Category / Knowledge Exchange

Industrial strategy themes – selection underway

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

Innovate 2011v4
Innovate UK and the research councils are seeking feedback from researchers and entrepreneurs on  a number of  areas that have been earmarked to receive support from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Workshops across the UK are running during January at which time feedback will be requested.
Areas that are likley to be supported to begin with  include:
  • bioscience and biotechnology
  • healthcare and medicine
  • manufacturing processes and materials
  • energy technologies including battery storage and grid technologies
  • satellite and space technologies
  • quantum technologies
  • robotics and artificial intelligence
  • transformative digital technologies

Another two themes are also being considered:

  • integrated and sustainable cities
  • technologies for the creative industries
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is expected to publish a green paper on the industrial strategy, which covers the fund, in the week beginning 23 January.

What is the nature of the innovation required from education for our mobile and connected society?

conferences, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

innovation---useFirst in the ‘Leading Innovation’ series of seminars, Professor John Traxler, Professor of Digital Learning at the University of Wolverhampton, will visit BU on Tuesday 24 January to present ‘What is the nature of the innovation required from education for our mobile and connected society?’.

Professor Traxler will be looking at questions such as; why do we need to be innovative? What are the benefits of innovation to me, my department, Faculty and the wider organisation of BU? And How can we nurture and support innovation as leaders? The session will take place on Talbot Campus, starting at 2.30pm and finishing at 4pm.

The ‘Leading Innovation’ series is based on the presenters’ own experiences, case studies, ideas and thoughts and by sharing their approach, techniques and other interesting facts, covering Innovation in Research, Innovation in Education and Innovation in Professional Practice. A number of sessions are scheduled to run between January and May 2017 and will be presented by colleagues from across BU as well as guest speakers, which include Peter Bryant, Head of Learning Technology and Innovation at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Sarah Knight, Senior Co-design Manager at Jisc.

For further details of the sessions, and to book to attend, please visit the Staff Development & Engagement Staff Intranet pages.

 

BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Flora Douglas speaking as THET volunteer in Nepal

international, Knowledge Exchange, Training

Flora final speechToday we had our first training session of the final THET mental health in maternity care project.  UK volunteer Dr. Flora Douglas spoke about key aspects of health promotion and focused particularly on notions of community-based approaches.  Flora is based at the University of Aberdeen and she is also a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).  This was her first visit to Nepal.  She was inspired to volunteer as she had been a MSc supervisor some years ago on a project that related to the Green Tara Nepal health promotion intervention.  Bournemouth University has been working with Green Tara Trust, a Buddhist charity based in London for many years.BC Flora

Yesterday Flora had visited one of the 20 birthing centres in Nawalparasi, the district where the THET training takes place.  Flora was very humbled by the experiences of the community-based maternity care workers in the light of many constrains.  She said: “I have seen pictures of such birthing centres and read about them in the literature, but it is not until you see them first hand that you realise how staff have to work with such limited resources.certificate

The attendees, who are nearly ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives) were highly enthusiastic and very keen to discuss and learn.  They shared some very personal and touching stories about their practice.  Flora added: “I am very struck by their understanding of the importance of the social and cultural determinants of both psychical and mental health.”  Many found they had learnt something in previous THET sessions in 2016 about communication with women and counselling family members about mental health, and perhaps most importantly, listening more to women.  Last, but not least, Flora commented on the dedication of the participants: “At least two of the participants told me they travelled ten hours to get here for our one-day workshop. This really shocked me, particularly having seen the quality of the roads and public transport!”logo THET

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Wanted! External Bid Writers

Funding opportunities, Grants Academy, international, Knowledge Exchange, REF Subjects, Training

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As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, Bournemouth University is expanding its pool of external bid writing expertise, through a tendering process.

If you have worked with a good bid writer or, as an external subscriber to this blog, you have written successful research funding applications, please contactus in the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office

We are particularly interested in those who can provide short courses, one-to-one support, bid writing retreats, application review or a range of these and related activities.

Examples of key funders include:

  • British Academy
  • European Commission funds including Horizon 2020
  • Innovate UK
  • Leverhulme Trust
  • National Institutes of Health and other US Federal funders
  • Research Councils
  • Royal Society
  • Wellcome Trust
  • etc.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Challenge Project – Home Office

Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

money and cogs

The Home Office, through the Joint Security and Resilience Centre, invites responses for its call on challenge project. This aims to capture strategical and tactical barriers which inhibit the security sector and develop project work against proposed solutions. Projects must provide demonstrable effort towards at least one of the following:

•deliver a joint response to the UK’s national security challenges;

•drive the delivery of the right solutions;

•growth of the security sector.

Suggestions for future areas of research are welcome.

10 awards, each worth between approximately £25,000 and £50,000, are available.

Click here for more information including how to apply.

Closing deadline is 22 January 2017.

If you are interested in submitting to  this  call you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

 

Season’s Greetings from the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT)

Knowledge Exchange

KEIT Christmas 1216Through the dark nights of December, we have been reflecting on our highlights from another action packed year for KEIT.

In February, Charlene joined as our first Student Project Bank Co-ordinator followed by Joanna and Hannah in August as Events Organiser and Student Engagement Coordinator for their placement year.

The summer also saw Becca re-join the team following her maternity leave and Genna move into an Engagement and Impact Facilitator role.

Our evolving team has supported another busy year of events including the KTP South Coast meeting, Interdisciplinary Research Week, Impact Week, the Service Excellence conference, monthly Café Scientifique events, the ESRC Festival of Social Science, the Festival of Learning, the Festival of Enterprise, the RKE Development Framework, Festival of Learning On Tour events, the Research Photography Competition, 14:Live events, the new inaugural lecture series, the SURE conference and public lectures day for the U3A amongst others.

Project activity remains abundant with support for the institution’s KTPs, Student Research Assistantship scheme, Student Project Bank (which went live in October), our programme of activities to engage student engagement with research, support for 25 HEIF projects, impact case studies for all units of assessment, support for innovation and IP amongst the myriad other KE and impact initiatives.

Publications have included the Bournemouth Research Chronicle, research content for the annual review and a series of fusion case studies to illustrate our concept of fusing research, professional practice and education.

With all this activity, we just wanted to say many thanks to those of you who have collaborated with us over the past year to make all these activities possible and we look forward to working with you in 2017.

 

Wishing you a fantastic festive season and an impactful New Year.

Becca, Charlene, Genna, Hannah, Jayne, Joanna, Naomi, Rachel B and Rachel C

Immerse UK – connecting the worlds of virtual reality, augmented reality and immersive technologies

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Flying planes in a computer game

This is a new Knowledge Transfer Network that was launched in November 2016.  The network now has just under 400 members. Around 70% are  business, 20% are from universities and research centres, 5% from government or public sector backgrounds, and a further 5% from not-for-profit and cultural organisations.

Over 100 people from across those groups came to the  first members’ meeting on December 7th at the Digital Catapult. Following presentations from some of Immerse UK’s founding partners as well as two of the key platform providers (HTC and Holovis), there was a series of roundtable conversations about the priorities.

The key topics identified as ones where Immerse UK can make a difference are:
– access to finance, funding and investment
– content, production and user experience
– connecting industry and universities (skills and research)
– industrial applications
– mapping activity in the UK

Access to Finance and Funding
Immerse UK will work with investors and funders in the UK and other countries to make them aware of the opportunities and needs of SMEs building businesses on the applications of VR/AR and other immersive technologies across a range of markets. As well as advising public sector agencies such as Innovate UK and Horizon 2020, where we’ve already had significant success, we’ll work to connect members with angels, VCs, and commissioners.

An event is being planned  with VCs for the first quarter of 2017 in collaboration with PwC; we’ll send out more information about this early in the New Year. Immerse UK are also working with a European network, the NEM Initiative, to explore the feasibility of establishing a pan-European network of financiers focussing on VR/AR.

Mapping Immersive activities in the UK
One of the objectives of ImmerseUK is to map current expertise and activities related to VR/AR technologies. This map will support understanding of current UK expertise and facilities, to help companies gain access to the support they need, and also to link members.

Immerse UK would ideally like to create a web-based map to show the following information for each member: academia/industry; VR/AR facilities; application areas; expertise; sector; etc. and also to provide a search facility. The map must be: 1. easy to update/populate; 2. accessible; 3. visually attractive; and 4. easy to understand and use. If anyone has such expertise, or has experience of creating/using a suitable off-the-shelf software, please contact glyn.lawson@nottingham.ac.uk.

Content, Production and User Experience
Two main themes were raised in the members’ discussion around content: standards and “how can AV/VR be explored to the boundaries of its potential experience, rather than using the grammar and content of games, web or 2D content”. What are the specific affordances of AR and VR that are more than the sum of the parts from TV, Film, Games and internet?

In the conversation around production, issues raised included the reduction of costs, and the need to educate and engage content providers working in other media.

The working group in this area is also being co-ordinated by the Digital Catapult and KTN. If you are interested in being involved in the development of this please contact  Frank Boyd at the KTN 07964 563152
@frnboy

Connecting industry and academia (skills and research)
Universities were well represented at the meeting and Immerse UK continues to attract members from across academia. Glyn Lawson from Nottingham, who has submitted a bid to the EPSRC to fund networking across the academic community and between universities and business, is also leading the working group for this activity. If you would like to be involved in this aspect of the  programme, please contact him: glyn.lawson@nottingham.ac.uk.

Industrial Applications – co-ordinated by IET and High Value Manufacturing Catapult
The discussion on industrial applications of vr and related technologies was hosted by Ahmed Kotb who co-ordinates the IET’s Applied Visualisation Community. The IET will be working with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult to lead much of Immerse UK’s activity in this area.

Immerse UK are currently collaborating on an Applied Visualisation Forum which will be held at the British Motor Museum on January 26th. The forum will encourage those working in the field of visualisation and virtual reality (VR) to share their expertise, good practice, hardware and software advances and application in VR, Augmented Reality (AR) and Data Capture and Visualisation.

Immerse UK are also in the early stages of planning an event focused on the construction industry which is likely to be held in April or May 2017.

Communications
We’ve now completed the first iteration of the Immerse UK website, established groups on LinkedIn, a Facebook page, and a presence on Twitter. Please do join these groups and contribute to the conversations in them.

If you have news about activity or events that you’d like to share with the Immerse UK community, please send it to Frank Boyd or to fiona.kilkelly@ktn-uk.org.

Innovate UK funding
Innovate UK is launching two new competitions for funding in the New Year which may be relevant to Immerse UK members.
 
1. Design Foundations 
This new competition aims to support businesses in identifying high-value innovation opportunities and generate propositions for new products, services and business models. It is open to any UK company, regardless of size or sector and will provide up to £70,000 of project funding to help you address key business challenges.This programme runs for the whole of 2017. If it sounds of interest, do register for the launch event which is on 17 January 2017. You’ll get further insight into how to apply and you can also network to find the right collaborators, if you don’t already have someone in mind. There are further rounds in May and August so these may be appropriate if you need more development time.

Further details on the programme are on KTN’s website.

2. Transforming products and services
Innovate UK has up to £15 million to support the best business-led and innovative ideas for new products, processes and services. This competition is the second of 2 annual Innovate UK open competitions that support good ideas with market potential from any technology area.Projects that are likely to lead to a sustainable growth in productivity or access to new overseas markets will be given priority.

More information  can be found here.

Events:
Immerse UK members are organising a number of events over the next few weeks.

The newly opened Realities Centre is launching a programme of conferences including:
EdTech Conference, Jan 19th – London
EdTech Hackathon – Jan 21/22nd – London

You may also be interested in:
VR Connects London conference, 16th-17th January 2017
More information can be found at here.

Connecting people to accelerate innovation

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

network

The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) is Innovate UK’s networking partner and provides information on funding, events and news on a number of different sectors to support Innovate UK with its mission to drive UK growth and productivity.

A number of LinkedIn groups which cover Innovate UK’s thematic areas have been set up:

You can join as many groups as you like. This allows you to keep-up-to date with funding, events and news in a variety of sectors helping you to stay on top of potential opportunities and develop future collaborations.

These are replacing the _connect networking groups.

Design Foundations: helping companies with early stage innovation

Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

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There is a great deal of evidence demonstrating that businesses that use a strong early-stage design process generate increased revenue, market share and exports, as well as having a faster and more cost-effective innovation process.

Early-stage design will give companies  (and investors) greater confidence in your ideas, help to streamline development and reduce the likelihood and cost of rectifying problems later on. Brand equity and business resilience can also be improved through design.

Design Foundations is a great opportunity to develop your organisation’s innovation capability and lay the foundations for compelling, high-value propositions that will help attract investors and customers.

What is it?

Design Foundations is a new £3m grant-funding programme from Innovate UK aimed at helping companies to identify high-value innovation opportunities and generate better propositions for new products, services and business models.

The funding supports companies explore future possibilities in collaboration with a design team; bringing new tools and approaches to the plate. It offers up to 70% funding of projects up to £100,000 for any UK company, irrespective of scale or maturity, operating in any sector. There are three rounds of funding across 2017, opening for applications on January 9.

For more information including how this can help businesses , the application process and what makes a good application can be found using the links below.

More information.

Launch event 17 January 2017 – London.

 

 

Innovate UK – latest funding opportuntity

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

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Innovation in infrastructure systems – round 2

Innovate UK is to invest up to £15 million in projects to stimulate innovation that creates UK business growth in infrastructure systems. We want businesses to collaborate to develop new integrated solutions and new business models.

Innovate UK are  looking to fund a portfolio of projects. These may include technical feasibility, industrial research or experimental development projects.  Projects are likley to to range in size from total eligible costs of £25,000 to £5 million. Projects should last between 3 months and 3 years.

Projects must show significant innovation in one of our priority areas:

  • ‘smart’ infrastructure
  • energy systems
  • connected transport
  • urban living

Proposals must improve business growth, productivity and/or create export opportunities for at least one UK small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) involved in the project. The proposal needs to include at least one SME either working alone or in collaboration with others (business, research base and third sector).

There are 2 competition options:

  • £5 million for projects that last from 3 months to 1 year with costs from £25,000 to £100,000
  • £10 million for projects lasting from 1 year to 3 years with costs between £100,000 and £5 million

Click here for more information.

Click here for all live calls.

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Data Science and Analytics Training for Business

HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

logo-czrneData Science and Analytics Training and Engagement Services for Business – HEIF project

We are experiencing an explosive growth of digital content. According to International Data Corporation, there are currently over 2.7 zetabytes of data. It is estimated that in 2020, the digital universe will be 50 times as big as in 2010 and that from now until 2020 it will double every two years.

The commercial world has been transformed by Big Data with companies competing on analytics. Data has become a commodity referred to as the ‘new oil’. We are entering a new era of predictive analytics and data intensive computing which has been recognised worldwide with various high profile reports. In a recent UK-wide report commissioned by SAS UK (one of our key industrial partners) it has been estimated that there will be about 132,000 big data job opportunities created in the UK economy between 2012 and 2017. McKinsey’s report states that by 2018 the US alone will face a shortage of between 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills, while in the UK such shortage will be in the region of 58,000 (e-Skills UK5). Another SAS commissioned report focusing on “data equity” and its impact on the UK, states that increasing adoption of big data analytics will result in cumulative benefits of £216 billion over the years 2012-17.

Following the success of recently launched MSc in Applied Data Analytics, this HEIF project seeks to take advantage of a large demand for and addresses the widening advanced analytics skills gap. Our HEIF project focuses on:

  1. Engagement with industry through a provision of an on-going opportunity for contact, information and advice in the Data Science Surgeries which are open to businesses of all sizes as well as university staff and students. This service is to support the creation of Knowledge Exchange professional network in the Data Science and Analytics area helping to identify potential skillset needed as well as transfer of knowledge and collaborative research opportunities.
  2. Development of a portfolio of CPD/short courses within an area with acute UK-wide shortage of skills and where, within the Data Science community consisting of over 50 academics from four faculties, BU has a wealth of expertise and excellent track record.

Over time, the Data Science Surgeries and CPD courses will facilitate engagement between industry and the broader BU Data Science community, enabling us to build bridges and develop relationships with industry, as well as interdisciplinary research collaborations.  The new perspectives developed through this interdisciplinary collaboration will not only help to give a better understanding of some of the complex problems facing our society, but also help to inform both the teaching and professional practice undertaken by our academics -supporting the vision of Fusion at BU.

Research in the news – dementia research features in Vision Magazine

Knowledge Exchange

Some of BU’s dementia research has been featured in Vision magazine, which highlights clinical research news from the Wessex region.  The article demonstrates BU’s person-centred approach to dementia research, showing how different teams are working to improve the quality of life people with dementia.

Professor Jane Murphy and Lecturer Joanne Holmes have been working with local Dorset care homes to develop a better understanding of nutrition for people with dementia.  The team discovered that people with dementia often weren’t eating enough to meet their daily energy requirements.  The reasons behind this are diverse – some people face physical difficulties with chewing and swallowing, while others may struggle to identify when they feel thirsty or hungry, or find it hard to remember when they last ate.  By working together local care homes, the team were able to develop training resources to help care staff improve their knowledge of nutrition.  The resources also provide a wealth of ideas and tips for supporting people with dementia to eat and drink well.

Professor Jan Wiener and his team are exploring how to improve building design to help people with dementia.  People with dementia often struggle with navigating around unfamiliar environments, which can become a particular problem if they move to a care home as the disease progresses.  The team use a variety of different methods including eye-tracking technology, virtual reality technology and behavioural navigation experiments.  Their aim is to use the results of their research to improve dementia friendly design guidance.

Dr Samuel Nyman has been funded for three years by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to explore the benefits of Tai Chi for people with dementia.  The study he is leading is looking to identify any benefits with a particular focus on seeing whether Tai Chi can help to improve people’s balance, and therefore reduce the risk of falls.

To find out more about their research, do read the full magazine article.

 

The Personal Data & Trust Network is seeking new members

Business Engagement, Knowledge Exchange

Data-science-history

The Network aims to build and nurture a community that brings together industry, the public sector, funders, research organisations, individual researchers and innovators to support the UK in becoming the global leader in trust and responsible innovation with personal data.

To find our more click here

It’s free to join

Innovate UK launch open funding programme

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

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Are you working with a business that would be interested in this funding opportunity? Research organisations can participate as project collaborators. (The level of total research participation is set at a maximum of 30% of total eligible project costs.)

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £15 million to deliver transformational innovations with potential for impact on the UK economy.

The competition is now live and open to the best business-led, innovative or disruptive ideas or concepts. These can be drawn from any technology, engineering or industrial area. This area can be one that fits into, or be outside of, any one or more of Innovate UK’s 4 priority sectors for growth. (Emerging and Enabling Technologies, Health and Life Sciences, Infrastructure Systems, Manufacturing and Materials.)

To be in scope, a proposal must:

  • demonstrate transformational or disruptive innovation leading to novel, new products, processes or services
  • articulate a clear, anticipated growth and commercialisation impact for the business(es) with considerable, demonstrable (as you would set out in a pitch to any serious investor) potential to lead to a significant return on investment (ROI)

Priority will be given to proposals that are likely to lead to sustainable gains in productivity and/or access to new overseas markets through export-led business growth.

To lead a project you must:

  • be a UK-based business
  • be a business of any size
  • carry out your project in the UK
  • work alone or in collaboration with others (businesses, research base and third sector) – this could be BU

For more information click here for:

or more information on knowledge exchange at BU contact Jayne Codling within RKEO.