Category / Guidance

National Contact Points: Octavio Pernas and Alex Harris

Guidance

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Octavio Pernas and Alex Harris, who are the NCPs for Health, Wellbeing and Demographic Change.

Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

New Year’s Research Resolution #3 – plan your research strategy

Guidance

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work! Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to forward plan your research strategy.

WHY? – To ensure your time and efforts are utilised in the most effective and advantageous way then you should have an up to date research strategy. This should set out a plan of how you want your research to develop, what your goals are for the next year, three years, five years, fifteen years, etc., and the steps you need to take to get there. It should cover funding (internal and external), publishing and other activities, such as public engagement, that will support you to develop your career over the years.

HOW? The steps below will take you at least a couple of hours to work through and could take significantly longer. Working through them, however, will pay dividends as a plan will give structure and objectives for your short- and long-term research career development.

Ensure you are aware of the support available to you and the research strategy of your Faculty. Check out stage 1 of BU’s research lifecycle – Your Research Strategy. This outlines the support and resources available to you when designing your research strategy, including support from RKEO, horizon scanning for future funding calls and policy news/issues, and support from the academic development schemes that BU offers. It also provides links to the most recent versions of the Faculty strategies.

 

Start to write your plan. Start by asking yourself what your ultimate goals are. These could be:

– to be the lead partner for a collaborative EU project

– to establish and lead a research centre or institute

– to publish an article in a leading journal

– to be a keynote speaker at a leading international conference

– for your research to result in a change to a national policy

– for your research to result in a significant benefit in the local community

– to land a senior academic position at a leading university in another country

Once you have these listed then put realistic dates against when you wish to achieve these.

 

Then work backwards and identify the steps you need to get there, setting yourself targets to achieve each task.

For example, if your goal is to lead a collaborative EU project then you will need to: ensure you are fully conversant with Horizon 2020 and EU strategy, join/establish a network (ideally to join one that has already had some EU success), apply for some internal funding (via the Fusion Investment Fund or the URA Programme) to undertake some pilot research, apply for small research grants (these help you to gather data and build a track record), engage with business/industry to undertake contract research, KTPs, consultancy, etc (this helps you to build your profile, make connections, build you track record, develop real-world case studies to support your teaching), publish your work in highly ranked journals and ensure your work is freely available (open access publication fund and via BURO), use your network to bid for EU funding with you as a work package leader, apply for a research fellowship, undertake some public engagement work, etc.

 

Set yourself success measures where appropriate and add in specifics. For example, if one of your interim goals is to publish in a journal then identify two or three journals highly ranked journals (such as Q1 journals on Web of Science or Scopus) that closely align to your research field and make your interim goal to specifically publish in one of these journals.

 

 

Review the interim tasks and think about the support you need to achieve these. Would additional support help you to achieve these goals? Maybe an industry-based mentor would help? Add these to your plan.

 

 

Share your plan (or at least parts of it) with those who can support you in making it a reality. For example, share your long-term bidding plan with the Research Facilitators in RKEO who can help you with horizon scanning, identifying potential funders and calls, shaping ideas, etc. Share the highlights of the plan with your line manager and Deputy Dean Research who can help you with time, support and resources.

 

 

Once you have finalised your plan then try not to be diverted from it and regularly check progress against your goals.

 

 

 

 

Sources of further information include:

Elsevier’s Charting a course for a successful research career

Strategic approaches to getting your work published

Academic career pathway diagram

The perfect academic career path (includes an excellent career path diagram from the ESRC)

Winning grant funding and writing papers for publication

Top tips from the Leverhulme Trust

Funding opportunities, Guidance

The Leverhulme Trust have provided us with helpful notes when submitting an application to them.  They have provided notes on the most common errors made, which result in an application being returned.  These are as follows:

• Applicants should only use their institutional email address – gmail, hotmail, etc addresses are not allowable.

• Principal and co-applicants cannot claim for direct salary costs for themselves nor be a consultant, research assistant, local researcher or PhD student.

• There must be at least one research assistant, local researcher or PhD student working for at least 50% in each year of the grant.

• Percentages must be based on the time spent on the project as a whole, not yearly. For example a research assistant working on a project for 100% would have to be costed in every year, not just one.

• Replacement teaching must not exceed 33% on any grant, this equals a third of the time of any project, e.g. 1 year on a 3 year grant.

• Consultants must be named and be crucial to the project, they cannot claim a salary only a reasonable fee.

• If you are requesting administration/secretarial/technician/technical assistance then this must be listed under associated costs.

• Leverhulme Trust do not provide funding for setting up a conference, only to attend ones relevant to the research being undertaken.

If you are thinking of applying to the Leverhulme Trust then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team and we will assist you with your application.

Launch of the Quick Guides to…

Guidance

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office have prepared a number of useful quick guides for applying to various funders and for certain activities.  These include the processes and procedures that need to be followed at BU.  You can access these either through the link above to the home page or by hovering over the ‘Research Toolkit’ menu option on the blog and all options will appear under the ‘Quick Guides to Funding and other useful information’. 

For a sneak preview of the individual funder or activity guidance, please click on the links below.

Quick guide to funders:

Quick guide to activities:

For further information on these guides, funding opportunties, activities and how we can help you, please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team.

National Contact Point: Ian Holmes

Guidance

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

This week we would like to introduce you to Ian Holmes, who is the NCP for Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine and Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Guidance

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.  The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

27th January 2015

24th February 2015

24th March 2015

28th April 2015

29th May 2015

23rd June 2015

28th July 2015

25th August 2015

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Maternity research in Afghanistan

PG research, Publishing, student research

Just after I blogged about the first publication for 2015, I was informed by BU PhD student Rachel Arnold that our article: “Understanding Afghan health care providers: A qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital” is included in the first issue of 2015 of the journal BJOG.

 

BU has provided Open Access funding to make this paper freely available, which is especially important for readers in low-income countries such as Afghanistan or Nepal.  The paper can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1471-0528.13179/pdf

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health , Bournemouth University

Reference

Arnold R, van Teijlingen E, Ryan K, Holloway I. Understanding Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital. BJOG 2015; 122: 260-267.

 

National Contact Point: Ben Sharman

Guidance

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

This week we would like to introduce you to Ben Sharman, who is the NCP for Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon

National Contact Points: Kerry Young and Helen Fairclough

Guidance

 

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

This week we would like to introduce you to Helen Fairclough and Kerry Young, who are the NCPs for Energy.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.   

Research Professional upgrade

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Please note that Research Professional are updating their site with a new version of the Rodman Indes, which is the discipline thesaurus that they use.  This may mean that the site is unavailable between 9am and 11am on Wednesday, 10th December.

All of the old discipline terms have been mapped to the new Rodman Index, and all of your pre-existing funding searches will be transitioned to the new terms.

National Contact Point: Manija Kamal

Guidance

 

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

This week we would like to introduce you to Manija Kamal, who is the NCP for Embedding Social Science and Humanities across H2020.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.   

MS Society looking for members to join their Grant Review Panels

Guidance

The MS Society is looking for members to join their Grant Review Panels. For the Grant Review Panel for Care and Services Research they are also recruiting a new Chair.

The closing date for expressions of interest is 12 noon on Thursday 11 December. Please email research@mssociety.org.uk  with your CV and a brief cover letter outlining your experience and how that will positively contribute to the work of the grant review panels.

 

Areas of Expertise Required

Members of the Panels would normally serve for a period of three years. They are looking for people from a variety of backgrounds, covering research, health and social care expertise.

If you possess the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and motivation to help ensure the MS Society funds high quality, relevant research then contact them ASAP. This is also a great development opportunity for you, as knowing how a review panel works can inform how you write and present bids.

For the GRP1 panel, they are encouraging applications from those with an expertise in the following areas:

–       Immunology

–       Stem Cells

–       Animal Models

–       Genetics

 For the GRP2 panel, they are encouraging applications from those with an expertise in the following areas:

–       Psychology

–       Statistics

–       Health economics

About the grant review panels

MS research work is driven by a strategy agreed with the Board of Trustees and which reflects the perspectives of the whole MS community – people affected by MS, clinicians, research scientists and others.

To help guide their research work they work with the advice and support of a Research Strategy Committee (RSC) and two Grant Review Panels (GRP). The RSC looks at the strategic picture, providing advice on broad areas of research, setting priorities and scrutinizing the larger, ongoing research programmes. The RSC does not decide which specific projects we should or should not fund. That more detailed work is carried out by our Grant Review Panels, one for Biomedical Research (GRP1) and one for Care and Services Research (GRP2).

Research Professional – all you need to know

Guidance

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.  The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

27th January 2015

24th February 2015

24th March 2015

28th April 2015

29th May 2015

23rd June 2015

28th July 2015

25th August 2015

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

National Contact Point

Guidance

 

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help.

Ewa Bloch

This week we would like to introduce you to Ewa Bloch, who is the NCP for Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.  

EPSRC are seeking new members for Strategic Advisory Bodies

Guidance

The EPSRC is seeking applications from industrialists, academics and individuals working in the third sector and government organisations to join Strategic Advisory Teams (SATs), across the range of EPSRC’s Themes.

In addition, EPSRC, on behalf of partner Research Councils, is seeking applications for the RCUK Energy Theme’s Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC) and the Digital Economy Theme’s Programme Advisory Board (PAB).

Strategic Advisory Teams exist to provide Theme Leaders at EPSRC with strategic advice that will assist them to develop, implement and modify plans. The Energy SAC and Digital Economy PAB perform the same function for the respective cross-Research Council Programmes. These bodies consist of up to 16 members, depending on the needs of the Theme / Programme. They are devised as a flexible resource, enabling Theme Leaders to obtain the advice they need in a timely manner, drawing on a range of perspectives from across our key stakeholder groups. Further information and terms of reference for SATs can be found on the EPSRC website. Further information on the Energy SAC and the Digital Economy PAB can be found on the RCUK website.

Role and person specification

SAT Members are drawn from EPSRC’s stakeholder groupings. SAC and PAB members are also drawn from these groups, as well as the stakeholder groupings of other relevant Research Councils. Members of all strategic advisory bodies are expected to bring a broad strategic view to bear and to act as ‘generous generalists’, advising across the breadth of EPSRC’s portfolio and the portfolios of other Councils where appropriate.

Members are not required to act as representatives of their own organisation, research area or sector.

The specific requirements sought are:

Essential

  • Credibility in the relevant research communities, including academe or the user base.
  • Ability to take a strategic overview of research and skills needs relevant to the Theme.
  • An understanding of the international context within which the Theme sits.
  • Ability to work flexibly in a team and adapt to new ways of working, using both domain expertise and wider cross-disciplinary perspectives.
  • Appreciation of ethical issues and the need for responsible innovation in the conduct of research.
  • Preparedness to challenge EPSRC policies (and those of other Research Councils where appropriate) in a constructive way.
  • Willingness to help with two-way communication between EPSRC (and other Research Councils where appropriate) and the research community.
  • Willingness to devote sufficient time to the role.

As part of this exercise, a Chair for each SAT / SAC / PAB will also be identified. The specific requirements for the Chair are:

Essential

  • Experience of working with EPSRC or other Research Councils, normally through an advisory body.
  • Experience of chairing meetings
  • Ability to ensure that all SAT / SAC / PAB member views are heard, the recorded advice is representative of the views expressed and that all present have discharged their roles appropriately.
  • Knowledge of EPSRC’s corporate strategies and policies.

Operation

Each Theme’s Strategic Advisory Body meets at least two times per year. Additionally, they hold conferences to bring Strategic Advisory Bodies from all Themes together. SAT / SAC / PAB members may also be asked to take part in other EPSRC business (or that of other Councils as appropriate), including but not limited to workshops, advisory groups for specific activities and peer-review prioritisation panels.

Further information

The vacancies can be found here and the selection and appointment process can be found here.

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

PG research, Publishing, student research

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Simple Guide to The Research Process in Healthcare

Guidance

The research process can be a tricky one, especially if you are navigating more than one organisation’s processes! Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) with help from RKEO and Local NHS R&D departments, have created a simple flowchart that represents the research process in the NHS and BU, with the aim of helping healthcare researchers understand the process and what they need to do when!

You can download the guide here: BU&NHS Combined Research Process. The process is always evolving so please ensure you check here regularly for the most recent version.