Category / Guidance

Sometimes a kick in the teeth can be good for you!

Guidance

My rationale needed to be contextualised, my aims were too tentative and I had a weak dissemination strategy. Apart from that my bid had potential.

This was the feedback I got on a two-day course run by the Missenden Centre on bidding for research funding. John Wakeford and his small team of experts began by painting a rather dismal picture – an institutional success rate of more than 50% is rare apparently. And this does not necessarily mean that the amount of bidding should be increased, rather it’s better to ensure that every bid is precise, well-crafted and perfectly pitched.

The course was structured around presentations on the national context, the processes of the research councils and, most usefully, dissection of our own bids. My group was small and we quickly learned not to be too precious about surrendering our proposals for scrutiny. The critique we got from each other, from the facilitators and from the research development officers (who joined us on day two) was invaluable and I left with these key lessons:

  • Take time to prepare a robust bid – rushed responses to late calls are rarely successful;
  • Make sure the bid is going to the right place – make sure you know exactly why a particular body should fund your research;
  • Build in plenty of time for peer review – even minor errors can have a disproportionately negative effect;
  • Be bold and convincing about the impact your research will definitely have;
  • Write like a journalist – seduce and engage your reader – minimise the chances they have to say ‘no’.

And now I have some revisions to do…

 

The RDU has funding available to send BU academics on external proposal writing workshops, such as the one Mark went on at the Missenden Centre. If you’re interested in attending then email me (jnortham@bournemouth.ac.uk) to discuss the workshops coming up.

 

Grant Writing Workshops for Staff – Research Councils Focus

BU research, Guidance

Next week the Research Development Unit are organising 2 full day workshops on preparing applications for the research councils.  The workshops will be run by Martin Pickard, who has 25 years experience of writing, supporting and managing literally thousands of research proposals and has worked across Europe with a large number of universities, research institutes, industrial firms and international companies.

  • 23rd November will be focused on social sciences and humanities research council bids. 
  • 24th November will be focused on applied and natural sciences research council bids, including engineering.

There are still one or two places left on the 23rd and several places on 24th.  If you would like to attend please contact Susan Dowdle asap.

RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! AHRC and demand management

Guidance, Research news

Welcome to RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! Today’s focus is on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and their views on, and actions around, demand management. The AHRC’s current approach is to develop good practice guidelines for institutions (such as good practice in internal peer review and setting up an internal institutional triage system whereby only the best applications are submitted to Research Councils). However, along with the other Research Councils, the AHRC are keen to reduce the number of applications by implementing demand management procedures.

What are the AHRC’s future plans for demand management? – The AHRC’s Delivery Plan for 2011 – 2015 identifies demand management as a key aim of the AHRC, with a view to implementing procedures that will ensure that resource is used to maximum advantage for researchers, HEIs and the AHRC. The AHRC will disseminate information on application success rates and then enter into strategic discussions with HEIs falling below the average to develop ‘self-management of demand’ (p21). If this is ineffective, AHRC will introduce sanctions (e.g. institutional quotas). The AHRC’s approach to demand management will also use more targeted schemes to include longer and larger awards with greater use of the Expression of Interest phase, and an increase in the number of ‘sandpit’ style workshops to limit the number of applications on specific schemes to those which have been invited.

Will sanctions be introduced for repeatedly unsuccessful applicants? – The AHRC only plan to introduce sanctions as a last resort however they will be monitoring success rates as the basis for strategic discussions with institutions and introducing sanctions if deemed necessary.

I am interested in applying to the AHRC. How can I make sure my application stands the best chance of being funded? – BU has established an internal peer review scheme (Research Proposal Review Service) which has been up and running in its current form for almost 12 months now. The scheme is managed by Caroline O’Kane and a whopping 21 proposals have been reviewed since July. If you are submitting an bid to EPSRC then I strongly encourage you to work with Caroline through the RPRS. You can also check the Blog to see what proposal writing sessions are running at BU. For example, on 23 and 24 November Dr Martin Pickard will be visiting BU to run sessions specifically focusing on writing and preparing applications for Research Council funding – read more and book a place here. Martin’s sessions are excellent and always well received, and I would encourage anyone considering applying for research funding to attend.

RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! NERC and demand management

Guidance, Research news

Welcome to RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! Today’s focus is on the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and their views on, and actions around, demand management.

What does NERC do already in respect of demand management? – NERC already employs various measures to manage demand and to maintain success rates at around 20%, such as:

  • limiting the number of proposals a principal investigator can submit;
  • rejecting around 40% of proposals prior to external peer review through a triage-type sift;
  • limiting resubmissions;
  • requiring pre‐application outline‐bids for large grants;
  • publishing the success rates of research organisations to encourage self‐management of demand and quality;
  • consolidating and streamlining grants schemes (e.g. the small grants scheme which closed recently).

What are NERC’s future plans for demand management? – NERC’s 2011-15 Delivery Plan stipulates a number of further plans for managing demand for funds in future, including the introduction of demand management procedures for Responsive Mode proposals submitted from 1 January 2012. The aim will be to improve success rates and to increase the efficiency of the applications and assessment procedures. Uncompetitive proposals (defined as those scoring 6 ot below for excellence) will be the main focus. NERC aim to manage this by working with institutions, asking them to self-manage their applications and focus on competitive proposals. All institutions will be required to participate and will be eligible for sanction, if progress in reducing uncompetitive proposals are not observed to the targets and timescales agreed. Full details of the demand management system being introduced will be available from the NERC website later this month. We will bring you full details on the Blog when they are announced.

I am interested in applying to NERC. How can I make sure my application stands the best chance of being funded? – BU has established an internal peer review scheme (Research Proposal Review Service) which has been up and running in its current form for almost 12 months now. The scheme is managed by Caroline O’Kane and a whopping 21 proposals have been reviewed since July. If you are submitting an bid to NERC then I strongly encourage you to work with Caroline through the RPRS. You can also check the Blog to see what proposal writing sessions are running at BU. For example, on 23 and 24 November Dr Martin Pickard will be visiting BU to run sessions specifically focusing on writing and preparing applications for Research Council funding – read more and book a place here. Martin’s sessions are excellent and always well received, and I would encourage anyone considering applying for research funding to attend.

RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! ESRC and demand management

Guidance, Research news

Welcome to RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! Today’s focus is on the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and their views on, and actions around, demand management. Over the summer the ESRC consulted with the sector on a range of proposed demand management options/ sanctions. The results, published last month, indicated that 68% of respondants favoured individual researcher sanctions. You can read the full details of the consultation and its outcomes on the ESRC website here.

Will the ESRC be introducing demand management procedures? – The ESRC will not be introducing any demand management procedures YET. However, it they do decide to introduce individual researcher sanctions at a later date these are likely to be much tougher than those introduced by EPSRC. The ESRC would ban any researcher who had two unsuccessful outline or full proposals in 24 months which failed to reach an alpha grade equivalent from submitting further applications for 12 months. Failed applications would also be counted against both PIs and Co-Is, and a sanctioned researcher would be banned from submitting any applications as either a PI or Co-I over the next 12-month period. Ouch!

What are the ESRC doing instead of individual researcher sanctions? In June the ESRC introduced a number of changes to existing peer review practises and submission policies to help reduce the pressure on resources, and it is hoped that these changes along with self regulation from the research community (such as institutional peer review schemes) will be enough reduce demand.

I am interested in applying to the ESRC. How can I make sure my application stands the best chance of being funded? – BU has established an internal peer review scheme (Research Proposal Review Service) which has been up and running in its current form for almost 12 months now. The scheme is managed by Caroline O’Kane and a whopping 21 proposals have been reviewed since July. If you are submitting an bid to EPSRC then I strongly encourage you to work with Caroline through the RPRS. You can also check the Blog to see what proposal writing sessions are running at BU. For example, on 23 and 24 November Dr Martin Pickard will be visiting BU to run sessions specifically focusing on writing and preparing applications for Research Council funding – read more and book a place here. Martin’s sessions are excellent and always well received, and I would encourage anyone considering applying for research funding to attend.

Introducing the new Executive Briefing Centre

Guidance, Research news

The sixth floor of the Executive Business Centre (EBC) on the Lansdowne Campus has recently been refurbished to include a Briefing Centre, an impressive new facility which is now available for staff to use when meeting and hosting external visitors and contacts. Co-located with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, it offers the ideal venue to brief external clients.

The Executive Briefing Centre suite consists of a Reception area with sofas and Welcome Desk, two large state-of-the-art meeting rooms (EB602 & EB603), as well as access to the floor’s kitchenette facilities. The purpose of the Centre is to provide suitable meeting space for all staff and students to book when hosting external visitors, with the aim of facilitating links and engaging with the business community. Such meetings may include developing consultancy projects and research opportunities, media relations, student consultancy assignments, and more. 

The larger of the two rooms, EB602 which sits 12, houses an exciting state-of-the-art HD video conferencing system which enables real time broadcast of video and audio as well as the transmission of computer graphics over the internet. A network-based image store is also available, and lighting in this room has been specifically designed to enhance the quality of the video calls.

Bookings and access – To book either of these two superb meeting rooms please use the Room Booking Request form on the Estates and IT Services web page, http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/itservices/index.html. If you require EB602 for a video conference, please fill in the relevant information on the request form.

In order to access the meeting rooms, please collect key card/s from the EBC Reception and ensure that all cards are returned on your departure. The information on the confirmation email includes a link to the Chartwells website to order catering, as well as information on how to book car parking for external visitors.

Instructions on how to use the AV equipment are available in the meeting rooms in paper format, however training can be given on how to operate the equipment in advance of your booking. Please call the IT Service Desk on 01202 965515 in order to arrange this, if required.

RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! EPSRC and demand management…

Guidance, Research news

EPSRC logoWelcome to RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! Today’s focus is on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the steps they have taken to enforce demand management. The EPSRC was the first Research Council to initiate a policy for demand management and it was particularly controversial at the time. Back in April 2010 the EPSRC launched the ‘12-month cooling-off period for repeatedly unsuccessful applicants‘ as a way of reducing the number of applications they received through individual researcher sanctions. This policy restricts repeatedly unsuccessful applicants to submitting one application (as PI or Co-I) for a 12-month period.

What is the criteria for ‘repeatedly unsuccessful applicants’? – Researchers are considered repeatedly unsuccessful if they meet both of the following criteria:

  1. Three or more applications within a two-year period ranked in the bottom half of a funding prioritisation list or rejected before panel (including administrative rejects);
  2. An overall personal success rate of less than 25% over the same two years.

The two year period is calculated from the date on the letter the applicant receives informing them of the decision not to fund their application.

Will all applications to EPSRC be taken into account? – All full proposals submitted by an applicant as PI will be considered over a rolling two-year period. Examples of applications not taken into account include: training grants, outline applications, applications submitted as Co-I, and all activities where peer review is led by another funding body. See the EPSRC website for a full list.

What sanction is applied to applicants who meet the criteria? – They will be allowed to submit only one application during the next 12 month period and asked to review their submission behaviour with their university.

How are people notifed that they have met the criteria? – They will be emailed by EPSRC. The Research Development Unit are also notified and keep a central record of BU applicants who have met the criteria.

I am interested in applying to EPSRC. How can I make sure my application stands the best chance of being funded? – BU has established an internal peer review scheme (Research Proposal Review Service) which has been up and running in its current form for almost 12 months now. The scheme is managed by Caroline O’Kane and a whopping 21 proposals have been reviewed since July. If you are submitting an bid to EPSRC then I strongly encourage you to work with Caroline through the RPRS. You can also check the Blog to see what proposal writing sessions are running at BU. For example, on 23 and 24 November Dr Martin Pickard will be visiting BU to run sessions specifically focusing on writing and preparing applications for Research Council funding – read more and book a place here. Martin’s sessions are excellent and always well received, and I would encourage anyone considering applying for research funding to attend.

Discrepancies in guidance from funders

BU research, Guidance

We in RKE Operations have recently become aware of some discrepancies within funders’ guidance notes. In some instances, separate sets of guidance for the same call have provided different information. In others, guidance notes relating to a specific call have been released a while after the call notes, and have included important and relevant information for writing the bid. In order to guard against this, we recommend:

–          Checking back regularly – up to the date of submission – on the funder’s website in case they have released amended or supplemental  guidance.

–          Where amended guidance is released, always using the most up-to-date version.

–          Ensuring that all guidance notes are read thoroughly – important information may be found hidden where you least expect it.

–          If bids are submitted through an electronic system, this includes reading the guidance notes relevant to and attached to the e-system as well.

–          If different sets of guidance for the same call give conflicting information, check with the funder (or ask us to do so).

If the guidance isn’t clear or doesn’t give you the information you need, funders are generally happy to help – as are we in RKE Operations – so feel free to pick up the phone.

RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! What is RCUK Demand Management?

Guidance, Research news

Welcome to RCUK Demand Management week on the blog! There has been a lot of discussion and debate about demand management over the past 12 months or so, particularly in response to the RCUK Efficiency 2011-15 strategy, Research Councils’ delivery plans, and EPSRC’s cooling off period launched in April 2010. The other Research Councils have now started to publish their plans for demand management so it’s timely to look at what this actually is, how each of the Research Councils will enforce it, and what it means for researchers. Every day this week on the blog we will focus on a different element of demand management starting with today’s overview of what demand management actually means…

What is Demand Management? – Demand management is the term given to the steps taken by RCUK and the Research Councils to reduce the amount of applications they receive.

Why is Demand Management required? – Research Councils currently receive more applications that they are able to support and research institutions currently submit more applications than are likely to be funded. This can be seen in the Research Council success rates which continue to fall year-on-year as the demand for funds increases compared to the limited funding available (see the table below). The costs of administering such large quantities of applications is a huge burden for the Research Councils and reduces the amount of money available to fund research. Large quantities of applications also place a heavy burden on the peer reviewers, thus increasing the risk that the quality of decision-making could be compromised. RCUK note that “there are some proposals submitted which have little or no chance of success” and that steps should be taken at both applicant and institution level to pre-sift these proposals prior to submission, therefore reducing the volume of applications submitted to Research Councils.

What has RCUK asked institutions to do? – RCUK has asked institutions to actively encourage the self-management of demand and quality control, such as through internal sifting processes.

What resources and processes has BU put in place to support Demand Management? – BU has established an internal peer review scheme (Research Proposal Review Service) which has been up and running in its current form for almost 12 months now. The scheme is managed by Caroline O’Kane and a whopping 21 proposals have been reviewed since July. BU has also invested in proposal writing sessions and bid writing surgeries for researchers. On 23 and 24 November Dr Martin Pickard will be visiting BU to run sessions specifically focusing on writing and preparing applications for Research Council funding – read more and book a place here. Martin’s sessions are excellent and always well received, and I would encourage anyone considering applying for research funding to attend.

What processes have the Research Councils put in place to enforce Demand Management? – This varies between the Research Councils and we will focus on a different Council every day as part of RCUK Demand Management week on the Blog!

Online Research – advice sought

Guidance

Hello all

I am a Lecturer in Occupational Therapy in HSC and newly registered MPhil/PhD Student.

I am planning to use online focus groups that run over a period of time to collect my qualitative narratives and I am hoping to speak to anybody that has experience in carrying out online research. So, if you are happy to meet up over a coffee to discuss the benefits and challenges you have faced, as well as potential technological issues then please do contact me.

Thanks

Kirsty Stanley (kstanley@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Share files easily with the new BU Transfer service!

Guidance

As part of the Collaborative Tools for Academics project, we have been looking at ways of enhancing the support available to academics to share information both internally and externally. Feedback from colleagues indicated that the University’s file transfer service was not adequate and required improvement. I am delighted today to launch the new file transfer service – BU Transfer.

BU Transfer will enable you to quickly and easily share large files with colleagues internally and externally via a web browser.

You can access BU Transfer from the Staff Portal, the Research Blog and MyBU via this icon.

We are very interested in your feedback regarding the service. Please could you forward all comments to Amina Uddin.

Best wishes

Matthew

Technology Strategy Board – Updates

Funding opportunities, Guidance

The Technology Strategy Board, which delivers the Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme, has announced:

  • New funding criteria from the ESRC and BBSRC – ESRC Criteria for KTP support 2011 and  BBSRC Criteria for KTP Support 2011
  • Updated financial procedures for timely claiming and payment of awards
  • Applications for Shorter KTPs are now re-opened during the migration of KTPs to a streamlined 6 to 36 month scheme
  • A new version of Guidance Notes for Grant Application and Proposal Forms has been issued
  • An updated Management Handbook for KTPs – for Supervisors was released in October 2011
  • There is a competition for KTPs in Multicore and Parallel Processing  – closing date 24/11/11
  • Ashorne Hill have been selected to provide the new training package for Associates

As the TSB releases more information on KTP scheme, I will be posting this on the blog, so watch out for more news.

Please contact me if you have any queries about current or future KTPs, in the first instance. Further information is also available on the KTP website. For those interested in developing KTPs and networking with others with the same interests, the TSB recommends that you join the Knowledge Transfer Network.

Emily Cieciura (Research & Knowledge Exchange Operations)

ecieciura@bournemouth.ac.uk or 01202 968241

In search of a friendly physicist…

Guidance

Recently I have been doing some work looking at Ontology and the nature of Truth and have become interested in some of the ideas discussed in theoretical physics, such as multiple dimensions, space time, unified theories, observer effects, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle……….

My work relates to the authenticity of food.  A big gap I know, but I would like to have a chat with someone so that I can ask some naive questions such as, how can you have a very small dimension?

I will buy lunch or coffee.

Yours expectantly

Sean Beer

School of Tourism

(Sorry if this sounds like an add from the personal columns)

ST research methods seminars – exploding beans, quantitative data collection, Hamlet and Brian Cox…

BU research, Guidance

As previously mentioned, the School of Tourism has launched a programme of seminars on research methods for its research students.  The 12 seminars over the next 4 months provide an introduction to the broad range of research methods used by our PhD students, and I thought that  you  might like an update, now that we are three seminars into the programme. 

I led the first seminar on Initial Considerations in Research, where we examined issues relating to ontology, epistemology and axiology.  This time, the can of beans did not explode (a long story) and the interest (or was it confusion) has given rise to a series of potential parallel seminars looking at Philosophy.  The first two titles in this sub-series are: Towards a true understanding of reality. Ha, ha, ha! and The definitive guide to post modernism. Ha, ha, ha! (or alternatively, a spurious siren from the pre-ancient. Tears, crying and woe?).

The second session brought us back down to earth when Professor Roger Vaughan looked at the Quantitative Data Collection Process.  Roger has a fantastic ability to produce a coherent structure on which to hang complex ideas.  His emphasis on preparing well in order to make data collection easy (ier) was an object lesson for those tempted to charge headlong into gathering data without some deep reflection, as were his insights into the way that elements of what you do at the start of a PhD reappear and eventually come full circle.

The third session, led by Dr Lorraine Brown, looked at The Features of Qualitative Research.  I think that Lorraine exhibits a really embodied understanding of the qualitative research process and this came across in the seminar.  Naively some think that qualitative research is easy, possibly because they haven’t done it -“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” Hamlet 1:5.  Student and staff jaws did drop when she mentioned that she had managed to realize 10 research papers from her PhD.  Another object lesson to us all.  As was the quote from the Physicist Professor Brian Cox on Radio 4….”Science makes no claim to be right. Quantum mechanics requires you to jettison your perceptions of the world………..”

 

Sean Beer

BSc. (Hons.), PGDip. AgSci., PGCert. RDS., Cert. Ed., NSch.

Winston Churchill Fellow. Rotary Foundation Scholar.

Senior Lecturer, School of Tourism, Bournemouth University.

Profile: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/people_at_bu/our_academic_staff/SM/profiles/sbeer.html

Publications: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/view/author/0de16b19f785821dc6cc6c5e2af05d37.html

It takes two to tango…

Guidance

Having only recently completed a grant application for the ESRC’s Knowledge Exchange programme, the challenges of finding and then keeping suitable partners with whom to “tango” is fresh in my mind. One of the primary challenges is the ability to explain in plain English to prospective business partners what Funder terminology actually means. There then follows the need to explain what lies behind the potential award of funding, before then having to clarify full economic costing (never an easy task at the best of times) and associated acronyms that mystify all those outside (and some inside) academia. Thereafter comes the rigour and intimate detail of the application form which baffles most businesses (especially those seeking KTPs) followed by an explanation of the demands of the post-award reporting requirements.

All in all, much of this is straightforward …. to us!! For business partners, however, it often represents a whole new and somewhat mysterious world that if not careful in your articulation of what it all means, may result in the loss of your partner at any time throughout the completion of the application. In addition to a very clear explanation of what the process of bidding entails, those businesses most likely to dance with you are those that you know very well. Very few businesses (probably understandably) enter into such bids from a cold call so building long-term, sustainable two-way partnerships early in your career is pivotal to bidding in later years when you are less nervous about asking for that dance…

Viewing the snazzy pictures on the Daily Digest email!

Guidance

Subscribers to the Blog may have noticed this week that the pictures no longer appear automatically on the snazzy Daily Digest email 🙂

If you have received the Daily Digest email but cannot see all of the images then you may need to unblock image downloads from the Blog. To do this follow these  simple steps:

1. Open the Daily Digest email

2. Click the infobar at the top of the message, and then click ‘Add Sender to the Safe Senders List’ (as per the picture below)

3. Marvel at the beauty of all future Daily Digests which should make accessing current research information at BU a doddle 😀

The Daily Digest is sent to all Blog subscribers every day at 10am and provides an easy to read overview of all of the posts added to the Blog in the past 24 hours.

For details on how to subscribe to the Blog read our previous blog post on subscribing.

Our snazzy new blog!

Guidance

Welcome to the launch of our snazzy new look BU Research Blog, designed for us by the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) in the Media School! The redesign was to make the blog look more professional and easier to navigate. In the seven months the blog has been running we’ve had over 600 posts, including regular posts by the PVC and the Deputy Deans. Because of the number of posts we’ve generated, it is often easy to miss out on some of the content so the redesign should hopefully make it easier to browse previous content and find related information about R&KE activities at BU.

In addition to the main research blog, there are several other important sections to the blog:

  • EU Research Blog – your one stop shop for everything to do with EU research funding!
  • PG Research Blog – news and information for postgraduate research students and supervisors at BU.
  • Research Themes – keep up to date with current developments with the emerging 8 BU research themes. Each theme has its own section of the blog and we encourage all academics to contribute to discussions around the themes.
  • R&KEO Contacts – information (including contact details) for all staff members in the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office so you know who we are!
  • Events – a calendar of all research and knowledge exchange events, both internal and external.
  • Researcher Toolkit – information about BU-endorsed systems, methods and policies that you may need when undertaking research at BU.

Email subscribers to the blog will continue to receive the Daily Digest email every morning at 10am.

The blog is owned by everyone at BU with an interest in research and knowledge exchange. If you would like access to add your own posts to the blog then contact Susan Dowdle and she will set you up with access and get you blogging in no time 🙂

We’re always open to feedback about the blog so if you have any comments about the redesign (or any other aspect of the blog) then please let us know!

Open Access publishing event is a success!

Guidance, Publishing, Research news

Despite a near accident with a jug of milk, 30 cups and a projector screen twenty minutes before the start of the event, Wednesday’s open access (OA) publishing seminar was a huge success! Roughly 30 BU academics, researchers and PGR students attended the event which was aimed at increasing awareness, dispelling some of the myths, and demonstrating the benefits of open access publishing. There was also an opportunity for attendees to find out about the recently launched BU Open Access Publication Fund.

The event opened with a fantastic presentation by Dr Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd) who spoke passionately about the benefits of open access publishing and archiving, showing clear demonstrations of how making your research available in open access outlets (and in BURO) dramatically increases the number of citations and leads to more people downloading the research papers. Of particular interest were her stats on who actually downloads open access papers published via the PubMed outlet: other academics and university students only account for 25% of downloads, and by far the biggest consumer of open access literature are ‘citizens’ (i.e. independent researchers, patients and their families, teachers, amateur or part-time researchers, other interested minds), who account for 40% of the research papers downloaded from PubMed. These are almost always people who would not normally have access to research published in traditional print journals.

The second speaker was Willow Fuchs from the Centre for Research Communications (CRC) at the University of Nottingham. Willow gave an excellent presentation on the Sherpa Services that were developed and maintained by the CRC. These include RoMEO, Juliet and OpenDOAR. Authors can look up journals using the RoMEO database to check whether archiving in repositories is permitted (such as BURO) and, if so, what version of the paper can be made available. Authors can also easily check the publisher’s policies and see whether the journal offers a hybrid publishing option (i.e. the paper will still be published in the traditional print journal but will also be made freely available via the internet). It currently covers over 1,000 publishers and is an excellent source of information. Willow also mentioned the Juliet database which lists funder open access requirements, and the OpenDOAR  database which is a searchable directory of open access repositories, such as BURO. All three of the Sherpa Service resources are freely accessible via the links in the text above.

The event then focused on BU’s experience of open access publishing with presentations from Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and Prof Peter Thomas. Prof Edwin van Teijlingen (HSC) talked of the benefits of making his research findings freely available in terms of free access to the information, the quick turnaround times, and the high quality of the open access publications available in his field. Prof Peter Thomas primarily focused on the quick publication times which are particularly beneficial for the publication of the study protocols for the randomised control trials he has been involved with (his experience is that there is usually only 2-5 months between submitting the paper and its publication). He also displayed the access statistics from BioMed Central showing how many downloads there had been each month of his paper (between 18-77 downloads per month).

Prof Matthew Bennett closed the event by emphasising that the consumers of research not just academics; as BU moves to society-led research then the need to communicate research findings with non-academics will become even more important. He gave an overview of the recently launched BU Open Access Publication Fund, explaining how BU academics can access central funds to publish their papers in open access outlets (including traditional print journals with a hybrid option to make the paper freely available on the internet in addition to the print journal). Two BU academics have already benefited from the central fund and published their research in open access outlets – Prof Colin Pritchard (HSC) who published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Dr Julie Kirkby (DEC) who will shortly have a paper published by Plos ONE.

All in all this was an excellent event and a fabulous launch for the new open access fund! Expect to read more on open access publishing on the Blog over the coming months!

You can access the slides from the event from this I-drive folder: I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\Open access\event 261011