Category / Guidance

The benefits of reviewing grant proposals for a research council: An insider’s perspective

Guidance

Dr Richard Shipway, Senior Lecturer in Sports Studies in the School of Tourism, is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and Regional Editor (Europe) for the International Journal of Event and Festival Management. Here he provides an insider’s perspective to the benefits of being a reviewer…

Since 2010, I have been a member of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College, reviewing grants in the social sciences.  This invitation was extended eighteen months ago when I was a PI (Principal Investigator) on an ESRC funded project linked to Sport Tourism and Sports Events (the STORMING Initiative).  At first I was overwhelmed and somewhat daunted by the thought of reviewing up to eight grant applications each year and slightly wary about the additional burden this would add to my existing academic workload at BU. However, upon reflection it has proved to be one of the most rewarding and important aspects of my current role as an academic at BU. It has also been an intense and somewhat steep learning curve.   

Importantly, being regularly involved with the review of grant proposals has provided opportunities to observe what constitutes both good and bad applications, and I now feel far more competent in my own ability to write a competent grant proposal along with some of the possible tactics and strategies that can be used to enhance the possibility of success. In the past eighteen months I have also been able to observe the diversity of innovative approaches that colleagues at other institutions are adopting, along with the range of multidisciplinary projects which are emerging, and how applicants creatively highlight where their research will have both economic and societal impact.

There are also additional benefits to being a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. I am fortunate enough to receive various invitations to attend briefing events and functions organised by the ESRC and other research councils.  These have proved to be good opportunities to firstly stay informed on current strategic developments, and secondly to network with academic colleagues across different disciplines and institutions from all around the UK.  I also take every opportunity to feedback any information to colleagues at BU, both centrally and at School level. Only last week I attended an event at The Royal Society in London, hosted by the ESRC where the challenges and opportunities of implementing the ESRC Delivery Plan 2011-2015 were outlined and discussed at great length.

In my opinion, an active involvement with reviewing (be it on behalf of either a research council or an academic journal) is important for several reasons: firstly, it enhances our own continued professional development; secondly it provides opportunities to be associated with particular research councils or academic journals; thirdly, an active involvement is an important addition to your CV; and fourthly, reviewing can provide opportunities to view new research before anybody else and enables us to remain up to date with emerging research trends and directions. As such, if asked to review work for a research council or an academic journal, my advice to colleagues would be to acknowledge and accept the significant time commitment involved with this process, but to grasp the opportunity for the benefits it can potentially provide.

All of the Research Councils recruit academic peer reviewers differently. If you are interested then familiarise yourself with the recruitment process and times, and keep an eye of the relevant research council website:

The European Commission is always recruiting academic reviewers. See our EU reviewer recruitment webpage for details on how to get involved.

Like our posts? Then share them on Twitter!

Guidance

If you’d like to share any of the posts on the Blog with networks, colleagues, friends, the public, you can now do this quickly and easily on Twitter via our new TweetMeme plugin.

If you have a Twitter account then you can share a post by simply clicking on the TweetMeme logo (like the one on the left). The TweetMeme logo is found at the end of every blog post. This will retweet the story via your Twitter account.

Sharing posts via Twitter helps to promote the excellent work going on at BU and can also help you to establish networks with likeminded people.

This is in addition to the ‘Like’ functionality via Facebook that we have had available on the Blog for a couple of months now.

 

 

Writing a lay summary is easy, right?

Guidance

Not necessarily! The lay summary is an extremely important part of most research bids. Most researchers think they write it well, and yet many bids fail because it is not ‘lay enough’. The topic was debated at this year’s ARMA conference (Association of Research Managers and Administrators) in bonnie Glasgow. The highlights of the session are detailed below.

A lay summary is used to explain complex ideas and technical and scientific terms to people who do not have a prior knowledge about the subject. A lay audience is heterogeneous (it includes the general public, patients and users of the science, politicians and other decision-makers, and researchers in different disciplines such as potential research collaborators). A lay summary is a requirement at application stage by most funding bodies, including the UK research councils.

When applying to UK research councils you are normally allowed up to 4,000 characters for your lay summary. There is no need to use all of these characters; often being concise is good for a lay audience! There are also some funding bodies that enforce a much stricter word limit, such as the British Heart Foundation who only allow up to 100 words for a lay summary.

What is the definition and purpose of a lay summary?

This very much depends on which funding body you are applying to as they all have their own definitions. For example, the Je-S Help Guide states the summary should be “written so that it will be understood by a non-specialist audience” but each of the different research councils have their own definition, such as:

EPSRC – “Using simple terms you are asked to describe your proposed research in a way that can be publicised to a general audience. It is very important that you make every effort to ensure that your summary is understandable to someone who is not an expert in your field. This is the section of your application that, if successful, EPSRC will use for publicity purposes. You should also note that the Outline panels who will review your proposal will be drawn from across EPSRC’s remit and will not necessarily have expertise in your research area.”

ESRC – “Write in plain English. Your proposal is likely to be seen by a great many people, some of whom will not be versed in your particular specialisation. Detail and specification may necessitate the use of disciplinary or technical terminology and this will be clear to peer reviewers, but the ideas you wish to convey and your reasons for doing so should be apparent to a wide audience. By the same token, do take the trouble to check spelling, grammar and punctuation. These are all part of the quality of presentation and presentation matters!

What is the story you are telling?
What is the audience?
Why does it matter?
Why now?
Why are they the best person to carry out this research?”

One of the most  concise and succinct definitions is provided by Buckland et al (2007): “a brief summary of a research project or a research proposal that has been written for members of the public rather than researchers or professionals. It should be written in plain English, avoid the use of jargon and explain any technical terms that have been included”. [1]

These different definitions are very confusing! But in essence a lay summary has three main requirements:

  • To paint the bigger picture
  • To answer who, what, where, when, why, how?
  • Be written in plain English

Painting the bigger picture: The lay summary is your first chance to impress the reviewer! Reviewers are very busy and in the majority of cases the lay summary is the first (and sometimes the only) part of a grant application that he/she will read. It is therefore vitally important that it is interesting, easy to read and conscise. It needs to give an overview of the whole project – the background, aims and expected impact.

Answer who, what, where, when, why, how?: It may sound harsh but many reviewers will read research proposals and be left asking themselves ‘so what?’. Your lay summary needs to answer this by explaining why the project is exciting, relevant and timely, and worth funding now above all of the other submitted proposals. Lay summaries are normally used by funding bodies to promote the research project so think about who is likely to read your lay summary, should your proposal be funded, and ensure you answer these ‘who, what, where, when, why and how’ questions with these various readers in mind. For example, your lay summary may be used in the following ways:

  • by politicians in raising and justifying research funds from government;
  • to justify public spending on research;
  • to attract new collaborators such as industrial partners and researchers from different disciplines
  • by press officers to promote your research to the public

Be written in plain English: A strong lay summary will always explain any technical terms used, spell out abbreviations, and avoid using jargon. It will also be written in ‘plain English’ but what exactly does this mean?

  1. Titles should be simple and clear. The European Commission’s FP7 guidance states that titles should be understandable to the non-specialist in the field. The best format for a title is to give a short statement followed by a colon and then a brief explanation.
  2. Simple analogies should be used to help the reader make sense of complex ideas. Arthritis Research UK suggest a good example of this is Bill Bryson’s book ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ [2] which uses analogies of everyday objects and activities to explain complex scientific concepts. Whilst simple analogies might mean that you lose detail and may not be perfect then strengthen your proposal if they make your ideas clearer to the reader.
  3. Clear layout – avoid using English phrases (such as ‘the lion’s share’) as these may not be understood by the reader. Avoid using double negatives as they cloud meaning. Order the paragraphs logically – start with the problem your research aims to solve so the reader can identify with this first. Break up blocks of text with bullet points, shorter paragraphs, etc. It is good practice to match the layout with the layout of your objectives. Do not use jargon (unless it is defined and explained in the summary) and ensure all abbreviations are spelt out.

Media / public engagement training courses: The UK research councils offer media/public communications training courses. These are highly recommended within the sector and offer good value for money. Most councils allow you to include the costs in your research proposal providing you justify it in your case for support, otherwise the training is free to funded students or grant holders. For example:

 

BU’s internal peer review scheme (RPRS): Support for writing and strengthening research proposals (including writing a good lay summary) is available via the internal Research Proposal Review Service (RPRS). Visit the RPRS webpage for further information!

References:

[1] Buckland, S. et al (2007) Public Information Pack. How to get actively involved in NHS, public health and social care research. INVOLVE Public Information Pack 4 available at: http://www.invo.org.uk/pdfs/pip44jargonbuster.pdf

[2] Bryson, B (2004) A Short History of Nearly Everything, Black Swan: London

Engaging Academic Social Scientists in Government Policy-Making and Delivery

Guidance

Prof Martin Kretschmer, Professor of Information Jurisprudence and Research Centre Director for CIPPM in the Business School, recently attended a meeting organised by the British Academy and the ESRC on Engaging Academic Social Scientists in Government Policy-Making and Delivery. Here he provides an overview of the issues discussed at the event…

Making research relevant to policy is on the agenda of all Research Councils, as reflected in the Impact measure of REF 2014. The event was co-sponsored by the Government Heads of the Analytical Professions: Government Economic Service, Government Operational Research Service, Government Science & Engineering, Social Science in Government, and the Government Statistical Service. The programme and list of attendees is available here: British Academy event programme and delegate list

Some of the issues raised, and questions asked of the attendees included:

Q1: What do you think government should be doing more of to increase the influence of your research and expertise on government policy making and delivery?

Q2: What do you think the academic social science community should be doing more of to have a direct influence on government policy making and delivery?

Q3: What might encourage you to consider an advisory role to government, for example, as a social scientist on one of the government’s Scientific Advisory Committees?

I assume I was invited because I am just coming to the end of an ESRC Public Sector Fellowship in the UK Intellectual Property Office (within BIS). I also sit on the government’s Copyright Advisory Expert Group, and speak frequently on policy issues, for example last week (1 June) at a Hearing in the European Parliament on The Future of Copyright in the Digital Era. 

Below, I summarise a few points from the meeting that may be useful for the wider BU research community.

Prof Nick Pidgeon (Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Cardiff, and Director of the Understanding Risk Research Group) offered 4 routes to influencing government:

  • Government contract research, including small review contracts.
  • RCUK (or similar) funding in policy relevant area.
  • Advisory Committees.
  • Indirectly, via dissemination through Royal Society, RSA, or similar.

Paul Johnson (Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies): “Don’t expect to change government policy if your evidence points in a different direction.” There are two choices: EITHER Focus on points of detail within the policy direction given by government, OR Set agenda for 5 years hence.

Sir John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific Advisor) stressed the tightrope walk between advice that is a “challenge” and being labelled “unhelpful” (in Sir Humphries language). Academics should risk “challenge” even if it turns out to be “unhelpful”.

Prof Philip Lowe (Professor of Rural Economy, University of Newcastle, and Director of the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme): There is a paradox – How can a government department become a sophisticated consumer of research? Commissioning good research requires being able to know what you don’t know. Hard for civil servants and politicians. Important to build and sustains links over many years.

Prof Helen Roberts (Professor, General Adolescent and Paediatrics Unit, University College London, and non-executive director of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence NICE): Public sector placements are very useful, both for academic and government, but governance of these grants can be cumbersome. [I can confirm that from my own secondment experience. At some point, there were suggestions that detailed delivery contracts would have to be drawn up between ESRC and BU, ESRC and BIS/IPO, BIS/IPO and BU. In the end, I was simply shown the Official Secrets Act, and the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants, and that was it.]

Importance of human dimension: “Most implementation comes though good relationships, not good research.”

Sharon Witherspoon (Deputy Director of the Nuffield Foundation, and in charge of research in social science and social policy): Most policy advisors double in “empirically informed counterfactuals”, and are normally grateful if offered help with: “What would happen if…” But academics can often make the most telling contribution by more radical reflection: “I wouldn’t start from here”. Governments are less likely to be open to that kind of challenge. Select Committees are becoming more independent of government (now have elected chairs). They can be a route to influence.

Paul Doyle (CEO, ESRC): The ESRC is building a database of government policy leads/contacts. Often it is impossible from government websites to identify the civil servants and special advisors dealing with specific policy issues. Government scientists should be encouraged to become members of Learned Societies.

 Key points from the open discussion:

  • Importance to keep independence by constructing portfolio of funders.
  • Economists are a separate breed in government. They have little concept of wider social research.
  • Responding to consultations is often a good first step to engagement.
  • Academics should use less jargon, shorter sentences.
  • Visual representation of research findings matters greatly.
  • Often it is useful to invite policy makers to academic events. They enjoy coming out of the office, and are less partisan/circumspect in a neutral environment.
  • There is an important corrective function for social scientists in assessing the presentation of data.
  • Difficulty in presenting the audit trail required for REF Impact. Government does have no interest in revealing the sources of its ideas, or it may be politically inconvenient to do so.

Surely the Creative & Digital Economy is important to BU

Guidance

As BU seeks to position itself as a university that engages in research centred on the ‘big questions’ facing our society, it was a surprise to see that of the 10 proposed key themes, the Creative and Digital Economy has yet to gain any traction amongst BU researchers in terms of shaping the future research agenda of the University. Surely, this can’t the case?

As a former Liverpool FC manager once said “lets look at the facts”:
• Creative Industries contributed 5.6% of the UK’s GDP in 2008
• Exports of services by the Creative Industries totalled £17.3 billion in 2008
• There are approximately 182,000 businesses in the UK Creative Industries Software and electronic publishing are a significant sector
• The RCUK Digital Economy programme provides support for research into how digital technologies can contribute to the economy and society.
• The Prime Minister argued that the Creative Industries is an important growth area in the UK economy.
• The European Commission reports that Creative Industries are among the fastest growing sectors in the EU and account for 3.3% of total EU GDP.

These figures suggest that BU needs to be engaged, and at the forefront of research in the Creative and Digital Economy…there are many big questions to be answered and many opportunities for us to get involved.

We know that this theme has run a series of successful networking events across BU over the past year or so. These have sought to encourage cross school collaboration and generate research and enterprise outputs. We also know that the Creative and Digital Economy theme has previously been defined by BU as “a multi-disciplinary approach to researching information communication technologies, computer games and animation, software development and smart technologies and the rise of intellectual property law in digital media”. Going forward we need to ensure that this focus is fit for purpose.

So I’d like to put a call out to all BU researchers interested in shaping the agenda of the Creative and Digital Economy Theme. Please come along on Thursday 16th June, 10am-12 noon in Room W242.

Dr John Oliver
Head of Research (Acting)
Media School

Sneaky and dishonest?: Covert research a much maligned, forgotten jewel in the crown

Guidance

Prof Jonathan Parker, School of Health and Social Care, reflects on covert reseach methods and their use in the social sciences…

There have been a wide range of important studies that have used covert methods, that have collected data from people who do not know they are being studied at the time, who would not give permission or, had permission been sought, where the data may have been dubious or biased. Researchers justify their actions by stating the need to gain access to inaccessible groups, to illuminate important social issues, and to uncover the unpalatable. Famous examples include, of course, Rosenhan’s[1] study of the ways in which mental illness may be attributed by location and situation (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/179/4070/250.short), Holdaway’s[2] insider research into the police, and Hunter S. Thompson’s[3] research into Hell’s Angel communities.

Covert methods have fallen out of vogue and are often difficult to get through postgraduate committees or, indeed, university and other research ethics committees, which increasingly promote a risk averse and pedestrian approach to scrutiny. The reasons for this include the important focus, within disciplinary ethical codes, academic and professional ethics committees, on informed consent, and promote a seemingly natural desire for excising duplicity and dishonesty from data collection in research. However, there are arguments that suggest covert methods may not always be dishonest or duplicitous and, indeed, not to use them in certain circumstances, may be, unwittingly, unethical (see Parker et al., forthcoming[4]).

The use of undercover reporting in investigative journalism, for example relating to NHS hospitals and patient treatment, and more recently non-NHS hospitals; whilst not research, illuminates many hidden and dubious practices in current society, representing some of the social good that can be drawn from such methods, and indeed ‘impact’ (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/226545.php).

Where do our research ideas come from in the social sciences? Often from lectures and dialogue within these with students, from supervision, and observations we make in everyday life. That we have collected initial soundings and thoughts from these settings and situations, which has not been scrutinised or completed without informed consent is not questioned: it would be ridiculous to assume we needed informed consent to undertake our daily practices!

There are inherent dangers in covert research which cannot be nor should not be ignored. We have a responsibility as a university to our research students and academic staff and their safety and there are, in some cases, dangers of physical violence or personal abuse in researching undercover. There are also potential reputational and relational issues for universities to consider. These risks must be assessed but we must also ask who shoulders the responsibility for the risk and whether it is important to support cover research because of its illuminative, social importance. We must acknowledge too that some unpalatable areas or risky areas can be negotiated, such as in Fielding’s[5] study of the National Front. However, permissions themselves may detract from the study quality, raise the potential for social desirability responses and selecting data collection methods requires careful thought for the best research and best practices.

As we strive for research excellence and relevance here at BU, we should grapple enthusiastically with the issues and challenges involved in covert research and back it wholeheartedly where its importance is clear. A flaccid response can lose the excitement and challenge involved in the production of new knowledge from in depth engagement with individuals, groups and societies. URECs need to highlight legal challenges, of course. Current mental capacity legislation (which my own research for the Social Care Institute for Excellence and Department of Health suggests transposes ethical scrutiny drawn from moves to protect the public from dangerous medical experimentation Parker et al. 2010[6]) demands ethical scrutiny by appropriate committees, but used well can promote and support ethically-driven knowledge creation and exploration of hidden issues that require methods that cannot and should not involve informed consent. To avoid or proscribe such research methods in all cases leads us down a safe but uninteresting and, potentially, unethical, track.

[1] Rosenhan, D.L. (1973) On being sane in insane places, Science, 179, 4070, 250-258.

[2] Holdaway, S. (1983) Inside the British Police: A force at work, Oxford: Blackwell.

[3] Thompson, H.S. (2003/1965) Hell’s Angels, London: Penguin.

[4] Parker, J., Penhale, B. and Stanley, D. (forthcoming) Research ethics review: social care and social science research and the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Ethics and Social Welfare

[5] Fielding, N. (1982) Observational research on the National Front, in M. Bulmer (ed.) Social Research Ethics: An examination of the merits of covert participant observation, London: Macmillan.

[6] Parker, J., Penhale, B. and Stanley, D. (2010) Problem or safeguard? Research ethics review in social care research and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Social Care and Neurodisability 1, 2, 22-32.

Keywords for Research

Guidance

Matthew’s previous blog post (Research Ontology of Find an Expert!) introduced the concept of using the Science-Metrix ontology as the starting point for how BU will classify research in the future.

To date we have not received any responses from BU staff as to whether you think these keywords are suitable, or any suggestions for alternative keywords.

These keywords will be extremely important going forwards as they will be the words used to classify your research expertise in the future, both internally and externally.

The ontology is based on 176 discipline sub-fields which can be viewed here. We are aware these might not be a finished product for BU’s needs but we need your input to further refine them for our use.

Your comments and ideas are very welcome and should be added as comments to the blog post.

Research Ontology or Find an Expert!

Guidance

The new publication management system will be introduced over the summer and become the single user interface for academics with their web profiles and such things as BURO.  This project is in syncs with the introduction of the new content management system within BU which will transform our web presence.  As part of both these projects we plan to introduce a ‘find an expert’ function both for internal and external use.  We need to liberate academics to collaborate openly and freely within BU.  One of the inhibitors at the moment is actually finding someone to collaborate with!  So the find an expert function will have real power to help staff find potential expertise within BU with which to work.

The problem is that any such system is only as good as the keywords used to describe each individual’s research; we all refer to ourselves and our work via a plethora of different terms.  A basic ontology of subjects and research fields provides on solution.  Staff pick the words within the ontology which best fits their expertise.  There are lots of research ontology’s we could use as the starting point.  For example the Library of Congress Subject Headings is one of the best with good coverage of all subjects but is very granular for BU.  There are 150 different types of sociology for example!  Another option is the Science-Metrix which has three levels and 176 sub-fields.  This is much more manageable and could be modified to incorporate our own terms such as the ten BU Research Themes.

I would be interested to have your thoughts on this matter.  A list of the 176 sub-fields from the Science-Metrix ontology is shown below.  How would you describe your own research via such a system?  Are there alternative ontology’s we could use?  Your comments and ideas would be very welcome, but soon please since we have to take a decision on this shortly!

Unlocking Attitudes to Open Access

Guidance

open access logo, Public Library of Science Emma Crowley and David Ball, Student and Academic Services, discuss open access publishing, and the role of the institutional repository BURO, and launch a short staff survey on open access publishing…

 

  • What do you understand by Open Access? 
  • Do you deposit your research outputs in BURO, BU’s online repository? 
  • Who owns the copyright to your research papers?
  • Would you consider publishing in an Open Access Journal? 

At BU these are exciting times for research and one of the key ways of ensuring that your work has impact is to make it available Open Access.  Most of you will be familiar with BURO, our online research repository, and are hopefully contributing your research outputs on a regular basis as per BU’s Academic Publications Policy.  As a strategic part of your personal research processes it is essential that you retain your own pre-print (pre peer review) and post-print (post peer review) copies of your journal articles as most publishers will allow you to make either of these formats available open access, but not the branded publisher PDF.  You can check copyright permissions in BURO using the Sherpa Romeo tool.    

So, how do we know how impactful our research really is?  The answer to this challenging question, discussed at length at this week’s Developing and Assessing Impact for the REF Conference, is not necessarily here, but clearly research that is being viewed and downloaded by large numbers of global web users has a greater chance of influencing policy and attracting more citations.  Below are the 3 most downloaded full text journal articles in BURO during the last quarter.  You can even see which search terms people are using to find your work. 

Buhalis, D. and Law, R., 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet – The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management, 29 (4), pp. 609-623. 517 Downloads

Edwards, J. and Hartwell, H., 2006. Hospital food service: a comparative analysis of systems and introducing the ‘Steamplicity’ concept. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 19 (6), pp. 421-430. 506 Downloads

van Teijlingen, E. and Hundley, V., 2001. The Importance of Pilot Studies. Social Research Update (35), pp. 1-4. 405 Downloads

In addition to BURO BU recently launched its own Open Access Publication Fund that will support BU academics in publishing their research in Open Access journals, where a fee is required to publish, but everyone can view your article.

We would be very grateful if you could participate in a short survey, the results of which will help inform BU strategy on Open Access and wider developments for Open Access in UK HE.  There is only one page of questions which will take you less than 10 minutes to complete.  The survey will remain open until Monday 30th June.

Please note: if you experience any technical difficulties using the survey please contact Learning Technology

Peer review and busy academics…

Guidance

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen, School of Health and Social Care, reflects on the benefits of getting involved in peer review…

Prof Edwin van TeijlingenOne of the main elements of quality control in academic publishing is the process of peer review of articles.  Editors of scientific journals will send manuscripts submitted to their journal out to a number of reviewers who are experts on, for example, the research topic, the method, theoretical approach or the geographical in the manuscript. 

Typically journal editors will quickly read the summary or abstract of the submission and on the basis of this decide whether or not to send out the paper for review. The process mentioned above ‘blinds’ as the editor or editorial assistant removes his name from the manuscript before sending it to peer reviewers. However, in many of the newer Open Access journals the review is ‘open’.  This means the reviewers note the name and affiliation of author(s) and the author(s) will receive the feedback and verdict of named reviewers.  Reviewing is an essential element of the process of academic quality control.  More over the reviewers are ordinary academics who volunteer to do this work without additional pay.   Similarly, most editors of academic journals are also volunteers and unpaid.

journalsThose of us who are actively involved in publishing about academic research are regularly asked to review articles for journals in their field.  I usually am invited to review a paper twice or three times a month and I try to do at least one a month.  The reasons for reviewing papers are plentiful.  First, I believe in the essence of peer-reviewing as a system to maintain scientific quality.  Secondly, you get to read some interesting research findings before anybody else, or the flip side, you get some pretty awful papers which makes you realise your own work quite good.  Thirdly, it is something expected of all-round academic, as task you can add to your CV, etc.  Fourthly, if I want my submitted papers to receive proper attention in the review process I feel I must to the same for someone else.  Lastly, I get a chance to see ‘the other side’ as I am also an editor.

As an editor or member of an editorial board I regularly invite, beg or plea to colleagues to review a paper for the journals I’m involved with.  Some times it is more difficult than others to get people to volunteer for the review process. I know how hard it can be to get a decent reviewer for a particular manuscript.   An example of the latter is a recent paper submitted to BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth for which I needed to find reviewers.  In the first week of April I invited eight reviewers from across the globe (as the paper focused on maternity care in a developing country); on the basis of its past experience BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth suggests to its Associate Editors that they invite eight reviewers per paper to ensure at least two agree to review.

Later last month I was asked by the editorial assistant to find a few more potential reviewers for the same paper as none of the people I had originally invited has: (a) accepted the invite; or (b) replied at all.  So, I emailed a few reminders to those who had not replied and found four extra names as possible reviewers.  To my surprise, I received another email yesterday from the editorial assistant that no one had accepted the invitation to conduct a review yet.  There were now nine who had formally declined and the remainder had not replied at all.  So this morning I invited two more reviewers and sent a reminder to those who had not replied at all.

My plea in this blog is encourage BU researchers to get involved in peer reviewing.  If we want to benefit from others reviewing our work, we need to be prepared to do the same in return.  I think, especially for more junior researcher such as Ph.D. and Doctoral students, acting as a reviewer is a good learning exercise as well as way of becoming part of the scholarly community.

I would like to thank Ms. Sheetal Sharma, Ph.D. student in the School or Health & Social Care, for her comments on the draft text of this blog.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
School of Health & Social Care

Associate Editor BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth Guest Editor Special Issue on ‘The Maternity Workforce’ for Midwifery (2011)

Is Knowledge Transfer Important to BU?

Guidance

Dr Martyn Polkinghorne highlights the importance of Knowledge Transfer to the EU…

Well certainly the EU Commission thinks so. In fact it’s so important that the EU Commission says that member states (e.g. the UK) should “ensure that all public research organisations define knowledge transfer as a strategic mission” and that they should “support the development of knowledge transfer capacity and skills in public research organisations, as well as measures to raise the awareness and skills of students – in particular in the area of science and technology – regarding intellectual property, knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship”.1

Supporting intellectual property, knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship are currently activities successfully being undertaken by BU’s Centre for Research & Enterprise (CRE).

When considering Knowledge Transfer as a strategic mission for public research organisations, the EU Commission also states that it wants to move towards a position in which “ knowledge transfer between universities and industry is made a permanent political and operational priority for all public research funding bodies within a Member State, at both national and regional level”.2

More information regarding the EU Commission’s views can be accessed here.

So is Knowledge Transfer important to BU? My personal view is that at a time when BU is looking to increase its portfolio of research funding (including EU sources of funding) it certainly looks as if knowledge transfer may become increasingly important.

What do you think? Let me know your own thoughts and opinions.

Dr Martyn Polkinghorne

Knowledge Transfer Programmes Centre Manager

1 Commission Recommendation on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer activities and Code of Practice for universities and other public research organisations, pp 3, 2008

2 Commission Recommendation on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer activities and Code of Practice for universities and other public research organisations, pp 8, 2008

Like our posts? Then let us know!

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We’re interested to know what you like about the blog, which posts you find useful and what you’d like to see more of.

The best way to do this is by commenting on the blog posts (see our previous post on how to do this).

As of today you can also like individual blog posts using our newly installed Facebook like plugin.

If you like a blog post and have a Facebook account then simply click on the like icon at the start or end of the post.

This will enable us to do more of the posts you like and find useful 🙂

Launch of our snazzy new Daily Digest email!

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Subscribers to the Blog will today have noticed our snazzy new Daily Digest email.

The Daily Digest is sent to all Blog subscribers every day at 4pm and provides an easy to read overview of all of the posts added to the Blog in the past 24 hours.

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Talk to strangers…

Guidance

Dr Julie Robson, Director of Enterprise in the Business School, reflects on the benefits of talking to strangers…

The ‘top ten tips to ..’ lists seem to be everywhere these days.  Tops ten tips to live longer, be happier, healthier and to find your ideal partner. One list that I came across recently in the business section of one of the Sunday newspapers promised to provide the reader with ten ways to be successful at work. Most of us have seen these lists before and to be honest the advice, although perhaps sound, was somewhat predictable:  i.e., deliver solutions rather than problems, be positive at work, be prepared to go the extra mile, etc.  The one tip that did stand out from the rest invited the reader to talk to strangers. This one probably stood out most as from a young age it’s the very thing we are advised against. Strangers are after all dangerous aren’t they? The rationale for talking to strangers was simply the more people you talk to the more you widen your list of contacts and knowledge of others and how they see the world.  Whilst I’m not necessarily advocating that we all go out and talk to strangers, in many ways talking to strangers is really just networking, albeit networking is more structured in terms of planning ahead, having a clear objective and following up afterwards.

networkingCould good networking then be the secret to being a successful academic? On reflection it’s a good way to identify new ideas, new ways to transfer knowledge to a wider audience and new partners for bids  Maybe talking to strangers, or at least new people, is good advice after all.

Dr Julie Robson

Director of Enterprise and Acting Head of Marketing

The Business School

For further information on successful networking see these two articles:
How to develop successful networking skills in academia
How to create an academic network

Success of Postdoctoral Development Programme in HSC

Guidance

The School of Health and Social Care has recently launched a new postdoctoral development programme aimed at those staff who have completed their doctoral studies. Prof Elizabeth Rosser (Associate Dean) provides an overview of how the programme works and the benefits to those involved…

A new postdoctoral development programme has commenced in HSC to offer those who have completed their doctoral studies the opportunity to move forward collectively as well as individually in their research endeavours. 

Initially the programme has focused on Nurses with the idea of running the programme again using an interprofessional group within the School, and maybe this could ultimately be a University-wide initiative with interschool activity?

The programme has commenced focusing on developing the skills of participants in the area of bidding for research grants, sharing the experiences of those with a range of bidding activity under their belts and encouraging all members to engage in undertaking one bid during the life of the programme.

This 6-month programme which commenced February 2011 has already made an impact.  One afternoon per month the group of 10 postdoctoral academics, drawn from each of the research centres in the School,  engage with the professoriate in learning the skills of bidding for research grants, sharing the lessons learned, as well as the challenges and the pitfalls.  Whilst there are key areas addressed during the programme, essentially the action learning group is informal with the programme content arising from queries and suggestions from the group itself.  The atmosphere offers an air of excitement and is informal and very informative with a buzz of spontaneity and active discussion.  The testimonials provided here show just how useful the programme has been to participants as well as to the HSC professoriate.

We need to do more of this….

Professor Elizabeth Rosser

Associate Dean (Nursing)

School of Health and Social Care