A busy week in politics, and for policy too. Not looking any quieter as we approach the end of the year, either. We will do a short update next week because the ONS report on student loan accounting is due and there are likely to be interesting reflections on that through the week.
Following concerns from parliamentary committees, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is re-examining how student loans are recorded in the Government’s deficit (which is the difference between the Government’s spending and its revenues from tax receipts and other sources). The ONS will announce its decision on 17 December 2018.(more…)
VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE (FACEBOOK LIVESTREAM):
Digital media and the Syrian Crisis. How development organisations leverage digital technologies to support Syrian refugees & Internally Displaced People.
December 13, 3pm-5pm (GMT)
You are warmly invited to participate to a virtual roundtable/debate on how organisations use digital media to promote peacebuilding, reconciliation and community reconstruction in the Syrian crisis. The following organisations will present their experiences, and discuss challenges and opportunities opened up by digital media for supporting peace-building and reconciliation in the Syrian crisis:
The virtual roundtable is part of the AHRC International Network eVoices: Redressing Marginality. To know more about the network please check our website: http://evoices.cemp.ac.uk/
I attended the International Staff Exchange Week Club for Business Collaboration organised by the University of Helsinki from the 7th to 9th November, 2018.
University overview
With 11 faculties spread across 4 different campuses, University of Helsinki has over 7,800 employees (with 56% comprising of teaching and research staff) and 31,300 students.
University of Helsinki has 4 doctoral schools offering 32 doctoral programmes; 61 master’s programmes (of which 35 are in English); and 32 Bachelor’s programmes and EU/EEA students enjoy either no-fee and very low fee tuition at University of Helsinki.
University of Helsinki has an impressive research profile and footprint with over 7,100 academic articles published per year and boasts a total of €194M research funding for 2017.
The University has also pledged to protect the environment by only serving vegetarian catering at university functions.
Programme overview
A total of 31 participants from 21 different institutions from Germany, Lithuania, Romania, France, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Slovenia, Denmark, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, UK, Hungary and Switzerland took part in this staff mobility programme.
The programme activities included keynotes, workshops, participants’ roundtable, poster presentation and competition, dinner hosted by University of Helsinki, facilitated dialogues and reflection exercise.
The theme of the programme was around perspectives and approaches on University-Business collaboration and the keynote speakers included:
Arno Meerman, the CEO of the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) who talked about a holistic perspective to University-Industry Interaction;
Ms Annette Fløcke Lorenzen, the Industrial Relations Manager (University of Copenhagen) who spoke on University-Business collaboration strategy and actions;
Jari Strandman, the CEO of Helsinki Innovation Services who spoke on steps to commercialisation; and
Amanda Paananen, the Senior Adviser in Business Collaboration (University of Helsinkin) who spoke about engaging faculties in business collaboration.
Aside from that, participants also had the opportunity to network and engage with each other through a series of workshop, participants’ roundtable, posters presentation and competition, and facilitated dialogue activities, all on topics relevant to the central theme of University-Industry collaboration.
On the evening of the second day, we were even treated to a delicious and sumptuous traditional Finnish meal at a restaurant near to the University, by the generous host. The fish (pike) was to die for!
Towards the end of the programme, there was also some time left for me to explore the city before darkness fell and despite the cold and wet weather, Helsinki still looked beautiful and what was most memorable to me was a visit to the Temppeliaukio Church, which was built into the bedrock and the interior was both impressive and an architecture marvel. I also took the opportunity to visit the Helsinki City Museum and the Fear exhibition was powerful and unconventional, to say the least….
As you can see, the Erasmus+ staff mobility award has given me this wonderful opportunity to not only visit an institution and country outside of the UK, but has also given me the chance to be actively engaged with colleagues from other EU countries in exchanging best practice, in an area and topic which is relevant and contemporary!
Pengpeng Hatch – Funding Development Officer, RKEO
Dr. Rachel Arnold’s paper ‘Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital’ [1] originally published in Social Science & Medicine (Elsevier) has been reprinted in full in MIDIRS. This is quite an accolade and should help this paper reach a wider audience. Rachel graduated with a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences in 2016, illustrating that some of the best papers get into print (long) after completing one’s Ph.D. thesis.
Reference:
Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2018) Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital, Social Science & Medicine 126:33-40.
Congratulations to FHSS Dr. Pramod Regmi & Dr. Nirmal Aryal on their media appearance yesterday in a national English-language newspaper Republica. The newspaper article covers one of the key social issues in Nepal today namely migration, especially for work. Moreover, there was a different story on the Britain-Nepal health and medical relationship over the past fifty year. This feature article appeared on BBC Nepali (if you can read Nepali click here !).
In FHSS we have been working on health and migration issues in Nepal and the health and well-being of Nepali migrant workers abroad for over ten years, resulting in numerous publications [1-9].
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Adhikary P, Sheppard, Z., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2018) Health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers abroad, International Journal of Migration, Health & Social Care 14(1): 96-105, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-12-2015-0052
Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Gurung, M., Wasti, S. (2018) A study of Health Problems of Nepalese Female Migrants Workers in the Middle-East and Malaysia, BMC International Health & Human Rights18(1):4. doi: 10.1186/s12914-018-0145-7.
Adhikary P., Keen S., van Teijlingen, E. (2011) Health Issues among Nepalese migrant workers in Middle East. Health Science Journal 5: 169-175. www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue3/532.pdf
Adhikary, P., Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: Accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar and Saudi, Health Prospect16(2): 3-10.
Aryal, N., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Adhikary, P., Bhatta, YKD., Mann, S. (2016) Injury and Mortality in Young Nepalese Migrant Workers: A Call for Public Health Action. Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health28(8): 703-705.
Simkhada, PP., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Aryal, N. (2017) Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health & well-being: A review of the literature, Journal of Travel Medicine24 (4): 1-9.
Aryal, N., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Dhungel, D., Ghale, G., Bhatta, GK. (2016) Knowing is not enough: Migrant workers’ spouses vulnerability to HIV SAARC Journal of Tuberculosis, Lung Diseases & HIV/AIDS 8(1):9-15.
Sapkota, T., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Nepalese health workers’ migration to United Kingdom: A qualitative study. Health Science Journal8(1):57-74.
Lots of news this week – and some negative headlines as a result.
TEF update
Have you been following the changes to the TEF announced in February? Are you up to date with the metrics and proposed structure. Did you know that year 5 has been postponed? We have prepared some slides on TEF which will bring you up to date – you can see them via the Policy pages on the intranet.
Unconditional offers – the next phase of the debate
Sarah wrote a long piece on unconditional offers last week, and this week we have this year’s data from UCAS. The headline of the report is that unconditional offers were made to a third of young applicants in England, Northern Ireland and Wales in the 2018 admissions cycle The actual report is here. The report also notes that most unconditional offers (i.e. around two thirds of those made) were made to those aged 19 and over – i.e. post qualification. This share has fallen since 2013 when it was 98%. (more…)
This week we had this enviable record of two academic papers on health topics being rejected the day after submission. The first paper was submitted on Monday to Issues in Mental Health Nursing. Our paper reported the Content Analysis of a review of the nursing curricula on mental health and maternity care issues in Nepal. The journal editor emailed us the next day to inform us that the topic was interesting, but not relevant enough to the journal’s readers.
The second paper submitted by a different configuration of staff was submitted last Friday to the Journal of Youth & Adolescence. The second paper reported a qualitative study on students views on abortion in the south of England. This journal’s rapid reply came the next day (yesterday) stating that:
Unfortunately, the editors have completed an internal review of your study and have deemed your manuscript inappropriate for our journal. Although your manuscript has important strengths, the journal has moved away from supporting qualitative work (unless it would be part of a journal special issue). Please rest assured that our decision has nothing to do with the quality of your study or findings.
On both occasion we had discussed potential journals and we thought we had targeted appropriate journals for the respective manuscripts. Moreover, in both manuscripts we managed to cite at least one paper published in the journal to which we had submitted it. The general message to my colleagues is that it does not matter how many papers you have written and submitted, you will: (1) occasionally opt for the wrong journal; (2) continue to face regular rejection by journal editors; and (3) have an opportunity to submit to another journal.
The British Academy is currently inviting applications from UK-based early career scholars for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowships for Overseas Researchers. The Academy is an overseas nominating authority for this fellowship scheme.
Purpose of Fellowships
This scheme is for scholars in the UK who are at an early stage of their career and wish to conduct research in Japan for a period of 12-24 months.
The scheme, which is wholly funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), provides the opportunity for highly qualified young researchers based in the UK to engage and collaborate with leading research groups in universities and other research institutions in Japan. In its capacity as an overseas nominating authority for this scheme, the British Academy is able to nominate a quota of candidates each year.
Eligibility Requirements
For applicants to be considered for nomination by the British Academy, the research undertaken must be on a subject within the social sciences or humanities. Applicants must have received their PhD within the last six years prior to their application and must be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. They must have a research proposal agreed with a host researcher employed at a university/research institution in Japan.
The scheme is not open to Japanese nationals, those who have permanent residency in Japan, or to applicants who have previously been awarded a fellowship under the JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme for Foreign Researchers.
Value
The scheme provides subsistence funding as well as a settling-in allowance and a return air ticket. The Japanese host institution may also apply through the Japanese host researcher for a “Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research” for cooperative research-related expenses.
Application Process
Applications must be submitted online using the British Academy’s Grant Management System, Flexi-Grant®.
Application and referee/head of department statements deadline and current UK host institution approval deadline: Wednesday 12 December 2018 (17.00 UK time).
Earliest start date for research: 1 April 2019.
Considering we were late and included much of Monday’s news in the last update, this is a bumper update for you. Lots of data and lots of speculation about fees etc. We have managed to avoid the B word this week – as you will have had enough of it from all the other news sources.
Internships
Sophie Bradfield, the Policy & Campaigns Coordinator for SUBU, returns with another guest piece for us this week
Sutton Trust has published research today on graduate internships detailing that “39% of graduates in their twenties have done an internship, including almost half (46%) of young graduates under 24.” These statistics have a direct correspondence with research published in a Lancaster University HECSU-funded Graduate Resilience Project in 2016, looking at how students transition after graduating, where “45% of respondents identified a concern that they lacked relevant experience.” Pairing this with the competition for graduate jobs, it’s of no surprise that so many students seek to undertake internships. At BU gaining placements and real-world experience is a unique selling point and as BU proudly states on the placement information page “90% of our graduates have relevant work experience and this can give you a real head start in the competitive jobs market.” The Students’ Union at Bournemouth University (SUBU) is in absolute agreement that offering opportunities to gain experience can really help students to stand out from the crowd; learn transferable skills for employment; and increase employability and so we have a lot of extra-curricular opportunities on offer for students and collaborate with BU on a number of joint projects including recruiting paid students to be on programme review panels.
Congratulations to BU PhD student Dimitrios Vlachos who had his PROSPERO protocol published [1]. Dimitrios working on a project promoting the Mediterranean-style diet in childbearing age, he is supervised across faculties by Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof. Katherine Appleton.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
Many congratulations to Dr. Nirmal Aryal, postdoctoral researcher in FHSS for his new publication ‘Blood pressure and hypertension in people living at high altitude in Nepal’ in Hypertension Research[1]. Hypertension Research is a prestigious journal published by Nature (Impact Factor of 3.4).
This is the first study of its kind to collect cardiovascular disease and risk factors related information at four different altitude levels above or equal to 2800 m and from ethnically diverse samples. This paper highlighted that despite known hypoxia-induced favourable physiological responses on blood pressure, high altitude residents (>2800 m) in Nepal might have an increased risk of raised blood pressure associated with lifestyle factors and clinicians should be aware of it. The authors previously published a systematic review paper summarizing global evidence on the relationship between blood pressure and high altitude [2].
This publication is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41440-018-0138-x and pre-refereed version is available in BURO.
Well done!
Dr. Pramod Regmi & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
Aryal N, Weatherall M, Bhatta YKD, Mann S. Blood pressure and hypertension in people living at high altitude in Nepal. Hypertension Res 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41440-018-0138-x[published Online First: Epub Date]|
Aryal N, Weatherall M, Bhatta YKD, Mann S. Blood pressure and hypertension in adults permanently living at high altitude: a systematic review and meta-analysis. High Alt Med Biol 2016; 17: 185-193.
You are warmly invited to participate to the final dissemination event of our AHRC e-Voices: Redressing Marginality International Network, titled Creativity and Marginality. The event will take place on December 5 (4pm-8pm), Lawrence Lecture Theatre and The Lees Gallery.
The Creativity and Marginality Symposiumwas conceived of, following a series of workshops and events held in the UK, Kenya and Brazil, as part of the AHRC E-Voices: Redressing Marginliaty Network (evoices.cemp.ac.uk). This network focuses upon marginalized groups across different geographical regions that are using technologies in a range of ways to bring voice to their experiences of marginality.
In this symposium BU academics across faculties will present their own research which resonates with the theme: addressing creativity in practice, research method and outcome and with socially marginalized groups. The symposium will be followed by the opening of an exhibition featuring a small selection of pieces presented at the ShiftEye Gallery in Nairobi Kenya. It will also include some pieces from other projects. Finally the evening will conclude with a screening of the documentary Aji-Bi: Under the Clock Tower (2015) by Moroccan director Rajaa Saddiki. A film about a group of Senegalese migrant women working as hairdressers and stranded in Casablanca.
The paper is based on research on research they undertook last year on the impact of Brexit on the social care workforce. A key finding is that, irrespective of whether they employ EU/EEA workers or not, research participants have deep concerns about Brexit’s potential impact on the social care labour market. These include apprehensions about future restrictions on hiring EU/EEA nurses, as well as fears about increased competition for care staff and their organisation’s future financial viability. This article amplifies the voices of managers as an under‐researched group, bringing their perspectives on Brexit to bear on wider debates on social care workforce sustainability.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
Read R, Fenge L‐A. (2018) What does Brexit mean for the UK social care workforce? Perspectives from the recruitment and retention frontline.
Health Soc Care Community [online first] :1–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12684
Last week was dominated by the Brexit political turmoil and no major HE reports were launched (although there are some coming later this week). The media continued to wring all the coverage they could out of the fee cut speculations and there was news on an American university who is currently registering with the OfS to takeover a London university college. And on Monday there was news for the TEF review and on accelerated degree fees.
TEF Review
The details for the Independent Review of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) have been announced. The Terms of Reference are here and the 2016 policy paper has also been shared here.
CoPMRE held its Fifteenth Annual Symposium Globalisation and Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges in October. The conference was a success thanks to the inspiring speakers and received excellent feedback. You can read a full report on the conference here and authorised presentations can be found here.
Congratulations to Denyse King, who is currently attending the Future Technologies Conference, FTC 2018; Vancouver, BC; Canada (15-16 November). Her conference paper ‘NoObesity apps – From approach to finished app’ has been published in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing[1]. Denyse is part of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMHP) where she is a Lecturer (Academic) in Midwifery based at BU’s campus in Portsmouth ,
Obesity is still a growing public health problem in the UK and many healthcare workers find it challenging to have a discussion with service users about this sensitive topic. They also feel they are not competent to provide the relevant heath advice and are seeking easily accessible, evidence-based, mobile health learning (mHealth). mHealth applications (apps) such as the Professional NoObesity and Family NoObesity (due for release late 2018), have been designed to: support families with making sustainable positive behaviour changes to their health and well-being, ease pressure on practitioners’ overweight and obesity care related workloads, as well as to support the education of professionals, students and service users. This paper describes the process of designing the apps from the inception of the idea, through the stages of research, app builds and testing. The processes of collaborative working to design and develop the apps to meet the needs of both service users and health professionals will also be reflected upon. Childhood obesity is an complex problem and whilst it is recognised that the NoObesity apps cannot singlehandedly resolve this health crisis, it is proposed that they can support families to identify and reduce the barriers that prevent them from living healthier, happier lives.
Reference:
King D., Rahman E., Potter A., van Teijlingen E. (2019) NoObesity Apps – From Approach to Finished App. In: Arai K., Bhatia R., Kapoor S. (eds) Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2018. FTC 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 881. Springer, Cham, pp. 1145-1157.
Three weeks ago I had a pleasure and amazing opportunity to attend and engage with fantastic research training – the 4th European University Association (EUA) Funding Forum. The forum took place in one BU’s current and established Erasmus+ links – the Universitat Ramon Llull (Barcelona, Spain).
The 4th EUA Funding Forum, titled ‘Frameworks that empower, universities that deliver’ has primarily focused on macro-level changes that affect models and processes that EU universities traditionally apply.
The opening talk by Joseph Garrell I Guiu, Rector of Ramon Llull University (Spain); Jose Manuel Pingarron Carrazon, Secretary General of Universities (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities) and Rolf Tarrach, President of the European University Association, highlighted the roles of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in a deeper engagement with social issues. This naturally can be done via education. However, research and business engagement would require different models of thinking in relation to funding. Investments should be attracted from elsewhere and with the purpose of HEIs being at forefront of sustainable living. BU with its new BU2025 vision and strategic plan puts a large emphasis on responsibility. However, to deliver an evidence-based impact would require reconsideration of processes and in many cases steeping out of the HE comfort zone and take risk by implementing different but importantly efficiency-based approaches.
Following the opening talk, Thomas Estermann, Director, Governance, Funding and Public Policy Development at EUA has presented astonishing statistics on how various HEIs within the EU operate in terms of attracting investment and students. Photo below show extract from the slides, presented by Thomas Estermann.
4th EUA Forum, Thomas Estermann
Thomas Estermann stated that the UK has a 20% decrease in attracting any sort of investment that supports HE sector. This is mainly driven by a lesser exposure to funding opportunities that the UK had access to but also nation-wide issues with decreasing student numbers. This left me wondering what can be done to minimise the gap.
Elvira Bolat, 4th EUA Forum
The event took place over two days, 18-19th October, and was an amazing opportunity to meet a frontline of EU HEIs’ leadership. Combination of plenary sessions and masterclasses offered the participants, not only an opportunity to network, but hear stories of ‘brave’ approaches to leading and managing HEIs and to learn about i.e. new types of partnerships within the HE context that can generate funding to support HEIs’ missions or importance of integrating business intelligence systems and management structures to inform HEIs’ processes.
One of my favourite talks was a panel formed by Mikulas Bek, Rector of Masaryk University (Czech Republic); Francisco Jose Mora Mas, Rector of Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) and Petra Wend, Vice-Chancellor of Queen Margaret University (United Kingdom).
The 4th Funding Forum Plenary Panel I
The panel shared personal professional stories of their HEIs’ journeys in tackling financial uncertainty. It was quite refreshing to see how HEIs are moving, although I must admit this is a slow follow-up on some comprehensive business models, towards evidence-based decision-making via data mining and data-based intelligence. It is uplifting for me to witness the shift in HE leadership mindset, as my and Dr Gelareh Roushan’s PhD student, Claudia Vanzellotti, is exploring how for instance social media intelligence is embedded into small and medium sized enterprises’ (SMEs) strategic decision-making. In era of Big Data HEIs ought to observe trends around own sector but also other related and unrelated contexts which will spark ideas for efficient processes and funding models that will generate impact. Listening to students and open consented online conversations is also something educators should be doing in order to adapt pedagogical models and deliver effective and exciting education experiences.
Overall, attending the 4th Funding Forum had a number of immediate benefits for me:
Expansion of networks with various organisations (i.e. HEIs, governments, other public organisations and businesses);
A better understanding of the HE environment, challenges and future areas of consideration, critical for the UK HEIs operating in post-Brexit context;
Knowledge around the latest thinking in the debate around sources of funding for HEIs – the programme covered sessions around leadership, evaluation of economic impact of research activities, on how to develop income-generating partnerships, on designing institutional efficiency strategy, university management and overview of next generation of EU funding;
Feeding lessons learned on HE strategic directions into design of new UG and PG programmes across the Business School departments as well as within global engagement models we ought to consider.
Of course following BU’s Fusion I would like to reflect on some teaching and pedagogical lessons I gained from attending the 4th Funding Forum. In particular, I learnt about new TEL tool, Sli.do, that is alternative to Mentimeter and Kahoot and allows engaging large groups of students via Q&A feeders or group discussions to stimulate a better understanding and critical thinking around the content. I already experimented with the Sli.do during several talks in October/November 2018 period and found it easy to use, from both facilitator and audience perspectives. In addition I am planning to use the interviewing / conversational approach to Panel session discussions during the conference that Dr Kaouther Kooli, Dr Julie Robson and I are co-organising with the University of Manouba in Tunis this December.
Last but not least the training, funded by Erasmus+, enabled me to meet and network with the host institution’s colleagues. BU’s Business School has a long lasting and successful relationships in terms of staff and student mobility with the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL). URL is located in fantastic location, Barcelona, and has amazing facilities which are combined by modern architecture and historical buildings.
Quite impressed by Ramon Llull University campus. It is our Business School’s @BUAACSB1 current Erasmus partner so I recommend all students to consider coming and spending a semester abroad here @GlobalBUpic.twitter.com/K6zcm7qY9G
— Dr Elvira Bolat👩🏻💻👩🏻🏫🤳🏻💡🏃🏼♀️🏖 (@Elvira_MLady) October 18, 2018
URL did truly amazing job with hosting the 4th Funding Forum, showcasing its facilities, professionalism of staff and students and warm hospitality of Catalonian capital.
Overall it has been an amazing experience, which will feed into many more exciting professional projects for me personally but also for the Department of Marketing, the Business School and BU. To conclude this post, I would like to leave you with this slide:
The 4th EUA Funding Forum: Presentation by Thomas Estermann
To survive, HEIs need to experiment, expand their external networks and defend their autonomy.
If you wish to experience something new, learn, network and enhance your knowledge in areas of research and/or education, and/or professional practice, I would highly recommend applying for the Erasmus+ Staff Mobility Training funding.
Elvira Bolat, Principal Academic in Marketing (The Business School), e-mail:ebolat@bournemouth.ac.uk
Two major reports out this week covering value for money and international students plus all the excitement and intense debate from Wonkfest. Enjoy!
Value for Money in HE
The Education Select Committee have published their inquiry report on Value for Money in Higher Education. The committee calls on both universities and the Government to ensure better outcomes for students, expand degree apprenticeships, make university more accessible to a more diverse range of students and tackle Vice-Chancellor pay. Here are the key recommendations taken from the report: (more…)
BU staff can login below:
Other services
Don’t miss a post!
Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.
usiness Collaboration organised by the University of Helsinki from the 7th to 9th November, 2018.
New BU midwifery publication by Joanne Rack
Meeting at BU to address maternal inequalities
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
BU Professor has been invited to a series of plenary and invited lectures.
An Interview of BU-lead EU H2020 FIRST project published in “Horizon”, the EU Research & Innovation Magazine
Update on Horizon Europe Guarantee