Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
We are wishing our colleagues, students, researchers and collaborators from South Asia a Happy New Year today. The best wishes for the Bangla New Year 1433 and for the Nepali New Year 2083!
Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley
Yesterday the international journal Health Policy & Planning published our latest article with the title ‘Understanding the formulation of non-communicable disease policies in Nepal: A qualitative study‘ [1]. The paper is part of the PhD work (at the University of Hudderfield) by the first author, Dr. Anju Vaidya, who is originally from Nepal. Anju’s thesis was supervised by Prof. Padam Simkhada (University of Chester), Prof. Andre Lee (The University of Sheffield) and by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
The paper recognises that there is limited evidence about the process through which health policies were formulated in Nepal. This study used Kingdon’s multiple streams framework to explore how NCDs (non-communicable diseases) were recognised and prioritised, how policy alternatives were decided, how policy windows were opened, and which contextual factors influenced the policy formulation process. Anju’s PhD included a qualitative study to gain a comprehensive understanding of the formulation of major NCD-related policies in Nepal. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 key stakeholders, and policy documents were analysed using framework analysis.
The NCDs were gradually prioritised through the convergence of global and local evidence, sustained advocacy, and international commitments. Policymakers encountered several challenges, such as competing health priorities, the chronic nature of NCDs, donor preferences for communicable diseases, financial constraints, and multisectoral complexities of NCDs. The Package of Essential Non-communicable diseases (PEN) interventions were adopted as a policy alternative, informed by global evidence, World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, and lessons from other countries. While coordinated efforts by stakeholders brought the problem, policy and politics streams together, the role of policy entrepreneurs was found to be less relevant in Nepal’s context.
Health Policy & Planning is an Open Access journal, hence the paper is available worldwide to anybody with internet access.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
The editor of HIV Research & Clinical Practice informed us that the paper ‘Stigma in UK health care: A key barrier to reaching zero HIV transmission by 2030’ has been accepted for publication [1]. This paper is based on the PhD research currently conducted by Mr. Tom Weeks in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS). Tom’s thesis focuses on the perceptions of stigmatisation of People Living with HIV in care settings in the UK and the kind of education health care staff (clinical and non-clinical) receive in relation to HIV. His long-term aim in the PhD is to help improve education to reduce such stigma. Tom is being supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
Both supervisors have a long experience in studying social and health promotion aspects of HIV and AIDS. Thirty years ago Prof. van Teijlingen worked in the NHS as a researcher in the Centre for HIV/AIDS and Drugs Studies based in Edinburgh. Whilst Dr. Regmi conducted his PhD research on sexual health and health promotion in young people in Nepal. Both supervisors themselves have published widely on the topic of HIV and AIDS [2-23]. The first of these many publication was a letter on community care for people living with HIV in the community which was published in the Lancet in 1993 [2].
References
On Monday 9th March Prof. Sujan Marahatta visited Bournmouth University (BU) to speak about ‘Strengthening BU-Nepal collaboration AND Nepal’s experience of competency-based health professional education’. Prof. Marahatta is the Director of the Medical Education Commission in Nepal overseeing the education of health professionals in 15 areas including Medicine, Physiotherapy, Nursing and Midwifery. 
He spoke about long partnership between Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) and BU. This partnership is formalised in a Memoradum of Agreement (MoA) and over the years it has included joint research projects, staff-student exchanges (funded by ERASMUS+ and Turing scheme) and offering guest lectures at each others institutions.
One of the jointly conducted studies which Prof. Marahatta highlighted was the work on CPD (Continuous Professional Development) in nursing and midwifery in Nepal. Research on CPD started a decade ago and culminated in several papers [1-4]. The research was combined with sustained advocacy and stakeholder engagement, and resulted in the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) formally introduced mandatory CPD as a requirement for nursing and midwifery re-registration earlier this year (15 January 2026). The National Guideline on Continuing Nursing and Midwifery Education (CNME) CPD for Nurses and Midwives refer to our work conducted by academics based at Bournemouth University. This is the foundation for one of BU’s REF Impact Case Studies for 2029.
Amongst other studies, Prof. Marahatta also highlighted a recent publication which was jointly authored between BU’s professors Clark and Hundley and himself on pain catastrophising in nulliparous women in Nepal, the importance for childbirth [5]. Prof. Marahatta’s visit was held in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) in the Bournemouth Gateway Building.
References:
Worldwide there is a growing interest in interdisciplinary research, especially to help deal with large questions in life, the so-called wicked problems. These wicked problems (or questions) include climate disasters and global warming, globalisation, the drop in biodiversity, inequalities and international conflicts. Interdisciplinary research increasingly popular and widely promoted by grant-giving bodies, the UK REF (Research Excellence Framework), research councils and universities, to name but a few stakeholders.
However, it is often ignored, that interdisciplinary research presents significant challenges for discipline-specific experts. Doing interdisciplinary research requires specialised skills, team-player personality traits, and the ability to transcend one’s own academic boundaries. We have highlighted in the past that common barriers include managing conflicting research philosophies, navigating, and overcoming, methodological, and communication differences [1]. Those who have been involved in interdisciplinary research will agree that is not an easy option for the individual discipline expert. It requires individual skills, ability to see beyond one’s discipline and perhaps personality characteristics such as a great team player. Interdisciplinary research may involve a mixed-methods approach underpinned by conflicting, and according to some incommensurable, research philosophies.
It is also the case that some disciplines are perhaps more familiar with interdisciplinary working, disciplines such as Public Health [2] are traditionally less theory focused and more solution driven. But even in Public Health as a broad-ranging discipline covering sub-disciplines such as epidemiology, health education, law, management, health psychology, medical statistics, sociology of health & illness and a wide-range of research methods, conducting interdisciplinary research is not necessarily easy [3].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Dr. Pramod Regmi both are in the School of Health & Care, and Dr. Shanti Farrington, who is based in the School of Psychology.
References:
Yesterday (5th March) Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen published a topical piece in an online newspaper in Nepal called ‘NepaliLink. This newspaper article coincided with the national elections taking place in the country. This is the first general election since Gen Z protests overturned the Government of Nepal in the autumn of 2025. Migrant labour is key to Nepal’s economy as no country in the world relies so much on workers going abroad to work and sending money home. The latter is called remittance and the total amount sent home comprises more than a quarter of the national income.
Dr. Regmi and Prof. van Teijlingen have conducted a great number of studies on the health and well-being of migrant workers from Nepal. This includes a paper ‘A comparison of chronic kidney risk among returnee Nepalese migrant workers in the countries of Gulf and Malaysia and non-migrants in Nepal: a population-based cross-sectional study’ whixh was recently accepted for publication in BMC Nephrology. With a grant from the COLT Foundation, our BU team led the first large-scale population-based interdisciplinary study examining kidney health among Nepalese migrants. Conducted in mid-2023 in one of Nepal’s highest out-migration districts, the forthcoming study compared risks between migrants and non-migrants from the same community [1]. Our study identified significantly higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity among male migrant workers compared to non-migrants. Interestingly, smoking and alcohol consumption were more common among non-migrant men. However, one in seven male migrants reported consuming potentially hazardous counterfeit or home-brewed alcohol while abroad. The findings suggest that both adverse working environments and lifestyle factors may contribute to increased heart disease among migrant workers.
Both Dr. Regmi and Prof. van Teijlingen are based in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) and in the last five years alone they have published over twenty publications about the health and well-being of migrant workers [2-21].
References
Venue: Student Hall, Talbot Campus
Event Schedule is as follows:
Monday (9th March)
12:30 Registration
12:50 Opening address
13:00 – 14:30 BSL session – BSL teachers: Lynn Preston & Richard Neale
14:30 – 15:00 Break
15:00 – 16:30 BSL session – BSL teachers: Lynn Preston & Richard Neale
16:30 Closing
Tuesday (10th March)
9:30 Registration
9:50 Opening address
10:00 – 11:00 AI Translation between Sign and Spoken Language
Presenter: Richard Bowden is Professor of Computer Vision and Machine Learning within the Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing at the University of Surrey. He is also co-founder of Signapse. His research centres on the use of computer vision to locate, track, and understand humans with a specific interest and focus on sign languages. Having worked on many areas of computer vision, including robotics, autonomous vehicles and the tracking and analysis of humans. He has been developing computational approaches to sign language recognition and translation for over 30 years. Over the last few years Richard has refocused his entire research group on Sign Language Translation, with recent funding including a large grant from Google to reduce the cost of translation through AI and SignGPT, which aims to develop the next generation of AI tools for sign languages.
11:00 – 11:15 Break
11:15 – 12:00 A History of the Development and Access to British Sign Language
Presenter: George Raggett has been deaf from the age of eight through a yet undiagnosed hereditary condition. George acquired good speaking and reading skills prior to his hearing loss and prefer to communicate using these methods, supplemented by hearing aids and naturally developed lip-reading skills. George has developed Sign Language skills since 1987 and has been teaching Sign Language and Deaf Awareness & Communication courses to all ages since qualifying as a teacher in 2002. In 2007, George became a trustee of The Wiltshire and Dorset Deaf Association, a charity set up to promote and support the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Communities of both counties, in 2004
12:00 – 13:30 Break
13:30 – 14:15 Relevant Annotation for Multimodal Interaction Analysis: AI Bridging Interaction Studies of Gestures and Signs
Presenter: Mayumi Bono is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Kobe University in 2005. In her Ph.D. project, she demonstrated how to build a machine-readable model of the ‘Participation Framework,’ initially provided by Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman. After receiving her Ph.D., she got a position in informatics at ATR Media Information Science Laboratories, Kyoto University, and the National Institute of Informatics based on fruitful collaborations with engineering and informatics researchers. Currently, she is conducting several research projects of building sharable spoken and sign language multimodal corpora in an open science framework for all academic researchers interested in human communication using artificial intelligence techniques such as machine learning.
14:15 – 14:45 J-Shuwa: A Large-Scale Web-Collected Japanese Sign Language-Japanese Parallel Corpus
Presenter: Junwen Mo is a PhD candidate in the Nakayama Lab at the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on sign language understanding, with an emphasis on Japanese Sign Language translation. Recently, he has also developed an interest in alternative computational paradigms for artificial intelligence.
14:45 – Break
15:00 – 15:30 Between Representation and Embodiment: Perspectives on Sign Language Avatars
Presenter: Yi Wen is a first-year PhD researcher at Bournemouth University, where she previously completed her Master’s in Artificial Intelligence. She has a background in the game industry, working on large-scale production pipelines and collaborative projects. Her current research interests include sign language avatars, particularly exploring how different representational approaches may influence how signing is generated and experienced.
15:30 – 16:00 Continuous Sign language Recognition (CSLR): Feature Extraction from an Image Procesing Perspective
Presenter: Xinyu Zhang is an artificial intelligence researcher working at the intersection of medical imaging, representation learning, and algorithmic alignment. Her research advances contemporary medical AI by promoting approaches that reduce dependence on clinical expert teams and high computational resources, thereby enhancing scalability, reproducibility, and accessibility.
16:30 Closing
Last week we opened the Evidence Synthesis Centre in the School of Medical Sciences at Kathmandu University in Nepal. The centre is part of a wider initiative is funded by The British Academy and supported in the field by Green Tara Nepal. Earlier parts of this initiative included online workshop on systematic reviewing and evidence synthesis as well as face-to-face training in Nepal late last year. The project involved Bournemouth University’s Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen both in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences. 
This capacity-building project is led by Prof. Padam Simkhada from the University of Huddersfield and takes place at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS). This new Fellowship scheme is an international collaboration led by the University of Huddersfield in the UK, in close collaboration with Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (in Nepal), the Nepal Health Research Council, and several UK universities: Bournemouth University, the University of Sheffield, Canterbury Christ Church University, Keele University and the University of Chester. The Evidence Synthesis Centre and The British Academy grant grew out of an editorial written four years ago and published in the Journal of the Nepal Health Research Council [1]. The wider British Academy funded project on strengthening evidence synthesis for health policy-making in Nepal has been described in two recent publications [2-3].
References:
Prof. Sujan Marahatta from Nepal will be presenting at Bournemouth University about Competency-based education of health professionals in Nepal. He will be speaking on Monday March 9th in a session jointly organised by the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) and the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-Term Health (CWLTH). The session will be in the Bournemouth Gateway Building (BGB) room 407 from 10.00 till 12.00. Prof. Marahatta is currently the Director of the Medical Education Commission in Nepal overseeing the education on the country of a wide range of health professionals including nurses and midwives. Prof. Marahatta is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (FHEMS)and has been so for nearly a decade. He is also a co-author on many publications with several past and present academics in the Faculty of Health, Environment and Medical Sciences [1-20]. Former BU academics with whom Prof. Marahatta is a co-author include: Bibha Simkhada, Nirmal Aryal, Malcolm McIver, Preeti Mahato, Elaine Asbridge, Jana Kuncova, and Anneyce Knight, whilst co-authors currently based at BU include: Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Carol Clark, Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Vanora Hundley, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
References:
Last month I had the honour of chairing a committee to review the first three years of the MSc in Midwifery in the Netherlands. Since all Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the Netherlands offer this joint degree there is only one in the country. This national collaboration meant there were very few academics working in the field of midwifery who can claim to be independent. All midwifery educators/academic midwives are employed by one of the HEIs participating in the joint Master’s degree. Hence, two of the four committee members, including myself came from abroad.
Today’s blog highlights that there is a different way to the UK version of external examining as a form of quality control in Higher Education. In the UK each undergraduate programme, or year in a programme, or module has its own external examiner, who is appointed typically for three years to act as independent assessor. External examiners typically reviews all education aspects of the programme/module and discuss their assessment examiners’ meetings held at the host university. For more details on external examining in the UK, see also:”Acting as External Examiners in the UK: Going Beyond Quality Assurance” [1].
The Netherlands and Flemish-speaking Belgium has a single cross-national organisation which is responsible for assessing the quality of higher education degrees. This organisation, the NVAO [Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders], has an accreditation system that covers Associate Degree, Bachelor’s, and Master’s programmes in the Netherlands. First, there is the need for initial accreditation of a new programme, valid for a period of six years. Secondly, the accreditation of an existing programme, which, following a positive assessment, is valid indefinitely, as long as the programmes passes the six-yearly assessment by a panel of independent experts (peers engaged by the NVAO). Between these periodic assessments there is no equivalent of the UK’s annual external examiners’ meeting.
Reference:
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
After several little hiccups in our Sonamoni research project we can now show some of the work. Sonamoni is a four-year research study led by the University of Bournemouth and the Centre for Injury Prevention Research Bangladesh (CIPRB) with the University of Southampton, the University of the West of England (UWE), the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Design Without Borders (DWB) to develop a number of interventions to prevent drowning in children under the age of 2 years in rural Bangladesh. After several stages of well-planned research we worked with local communities and stakeholders to propose six interventions with the prospect of been taken further to a full community-based feasibility study.
These six interventions are being piloted in Bangladesh as I am writing this. This pilot phase is made more difficult at the moment as the country is in the ban of the forthcoming national elections. These elections are particularly challenging for the people in Bangladesh and CIPRB as the local research partner. The previous national election resulted in violent changes, and the lead up to this election has been, and still is, a difficult period.
We would like to highlight one of the six interventions in a little more detail, as the Human-Centred Design approach, resulted in a neat, simple and low-cost playpen. The colourful pictures shows the first batch of flatpack playpens in the CIPRB office and some being delivered to rural villages. However, getting the first sixty developed in Bangladesh turned out more difficult than expected. 
Our collagues in Bangladesh approached several small to medium-sized companies in the country with the production capabilities to produce a large number of playpens. In the end only one way interested to try and this company took much longer than agreed to produce enough for our pilot stage. The good news is that the first stage of the pilot is underway, although now we have the difficulty of forthcoming national election slowing down our research.
This interdisciplinary study is funded through the NIHR Research on Interventions for Global Health Transformation programme (Ref: NIHR203216). The Bournemouth University team comprises staff from across the university covering all three faculties: Dr. Mavis Bengtsson, Dr. Kyungjoo Cha, Dr. Mehdi Chowdhury, Dr. Yong Hun Lim, Mr. John Powell, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Ph.D. student Mr. Md. Shafkat Hossain. For more information about our ongoing research in Bangladesh, please visit the NIHR website.
As it is the start of 2026 we are now recruiting students to join the Missing Persons Indicator Project.
MPIP offers students the opportunity to engage in applied research in collaboration with International Commission on Missing Persons. Student researchers contribute to the collation, inputting and analysis of data that supports a deeper understanding of how States engage with, and seek to resolve, missing persons cases. This work informs policy and advocacy relevant insights and has practical value for those, such as the ICMP, involved in missing persons investigations and diplomacy.
The past year marked a significant phase for the development of the project. During 2025 the team focused on refining how MPIP data should be presented to external stakeholders and the wider public. Student researchers played a role in this work, and the final format of the public-facing website is due for release in 2026. The project also benefited from engagement with Maastricht University’s Data Governance Master’s programme, where two seminar-style discussions provided valuable perspectives on data governance considerations for public data access.
As with many research initiatives, 2025 also prompted reflection on the potential role of AI tools in supporting the project. Exploring and implementing these ideas will form part of the the next phase of work allowing the incoming cohort of student volunteers to develop and understand ethical use of AI in research projects.
While MPIP is grounded in legal research, students from a variety of disciplines could benefit from participating, including: business, through a data management, governance and AI lens; and sociology/criminology, through missing persons impact on society.
We would be grateful if colleagues could share this opportunity with students who may be interested, or who may benefit from engagement with such research.
Practical details:
📍 In person at BU (Talbot Campus, Weymouth House, third floor)
⏱️ Approximately 8 hours a month
Snacks available as a thank-you.
👉 Students can register their interest by requesting an expression of interest (EOI) form via indicators@bournemouth.ac.uk
Key Dates:
📅 Deadline for EOI: Monday 9th February at midday
📅 Interviews: Monday 16th February
More information on the project is available here: https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/projects/missing-persons-indicator-project
The Nepal Nursing Council has made Continuing Professional Development (CPD) compulsory for all nurses and midwives wanting to re-enrol from tomorrow. Starting on 15th January 2025 all nurses and midwives who want to re-register will have to show evidence of having conducted recent training to maintain and enhance their knowledge, skills, and professional competence. According to the new provision, licences will not be renewed unless applicants have completed a minimum of 60 hours of training within the preceding six years. This change in regulation is largely driven by research driven by two UK universities, and BU is one of them.
As early as 2016 the research team called for a move to a system of post-registration with compulsory further learning and regular updating of skills, adding that “the introduction of CPD will be beneficial to all nurses in Nepal” [1]. The key argument was that If Nepal does not establish CPD requirements, only some staff will engage with training activities, it will be ad hoc driven by personal interests rather than service needs. An even greater concern was that staff will seek only the free training made available by either the government and/or INGOs (International Non-Governmental Organisations) rather than CPD most relevant to their current practices.
To generate the evidence that CPD is vital in Nepal, the team led by Dr. Bibha Simkhada conducted interviews with nurse leader in the country to understand perspectives on existing on-the-job training and Continuous Professional Development more generally [2]. Bibha, currently Reader in Nursing at the University of Huddersfield, worked at Bournemouth University for several years during this research. Next, the researchers conducted focus group discussions with other relevant stakeholders [3]. These research findings were disseminated to stakeholders in Kathmandu, including the NNC (Nepal Nursing Council), MIDSON (Midwifery Society of Nepal), NAN (Nursing Association of Nepal), and the Ministry of Health & Population as well as to a wider audience through a call under the heading ‘Nepal needs Continuing Professional Development for Re-registration in Nursing and Midwifery’ [4].
These papers all argue that promoting CPD benefits the quality of health care. Indirectly, it builds confidence in the general population as it is guarantee to the individual patient in Nepal that the nurses and midwives, who are treating them, have up-to-date skills and knowledge. In addition, it strengthens the NNC as it supports to professionalise nursing and midwifery in Nepal and bring the standard of nursing and midwifery practices to a higher and internationally comparable level.
The research work at BU was supported by small amounts of QR funding through BU Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) in 2016, the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health in 2018 and the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences in 2019. This shows that well-designed research conducted by researchers who have insight into the political landscape of health services in Nepal can have a great impact with minimal resources.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (BU REF lead UoA3)
&
Dr. Vikram Mohan (UoA3 REF Impact Champion)
References
Happy New Year and we hope it will be prosperous and healthy. On the last day of 2025 the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published our editorial ‘Progress of the Unique Fellowship in Health Research Evidence Synthesis in Nepal‘ [1]. Co-authors of this editorial include Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Visiting Faculty: Prof. Padam Simkhada and Dr. Bibha Simkhada who are both grant holders on the British Academy grant which also includes BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi. The journal editor added a photo of our recent three-day event on research capacity building in Dhulikhel (Nepal) to the cover of the December issue.
Nepalese researchers, academics, policymakers and practitioners are undertaking a unique Fellowship in evidence synthesis and evidence-based policy making. This Fellowship is part of a larger project called ‘Evidence Informed Health Policy Making in Nepal (EHPN)’, funded by the British Academy. After our training event Dr. Regmi had the opportunity to present our (2022) textbook Academic Writing and Publishing in Health and Social Sciences to His Excellency Mr. Madhav Chaulagain, Nepal’s newly appointed Minister of Forest & Environment.
Evidence-informed policy making developed out of the earlier idea of ‘evidence-based policy making’. The central idea behind evidence-based policy making was that it should be largely (or even solely) guided by evidence. Evidence-informed policy making adds that policies should not just be evidence-based they should also be feasible, appropriate for their context and aligned with stakeholders’ values and therefore one would expect meaningful input from these stakeholders. This is the second editorial highlighting our research capacity-building work in Nepal. The first editorial ‘Strengthening Evidence Synthesis for Health Policymaking in Nepal: A New Fellowship Initiative’ appeared in an earlier edition of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology [2].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
Today, Discover Public Health, published our latest academic paper on maternity and neonatal care in Nepal [1]. Our latest paper ‘A scoping review of interventions to improve maternal and neonatal care in Nepal‘ is lead by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti at the University of Greenwich and co-authored by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. 
For this scoping review we found 418 studies, and twenty were included, which used various interventions that aimed to improve maternal and neonatal health. Five overarching interventions were identified: (1) community-based maternal health literacy; (2) health facility strengthening, including health staff training, (3) mobilisation of female community health volunteers (FCHV) for birth preparedness and identifying danger signs; (4) mobile health messaging, and (5) involving husbands in improving the uptake of maternal and neonatal care. Most interventions were a mixture of activities with a combination of interventions rather than a single intervention.
The authors note that no single intervention is sufficient on its own; indeed, a combination of approaches is needed to improve the uptake of maternal and neonatal care services.
This scientific paper in Discover Public Health is open access and, therefore, freely available worldwide to anybody with internet access. Interestingly, the journal has added an AI generated summary, despite the fact that we as authors had provided a perfectly useful abstract.
Reference:
Yesterday we reached third day of the three-day Fellowship training workshop in Dhulikhel, Nepal on evidence synthesis. This capacity-building project is led by the University of Huddersfield and takes place at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS). This new Fellowship scheme is an international collaboration led by the University of Huddersfield in the UK, in close collaboration with Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (in Nepal), the Nepal Health Research Council, and several UK universities: Bournemouth University, the University of Sheffield, Canterbury Christ Church University, Keele University and the University of Chester. This unique Fellowship started online in the autumn of 2025 and is part of a larger project on strengthening institutional knowledge and capacity of federal, provincial and local governments for evidence-informed health policymaking in Nepal. This important initiative is funded by The British Academy and supported in the field by Green Tara Nepal [1]. The project involved Bournemouth University’s Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen both in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences.
Some 28 Fellows have been selected from nearly one hundred applicants to help build capacity in the field of evidence synthesis with overall aim to promote evidence-informed policymaking in Nepal. This is longstanding aim of the researcher as highlighted in previous call for an evidence-based policy centre in Nepal [2].
References:
1. Simkhada P, Vaidyal A, Regmi P, Paudyal P, van Teijlingen E, Dhimal M, Koirala B, Shresthe A, Simkhada B (2025) Strengthening Evidence Synthesis for Health Policymaking in Nepal: A New Fellowship Initiative, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 15(2), 1379–1380. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v15i2.88516
2. Simkhada P, Dhimal M, van Teijlingen E, Gyanwali P (2022). Nepal Urgently Needs a National Evidence Synthesis Centre, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 20 (3): i-ii.
It feels like only yesterday that I was writing a research blog reflecting on social impact entrepreneurship amongst students at Bournemouth University Business School (BUBS) in the Faculty of Business and Law. A year on, this work continues to evolve, offering further evidence of how entrepreneurship education can act as a catalyst for social impact, inclusion and sustainable development.
This year’s final-year 20-credit module on the Entrepreneurship pathway, called Entrepreneurship and Business Ventures, ran yet another elevator pitch event, resulting in 22 new mentoring opportunities for students developing socially and environmentally minded business ideas. This builds on 24 mentoring opportunities created the previous year, highlighting not only the consistency of outcomes but also the growing strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem surrounding BU.
The module has now been running for over seven years and has undergone deliberate pedagogical redesign during that time. It now operates as an in-class incubation and ideation space for social and impact entrepreneurship, rather than a traditional lecture-led module. Students are supported in developing, testing, and refining venture ideas within a structured environment that prioritises both business viability and social impact.
Central to the unit’s design is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Rather than treating the SDGs as abstract global ambitions, students are encouraged to use them as a practical framework for opportunity recognition. The SDGs help students to identify real-world problems, consider systemic impacts, and design business models that create economic, social and environmental value simultaneously. In this sense, sustainability is positioned not as an ethical add-on, but as a source of legitimacy, resilience and competitive advantage.
Across two days of live elevator pitches, final-year students presented a diverse range of ideas addressing challenges at local, national and global levels. The quality and ambition of the pitches demonstrated a notable shift in entrepreneurial mindset. While financial feasibility remained central, many students framed entrepreneurship in terms of long-term value creation, legacy and responsibility, with profit understood as a means to enable impact rather than an end in itself.
As a module-level assessment, this activity could have been delivered entirely within the classroom. However, entrepreneurship is inherently experiential and relational. Each year, the assessment is therefore designed as a live engagement exercise, with students pitching to an external panel of judges drawn from industry, policy and practice. The panel provides immediate feedback and, crucially, offers mentoring and access to professional networks. These outcomes are particularly significant in relation to inclusive entrepreneurship practice at BU. By embedding incubation, mentoring, and ecosystem engagement within a credit-bearing module, access to entrepreneurial opportunities is expanded. Students do not need prior entrepreneurial experience, social capital or financial resources to participate. Instead, all students on the pathway are given structured access to support, feedback and visibility.
Inclusive entrepreneurship is also evident in the nature of the ideas themselves. Many ventures draw directly on students’ lived experiences, cultural backgrounds and community contexts, demonstrating how diversity can be a driver of innovation. The breadth of the judging panel—including expertise in sustainability, inclusive enterprise, ethnic minority entrepreneurship and venture coaching—further reinforces inclusive role modelling and challenges narrow stereotypes of who entrepreneurs are and what they do. None of this would be possible without the entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports this work. Over seven years, that ecosystem has grown significantly, reflecting shared commitment to impact-driven and inclusive entrepreneurship. The sustained willingness of external partners to mentor students demonstrates that meaningful inclusion is built through relationships and trust, not rhetoric alone.
Reflecting on these outcomes raises an important question for higher education more broadly. If such impact—mentoring, confidence building, inclusive participation and SDG-aligned venture development—can be achieved within a single 20-credit module, what more might be possible with structured, longitudinal support for student social entrepreneurs? At Bournemouth University, this module offers a practical example of how entrepreneurship education can contribute to inclusive growth and sustainable development, aligning teaching, research and external engagement with the Global Goals.
BU staff can login below:
New interdisciplinary paper on Nepal
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