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31 August 2017

Special Edition Policy Update: Sir John Bell report on Life Sciences and the Industrial Strategy

Funding opportunities, international, PG research jforster

Following our Industrial Strategy update last week, as expected Sir John Bell has published his report for the government on Life Sciences and the Industrial Strategy. There are 7 main recommendations under 4 themes, which are summarised below.

Some interesting comments:

“The key UK attribute driving success in life sciences is the great strength in university-based research. Strong research-based universities underpin most of the public sector research success in the UK, as they do in the USA and in Scandinavia. National research systems based around institutes rather than universities, as seen in Germany, France and China, do not achieve the same productivity in life sciences as seen in university-focussed systems.” (p22)
“The decline in funding of indirect costs for charity research is coupled to an increasing tendency for Research Councils to construct approaches that avoid paying indirect Full Economic Costs (FEC). Together, these are having a significant impact on the viability of research in universities and have led to the institutions raising industrial overhead costs to fill the gap. This is unhelpful.” (p24 and see the recommendation about charitable contributions under “reinforcing the UK science offer” below)
“It is also recommended, that the funding agencies, in partnership with major charities, create a high-level recruitment fund that would pay the real cost of bringing successful scientists from abroad to work in major UK university institutions.” (see the proposal to attract international scientists below).
On clusters “Life sciences clusters are nearly always located around a university or other research institute and in the UK include elements of NHS infrastructure. However, evidence and experience suggests that governments cannot seed technology clusters²⁸and their success is usually driven by the underpinning assets of universities and companies, and also by the cultural features of networking and recycling of entrepreneurs and capital.” And “Regions should make the most of existing opportunities locally to grow clusters and build resilience by working in partnership across local Government, LEPs (in England), universities and research institutes, NHS, AHSNs, local businesses and support organisations, to identify and coalesce the local vision for life sciences. Science & Innovation Audits, Local Growth Funds and Growth Hubs (in England), Enterprise Zones and local rates and planning flexibilities can all be utilised to support a vision for life sciences. “ (see the proposal on clusters under “Growth and Infrastructure” – this was a big theme in the Industrial strategy and something we also covered in our Green Paper response)
On skills: “ The flow of multidisciplinary students at Masters and PhD level should be increased by providing incentives through the Higher Education Funding Council for England.2 and “Universities and research funders should embed core competencies at degree and PhD level, for example data, statistical and analytical skills, commercial acumen and translational skills, and management and entrepreneurship training (which could be delivered in partnership with business schools). They should support exposure to, and collaboration with, strategically important disciplines including computer and data science, engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics and material science.”

Health Advanced Research Programme (HARP) proposal – with the goal to create 2-3 entirely new industries over the next 10 years.

Establish a coalition of funders to create the Health Advanced Research Programme to undertake large research infrastructure projects and high risk ‘moonshot programmes’, that will help create entirely new industries in healthcare
Create a platform for developing effective diagnostics for early, asymptomatic chronic disease.
Digitalisation and AI to transform pathology and imaging.
Support projects around healthy ageing.

Reinforcing the UK science offer

Sustain and increase funding for basic science to match our international competition – the goal is that the UK should attract 2000 new discovery scientists from around the globe
- The UK should aim to be in the upper quartile of OECD R&D spending and sustain and increase the funding for basic science, to match our international competitors, particularly in university settings, encouraging discovery science to co-locate.
- NIHR should be supported, with funding increases in line with Research Councils
- Ensure the environment remains supportive of charitable contributions through enhancing the Charity Research Support Fund (see above for the context for this).
- Capitalise on UKRI to increase interdisciplinary research, work more effectively with industry and support high-risk science.
- Use Government and charitable funding to attract up to 100 world-class scientists to the UK, with support for their recruitment and their science over the next ten years.
Further improve UK clinical trial capabilities to support a 50% increase in the number of clinical trials over the next 5 years and a growing proportion of change of practice and trials with novel methodology over the next 5 years.
- Establish a working group to evaluate the use of digital health care data and health systems; to evaluate the safety and efficacy of new interventions; and to help ICH modernise its GCP regulations.
- Improve the UK’s clinical trial capabilities so that the UK can best compete globally in our support for industry and academic studies at all phases.
- Design a translational fund to support the pre-commercial creation of clinically-useable molecules and devices.

Growth and infrastructure – the goal is to create four UK companies valued at >£20 billion market cap in the next ten years.

Ensure the tax environment supports growth and is internationally competitive in supporting long-term and deeper investment.
- Address market failures through Social Impact Bonds and encourage AMR research.
- Consider how UK-based public markets can be used more effectively in the sector.
Support the growth of Life Sciences clusters.
- Government, local partners and industry should work together to ensure the right infrastructure is in place to support the growth of life sciences clusters and networks.
- UK’s existing clusters should work together and with government to promote a ‘single front door’ to the UK for research collaboration, partnership and investment.
Attract substantial investment to manufacture and export high value life science products of the future. – the goal is to attract ten large (£50-250m capital investment) and 10 smaller (£10-50m capital investments) in life science manufacturing facilities in the next five years.
- Accept in full the recommendations of the Advanced Therapies Manufacturing Action Plan and apply its principles to other life science manufacturing sectors.
- A programme in partnership with industry to develop cutting-edge manufacturing technologies that will address scale-up challenges and drive up productivity.
- Optimise the fiscal environment to drive investment in industrial buildings, equipment and infrastructure for manufacturing and late-stage R&D.
- Consider nationally available financial incentives – grants and loans, or capital allowances combined with regional incentives – to support capital investment in scale-up, and prepare for manufacturing and related export activity.
- Make support and incentives for manufacturing investment and exporting available to business through a single front door, provide a senior national account manager accountable for delivery and simplify the customer journey.

NHS collaboration – the Accelerated Access Review should be adopted with national routes to market streamlined and clarified, including for digital products. There are two stated goals:

The NHS should engage in fifty collaborative programmes in the next 5 years in late-stage clinical trials, real world data collection, or in the evaluation of diagnostics or devices.
The UK should be in the top quartile of comparator countries, both for the speed of adoption and the overall uptake of innovative, cost-effective products, to the benefit of all UK patients by the end of 2023.

The recommended actions are

Utilise and broaden the Accelerated Access Review to encourage UK investment in clinical and real-world studies. Deliver a conditional reimbursement approval, for implementation as soon as licensing and value milestones are delivered.
Create a forum for early engagement between industry, NHS and arms-length bodies (e.g. NICE, MHRA) to agree commercial access agreements.
Use the recommendations from the AAR to streamline the processes and methods of assessment for all new products.
Value assessments should be evolved in the long-term with improved patient outcome measures, affordability and cost management data beyond one year timeframes.
NICE’s funding model for technology evaluation should be set up in a way that does not stifle SME engagement

Data – Establish two to five Digital Innovation Hubs providing data across regions of three to five million people.

The health and care system should set out a vision and a plan to deliver a national approach with the capability to rapidly and effectively establish studies for the generation of real world data, which can be appropriately accessed by researchers.
ePrescribing should be mandatory for hospitals.
NHS Digital and NHS England should set out clear and consistent national approaches to data and interoperability standards and requirements for data access agreements.
Accelerate access to currently available national datasets by streamlining legal and ethical approvals.
Create a forum for researchers across academia, charities and industry to engage with all national health data programmes.
Establish a new regulatory, Health Technology Assessment and commercial framework to capture for the UK the value in algorithms generated using NHS data. A working group should be established to take this forward
Two to five digital innovation hubs providing data across regions of three to five million people should be set up as part of a national approach and building towards full population coverage, to rapidly enable researchers to engage with a meaningful dataset. These regional hubs should also have the capability to accelerate and streamline CTA and HRA approvals. One or more of these should focus on medtech.
The UK could host 4-6 centres of excellence that provide support for specific medtech themes, focussing on research capability in a single medtech domain such as orthopaedics, cardiac, digital health or molecular diagnostics.
National registries of therapy-area-specific data across the whole of the NHS in England should be created and aligned with the relevant charity.

Skills

A migration system should be established that allows recruitment and retention of highly skilled workers from the EU and beyond, and does not impede intra-company transfers.
Develop and deliver a reinforced skills action plan across the NHS, commercial and third sectors based on a gap analysis of key skills for science.
- Create an apprenticeship scheme that focuses on data sciences, as well as skills across the life sciences sector, and trains an entirely new cadre of technologists, healthcare workers and scientists at the cutting-edge of digital health.
- Establish Institutes of Technology that would provide opportunity for technical training, particularly in digital and advanced manufacturing areas.
- There should be support for entrepreneur training at all levels, incentivising varied careers and migration of academic scientists into industry and back to academia.
- A fund should be established supporting convergent science activities including cross-disciplinary sabbaticals, joint appointments, funding for cross-sectoral partnerships and exchanges across industry and the NHS, including for management trainees.
- High quality STEM education should be provided for all, and the government should evaluate and implement additional steps to increase the number of students studying maths to level 3 and beyond

29 August 2017

UKRO News

Funding opportunities, Info Days, international eknight

Through BU’s subscription to UKRO, we have been advised of the following news items, which represent a ‘mere taster’ of all the updates provided by UKRO to their members.

To make full use of BU’s subscription to this service, why not register now?

Events and Funding Opportunities:

UKRO ERC Synergy Grant Information and Proposal Writing Events. In its capacity as UK National Contact Point for the European Research Council, the UK Research Office, in partnership with University College London (UCL), is holding an event for researchers who are interested in applying for the 2018 ERC Synergy Grant call, at UCL in London on Wednesday 20 September 2017. For more information and to register a place see the Event on UKROs website.
Information Days on 2018-2020 Horizon 2020 Calls for Proposals. The following information days are taking place in Brussels for the last H2020 work programme. For more information and to register follow the links below.
- 3-4 October 2017 – Industrial Innovation Information Days 2017 – Registration is open.
- 23-25 October 2017 – Energy Challenge Information Days – Registration opens in September
- 26-27 October 2017 – “Cities of the Future 2017” International Brokerage Event – Save the date
- 8-9 November 2017 – Climate Societal Challenge Information Day and Brokerage Event – Registration opens in September
- 9-10 November 2017 – ICT Proposers’ Day 2017 in Budapest – Registration is open
- 14-17 November 2017 – Food Security Societal Challenge 2 Infoweek – Registration opens in September
- 8 December 2017 (TBC) – Health Societal Challenge Information Day – Save the date
Societal Challenge 2 – UK Information & Brokerage Event on the 2018-20 Work Programme. Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Network are hosting a Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 (Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy) event which is aimed at supporting collaboration across the UK and Europe. The event will be used to promote relevant funding opportunities available under Horizon 2020.
Call for Tenders: Study on the IP Implications of the Development of Industrial 3D Printing. The European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs has launched a call to analyse and clarify how the existing IP framework concretely brings protection to IP rights holders, and to identify possible gaps and opportunities, or need for clarification.
Horizon 2020 SC6 Consortium Building Workshop in Brussels. Several Brussels-based RTD liaison offices from EU Member States and H2020 Associated Countries will jointly organise a one-day Consortium Building Workshop around selected topics of the upcoming Work Programme 2018-2020 of the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 6 (Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative and reflexive societies). The draft agenda is available on the registration page.

Please note: You will need to sign in or register, as a BU staff member, to access many of these items, as part of BU’s UKRO subscription. Links have only been given to resources in the public domain.

If considering applying to EU calls, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International, to access further support.

23 August 2017

New CMMPH publication on maternity care in Nepal

international, open access, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today the journal BMC Health Services Research accepted our scientific paper ‘The contribution of female community health volunteers (FCHVs) to maternity care in Nepal: a qualitative study’ [1]. FCHVs who form an integral part of community-based primary healthcare system of Nepal. Some 50,000 FCHVs working across the country distribute temporary contraception or refer for other methods of family planning in formal healthcare centres.

As the lowest level healthcare provider working in local communities, FCHVs deliver basic maternal healthcare services to pregnant women and mothers in rural communities. The paper concludes that no research to date has been able to demonstrate that the FCHVs roles themselves have an impact on maternal mortality or other health outcomes; quantitative studies are needed to do this.

The paper is based on Dr. Sarita Panday’s recently completed PhD at The University of Sheffield, Prof. Paul Bissell Dean of the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, Prof. Padam Simkhada, BU Visiting Faculty and Associate Dean for Global Engagement at Liverpool John Moores University and BU’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health.

Reference:

Panday, S., Bissell, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2017) The contribution of female community health volunteers (FCHVs) to maternity care in Nepal: a qualitative study BMC Health Services Research (accepted August 2017).

20 August 2017

HE Policy update w/e 25th August 2017

Funding opportunities, Fusion, innovation, international jforster

Immigration, International Students and Brexit

The government have commissioned a series of assessments and reviews of the impact of immigration policy and Brexit via the Migration Advisory Committee:

Call for evidence and briefing note: EEA-workers in the UK labour market – we will be responding on the HE questions via UCEA and UUK and we are considering a regional response, please let Sarah or I know if you have evidence that would be relevant to this – it is looking at EEA migration trends, recruitment practices and economic and social impacts.
a detailed assessment of the social and economic impact of international students in the UK. We would expect a call for evidence for this to follow. Looking at both EU and non-EU students, the MAC will be asked to consider:
the impact of tuition fees and other spending by international students on the national, regional, and local economy and on the education sector
the role students play in contributing to local economic growth
the impact their recruitment has on the provision and quality of education provided to domestic students.

The Commissioning Letter from Amber Rudd says: “The Digital Economy Act provides a unique opportunity to improve understanding of the migration data and as part of this work the Home Office will be working with the ONS and other Government departments to improve the use of administrative data. This will lead to a greater understanding of how many migrants are in the UK, how long they stay for, and what they are currently doing. The ONS will be publishing an article in September setting out this fuller work plan and the timetable for moving towards this landscape for administrative data usage”

As well as the post-Brexit future of students, the letter also makes reference to the Tier 4 visa pilot which was launched last year and included a handful of universities. Amber Rudd says “the pilot is being carefully evaluated and, if successful, could be rolled out more widely”.

The pilot covered masters courses at 4 universities:

Masters course for 13 months or less at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Bath or Imperial College London.
Participating in the pilot allowed students to:
- stay for six months after the end of the course;
- submit fewer evidential documents with their applications – e.g. previous qualifications and documents relating to maintenance requirements

A deluge of other data and reports gave also been published:

The Home Office has published its second report on statistics being collected under the exit checks programme – Exit checks data.
- For the 1.34m visas granted to non-EEA nationals and which expired in 2016/17, where individuals did not obtain a further extension to stay longer in the UK, 96.3% departed in time (that is before their visa expired)
A National Statistics update has been published which gives a breakdown of all the data
Additional analysis by Office for National Statistics (ONS) on international students, has been published
The Centre for Population Change has published the findings of a survey it carried out in March 2017 in partnership with the ONS and UUK. The survey looked at the intentions of graduating overseas students and found:
The majority of students do not intend to stay in the UK for more than a year after finishing their studies (and those that stated they intended to stay were not certain of their post-study plans, particularly non-EU students).
Fewer than one in ten international students plan to stay in the UK indefinitely and find a job.

According to UUK:

Exit checks data shows that student overstaying is at worst 3% and much of the 3% of undetermined outcomes may be due to individuals leaving via routes where there are no exit checks currently (such as via the Common Travel Area). This means student visa compliance is at least 97%, far higher than previous (incorrect) claims.
The Home Office exit checks data provides a more accurate picture (than the International Passenger Survey – IPS) of what non-EU students do after their initial period of leave to study
The ONS report suggest that the IPS is likely to underestimate student emigration – therefore any implied student net migration figure is likely to be an overestimate
The ONS also commits to working with colleagues across the government statistics service to utilise all available administrative systems to further improve migration statistics. They have also asked for UUK’s input to this work.

Widening Participation

A survey of access agreements has been published this week by the Office for Fair Access. In their press release OFFA note that every university has committed to working with schools to help increase access to HE. The report also notes that universities will focus on improved evaluation of the impact of financial support and an evidence based approach more generally, a specific focus on White working class males and BME attainment, and more support for mental health issues. The amount universities spend on widening access will rise.

Responding to the survey, UUK Chief Executive, Alistair Jarvis, said: “The enhancements in support provided by universities has helped to increase the entry rate for disadvantaged young people to record levels. All UK universities work hard to widen participation and support disadvantaged students throughout their time at university. It is right to expect a continued focus on support for disadvantaged students to make further progress in closing the gap between different student groups.”

Industrial Strategy

The formal outcome of the Industrial Strategy consultation is still pending. However, there has been a reasonable amount of activity in the meantime and we thought it might be helpful to do a round up.

The HoC Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee published its first review in February 2017
The HoC Science and Technology committee published a report into science and STEM skills linked to the Industrial Strategy in March 2017

Clusters – The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) have set up a Creative Industries Clusters Programme, starting in 2018, to facilitate collaboration between the industry and universities. The pre-call announcement sets out the plan for at least 8 research and development partnerships, each led by an HEI, and a Policy and Evidence Centre. Calls will apparently open in October 2018.

Sector deals – As part of the Industrial strategy green paper, the government announced that there were 5 sector reviews taking place and suggested that they would welcome more.

Sir John Bell: on life sciences – according to the Telegraph, this review will report later this summer – there is also an inquiry by the Lords Science and Technology Committee that closes on 15^th September
Richard Parry-Jones: on the transition to ultra low emission vehicles – read more here (see the funding for battery research below)
Juergen Maier: on industrial digitalisation – interim report published in July 2017
Lord Hutton: on improving UK competitiveness and skills in the nuclear industry
Sir Peter Bazalgette: on the creative industries

Other organisations are setting up consultations and other reviews to respond to the Industrial Strategy, such as:

Tourism Sector Deal consultation being run by VisitBritain – the survey closed on 7^th
Robotics Sector Deal consultation run by Innovate UK and on 6th September a Robotics Sector Deal Consultation Workshop will be held in London
The Ceramics Industry – by the British Ceramics Confederation
Construction Industry – by the Construction Leadership council

The interim findings of the industrial digitalisation review are interesting – they are working on a final report for the autumn of 2017:

It highlights a need for more leadership – with “much stronger marketing and messaging” and proposed the establishment of a Digital Technology Institute and Digital Technology Networks
It discusses issues with adoption rates for technology, particularly among SMEs and suggests better support for businesses via LEPs and other organisations, work on skills through interventions such as an Institute of Digital Engineering
Innovation – the interim review suggests looking at additive manufacturing and AI – and creating new industries in autonomous operations, but also providing kite marked content for businesses.

Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund – Innovate UK are running the Industrial strategy Challenge Fund – in April 2017 they identified 6 “core industrial challenges”:

Driverless vehicles – 2 competitions run by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles were announced in July 2017 for New connected and autonomous vehicle technologies
Manufacturing and materials of the future – £15million awarded in June 2017 for a range of projects
Satellites and space technology – no large projects announced yet
Robotics and artificial intelligence – a competition was launched in June 2017 for robotics in extreme and hazardous environments
Clean and flexible energy –
- The Faraday Challenge competitions were announced in July 2017 offering funding for projects on:
  - Battery innovation for the electrification of vehicles
  - National battery manufacturing development facility
  - EPSRC research call for research into batteries
  - You can read more on the Innovate UK blog.
Healthcare and medicines
- A digital health competition was announced in July 2017 for feasibility or development projects that advance digital health or digitally-enabled medical technologies. You can read more on the Innovate UK blog
- It is also worth looking at the smaller projects funded by Innovate UK under this theme

Interesting reading

House of Lords Library briefing on Digital Skills in the UK – published ahead of a debate on 7^th September 2017
On-line information and Fake News – POST report July 2017

JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

65111 65070

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

19 August 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Keen on new Nepal publication

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Dr. Steve Keen in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and BU PhD graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary on the acceptance today of their paper ‘Risky work: Accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar and Saudi ‘ by the journal Health Prospect [1]. This is a peer-reviewed public health journal, part of Nepal Journals Online, and the journal is Open Access. Nepal Journals OnLine (NepJOL) provides access to Nepalese published research, and increase worldwide knowledge of indigenous scholarship.

The Faculty of Health & Social Sciences has a growing number of publications on health and migration research, especially on the health and well-being of migrants from Nepal [2-5].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

Adhikary, P., Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: Accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar and Saudi, Health Prospect (forthcoming)
Adhikary, P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen E., Raja, AE. (2008) Health & Lifestyle of Nepalese Migrants in the UK BMC International Health & Human Rights 8(6). Web address: www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/8/6.
van Teijlingen E, Simkhada, P., Adhikary, P. (2009) Alcohol use among the Nepalese in the UK BMJ Rapid Response: www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/339/oct20_1/b4028#223451
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
Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Adhikary, P., Bhatta, Y.K.D., Mann, S. (2016) Injury and Mortality in Young Nepalese Migrant Workers: A Call for Public Health Action. Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health 28(8): 703-705.

17 August 2017

Gateway to International Opportunities

Funding opportunities, international Emily Cieciura

Although at BU we have access to Research Professional to locate funding, another place to find up to date international funding opportunities, is the Universities UK International (UUKi) Gateway to International Opportunities.

With more available, current funding opportunities include calls from funders and schemes such as:

If you are considering applying for funding, please contact your faculty’s Research Facilitator for further help and support.

17 August 2017

British Council Research Links Workshops

international, Training Emily Cieciura

As well as the opportunities to apply for funding from the Researcher Links Programme, there is also the possibility of attending the workshops that are supported by this funding.

Current opportunities are:

Enhancing regional water security in semi-arid regions through improved metropolitan design

Date of workshop: 14–17 November 2017
Location: Oaxaca, Mexico
Application deadline: 18 August 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here.

Developing an agenda for Fintech research in emerging economies

Date of workshop: 31 October-2 November 2017
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Application deadline: 20 August 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

Role of small holder agroforestry systems in the arid and semi-arid region in combating climate change

Date of workshop: 18-21 December 2017
Location: Kisumu, Kenya
Application deadline: 30 August 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here

India-UK Workshop on Thermoelectric Materials for Waste-Heat Harvesting

Date of workshop: 8-10 January 2018
Location: Bangalore, India
Application deadline: 1 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here.

Workshop on Increasing Climate Resilience of Urban Infrastructure

Date of workshop: 15-17 January 2018
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Application deadline: 14 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

India-UK Workshop on Working at the Chemistry Microbiology Interface to Develop New Antibiotics

Date of workshop: 14-18 December 2017
Location: Bengaluru, India
Application deadline: 15 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links match-funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

Phytomedical Compounds For Diabetes And Diabetes-Related Complications (DRC)

Date of workshop: 12-16 December 2017
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Application deadline: 18 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here

Localising strategies for making cities resilient to disasters

Date of workshop: 22-26 January 2018
Location: De La Salle University, Philippines
Application deadline: 30 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here

Further workshops will be promoted by the British Council.

17 August 2017

Newton Fund – Funding Update

Funding opportunities, international eknight

Please see the calls currently open, or forthcoming, being offered through the Newton Fund scheme. Some calls are newly opened whilst others have been promoted previously via the BU Research blog. In each case, please refer to the call website for full details including eligibility requirements and thematic priorities:

If you are interested in applying to any of these calls then please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer, in the first instance.

DEADLINE	TIME	DETAILS OF CALL
11 September 2017	4pm BST	NEW! INDIA – Addressing the challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance in India (ESRC)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	THAILAND – UK-Thailand Joint Initiative on Infectious Diseases and Non-Communicable Diseases (MRC)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	EGYPT-THAILAND-TURKEY – Institutional Links grants (British Council)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	CHINA-PHILIPPINES – Researcher Links Workshops grants (British Council)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	INDONESIA-PHILIPPINES-SOUTH AFRICA – Researcher Links Travel grants (British Council)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	NEW! MULTI-COUNTRY – South-East Asia Regional Researcher Links Workshops (British Council)
20 September 2017	12pm BST	CHINA – PhD Placements and Supervisor Mobility Grants China-UK (British Council)
20 September 2017	12pm BST	CHINA – UK-China agritech challenge 2017 (Innovate UK, BBSRC)
22 September 2017	12pm BST	INDONESIA-MALAYSIA-PHILIPPINES – Tropical Science and Forecasting Training (Met Office)
26 September 2017	4pm BST	BRAZIL – MRC-CONFAP Call for Health Systems Research Networks (MRC)
3 October 2017	4pm BST	CHILE – Newton RCUK-CONICYT Broadening Impact Call (RCUK)
4 October 2017	12pm BST	CHINA – UK-Guangdong (China) – Urban innovation (Innovate UK)
13 October 2017	4pm BST	NEW! MULTI-COUNTRY – Researcher Links Regional Biodiversity Workshops (Latin America) (British Council)
13 October 2017	4pm BST	NEW! MULTI-COUNTRY – Researcher Links Biodiversity Travel Grants (Latin America) (British Council)
18 October 2017	12pm BST	INDIA – Newton Bhabha UK–India industrial waste challenge 2017 (BBSRC, EPSRC)
24 October 2017	4pm BST	INDIA – UK-India Newton-Bhabha Fund joint call on pulses and oilseeds (BBSRC)
APPLICATIONS ON A ROLLING BASIS		TURKEY – Fellowships for UK Researchers (British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: COLOMBIA – Colombia BIO programme (NERC, AHRC)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: CHINA – UK-China AMR Centre Partnerships Initiative (RCUK)

17 August 2017

British Council International Research Workshops

Funding opportunities, Info Days, international eknight

The following international workshops are all being advertised on the British Council website under Researcher Links and the Newton Fund. For more information and eligibility criteria please follow the links below to the relevant website.

If you are an early-career researcher based in the UK or the partner country you can apply for a grant to participate.

Developing an agenda for Fintech research in emerging economies

Date of workshop: 31 October-2 November 2017
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Application deadline: 20 August 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

Role of small holder agroforestry systems in the arid and semi-arid region in combating climate change

Date of workshop: 18-21 December 2017
Location: Kisumu, Kenya
Application deadline: 30 August 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here

India-UK Workshop on Thermoelectric Materials for Waste-Heat Harvesting

Date of workshop: 8-10 January 2018
Location: Bangalore, India
Application deadline: 1 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here.

Workshop on Increasing Climate Resilience of Urban Infrastructure

Date of workshop: 15-17 January 2018
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Application deadline: 14 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

India-UK Workshop on Working at the Chemistry Microbiology Interface to Develop New Antibiotics

Date of workshop: 14-18 December 2017
Location: Bengaluru, India
Application deadline: 15 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links match-funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Eligibility and further information can be found here .

Phytomedical Compounds For Diabetes And Diabetes-Related Complications (DRC)

Date of workshop: 12-16 December 2017
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Application deadline: 18 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
Eligibility and further information can be found here

Localising strategies for making cities resilient to disasters

Date of workshop: 22-26 January 2018
Location: De La Salle University, Philippines
Application deadline: 30 September 2017
Programme: Newton Fund Researcher Links
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14 August 2017

HE policy update w/e 14th August 2017

international jforster

NSS results

HEFCE published the NSS results last week. In their press release they highlight the changes to the survey and the fact that the responses are not comparable with previous years – there were 10 new questions and wording changes to 9 questions. The NUS boycott linked to the TEF affected 12 institutions who did not achieve the necessary response rate.

THE covered National Student Survey 2017: campuses omitted after NUS boycott
Wonkhe – A bruising boycott for the Russell Group
Wonkhe – What have we learned from the new (and improved) NSS
Research Professional – Student satisfaction dips, but remains high
FT – Students at top universities snub survey in tuition fees protest

Jo Johnson had made an announcement a few weeks ago about student contracts as one way of addressing student concerns about quality and value for money – there has been a fair amount of comment and the latest from Jim Dickinson on Wonkhe suggests some practical action universities could take to improve their response to complaints.

Teaching Intensity

Teaching intensity hit the headlines in late July fuelled by the Fiscal Studies journal article on class size, the 2017 HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey, and the announcement that the TEF subject level pilots will contain a teaching intensity measure. The pilot TEF measure will collect data on class size and contact time and consider how these measures might be used to inform a subject-level assessment judgement.

A Times Higher article – Teaching intensity: the key to measuring student learning? – illustrates the diversity of approaches and opinion on class sizes. Applicant choice is a key factor and many also highlight that there is no interrelation between student experience of teaching intensity/quality and fees (yet).

A HEPI guest blog – Measuring teaching intensity: the authors respond to the critics – explains the limitations within HESA data and why the Dearing Report and Brown Review didn’t go far enough.

“We felt that there was a need to collect information than enabled more precise comparison of how teaching is delivered across institutions, accounting for the many ways in which teaching is undertaken. Our findings imply that some students receive much better value for money than others. For a market to function properly, participants must be able to compare what is offered by different providers. The enormous variation in teaching intensity found in our data strongly suggests that in the market for teaching price signals are weak. It was always anticipated the tuition fees would be variable. One of the ways in which it was expected that the fee would vary was by subject (Greeneway and Haines 2000). If the data we have collected had been publically available the uniform fee would not have been possible.”

“Unfortunately, in the absence of information about teaching intensity (as opposed to contact hours alone) school leavers have no way to choose between those universities offering more (or less) of the tuition service they are ultimately paying for. In turn, universities are not incentivised to provide more of the primary service (tuition) paid for by taxpayers and students.”

The authors call for universities to publish teaching intensity data in additional to contact hours in the belief it will create a more competitive environment and therefore drive up teaching quality.

Sarah Stevens, Head of Policy at the Russell Group, responded on Wonkhe disagreeing with the proposal to include teaching intensity in the TEF.

Widening Participation

POSTGRADUATE SUPPORT SCHEME – HEFCE published the 2015/16 postgraduate support scheme evaluation report. This was a one-off scheme designed to widen access to taught postgraduate students (within the first cohorts to pay higher fees) through a bursary of £10,000. This scheme has been superseded by the postgraduate loan scheme. The evaluation note:

The bursary did have a modest impact of demand but criticises the scheme’s rushed design and implementation which meant only students already committed to PG study were likely to apply – it acted as an ‘enabler’ rather than a ‘persuader’
Higher levels of students from certain underrepresented groups were recruited than in previous years. There was particular success in increasing students from Low Participation Neighbourhoods, NS-SEC groups 4 – 8, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups, disabled students and ‘first generation’ students. The scheme which was designed to remove financial barriers to PG study may have a particular meaning for these groups of students; it will be interesting to cross-reference these groups’ take up of the PG loan scheme.
The evaluation concluded that the scheme did not led to substantial change in policy or practice for most institutions and structured obligations (e.g. requirements set by OfS) is needed for genuine change.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

A Wonkhe blog Universities’ shame – unpicking the black attainment gap discusses the attainment gap between black/white and Asian/white good degree classifications. While this isn’t new news and the gap is acknowledge by the sector Wonkhe suggest the OfS ought to penalise institutions for attainment gaps and states:

Ultimately, TEF has failed in its aim to take account of any significant differences in the quality of teaching and learning experienced by different student groups if it has awarded universities Gold ratings when there are significant racial attainment gaps. The blog sparked a volley of comments from the sector which can be viewed at the end of the article.

Les Ebdon blogs giving advice to the OfS: A real step change for fair access.

I always say that good progress is being made on fair access – that it’s a national success story. Well, I stand by that, but let’s be clear, it’s good progress made from a very low baseline, which means that the overall result is still quite low.

OFFA is publishing a summary briefing on the current situation in fair access – the gains made and the challenges that remain – and it makes sobering reading.

If the OfS is built with the right mission, values, staff and systems, it will be able to drive the transformational change that is needed…OFFA is a tiny organisation and, although we’ve punched a long way above our weight, our size has always limited what we’ve been able to do. The OfS will have much bigger resources – in data analysis, for example – that will enable it to take what we’ve done and do it even more and even better. That means focusing on outcomes, following evidence, and offering support and challenge in ways that respect the wide diversity of institutions.

The OfS must strive as hard as OFFA has striven to keep access and participation on the public agenda. These issues are now embedded in government policy and a key priority for Ministers, but nothing is ever permanent in politics

HEPI have published a collection of essays on widening participation and fair access. Suggestions include bolder contextualised admissions policies for highly-selective universities (with AAA+ offers typically being reduced to CCC), more support for people in care with the potential to benefit from higher education and new Personalised Learning Accounts to meet demand for more flexible lifelong learning.

The National Networks for Collaborative Outreach 2015/16 monitoring report has been published by HEFCE. This covers the final year of the NNCO scheme and reports 98% of academies, schools and colleges were covered by the scheme and ‘genuine innovation took place’.

The Sutton Trust have published their annual Aspirations Polling 2017. They survey asks young people about their aspirations and worries for higher education, and their attitude to tuition fees and student debt. The Sutton Trust report this year’s pool shows a falling trend in likelihood to attend university and an increase in financial concerns. Headlines:

The proportion of young people who say they are likely to go into higher education as fallen to its lowest level since 2009.
51% intending to study at university worry about the cost of HE – this is an increase on previous year and is the highest level the Sutton Trust has ever captured through their polls.
Young people low affluence households who intend to attend university is the lowest in seven years with the socioeconomic gap in likelihood between high and low affluence households at the highest level it has been.
In expectations BAME young people (82%) are more likely than white (71%) to plan to attend HE.
Of those not intending to apply to HE 64% cited a financial reason (this was 57% in 2013)

OFFA issued this press release and a quick facts briefing.

Parliamentary Question – MATURE STUDENTS

Q – Mr David Lammy: What plans she has to increase the number of individuals aged 24 and over in part-time and full-time education.

A – Joseph Johnson: The Government is committed to ensuring all individuals have the opportunity to make the most of their potential. The Industrial Strategy Green Paper, published in January, outlined some of the challenges that adults face when considering re-entering education. This year’s Budget therefore committed £40million to fund pilots to test ambitious, new approaches to remove these barriers.

We want to increase participation in higher education by older and part-time students, and we have taken action to support those who choose to study part-time. These measures include: From 2012, the offer of up-front fee loans for eligible part-time students, to level the playing field with undergraduate study. From academic year 2018/19, the introduction of undergraduate part-time maintenance loans, to bring greater parity of support between part-time and full-time. From 2015, the relaxation of Equivalent or Lower Qualification rules, so students who already hold an honours degree qualification and wish to study part-time on a second honours degree course in engineering, technology or computer science, have qualified for fee loans for their course. This is being extended for academic year 2017/18 to graduates starting a second part-time honours degree course in any STEM subject.

In addition, we are extending undergraduate maintenance loans to distance learners from academic year 2019/20, subject to the development of a robust control regime.

We are also removing barriers to accelerated courses. Evidence shows that accelerated courses appeal particularly to mature students who want to retrain and enter the workplace more quickly than a traditional course would permit. We have already made provisions in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to remove a key barrier to the growth of these courses, and will now consult on implementation and setting a new fee cap specifically for accelerated courses in secondary legislation.

The Office for Fair Access has also asked universities to consider the different barriers mature learners may face in accessing, succeeding in, and progressing from higher education, and to consider what more they can do to attract and support part-time learners across the whole student lifecycle as part of their Access Agreements.

Appointments

Alistair Jarvis has been appointed as Chief Executive of UUK replacing Nicola Dandridge who is now CEO of the Office for Students. Prior to appointment Alistair was the Deputy Chief Executive at UUK and a member of the Wonkhe Board. THE describe his background and reasons for appointment. Janet Beer, UUK president, said:

“The challenges and opportunities afforded by the current economic, social and political climate mean that UUK was seeking a chief executive with a strong track record in campaigning, political advocacy, and the ability to connect with a diverse range of stakeholders.”

Parliamentary Questions

FEES – VALUE FOR MONEY

Q – Lord Myners: Whether they intend to take action to limit university course fees which do not represent value for money for students; and if so, on what basis they intend to determine which courses provide value for money.

A – Baroness Sugg: The Government has introduced the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) assessment, to tackle concerns about value for money in Higher Education. Only providers who successfully achieve a high quality rating under the TEF will be permitted to maintain their fees in line with inflation.

The results of the TEF assessment gives students clear information about where teaching quality is best and where students have achieved the best outcomes. This will promote student choice and encourage a stronger focus on the quality of teaching, as higher education providers will need to ensure they are giving students, their parents and the taxpayer value for money.

Furthermore, the Office for Students, once established, has a general duty under section 2 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to have regard to the need to promote value for money in the provision of Higher Education by English Higher Education providers.

Q – Alex Burghart: What estimate she has made of the cost of abolishing university tuition fees.

A – Joseph Johnson: The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that abolishing tuition fees would increase the fiscal deficit for the 2017/18 student cohort by around £11bn, with the long-term cost of student funding increasing by around £6.5bn.

The major reforms to English higher education in 2012 have significantly increased average per-student funding. Graduates do not start repaying loans until their annual incomes reach £21,000, and loans are written off after 30 years. By enabling English universities to charge current tuition fees, the Government no longer has to ration access to higher education via a cap on student numbers. This enables it to offer more places, including to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are now going to university at a record rate – they are 43% more likely to go to university than they were in 2009 (LINK).

Graduates earn, on average, substantially more than people with A levels who did not go to university. Various pieces of research show that Higher Education graduates earn, on average, at least £100,000 more over their lifetimes than those without a degree but with 2 or more A-Levels. The most recent BIS commissioned research shows that, on average, a male graduate could expect to earn £170,000 more and a female graduate £250,000 more over their lifetimes, than someone without a degree but with 2 or more A-levels, net of tax and other costs (2012 prices). Abolishing tuition fees would be socially regressive: as well as unfairly burdening the general taxpayer, it would benefit mainly those students going on to well-paid jobs, who repay their loans in full.

CAPPING THE STUDENT LOAN

Q – Lord Myners: Whether they intend to place a cap on student loans, in order to prevent any increase in the total debt arising as a result of the interest paid being less than the interest accrued in any one year.

A – Baroness Sugg: The student funding system removes financial barriers for anyone hoping to study and is backed by the taxpayer. A key feature of the scheme is that outstanding debt – including any interest accrued that has not been repaid by the end of the loan term – is written off after 30 years. This means that borrowers are protected if their repayments are less than the interest accruing on their accounts.

Monthly student loan repayments are linked to income, not to interest rates or the amount borrowed. Borrowers earning less than the repayment threshold (£21,000) repay nothing at all.

Once borrowers leave study, those earning less than £21,000 are charged an interest rate of RPI only. Post-study interest rates are variable based on income, tapering up from RPI for those earning less than £21,000 to RPI+3% for borrowers earning £41,000 and above. The system of variable interest rates based on income makes the system more progressive, as higher earners contribute more to the sustainability of the higher education system.

We have a world class student finance system that is working well, and that has led to record numbers of disadvantaged students benefiting from higher education. As ever, we will keep the detailed features of the system under review to ensure it remains fair and effective.

TERTIARY EDUCATION

Q – Mr David Lammy: What assessment she has made of the implications on individual testing entitlement for her policy of the recommendations of Professor Alison Wolf’s report, Remaking Tertiary Education, published in November 2016. [5482]

A – Joseph Johnson: We welcome contributions to our thinking from experts on, and from within, the education sector. We are committed to delivering high performing further, technical and higher education, which represents good value for people throughout their lives.

For example, we have legislated to remove the barriers to the provision of two-year degrees. We are also introducing a new maintenance loan for part-time undergraduate study for academic year 2018/19 and intend to offer maintenance loans to support students on further education courses at Levels 4 and 5 in National Colleges and Institutes of Technology. This year’s Spring Budget committed £40million to fund pilots that will test ambitious, new approaches to removing barriers adults might face when considering re-entering education.

TEF

Q – Lord Jopling: How any higher education provider that does not obtain a Bronze status or higher in future Teaching Excellence Frameworks will be categorised.

A – Baroness Sugg: All providers who successfully meet the eligibility criteria, including the rigorous quality assessments by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, and which have sufficient metrics to be assessed, will achieve a Bronze award, or above, in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Those providers which have met the eligibility criteria but do not have sufficient metrics will instead receive a provisional award.

As noted during the Higher Education and Research Bill process some providers do not meet the eligibility requirements noted for TEF. Providers who do not meet the eligibility requirements, or who chose not to participate, will appear without a TEF award on Unistats and on the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

International students

In last week’s HE policy update we gave statistics on the value of transnational education. This week THE reports that Offshore students are ‘no substitute for UK-based learners’. THE explain that UK universities delivering education overseas accounts for less than 5% of the foreign student income. Dominic Scott, chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs, stated that transnational education could never realistically replace lost income if the number of overseas students studying in the UK declined dramatically. “It has often been argued by government that the UK should, in the face of tough visa restrictions, seek to grow foreign student numbers overseas, largely as an alternative to UK recruitment.” However, HESA 2015/16 figures confirm there are only 701,000 offshore students compared to 450,000 international students studying in the UK. Furthermore, of the 701,000 45% are all on a low-fee accountancy distance learning course at one UK university.

HEFCE respond to last week’s controversial Sunday Times article Universities take foreign students ahead of British. Mario Ferelli, HEFCE’s Director of Analytical Services, explains what the UCAS data really shows and why the statistics the Sunday Times used weren’t appropriate for the young UK population.

JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

65111 65070

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

8 August 2017

European Research Council – calls opening in 2017/18

Funding opportunities, international Emily Cieciura

The European Research Council (ERC) Work Programme for 2018 has now been adopted, with the following indicative key dates:

Please follow the links below for further information on the open calls:

ERC Starting Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they are starting their own independent research team or programme. Applicant Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal.

The Synergy Grants are intended to enable minimum two to maximum four Principal Investigators and their teams to bring together complementary skills, knowledge, and resources in new ways, in order to jointly address ambitious research problems.

The aim is to promote substantial advances at the frontiers of knowledge, to cross-fertilize scientific fields, and to encourage new productive lines of enquiry and new methods and techniques, including unconventional approaches and investigations at the interface between established disciplines. This should enable transformative research not only at the forefront of European science but also to become a benchmark on a global scale.

Applicants Principal Investigators must demonstrate the synergies, complementarities and added value that could lead to breakthroughs that would not be possible by the individual Principal Investigators working alone.

There will be posts to follow as the other calls open.

UKRO has also made further information available to subscribers. To access this content, please go to their website and register, if you have not already done so. Just search on ‘synergy grants’ and/or ‘ERC 2018’.

If are considering applying for any ERC calls, even those not yet open, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International, for help and support.

7 August 2017

JPICH Heritage in Changing Environments pre-call announcement

Funding opportunities, international eknight

The Joint Programming Initiative in Cultural Heritage and Global Change has announced a new funding opportunity for transnational proposals. The Heritage in Changing Environments call will support the development of new, research-based ideas and knowledge in response to the rapidly and widely changing context with which heritage and heritage practice is faced. It invites research projects that help cultural heritage to meet societal challenges and contribute to the development of society. The call aims to fund excellent research that is collaborative, transnational, interdisciplinary and innovative. The total budget for the call for transnational projects is approximately 4.5 million Euros.

The Call for Proposals will open on 4th September 2017 and the deadline for submission of proposals will be 30th November 2017, 14:00 CET.

Projects can last up to 36 months with 3-5 research teams, each based in an eligible institution in a different country. Detailed eligibility requirements and more information can be found on the JPICH website.

7 August 2017

HE Policy update – week ending 4 August updated

international carters

TEF

Wonkhe bloggers imagine alternative ways to run (ideally improve) the TEF in Visions for the AlterniTEF – can we do TEF better? Ideas ranged from:

individual institution-specific targets as a condition of registration OfS (and therefore accountable under the Higher Education and Research Act);
metrics produced through relational analyses and cross referencing – this complex idea stemmed from measuring the quality and impact of reciprocal relationships;
individual learning statements setting institutional goals which the provider would be measured against – similar to current Fair Access Agreement;
ignoring undergraduate TEF and focusing on bringing post-graduate TEF online, including the influence of social capital and the added value of the post-graduate qualification on social mobility. This approach controversially espouses a metrics only approach and abolishes the provider statements.

Wonkhe also continue to unpick the influence of the provider statement in changing an institution’s initial metrics-based TEF rating. Marking the TEF creative writing challenge suggests the panel compensated providers who appeared to be effectively addressing poor NSS scores, took into account a London effect, and rewarded institutions with successful outcomes for part time study.

Brexit and Erasmus

A Times Higher article on the alternative to Erasmus post-Brexit highlights the downsides inherent in an Erasmus alternative. The EU exit agreement will determine whether the UK continues to participate in Erasmus, however, the government is currently pursuing a hard line on free movement which decreases the likelihood Erasmus would continue in its current form. An alternative is to establish bilateral agreements to exchange students with key European universities – just as we do now with international institutions. However, the article highlights the negative impact on social mobility – bilateral agreements mean the students must cover their own costs to some extent – decreasing the likelihood lower income students could afford to participate. While the obvious answer (to divert the UK’s contribution to the EU budget which funds Erasmus to a home-grown scheme) seems reasonable the budget required would be in excess of €113 million and the government have yet to confirm this as an option. Furthermore the time and administrative costs for universities to individually negotiate grants and agreements is excessive. The article also touches on lower demand from EU students to come to the UK suggesting exchanges may not be viable.

Parliamentary Questions

Q: Catherine West: What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the future of the UK’s participation in the Erasmus scheme.

A: Mr Steve Baker: The Department has regular conversations with officials and Ministers from other governmental departments about a range of policy issues arising from EU exit. With regards to the Erasmus+ programme, the Government recognises the value of international exchange and collaboration in education as part of our vision for the UK as a global nation. There may be European programmes in which we wish to continue to participate after we exit. This will be considered as part of ongoing negotiations with the European Union

Brexit – staff and students

The Russell Group published 10 points requiring greater clarity in response to the UK Government’s position on EU nationals. This included calling for:

ensuring academic and student time abroad for study, training, career development and research purposes does not negatively impact on continuous residency
interpreting ‘strong ties’ broadly to ensure academics and students spending 2+ years abroad do not lose their settled status once this has been established
EU students starting courses in 2017/18 and 2018/19 should be able to stay and work here after their studies and be eligible for settled status after accruing five years residence
ensuring that professional qualifications obtained in either the UK or the EU before the UK’s withdrawal continue to be recognised across borders

Education-related exports and transnational education activity

The government released experimental statistics estimating the value of exports from the UK education section, the respective contribution of the higher and further education sectors, and transnational activity for 2010-2014. (Transnational education is education provided in a country different to that of the awarding institution.) The total value was estimated to be £18.76 billion – an increase of 18% against 2010. HE was the main contributor accounting for 92% of the total value, with revenue from transnational education contributing the remaining 8%. The full report is here.

Accompanying the experimental statistics is a report analysing the value of transnational education to the UK (originally published November 2014). The report discusses the benefits of transnational education to UK HE institutions (see page 11 for a summary).

Nursing & midwifery places

The Royal College of Nursing spoke out this week highlighting the discrepancy between the Government’s plans to expand the mental health workforce and the significant downturn in nursing applications attributed to the introduction of fees and the withdrawal of the NHS bursary. The Government has earmarked £1.3 billion for mental health services, pledging to treat an additional one million patients by 2020-21 through 24/7 services. The RCN says there is already a dangerous lack of workforce planning and accountability, and warns the Government will need to work hard just to get back to the number of specialist staff working in mental health services in 2010. They state that under this Government there are 5,000 fewer mental health nurses.

Janet Davies, RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary, expressed skepticism at the government’s plans and stated: “If these nurses were going to be ready in time, they would be starting training next month…but we have seen that the withdrawal of the bursary has led to a sharp fall in university applications and we are yet to see funding for additional places.” [The government previously stated the removal of bursaries will mean an additional 10,000 training places for healthcare students could be made available by 2020.]

On the ending of the bursary Jon Skewes, Director, at Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said: ‘We believe this decision is a fundamental mistake by the government and have warned about the wide reaching implications of removing the student midwifery bursary given the existing crisis in our maternity services. In England alone we remain 3500 midwives short. This, coupled with younger midwives leaving, an ageing workforce and the loss of EU midwives post-Brexit, means the RCM has grave concerns for staffing our maternity services. The government has completely ignored RCM advice to make any loans forgivable if students then go to work in the NHS. The axing of the bursary and introduction of tuition in England will without doubt worsen the current shortage of midwives.’

Tuition Fees

The Centre for Policy Studies released an Economic Bulletin on tuition fees: Wealthy Graduates: The Winners from Corbyn’s tuition fees plan. It reiterates known messages including increases in disadvantaged pupils accessing HE and the social unfairness of expecting non-graduates to subsidise education for degree students. It also makes the following points:

The maximum fee ceiling is charged by most universities, there is little differentiation. This means the intended competitiveness was unsuccessful as there is no clear link between tuition fees paid and job prospects. (See page 8 of the full report for more detail.) While TEF still intends to differentiate fees paid on quality the scale of the difference is limited.
It calls on ministers to avoid retrospectively increasing graduate’s fee repayments, to consider reducing loan interest rates, and to incentivise courses linking to labour shortages.
It also recommends policy makers consider intergenerational fairness but without abolishing tuition fees
Scotland’s previous no tuition fee policy which resulted in a student numbers cap means their social mobility outcomes are lower than England’s.

Widening Participation

Statistics – progression and outcome

The Department for Education have published statistics on the 2014/15 entry cohort – Widening Participation in HE. These are the regular annual statistics detailing young participation in HE with social background comparisons and graduate outcomes. Headlines:

The progression rate of free school meals (FSM) pupils has increased, but so has the gap between FSM and non-FSM. Page 5 has a diagram breaking this down by region.
The state school Vs independent school gap in progressing to the most selective HE institutions has widened slightly
Graduate outcomes – disadvantaged students employed in the most advantaged occupations is up by 1%, although the gap between most and least advantaged students in these high-end jobs remains static at 6%.

School-age attainment trends

The Education Policy Institute has published Closing the Gap? Trends in Educational Attainment and Disadvantage. The report focuses on school aged children analysing the attainment gaps between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers plus other pupil characteristics. It covers the progress made, the enduring challenges (including magnitude of learning gaps and lack of progress for the most persistently disadvantaged pupils). It recommends an additional 8 local authority districts on top of the 12 Opportunity Areas currently identified by the Department for Education. Finally, it states that without significant acceleration in the rate at which gaps are being addressed it take until 2070 before disadvantaged children did not fall further behind other students during their time in education.

UK UG Vs International Student numbers

The Sunday Times led with an article claiming universities recruitment of the financially more lucrative international students was crowding out intake of UK undergraduates: Universities take foreign students ahead of British.

The sector responded on Twitter and Wonkhe set out what is misleading in the Times article in their blog: What the Sunday Times got Wrong. This states that the Times article used inappropriate statistics and reminded that UK school leavers now enter university at the highest ever levels.

David Morris (Wonkhe) writes: when I confronted Gilligan about this on Twitter, his response suggested (to me at least) a realisation that a mistake had been made. He argued that his piece “was mainly about the fact that non-EU undergrads are admitted with lesser qualifications” and that we shouldn’t suggest that part-time and second degree students “don’t count”.

In his critique Morris also acknowledges the difficulty navigating HESA statistics for the uninitiated: HESA’s website is not the easiest to use, and one could easily look at overall undergraduate numbers and make an assumption about a story that simply isn’t there. I would urge HESA to make finding historic data more ‘journalist friendly’ for hacks with a deadline. To write this piece I have had to have six different tabs open on HESA’s website, plus three different Excel sheets and the HESA mobile app. No wonder mistakes can be made.

Case Studies

Universities UK have published a directory of case studies illustrating how universities are tackling harassment, violence against women and hate crime. The case studies cover a range of areas including prevention, improving incident reporting procedures, effective responses, student and staff training, and good practice.

4 August 2017

BU’s Centre for Conflict,Rule of Law and Society’s Sascha Dov Bachmann visited the Centre for Military Studies – Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa

international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement sbachmann

Dr Sascha Dov Bachmann, Associate Professor in International Law (BU) and War Studies (Swedish Defence University – FHS) and Director of BU’s Centre for Conflict,Rule of Law and Society just returned from a research visit as Visiting Researcher to the Centre for Military Studies – Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University .

The Centre for Military Studies (CEMIS) was established in 1990 under the aegis of Stellenbosch University and the SANDF as an integral part of the contractual agreement between Stellenbosch University and the South African National Defence (SANDF) as approved by the US Senate and Board since 1996. CEMIS is housed within the Faculty of Military Science at Saldanha.

Sascha was invited to share the findings of his ongoing work (see BU Research News) on Hybrid Warfare (see Interview in Remote Control Project by Oxford Research Group: Sascha Dov Bachmann) and to work on a Southern African approach to Hybrid Threats/Warfare (such as human trafficking, poaching and terrorism).

The relevance of his work has been recognised in South Africa and was highlighted by his invitation to address the military audience at the The 1st International Conference on Military Law in South Africa, hosted by the South African National Defence Force and the Defence Legal Services Division over the period 31 October to 4 November 2016 in Pretoria.

The overall aim is to strenghten the existing collaborative ties between BU and Stellenbosch University in conjunction with the Swedish Defence University with the further goal of joint research bids, publications and exchange of personnel.

Dr Beukes (CEMIS, US), Dr S Bachmann (BU) and Prof Liebenberg (CEMIS, US)

3 August 2017

Newton Fund – Funding Update

Funding opportunities, international eknight

If you are interested in applying to any of these calls then please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer, in the first instance.

21 August 2017	4pm BST	INDIA – Newton-Bhabha PhD Placements Programme (British Council)
31 August 2017	4pm BST	CHINA – Call for Participation in an International Workshop on ‘Development through the Creative Economy in China ‘ (AHRC)
5 September 2017	4pm BST	EGYPT – Cultural Heritage and Development in Egypt (AHRC)
6 September 2017	12pm BST	MALAYSIA – UK-Malaysia Urban Innovation Challenge (Innovate UK)
6 September 2017	4pm BST	COLOMBIA – RCUK-CIAT Newton-Caldas Fund Sustainable Tropical Agricultural Systems Programme (BBSRC, ESRC, NERC)
6 September 2017	3pm BST	BRAZIL-CHINA-MEXICO-SOUTH AFRICA – Newton Advanced Fellowships (Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal Society)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	THAILAND – UK-Thailand Joint Initiative on Infectious Diseases and Non-Communicable Diseases (MRC)
19 September 2017	4pm BST	EGYPT-THAILAND-TURKEY – Institutional Links grants (British Council)
20 September 2017	12pm BST	CHINA – PhD Placements and Supervisor Mobility Grants China-UK (British Council)
26 September 2017	4pm BST	BRAZIL – MRC-CONFAP Call for Health Systems Research Networks (MRC)
3 October 2017	4pm BST	CHILE – Newton RCUK-CONICYT Broadening Impact Call (RCUK, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC)
4 October 2017	12pm BST	CHINA – UK-Guangdong (China) – Urban innovation (Innovate UK)
18 October 2017	12pm BST	INDIA – Newton Bhabha UK–India industrial waste challenge 2017 (BBSRC, EPSRC)
24 October 2017	4pm BST	INDIA – UK-India Newton-Bhabha Fund joint call on pulses and oilseeds (BBSRC)
APPLICATIONS ON A ROLLING BASIS		TURKEY – Fellowships for UK Researchers (British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: COLOMBIA – Colombia BIO programme (NERC, AHRC)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: MULTI-COUNTRY – Latin America Biodiversity Regional Researcher Links Workshops (British Council)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: MULTI-COUNTRY – South-East Asia Regional Researcher Links Workshops (British Council)
Forthcoming		FORTHCOMING: INDIA – RCUK: Pre-call announcement: UK-India AMR Initiative (RCUK)

1 August 2017

MSCA Individual Fellowships Seal of Excellence Holders

Funding opportunities, Guidance, international eknight

Were you awarded a Seal of Excellence in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 2016 Individual Fellowships scheme and planning to resubmit to this round?

If so the European Commission and Research Executive Agency (REA) have advised that you should not mention the Seal of Excellence in the main body of the proposal to ensure equal treatment of proposals. If you would like to mention the Seal of Excellence, it can be included in the CV under section 4 of Part B-2. Note this is only for resubmissions where the Fellow, Supervisor and Host Organisation all remain the same.

31 July 2017

Creative Europe – current calls and tenders

Funding opportunities, international Emily Cieciura

Open microbusiness models for innovation in European family-owned heritage houses

The objective of the action is to strengthen the capacity of private owners of heritage houses and equip them with innovative business models.

The preparatory action will map the existing business models used by family-owned heritage houses in the EU, compare them, identify and share best practices and potential innovations.

It will also quantify and qualify the economic value of family-owned heritage houses in the EU and identify their potential to contribute to various EU policies, including innovation, social inclusion, education, youth work and intercultural dialogue. Added value will derive from the synergies with current EU actions dedicated to cultural heritage (European Heritage Days, EU Prize for Cultural Heritage, European Heritage Label).

Finally the action will contribute to the objectives of the European Year of Cultural Heritage through dissemination and awareness raising of European value of heritage.

Deadline: 13/09/17

Proposals to design innovative interdisciplinary modules for Master degrees, combining arts and ICT with entrepreneurial skills and business exposure

The action will be implemented through the design and implementation of innovative modules that will be included in existing arts, culture, science, engineering, technology and/or other relevant masters.

Deadline: 10/10/17

If you are considering applying, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU and International.

31 July 2017

Chevening India Programme – Opening in August

international Emily Cieciura

The Chevening Scholarship Programmes are both prestigious and fully-funded.

They offer a unique opportunity for future leaders, influencers, and decision-makers from all over the world to develop professionally and academically, network extensively, experience UK culture, and build lasting positive relationships with the UK.

Chevening is the UK government’s international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders since 1983. Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and partner organisations, Chevening offers two types of awards – Chevening Scholarships and Chevening Fellowships – the recipients of which are personally selected by British Embassies and High Commissions throughout the world through a rigorous selection process.

The application dates for Chevening Scholarships is 7 August 2017 to 7 November 2017.

The academic year is September 2018 to August 2019.

Bournemouth University is a Chevening partner.

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