t present can benefit.

It would be great if I could tell you that these are my “three easy ways to get a 4* paper” but doing work that is genuinely original, significant and rigorous is far from easy. If you have done work that is of the highest quality though, I hope that the ideas I’ve suggested here will help you get the credit you deserve for the great research you’ve done.

IP Management in H2020 – with a special focus on MSCA Webinar

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange

dev_framework

The European IPR Helpdesk is running a number of webinars over the next few months and RKEO are registering and promoting those relevant to BU’s activities.

The next webinar on IP Management in H2020 – with a special focus on MSCA will be next Tuesday:

29/11/16     9:30 AM     Location:  PG30d, Poole House – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

Please arrive at 9:15am for a prompt 9:30 start with the webinar duration being one hour. We have the room booked for a longer time so that we can have a post-webinar discussion afterwards, if appropriate. Please only register on the European IPR Helpdesk link if you will be joining the webinar from your own desk rather than joining us.

You can also check the European IPR Helpdesk Calendar for all their events. RKEO will be attempting to secure one of the limited webinar slots for each one which is relevant to BU – details of future webinars, where BU is registered, will be posted on this blog. In the meantime, please find out more about the work of the European IPR Helpdesk.

If you would like to attend this event, please do so via the Organisation Development page for this event.

Catering is not provided, but do feel free to arrive coffee in hand.

AHRC International Co-Investigator policy adopted

Guidance

ahrcFollowing a successful trial period and in line with the commitments made in the Council’s current delivery plan, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has decided to incorporate provision for International Co-Investigators into its core eligibility requirements and standard funding terms and conditions. Therefore, following the expiration of the current trial period on 31st December 2016, applicants will be able to continue to include international co-investigators on research grant, networking and follow-on proposals in line with the current provisions under the trial as outlined in AHRC’s Research Funding Guide.

AHRC will continue to monitor the impacts of this provision and will keep the provisions for international co-investigators under periodic review. For some specific funding calls (e.g. those which are internationally collaborative or focused) AHRC may adjust the provision for international co-investigators in line with the aims of the call; where this applies details will be provided in the specific call document.

IP Commercialisation and Licensing – European IPR Helpdesk Webinar

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange

The European IPR Helpdesk is running a number of webinars over the next few months and RKEO are registering and promoting those relevant to BU’s activities.

The next webinar on IP Commercialisation and Licensing will be this Wednesday:

dev_framework09/11/16     9:30 AM     Location:  The Octagon, The Sir Michael Cobham Library – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

Please arrive at 9:15am for a prompt 9:30 start with the webinar duration being one hour. We have the room booked for a longer time so that we can have a post-webinar discussion afterwards, if appropriate. Please only register on the European IPR Helpdesk link if you will be joining the webinar from your own desk rather than joining us.

You can also check the European IPR Helpdesk Calendar for all their events. RKEO will be attempting to secure one of the limited webinar slots for each one which is relevant to BU – details of future webinars, where BU is registered, will be posted on this blog. In the meantime, please find out more about the work of the European IPR Helpdesk.

If you would like to attend this event, please do so via the Organisation Development page for this event.

Catering is not provided, but do feel free to arrive coffee in hand.rkeo-rke-working-with-business

The event is delivered as part of the RKE Development Framework.

Publish Open Access in Springer Journals for Free!

Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open-Access-logoBU has an agreement with Springer which enables its authors to publish articles open access in one of the Springer Open Choice journals at no additional cost.

There are hundreds of titles included in this agreement, some of which are – Hydrobiologia, European Journal of Nutrition, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Climatic Change, Marine Biology and the Journal of Business Ethics. A full list of the journals included can be found here

To make sure that your article is covered by this new agreement, when your article has been accepted for publication, Springer will ask you to confirm the following:

  • My article has been accepted by an Open Choice eligible journal
  • I am the corresponding author (please use your institutional email address not your personal one)
  • I am affiliated with an eligible UK institution (select your institutions name)
  • My article matches one of these types: OriginalPaper, ReviewPaper, BriefCommunication or ContinuingEducation

Springer will then verify these details with us and then your article will be made available in open access with a CC BY licence.

Please note that 30 Open Choice journals are not included in this agreement as they do not offer CC BY licensing.

If you have any questions about the agreement or the process, please contact OpenAccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

Open Access in Horizon 2020

BRIAN, Guidance, open access, Publishing

horizon 2020Open access to peer reviewed publications has been anchored as an underlying principle in the Horizon 2020 and is explained in the Regulation and the Rules of Participation. If you are a beneficiary or hoping to be a beneficiary of a Horizon 2020 grant, you need to be aware of your obligations to publish open access. Below are some of the key points taken from Horizon 2020 guidance which can be accessed in full here.

Are you supposed to deposit?

All Horizon 2020 beneficiaries are required to deposit and ensure open access.

What to deposit

  • A machine-readable electronic copy of the published version publisher’s final version of the paper, including all modifications from the peer review process, copyediting and stylistic edits, and formatting changes (usually a PDF document)

OR

  • A final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication final manuscript of a peer-reviewed paper accepted for journal publication, including all modifications from the peer review process, but not yet formatted by the publisher (also referred to as “post-print” version).

Where to deposit

Researchers should deposit in a repository for publications of their choice. In order to manage and monitor open access compliance, BU request that all authors publish in our institutional repository (BURO) this can be done easily through BRIAN. Further information on how to do this can  be accessed here.

When to deposit

Each beneficiary must deposit as soon as possible. To comply with HEFCEs Open Access policy this should be on acceptance of the article.

Open-Access-logoWhen should Open Access be provided

Each beneficiary must ensure open access to the deposited publication — via the repository — at the latest: (i) on publication, if an electronic version is available for free via the publisher, or (ii) within six months of publication (twelve months for publications in the social sciences and humanities) in any other case.

For open access publishing, researchers can publish in open access journals, or in journals that sell subscriptions and also offer the possibility of making individual articles openly accessible (hybrid journals).  Where the case, the Author Processing Charges (APCs) incurred by beneficiaries are eligible for reimbursement during the duration of the action. For APCs incurred after the end of their grant agreement, a mechanism for paying some of these costs will be piloted. In the case of open access publishing open access must be granted at the latest on publication.

Beneficiaries must also ensure open access to the bibliographic metadata that identify the deposited publication. The bibliographic metadata must be in a standard format and must include all of the following:

  • the terms [“European Union (EU)” and “Horizon 2020”][“Euratom” and Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018″];
  • the name of the action, acronym and grant number;
  • the publication date, and length of embargo period if applicable, and
  • a persistent identifier.

In all cases, the Commission encourages authors to retain their copyright and grant adequate licences to publishers. Creative Commons offers useful licensing solutions in this regard (e.g. CC-BY, see Creative Commons Licenses).

In the context of the digital era, the notion of’ publication’ increasingly includes the data underpinning the publication and results presented, also referred to as ‘underlying’ data. Beneficiaries must aim to deposit at the same time the research data needed to validate the results presented in the deposited scientific publications, ideally into a data repository, and aim to make open access to this data. But there is no obligation to do so.

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Stern review of the REF – what next?

Guidance, REF Subjects

ref-logoThe Stern review of the REF was published in July 2016. The government have accepted the main recommendations, and we are expecting in November a HEFCE technical consultation on implementation – to affect the next REF exercise (probably in 2021). It is expected that the new arrangements will be settled by the summer of 2017.

So what did Stern recommend – and what is likely to be in the consultation?

  1. The main thing that Stern might have done, but did not do – following widespread concern in the sector – was move to a metrics-based approach for the REF. Peer review and case studies will remain and there will be an opportunity to celebrate success wherever it is found in the REF – not a metrics based ranking. There may be new metrics, and a new Forum for Responsible Research Metrics has been launched, but the key is that these metrics should be used responsibly and carefully.
  2. All research active staff should be returned in the REF (and allocated to a unit of assessment).
  3. Outputs should be submitted at Unit of Assessment level with a set average number per FTE, but with flexibility for some faculty members to submit more and others less than the average. A total cap should be set based upon two outputs on average per FTE with an individual cap (e.g. six) and a minimum per FTE (potentially 0).
    There has been some concern expressed about these changes – Maddalaine Ansell (University Alliance) via Wonkhe and James Wilsdon in The Guardian, 29th July 2016. At BU, our strategy is that all academic staff should be active in research as part of Fusion, so we will not be moving towards teaching only contracts. We hope the sector will not do so either – we will consider pressing for all staff to be included and remove any risks around the definition of “research active” to avoid this
  1. The total number of outputs per UoA should be adjusted so that it does not significantly exceed the 190,000 reviewed in REF2014. This may require the average number of outputs submitted per faculty member to be below two.
  2. Outputs should not be portable. The review proposes that outputs should be submitted by the HEI where the output was demonstrably generated and that work should be allocated to the HEI where they were based when work accepted for publication. There may be some flexibility around maximum numbers when staff have moved- e.g. maximum three outputs from those who have left.
    Concern has been expressed that this will restrict employment options for early career researchers, e.g. Paul Kirby. James Wilsdon again “the broader move to reduce output numbers and decouple them from individuals should reduce pressure on those at the start of their career, or who take time out of research because of childcare, illness or caring responsibilities” Other views: – it might be fairer to early career researchers who will be recruited on potential not previous publications
  1. Institutions should be given more flexibility to showcase their interdisciplinary and collaborative impacts by submitting institutional level impact case studies
  2. Impact should be based on research of demonstrable quality. However, case studies could be linked to a research activity and a body of work as well as to a broad range of research outputs
  3. Guidance on the REF should make it clear that impact case studies should not be narrowly interpreted, need not solely focus on socioeconomic impacts but should also include impact on government policy, public engagement and understanding, cultural life, academic impacts outside the field and impacts on teaching – the report recommends that research leading to impact on curricula and/ or pedagogy should be included. BU welcomes these changes and we look forward to seeing more details of these plans.

So watch this space – once the consultation is launched the Research and Knowledge Exchange team will be working with the policy team to prepare a BU response. You can read more about BU’s policy and public affairs work on our intranet pages.

DfID Research Review

Funding opportunities, Guidance

InternationalMapThe Department for International Development (DfID) has published a review of their research strategy.

This review, developed in consultation with the UK’s scientific community, sets out how DFID will invest an average of £390 million per year over the next 4 years.  Read the review here to find out what DfID’s vision and priority areas are.

 

 

Research Funders Guide

Guidance

map of scienceThe Research Funders Guide (find it in the Research Toolkit along the blog menu bar) has been updated.  As well as updating the call deadlines in the ‘standard calls for major funders’ pages,  each of the pages within the guide have been updated to include a link to the relevant pathway available in the RKE Development Framework.  This links up the opportunities available to support you in applying for the external funding explained in the guide pages.

dev_frameworkFor those of you who haven’t yet heard about the Research and Knowledge Exchange (RKE) Development Framework, it offers a range of opportunities for academics at all career stages to develop their skills, knowledge and capabilities in relation to research and knowledge exchange. It has been implemented in response to the changing external environment, and developed in consultation with academic colleagues to ensure a strategic fit between the training and development opportunities on offer, and the needs and wishes of academic colleagues.

If you’re interested in applying for external research funding then please contact the RKEO’s Funding Development Team.