Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Sascha Dov Bachmann, Associate Professor in International Law, FMC, has been made Extraordinary Visiting Professor (AP) in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University (FHS). This appointment recognizes his contribution to the work of the Department of Military Studies at FHS on the subject of Hybrid War and Hybrid Threats. He continues to collaborate with colleagues from Sweden, Germany and NATO on the subject.
The wait is finally over. You can now start your application for the 2016 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships. This call will close on 14 September 2016, 17:00 (Brussels time).
According to the Participant Portal:
The goal of Individual Fellowships is to enhance the creative and innovative potential of experienced researchers, wishing to diversify their individual competence in terms of skill acquisition through advanced training, international and intersectoral mobility.
Individual Fellowships provide opportunities to acquire and transfer new knowledge and to work on research and innovation in a European context (EU Member States and Associated Countries) or outside Europe. The scheme particularly supports the return and reintegration of researchers from outside Europe who have previously worked here. It also develops or helps to restart the careers of individual researchers that show great potential, considering their experience.
In RKEO, we have a schedule for the 2016 submissions. Once we know that that you are interested in submitting, we will keep you up to date with our activities. Just contact your relevant Faculty Funding Development Officer to let them know that you plan to submit to this call. If you missed the introductory sessions that were held in December, BU staff can access the slides – MSCA 2016 v2. You may also wish to refer to the RKEO Guide to Fellowships.
To book onto the internal two-day workshop, hosted by Dr Martin Pickard, on 24th and 25th May, please contact Dianne Goodman, Funding Development Team Co-ordinator in RKEO, as soon as possible. Places are limited. You should attend with your potential fellow, if possible. N.B. their travel to BU cannot be funded by RKEO. This workshop is, however, free for BU staff and potential fellows.
There is a European IPR Webinar – IP Management in H2020 with a special focus on Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions – on 4th May 2016 at 09:30 in P402 for c. 75 minutes to include the webinar, Q&A with the presenter and time at the end for informal discussion with your peers. Again, please contact Dianne Goodman, to reserve your place for this event. If you go to the external event page, do not register on this page as RKEO are already registered.
Contact Emily Cieciura, Research Facilitator: EU & International or the relevant Faculty Funding Development Officer for further help and support or if you have any queries or comments.
Maternal Mortality in Nepal
Abstract: The session links various social and political factors that affect maternal mortality. Women dying in pregnancy and childbirth is very much a problem of and in low-income countries. This talk focuses on Nepal, one of the poorer countries of the world, to highlight a range of maternal health issues and wider influencing factors including globalisation and the influence of global organisations such as the World Health Organisation.
For further information regarding the Social Science seminar series, get in touch with Dr Mastoureh Fathi (mfathi@boutnemouth.ac.uk).
On Thursday 14th April Dr. Bibha Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University & BU Visiting Faculty) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen presented their education research in Liverpool. The work is part of a THET-funded project at the 14th Britain-Nepal Academic Council (BNAC) Nepal Study Days. The presentation ‘Mental Health Training and Education in Nepal‘ is part of an international project led by Bournemouth University. BU collaborates with Tribhuvan University (Nepal’s largest & oldest university) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The project receives funding from DFID, and is managed through THET and supported locally in Nepal by a non-governmental organisation called Green Tara Nepal. The project takes UK volunteers, people with experience in midwifery, mental health, higher education, nursing, health visiting, etc. to the southern part of Nepal.
Mental health is a difficult topic to discuss in Nepal (as it often is in the UK). This makes it hard for front-line health workers, especially non-mental health specialists, to start a discussion about mental health issues with patients.
As part of this THET-funded programme to train community health worker such as Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) on mental health issues related to pregnancy, we conducted a review of all relevant health curricula in Nepal. The key findings are that mental health issues in pregnancy and childbirth are often lacking in the curricula for both nurses and ANMs as a result community-based staff lack training in this topic. There is a great need for a curriculum to facilitate relevant training for ANMs.
We would like to repeat our call for volunteers. If you are a health or education professional with an interest in mental health and/or maternity care and you are interested in volunteering later this year for a week to ten days in Nepal please contact Edwin van Teijlingen (evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk ).
FHSS PhD student Jib Acharya presented a poster from his thesis research at last week’s BNAC (Britain-Nepal Academic Council) Study Days in Liverpool.[1] Jib’s PhD research focused on the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of poor women about nutritious food and the study also identify major food barriers. He used a mixed-methods approached comprising a survey and qualitative research. The poster at BNAC focused on findings related to mothers’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about nutritious food. Jib’s research is supervised by Dr. Jane Murphy, Dr. Martin Hind and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Some of the preliminary findings of this FHSS thesis have recently been published in two academic journals. [2-3]
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Panel discussion, launch of the WICGE network on 8 Mar 2016 (Sydney, Australia). From left to right: Professor Robin Davidson-Arnott (University of Guelph, Canada), Dr Luciana S. Esteves (Bournemouth University, UK), Dr Shari Gallop (Macquarie University, Australia) and Professor Julie Cairney (School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Sydney).
I am very proud of being one of the founding members of the Women in Coastal Geoscience and Engineering (WICGE) network, officially launched on 8 March 2016 during the 14th International Coastal Symposium in Sydney, Australia. The idea to create WICGE was led by Dr Shari Gallop (Macquarie University, Australia) and Dr Ana Vila-Concejo (University of Sydney), who was also the first women to chair the International Coastal Symposium (the largest conference focused on coastal science). To join WICGE or just to find out more, please click here.
The event was attended by about 70 conference attendees (male and female as you can see in the photo) and it created an opportunity for the keynote (Prof Julie Cairney), the members of the discussion panel (named in the photo caption) and attendees to shared their experiences. It was interesting to learn that members of the panel, including myself, expressed that they were not aware of gender inequalities and/or discrimination in their work environment at first. The reasons for this late realisation were varied, including a common feeling of ‘I thought I was the problem‘ or the simple acceptance that certain attitude towards woman was just ‘as always is‘. As Shari Gallop indicates in this blog about the WICGE launch, another contributing factor may be the fact that, in the academic environment, the imbalance greatly increases towards the more senior positions and is not as evident at early career stages.
Another common theme in the discussion was that we (men and women) are guilty of unconscious bias, a prejudice deep-rooted in long-established social behaviours, which are now increasingly questioned, but changing incredibly slowly. Most people (and therefore our society) are stubbornly averse to change. Where and when change is required, it does not come easy; it takes huge effort and time to get the message across. Even when we understand the need for change, it may take a while until we are able to embed in our lives new ways of doing (or being). It becomes evident then the importance played by continuing and widening the open debate about diversity, equality and fairness to raise awareness and educating us all, especially about the little things we can do to make the big changes we need. And this is why we need WAN, WICGE , the Aurora Programme, Athena Swan and the growing number of initiatives aiming to promote equal opportunities and a fairer working environment for all of us.
Luciana S. Esteves, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Life & Environmental Sciences
The final report from the #Digital4EU Stakeholder Forum which took place in Brussels on Thursday 25 February 2016 is now available online.
This one-day event, organised by the European Commission, was centred around the progress made in creating a Digital Single Market (DSM) in Europe.
Commissioner Günther H. Oettinger, responsible for the Digital Economy and Society, Wepke Kingma, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the EU and Roberto Viola, Director-General of DG Connect, held keynote speeches during the event.
#Digital4EU 2016 was the second edition of the #Digital4EU Stakeholder Forum, which focused on President Jean-Claude Juncker’s digital priorities.
#Digital4EU 2016 covered the following five topics:
(Source: UKRO)
At the 14th BNAC (Britain-Nepal Academic Council) Nepal Study Days starting tomorrow (14th April 2016) FHSS’s PhD student Jib Acharya will presenting his poster on ‘A Comparative Study on Nutritional Problems in Preschool Aged Children of Kaski district of Nepal’. Jib’s PhD project is supervised by FHSS’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Jane Murphy and Dr. Martin Hind. Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen is also joint supervisor of Sarita Pandey (based at the University of Sheffield) whose poster ‘Factors that promote and hinder provision of maternal health services by Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHV) in rural Nepal’ will also be on display.
BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada (based at Liverpool John Moores University) will be presenting on the on-going THET-funded project ‘Mental Health Training and Education in Nepal’. This paper is part of the education stream of the conference,and its acceptance is a reflection of BU’s reputation in Educational Research. This paper has co-authors based in the UK and Nepal: Bibha Simkhada, Edwin van Teijlingen, Jillian Ireland, Padam Simkhada, Bhimsen Devkota, Lokendra Sherchan, Ram Chandra Silwal, Shyam K. Maharjan, Ram K. Maharjan, Geeta Sharma, and Samridhi Pradhan. Both Prof. Padam Simkhada and Ms. Jillian Ireland are BU Visiting Faculty.
The first Study Day tomorrow starts with an invited Skills-building session on Focus Group Research by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. The final day includes a paper on ‘Impacts of Migration in Nepal’ by Prof. Padam Simkhada and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
We are hoping to get the 15th BNAC Study Days to Bournemouth University for this time next year!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Following the announcement of a shortlist of nine cities (including Glasgow and Oxford in the UK) in January, Amsterdam has emerged as the winner of the 2016 European Capital of Innovation Award.
The city was chosen for its “holistic vision of innovation related to four areas of urban life: governance, economics, social inclusion, and quality of life” by a panel of independent experts – “for embracing a bottom-up approach based on smart growth, startups, livability and digital social innovation.”
An interesting read and some interesting videos and presentations from the winners and runners up and those short listed.
Useful information for those following research into such topics as smart cities, innovation , ecosystems.
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen will be running a Skills Building Workshop at the 14th national Nepal Study Days of the Britain-Nepal Academic Council (BNAC) in Liverpool. FHSS Professor van Teijlingen is a long-standing member of BNAC. Registration for this year’s Nepal Study Days is open now, if you are interested click here! Edwin van Teijlingen has conducted many qualitative studies and supervised many postgraduate students doing focus group research. He has published widely on qualitative methods, including research papers on Focus Group Research.1-3
Anybody interested in learning more about Focus Group Discussions as a research method should consider signing up for up for Bournemouth University’s two-day Masterclass ‘Focus Group Research‘ to be held next week Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th April in Bournemouth. Over a two-day period this Masterclass will cover the journey for a research project on focus group research. Basic previous knowledge on qualitative research will be assumed.
References:
This month a team of FHSS staff published their editorial in the latest issue of the academic journal Health Prospect [1]. The lead author is Dr. Pramod Regmi working in collaboration with CMMPH’s Professor Vanora Hundley, FHSS PhD students Preeti Mahato and Sheetal Sharma, and Professor Padam Simkhada from Liverpool John Moores University who is also Visiting Faculty at BU. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the new guidance for nations and international organisations worldwide following the completion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which run from 2000 to 2015. We wrote about the MDGs and their relevance to midwifery and maternity care in a previous article [2].
Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Four academics, Dr Susan Way, Dr Vanessa Heaslip, Ashley Spriggs and Dr Dawn Morley, from FHSS are presenting papers at the Nurse Education Today / Nurse Education in Practice Conference this week, 3rd – 6th April, in Brisbane. The conference is recognised as a leading nurse education event where cutting edge research and innovation ideas from across the world are disseminated. This year the conference has been expanded for the first time to include Midwifery Education.
The title of Dr Susan Way’s presentation is, ‘Leading with a SMiLE: Exploring a student-led clinic, practice education model for educational impact and service improvement’. The Student Midwives integrated Learning Environment (SMiLE) offers an alternative, reliable and collaborative student-led clinic practice education model for equipping midwives of the future with the knowledge, skills and competencies they will need to provide safe and effective postnatal care, to mothers, babies and their families. Early service evaluation of the clinic suggests that students found it benefitted their learning, built their confidence and gave them opportunities to develop their postnatal skills. Peer learning and teamworking relationships were also improved.
Dr Vanessa Heaslip and Ashley Spriggs present their collaborative study entitled “humanising the interview process”; an evaluation of service user/carers contribution to value based recruitment in a pre-registration adult nursing programme. The mixed-method evaluation analysed the perspectives of differing stakeholders (Candidates, SU/Carers, Academics and Practice Partners) regarding the role SU/Carer engagement in Adult Nursing Pre-registration interviews. Early findings from candidates have highlighted they value the involvement of SU/Carers in the interview process, SU/Carers add a “human dimension” ensuring a focus on the heart of nursing and its value base rather than the role of nursing and associated nursing tasks.
Dr Dawn Morley’s presentation focuses on the ‘ebb and flow model of mentoring students in practice’. Twenty one first year student nurses interviewed were insightful as to how their practice learning experience could be improved on their first placement.
The findings of her research highlighted the importance of consistently working with an expert who could encapsulate the “whole” of professional practice but who could also question and coach students through their learning experiences. The research suggested that this was best achieved through an “ebb and flow” model of mentorship where student and mentor were constantly negotiating short term learning goals and opportunities together that accommodated the challenge of workforce demands. By working and learning in this organic manner students were party to the professional decision making and observation of qualified nurses and were educated to a critical decision making level from the earliest opportunity in their clinical practice.
Professor Steve Tees, Executive Dean of the Faculty was also at the Conference in his capacity as one of the Editors of Nurse Education Today journal.
This new issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology contains a systematic review by FHSS Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at Liverpool John Moores University). The review was produced in collaboration with Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). Their paper ‘Factors influencing sexual behaviour between tourists and tourism employees: A systematic review’ is co-written with a researcher from Green Tara Nepal and an independent Public Health Consultant based in the UK. [1] This systematic review reports on factors influencing sexual behaviour between workers in the tourism industry and tourists, including their risk perceptions when engaging in sexual activities and the knowledge of STIs (sexually transmitted infections).
This is the third paper from this group on sexual health and tourism. The previous two papers were written with BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi. These two publications reported on sexual behaviour of male trekking guides in Nepal such as sexual interactions with tourists and locals. The qualitative paper based on interviews with trekking guides has been published in Culture, Health & Sexuality [2] and the quantitative survey paper appeared in Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences [3].
This week’s publication the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is Open Access, hence freely available, as is the third paper listed below.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
Since his arrival in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences last year postdoctoral researcher Dr. Pramod Regmi has been busy getting his publications out. Yesterday saw the latest of his articles appear in print, this time in the latest issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. The editorial, co-authored with Dr. Om Kurmi (University of Oxford) and Dr. Puspa R. Pant at the University of the West of England, addresses the growing problem air pollution in low-income countries such as Nepal. The paper is called: ‘Implication of Air pollution on health effects in Nepal: Lessons from global research’. [1]
The journal is Open Access so the article can be accessed by anybody across the globe for free.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
On previous occasions we have written on the BU Research Blog about our THET-funded project, for example earlier this year on the first training sessions in Nepal. Bournemouth University is leading on a project in collaboration with Tribhuvan University (the largest and oldest university in Nepal) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The project receives funding from DFID, and is managed through THET and supported locally in Nepal by a non-governmental organisation called Green Tara Nepal. We have been working with this charity for nearly ten years.
This time we would like to highlight a regular research blog written by Ish Fawcett who went out to Nepal last month as one of the UK volunteers. She has written some lovely blogs on her time in Nepal, about the training sessions as well as her general experiences of and observations on Nepal. Her blogs can be accessed here!
We would like to take this opportunity to repeat our call for volunteers. If you are a health or education professional with an interest in mental health and/or maternity care and you are interested in volunteering later this year for a week to ten days in Nepal please contact Edwin van Teijlingen (evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk ).
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
The April issue of the Journal of Neonatal Nursing will publish the latest article written by a combination of Faculty of Health & Social Sciences staff and Visiting Faculty. The paper ‘Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature’ offers a systematic narrative review on issues affecting fathers, whose babies are admitted to neonatal units. [1] The authors include Visiting Faculty Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust midwife Jillian Ireland and Prof. Minesh Khashu (consultant neonatologist) and FHSS staff Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor, Luisa Cescutti-Butler, and Edwin van Teijlingen. Twenty-seven papers in this interesting review highlighted four key themes: (1) stress & anxiety; (2) information (or lack thereof); (3) gender roles and (4) emotions. This paper adds to the growing literature (and understanding) of the role and place of men in maternity care generally and for fathers of babies in neonatal care in particular.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Our latest paper in the international journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth published late last month was highlighted yesterday in a BMC Series Blog.[1] The blog post reminds us that the media plays an important role in providing the general public with information about a range of issues, including pregnancy and childbirth. The visual media, such as television, can provide planned information (education), for example in documentaries, advertising and the news. Our paper “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media’ looked into how the representation of childbirth in the mass media affects childbirth in society as there is evidence to suggest that it can have a negative effect. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth is an Open Access journal therefore the paper is freely available for anybody across the globe with an internet connection, for access click here.
Our paper is great example of interdisciplinary research, as celebrated at the forthcoming Interdisciplinary Research Sector Day on June 21st (see here). The authors of our paper combine expertise in media studies, midwifery, sociology and health services research. Moreover, it involved collaborations across universities (Bournemouth and Stirling) and within BU across faculties, namely the Faculty of Media & Communcation and the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences.
Ann Luce, Marilyn Cash, Vanora Hundley, Helen Cheyne, Edwin van Teijlingen & Catherine Angell
Reference:
Today, Tuesday 15th March 2016, is World Social Work Day. Whilst the growth in ‘world this’ or ‘world that’ day may cause some to groan and turn off, there is tremendous importance in World Social Work Day because of it focus on social justice, wellbeing and positive change for individuals, families, communities and states.
This year’s theme for World Social Work Day is Human Worth and Dignity, something important to all our hearts, and central to contemporary concerns as the Syrian crisis continues and, unfortunately, exemplifies the state of much of the world. As a precursor to celebrating the day, the Department of Social Science and Social Work has been fortunate to host two important international speakers. On March 3rd, our visiting fellow and co-author with Prof Jonathan Parker, Prof Dr Maria Luisa Gomez Jimenez from the University of Malaga introduced aspects of the housing crisis in Spain, outlining some of the ways in this problem might be addressed. Yesterday, Dr Bala Raju Nikku, founding director of the Nepal School of Social Work (NSSW) and visiting senior lecturer at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, where he worked alongside Prof Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Prof Jonathan Parker, took time off from his COFUND fellowship at the University of Durham to speak about disaster social work. He used the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal as his focus. The NSSW and Dr Bala were active in providing social work support after the earthquakes and responding rapidly so that students could engage in the work and learn through service delivery, whilst being able to understand and theorise at the same time.
Human worth and dignity are central concepts which are often trivialised or ignored in contemporary society. If we are to engender social trust, positive relationships and a co-produced future not based on profit alone but on reciprocity, compassion and sustainability we must engage with these concepts. This year’s World Social Work Day helps us do so.
Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
BU staff can login below:
Dr. Ashraf cited on ‘Modest Fashion’ in The Guardian
NIHR-funded research launches website
Academics write for newspaper in Nepal
New paper published on disability in women & girls
Global Consortium for Public Health Research 2025
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published