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Delegation from Yanshan University China visits Bournemouth University

An academic delegation from Yanshan University in China visited Professor Hongnian Yu from the Department of Computing in the Faculty of Science & Technology at Bournemouth University last week. The Chinese delegation met a range of international research exchange partners and participants from Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh and their own country, China, as well as a guest partner Professor Qyyum, from Pakistan who as Erasmus Mundus project coordinator has just been on an exchange mobility to BU himself.

The Faculty of Science & Technology is involved in an academic exchange project framework of the EU’s Erasmus Mundus (EM) Initiative (Fusion, c-LINK and RABOT). This collaborative network coordinates reciprocal academic mobility at all levels of higher education and research exchange for a defined range of academic subjects via a network of hosting and sending Universities in South East Asia and the EU.

Over the course of three years, around 250 exchanges have been facilitated through a number of projects.  A number of people are currently studying and researching at continental and UK universities as a result.  Here at BU we are currently hosting 9 Erasmus Mundus grantees completing their postgraduate and PhD studies, while quite a few more have already completed their stay.  Meanwhile, the RABOT project has seen more than 20 people over the last couple of years coming study at BU, mainly from Yanshan University in China.

1.1st Row (from left): Prof Yin Yao, (Yanshan University, China), Prof YU (EM Project Coordinator, BU), Prof Xiangdong Kong (Vice President of Yanshan University, China), Prof Amir Qayyum (Fusion and c-LINK partner, Pakistan), Dr Cang (Rabot and Fusion local host at BU) 2. 2nd row: Assistant Professors and students from the Chinese delegation, BU Erasmus Mundus PhD researchers

1. 1st Row (from left): Prof Yin Yao, (Yanshan University, China), Prof YU (EM Project Coordinator, BU), Prof Xiangdong Kong (Vice President of Yanshan University, China), Prof Amir Qayyum (Fusion and c-LINK partner, Pakistan), Dr Cang (Rabot and Fusion local host at BU)
2. 2nd row: Assistant Professors and students from the Chinese delegation, BU Erasmus Mundus PhD researchers

The visit from the Yanshan delegation has been a productive reflection of this collaborative work between different universities and has been beneficial for the involved academics. Visitors and partners have been exploring further collaboration, exchanging an overview of their research environments and current research topics.

The Bournemouth University team was led by Professor Hongnian Yu, and Dr Shuang Cang. Other participants from the Bournemouth University included the PhD researchers Yan Wang (Fusion, from Yanshan University), Pengcheng Liu (RABOT), Pree Thiengburanathum (PhD BU, Thailand), Sajjad Akbar (c-LINK, Pakistan), Ikram Asghar (c-LINK, Pakistan), Arif Reza Anwary (Fusion, Bangladesh) and XI WU (Fusion, China).

The two teams had a workshop at FB103 (Fusion Building) Bournemouth University on 9th September 2016 from 14:00 to 17:30. The participants from both teams presented their latest research works for exchanging ideas and knowledge, and discussed further collaboration.

The two teams had a workshop at FB103 (Fusion Building) Bournemouth University on 9th September 2016 from 14:00 to 17:30. The participants from both teams presented their latest research works for exchanging ideas and knowledge, and discussed further collaboration.

The workshop environment in the excellent new Fusion Building was received as very friendly and informative. The participants from different countries and cultures shared their ideas, work ethics and expectations. This involved a discussion of the variances and differences of workload expectation, supervisory expectations and the levels of academic roles and functions during the graduation and research process for the respective degrees in each country present at the workshop.

There were also informal discussions amongst the participants regards their personal mobility experiences during the coffee break. The Vice President of Yanshan University invited PhD researchers to pay a visit to their University in China and offered his full support for subsequent visits and research activities.

For more information, contact Karin Ermert.

University of Toyo visits BU to learn more about the UK’s Olympic volunteering legacy

Researchers from the University of Toyo in Tokyo have visited Bournemouth University Lecturer, Dr Debbie Sadd, an expert in events management and community involvement in mega sporting events.

Debbie has been heavily involved in developing volunteer programmes including the setting up of Bournemouth’s Festival Maker programme and the Farnborough Flyers for the Farnborough Air Show.

The team from Japan travelled to Bournemouth to find out more about volunteering at London 2012 and how Tokyo can recruit and train its own volunteers in time for the Games in 2020.

“Volunteering was a really key part of London 2012.  Around 70,000 ‘Games Makers’ volunteered during the Olympics and Paralympics, including myself, and were arguably one of the highlights of London 2012 – you only need to read the headlines at the time to see how well received they were,” explains Dr Sadd.

“BU staff and students were involved in volunteering at the medal ceremonies for the sailing events at Weymouth and Portland as well as helping at other venues such as Eton Dorney Rowing Centre and even working as part of the Olympic Broadcasting Network.  Colleagues from BU went to great lengths to support our students to take part in the Games at Weymouth and Portland.  It was a great opportunity for them and inspired us to set up Bournemouth’s Festival Makers Programme.”

“Based on the highly successful Games Makers, the scheme aims to make local people ambassadors for Bournemouth and get them involved in events such as the Air Show and help visitors to get the most out of their trip,” says Dr Sadd, “Our Events Management students are very much involved in the scheme and get to see how an event is run and how we recruit, train and manage volunteers.”

In December 2015, Dr Sadd was invited by the British Council to travel to Tokyo to give a keynote speech at a conference focused on sharing experiences from London 2012.  It was here that Dr Sadd was able to share BU’s experiences with universities from all over Japan and with members of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee.

“This week’s visit is a chance to share our experiences of volunteering as part of London 2012 and beyond and begin to shape a volunteering programme for Tokyo 2020,” says Dr Sadd, “It was great to be involved in the 2012 Olympics and I’m really pleased to be able to use what we learned to help design a volunteering scheme for 2020.”

Innovate 2016 – The Global Spotlight on UK Innovation

Innovate 2011v4

Innovate 2016 will be held at Manchester Central on the 2nd – 3rd November 2016.

Take part in the global showcase of UK innovation, hear from global thought-leaders and create real business opportunities at Innovate 2016. Find out about today’s business opportunities and future-looking trends across manufacturing, health, cities of the future and technologies of the future.

Hear from industry-leaders on topics such as:

  • Retaining the edge with disruptive business models
  • Manufacturing: Tackling the productivity gap
  • Implementing resilience in a city of the future
  • Next-generation medicine: The UK as a world leader
  • Emerging technologies revolutionising innovation

View the full agenda.

Inspirational speakers
Hear from top-level inspirational speakers from organisations including:  Siemens, Versarien, Amazon, University of Manchester, Hyperloop One, High Value Manufacturing Catapult and of course Innovate UK CEO Dr Ruth McKernan CBE and Catherine Raines, CEO from the Department for International Trade.
Support zone

Discover the breadth of funding and support for businesses  and meet with the organisations that exist to help business thrive. The Support Zone will be back featuring among others the UK Business Angels Association, British Business Bank, HMRC and Growth Hubs.

Register and find out more.

 

Are Sustainability Policies Good Indicators of Universities Commitment to Sustainable Development?

I have been invited to present as keynote on that question, at the opening of the “3rd World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-201) at MIT, in Boston, this month. I will also be presenting a paper.

Organised by the Office of Sustainability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Manchester Metropolitan University, the Research and Transfer Centre ‘Applications of Life Sciences’ at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, and in cooperation with the United National University initiative ‘Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development’ (RCE), the 3rd World Symposium takes the theme ‘Designing Tomorrow‘s Campus: Resiliency, Vulnerability, and Adaptation’, with a view to contributing to further development in this fast-growing field.

More information about the event can be found at https://sustainability.mit.edu/wssd2016

The conference builds on work that I have contributed to for over a decade; getting to present at MIT, after a fairly unusual career, is something that I had never imagined.

It was exciting four years ago, to be involved in the “1st World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2012) in Rio (2012), as a member of the Scientific Committee and a presenter. That first conference was a parallel event to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as “Rio+20”. “The Future We Want” (an outcome of Rio+20), outlined many of the measures that countries across the world should pursue and implement to address unsustainable development. Universities have a critical role to play in bringing about change but are not always doing enough of the right things – something I have been banging the drum about, since 2005.

I also contributed to the “2nd World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2014), which was held in Manchester, UK in September 2014. Various publications have resulted from these conferences. The Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (which BU has signed up to) has also been established.

The third conference in Boston will result in a set of books published by Springer, as part of their award-winning “World Sustainability Series”. My role in blind-review papers, finding reviewers, editing and responding to authors etc. has been challenging. I am not a great fan of editorial work but I really have enjoyed communicating with academics across the world, about their research and sustainability projects. I am looking forward to meeting them in person when I get to Boston.

And the answer to the topic…. well, it depends!

But, at BU we are doing better than most – there is much further to go!!

 

Innovation defined? Outcomes and connections ….

Innovate 2011v4

Following on from the blog posts (Blog post 1/ Blog post 2  / Blog post 3  last week  on  Innovation the next set of outcomes and connections introduces the concept:

Game changer 4 = UK innovators + Europe and the World

There is of course one set of relationships that will now be redefined, following the referendum decision to leave the European Union.

As reported to the House of Commons inquiry, the current EU programmes, are incredibly important to the UK, providing us with connections to both European collaborators and supply chains.

UK industry, RTOs and Catapult Centres currently win approximately 340 million euros a year of funding from Horizon 2020. It is about one third (31%) of the total funding for the UK and our SMEs win more funding than any other country.

Industry, like science, is a global endeavour and whilst it is critical that we successfully manage the transition of our relationship with the EU, we must also seize the opportunity to build new global connections and to redefine our collaborations and partnerships around the world.

UK Universities focus on delivery and spur economic growth

Innovate 2011v4
Universities earn over £4bn working with the wider world,  through knowledge exchange between UK universities and the public, private and third sectors.   The annual Higher Education, Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) Survey is the most accurate picture of UK higher education institutions’ commercial relationships.
UK performance is world leading. Comparisons demonstrate that the return on investment from commercialisation of research (sale of equity) is higher in the UK than in the USA or Japan and engagement with industry (proportion of research income) is at similar levels either side of the Atlantic.

 

Bringing FUSION to Nepal

FUSION abroad 2016We have written in many previous BU blogs about progress of our THET-funded project in southern Nepal (e.g. here AND here ). Today’s blog reflects on the use on BU’s unique FUSION approach in our project ‘Mental Health Training for Maternity Care Providers in Nepal‘.

DSC_0151Our BU-led project brings highly experienced health professionals, such as midwives, health visitors or mental health nurses, to Nepal to work as volunteer trainers. The training is aimed at community-based maternity care practitioners and addresses key mental health issues relevant to pregnancy and for new mothers and offers the required communication skills. These health professionals will bring their experience as health care providers as well as trainers in the field of mental health and maternity care/midwifery, mental ill-health prevention and health promotion. They volunteer for two to three weeks at a time to design and deliver training in southern Nepal.

logo THETThe Centre for Midwifery & Maternal Health (CMMPH) collaborates in this project with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), the Department of Health, and Physical & Population Education at Nepal’s oldest university Tribhuvan University’s (TU). The project is supported in the field by a local charity called Green Tara Nepal. Our project is part of the Health Partnership such as Nepal. HPS itself is funded by the UK Department for International Development and managed by THET (Tropical and Health Education Trust).

Fusion Diagram Our maternal mental health project is a good example of BU’s FUSION approach as it combines EDUCATION (through the training of Auxiliary Nurse-Midwives in Nepal) by UK volunteers (representing PRACTICE) through an intervention which is properly evaluated (representing RESEARCH) is a perfect example of BU’s FUSION in action. Moreover, the project will be partly evaluated by FHSS’s Preeti Mahato as part of her PhD thesis research. This PhD project is supervised by Dr. Catherine Angell (CEL & CMMPH), BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada (based at LJMU) and CMMPH’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.BU’s focus on the FUSION of research, education and professional practice is a unique variant of the way UK universities (and many abroad) blend academic teaching, research and scholarship. FUSION is a key concept derived from BU’s strategic Vision & Values).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH