Category / Knowledge Transfer

Pollinator Exchange HEIF project connects practitioners and academics in common pursuit of urban pollinator conservation

Business Engagement, HEIF, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Pollinators are vitally important ecosystem service providers. They have been credited with being responsible for pollinating one-third of the food we eat; indeed many of our crops are wholly or partially dependent on insect pollination. Hence, the decline in pollinator populations has been a cause of concern not just for scientists, but for governments and the public at large. In the UK, this has led to an official government strategy on how to best protect our pollinators: the National Pollinator Strategy (Defra 2014).

Taking into account the growing number of studies that show the vitally important role urban areas can play in pollinator conservation, the strategy recognises pollinator-friendly management across towns and cities as a key component in nationwide efforts to halt their decline. While understanding of urban pollinators’ needs and experience in managing urban green spaces for their benefit is accumulating, it can often be difficult for practitioners to find the practical advice they need to implement the right measures. This was highlighted at a recent meeting co-organised by Defra and the University of Bristol’s Urban Pollinators Project which recommended the establishment of a central repository of information for urban practitioners.

BU’s Pollinator Exchange HEIF project, launched in October 2015 collaboratively between the Faculty of Science and Technology and the Media School, aims to fulfil this role. It will result in an online portal that links practitioners, academics, NGOs, private gardeners, ecological consultants and anyone else with an active interest in urban pollinator conservation. Users are invited to share relevant guidelines, case studies, summaries of peer-reviewed papers and other content that will help urban green space managers make pollinator-friendly choices based on the latest evidence.

The project is supported by Bournemouth Borough Council and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. A stakeholder workshop in May will provide potential users with the opportunity to comment on the portal’s content and usability, ensuring it will be both useful and intuitive when launched in July. For questions or feedback, please contact Project Manager Kathy Hodder (khodder@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Research Assistant Arne Loth (aloth@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Seminar, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen, ‘Maternal Mortality in Nepal’, Wed 20th April, Royal London House, R303, 13:00-13:50.

BU Challenges, Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Research themes

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).

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) – events coming soon

HEIF, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

events

A number of current HEIF projects are running events over the next few months. Please feel to register to attend and/or circulate to contacts you may feel would be interested:

Explore the application of rewilding concepts to Dorset.

Date: Thursday 5 May

Venue: Charlton Down Village Hall, near Dorchester, Dorset. DT2 9UA

For more information on the HEIF project click here.

Click here for more information on the event and to register.

FoodBiz

Date: Wednesday 18 May

Venue: Executive Business Centre, Bournemouth University

Follow  on Twitter: @EU_FoodSMART and visit the project website  www.foodsmartproject.net 

Agenda and register for FREE

Psychiatric  Genetic Counselling Workshops

Dates: Various in June and July 2016

Venue: Bournemouth University

For more information on this HEIF project click here.

Click here for more information on the event and to register.

 

Biotechnology YES 2016 is open for applications

Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Environment

Biotechnology YES is an innovative competition giving early career researchers from diverse backgrounds a practical insight into how to commercialise research and recognise the benefits of industrial collaboration, providing a springboard for their own career development into a multitude of sectors. The competition is delivered in partnership, funded by sponsorship,  draws on expertise from industry and the research community and aims to encourage an entrepreneurial culture in the UK postgraduate and postdoctoral base for the benefit of the UK economy.

The challenge for participants is to prepare an oral business plan presentation, in a team of four or five, for a hypothetical bioscience start-up company seeking equity investment. The plan is based on a plausible idea based on real markets and developed over the course of a three day residential workshop. The workshop encompasses presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry who give their time and advice for free. It culminates in the presentation of business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’. These individuals come from industry and academia and have decades of experience and proven track records of professional success. Winners from the regional workshops progress to the final held in December.

Workshop dates will be posted on the Biotechnology YES and BBSRC websites once finalised and and include Syngenta, GSK and Unilever .

The competition is open to all bioscience researchers registered at a UK university not just those funded by BBSRC. However, if any of the workshops oversubscribed, Research Council funded researchers will be given priority.

Find out more and APPLY by visiting www.biotechnologyyes.co.uk or www.environmentyes.org

Biotechnology YES 2016 is open for applications until 27th May 2016.

Amsterdam is European Capital of Innovation 2016

Business Engagement, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

euflag

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.

In full.

Press release.

 

What does Innovate UK’s latest delivery plan mean to industry ?

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

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Innovate UK   have just published the 2016/17 Delivery Plan. In it, you will discover some important changes in the way  they intend to support business innovation.

Key areas of the delivery plan include:

  • a new sector focus – that is easier for industry, investors and government to work with
  • changing the frequency and nature of our sector funding competitions – so that they are broader in scope than previously and form a single stream of innovation funding
  • forming a single ‘open’ funding programme –  for applications from any technology or sector
  • enhancing the role of our innovation networks – in providing guidance and support to innovative businesses both nationally and regionally

To find out more read more on their blog: A whistle-stop tour of our delivery plan or check  out the website

 

Inspiring Future Innovation Event

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

events

 

 

Date: Tuesday 24 May

Time: 10.00am  – 4.00pm

Location: The Grange Road Business Park in Christchurch

Event information: A supply chain expo hosted by BAE Systems  in Christchurch and a chance to show innovation to not only BAE (who have people coming from far and wide) but others such as Cobham and Aish will also be exhibiting. This is the first annually held event hosted by  this organisation.  The aim being to  future innovation through showcasing BAE Systems’ own technology as well as technology from other companies. The event will provide a unique opportunity to discover new technology, as well as developing new relations with other companies within the supply chain, whilst raising the profile of exhibiting companies and providing a chance for networking and future collaboration opporuntities.

Registration is essential as there is a limited number of spaces available and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.

To register your interest:  email –  inspiringfutureinnovation2016@baesystems.com and confirm whether you are interested in exhibiting and /or attending the event.

 

Universities increase income from business collaboration

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Technology in the hands

UK universities earned £4.2 billion from provision of services to businesses and collaborative research in the 2014-15 academic year, up from £3.9bn the previous year.
The latest Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (2014 – 2015), published on 7 April by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, looked at all publicly funded UK higher education institutions and their interactions with businesses and other organisations.
In 2014-15, the largest chunk of this income was from collaborative research involving public funding, which reached £1.26bn, up from £1.14bn in the previous year. This was a change in emphasis, as in 2013-14 universities gained most of their income from contract research. However, contract research earnings also increased between 2013-14 and 2014-15, from £1.2bn to £1.21bn.

Universities also upped their earnings from courses for business and the community by £35m to £715m, from regeneration and development programmes by almost £22m to £205m, and from intellectual property by £24m to £155m.

The analysis also includes information on the number of spinouts and start-up companies created by UK universities, and shows that the number of graduate start-up companies created in 2014-15 was 4,160, lower than the 4,581 companies started in 2013-14.

However, the total number of active firms with some involvement from a higher education provider in the UK was 13,045 in 2014-15, up from 11,856 in 2013-14.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England will publish its analysis of the data for England later in the year.

This article was posted in Research Professional.

You can set up your own personalised alerts including news  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.

 

 

Innovate UK launch new delivery plan – key sectors and funding opportunties included

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

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Innovate UK have launched their delivery plan for 2016/17 .

This  includes:

  • a new sector focus that is easier for industry, investors and government to work with
  • a 5-point plan to underpin activity across these sectors and drive productivity growth
  • clearer funding programmes that are easier to navigate
  • improvements to the way Innovate UK connects businesses to knowledge and partners
  • a stronger regional presence

With evidence of :”focusing ever more closely on scaling up SMEs” …

Clearer sector support has been established and these include four groups:

  • emerging and enabling technologies
  • health and life sciences
  • infrastructure systems
  • manufacturing and materials

Funding competitions for businesses are also to be simplified.

There will be 2 broad funding competitions covering each sector group per year, and 2 open competitions for applications from any sector or technology area. There will be other programmes and competitions in partnership with other government organisations.

Click here fore more information. 

Download the Delivery Plan.

Creative England – latest funding opportuntites

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

Creative England is dedicated to the growth  of the creative industries. A key aim is to investin talented people across games, TV, film and digital media.
Latest funnds, garnts and loans currently available by Creative England and their partners can be found here.
If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline.

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

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.

Technology Transfer: European IPR Helpdesk Webinar

Knowledge Transfer


European IPR webinars

 

The European IPR Helpdesk is running a number of webinars over the next few months and RKEO are promoting those relevant to EU Horizon 2020 activities.

The next webinar on Intellectual Property Rights in H2020 will be on:

23/3/16     9:30 AM     Technology Transfer        Location:  TAG 30 – Talbot Campus

Duration: 60 minutes (presentation) + 15 minutes (Q&As)

Please arrive at 9:15am for a prompt 9:30 start with the webinar duration being one hour. We have the room booked for a longer time so that we can have a post-webinar discussion afterwards, if appropriate. Please only register on the European IPR Helpdesk link if you will be joining the webinar(s) from your own desk rather than joining us. You can also check the European IPR Helpdesk Calendar for all their events.

If you would like to attend any of these, please email Dianne Goodman stating which webinars you will attend. If they prove very popular, we may need to change the room, so pre-booking is essential.

Digital vision of future local government – connecting our lives in 2025

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

nesta_logo

The report , Connected Councils, explores how councils can use digital tools to transform the way they work and save a potential £14.7 billion every year.

Digital technologies, from apps to online platforms, can help councils provide better services for their residents and mobilise communities to work alongside these services, as well as find new ways of collecting and analysing data, which could have a significant impact on the quality of future services.

Through a series of case studies the report imagines what life might be like in 2025 for ‘digital by default’ councils and their citizens – from retirees to young graduates and new parents.

Key Findings

Local government has made huge progress in enabling residents to carry out basic transactions online. But most councils have a long way to go to deliver smooth, frictionless services and fully digitise their back offices. Digitisation isn’t just about developing digital services; depending on the level of ambition, digital tools can help:

  • Save money and deliver better outcomes by intervening earlier and helping people manage their own conditions.
  • Transform the way that councils work internally, commission services and partners, diagnose and solve problems, use public space, and attract talent.
  • Make services smoother and easier to access, more personalised and user-responsive.
  • Put residents at the heart of local problem-solving and decision-making and create an environment which supports businesses to startup and scale.

The 2025 vision

Like the best tech companies, future councils will be lean, agile and data-driven. Siloed services will be replaced with multi-agency teams that form around specific local challenges. A truly mobile workforce has freed up public space. Almost all transactions take place online. Instead of two-dimensional council websites, interactive platforms connect users with third-party apps and services, and stream personalised content on local democracy, jobs and services.

Relational services (such as social care) still rely heavily on face-to-face contact. But digital tools help people to manage their own long-term conditions and connect to a broader network of support, such as peer mentors, health coaches, friends and family, volunteers and group-based activities. Digital technologies have helped councils take a more ambitious approach to place-shaping. A larger share of public contracts go to high-growth SMEs. Councils systematically engage residents in decisions about how services are commissioned, delivered and evaluated.

Read the report in full.

 

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‘Voices of the Secret State’: Seminar presentation by Dr Hyun Joo Lim, 16th March, Studeland House, Room S206, 13:00-13:50

Awarded & submitted bids, BRIAN, BU Challenges, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Coffee Morning, conferences, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Grants Academy, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing, R & KE Operations, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Research themes, Women's Academic Network

All staff and students welcome. Please feel free to bring your lunch.

 

Voices of the Secret State: Human Rights Activism among North Korean

Defectors in the UK

 

Abstract: My paper aims to highlight the lived experiences and identity formation of North Korean defectors settled in the UK who are involved in human rights activism. Whilst violations of human rights in North Korea are well documented, human rights activism by its defectors is less well known. Since 2004, approximately 600 North Koreans have settled in the UK. Free NK, a human rights organisation born out of this settlement, has been active in illuminating the reality of North Korea whilst also working towards subverting the regime by informing its fellow remainders about the outside world through the distribution of newspapers. This paper is drawn from ongoing research on North Korean defectors living in the UK. The data is collected using life history interviews to capture their lived experiences and to identify a range of factors which have influenced their involvement in the activism whilst also seeking to find better ways of improving the wellbeing and quality of life for those activists. The presentation will focus on the in-depth story of a North Korean defector who has founded Free NK. Themes that will be addressed in this story include the reason why he has fled North Korea; the processes of getting to the UK; challenges he has faced in his human rights activism.
Dr Hyun-Joo Lim is a lecturer in Sociology and the programme leader for BA Sociology and Social Policy at BU. She is originally from South Korea and has been engaged in various research projects that explore issues around migration, ‘race’/ethnicity, gender and identity. Her previous research examined East Asian mothers in Britain.

For more information about Social Science seminar series please get in touch with Dr Mastoureh Fathi (mfathi@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team: How we’ve been flying the KEIT high this month.

Business Engagement, Festival of Learning, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, student research

After a cracking start to 2016 in January, the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) within RKEO have been working hard and continuing with the successes this month.

Public Engagement

The Festival of Learning is fast approaching us (25-29 June) and Naomi and Katie have been busy scheduling in the events that will make up the festival.

Business Engagement

Rising to the challenge of “What will Marty McFly may need in 25 years?” as part of interdisciplinary research week held in January, members of KEIT worked closely with the facilitators to deliver a successful sandpit that involved a number of local businesses including Bournemouth Borough Council, We Are Base, LV= and Barclays Digital eagles. With some great ideas evolving in terms of future collaborations amongst academics and business partners this provided a great networking opportunity for those that attended.

As the current HEIF funding round completes its half way milestone of 12 months funding (1/8/15 – 31/7/16), a number of the 13 projects are beginning to generate potential impact case studies alongside further UK and EU funding proposals. HEIF projects continue to feature in the news with Dr Sarah Bate’s research on super recognisers being published in Scientific American being one of the latest. HEIF projects are also gaining presence on BU’s research website with a project on Roman Britain being the first to go live with more planned.

For the March submission date, we have two potential KTPs.  Both SciTech and the Faculty of Media are working towards each submission, respectively.

NEW – Student Project Bank

We have a new recruit this week within KEIT.  Charlene Steele has joined us from SciTech specifically to work on the new Student Project Bank initiative.  If your students work with organisations as part of the modules they take, please do contact Charlene to find out more about this initiative and how we can help.

Student Engagement with Research

The student engagement page is now live on the Research website, it can be found here. It explains all student facing research activities from the Research Spotlight feature to 14: Live the monthly research talk.

Research Communications

New research project pages are now avaliable on the research website and are a great place for academics to add content about their latest research projects e.g. staff lists, project background and latest news.

Team KEIT (RKEO)

If you’re feeling inspired by this blog post and would like to get involved with some of our projects then feel free to get in touch:

Genna West – Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager

Rachel Bowen – Research Communications Manager

Rachel Clarke – Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP)

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Naomi Kay – Public Engagement Officer

Charlene Steele – Project Co-Ordinator (Student Project Bank)

Katie Breadmore – Public Engagement Event’s Organiser

Oliver Cooke – Student Engagement Coordinator

To find out more about us and what we do, take a look at our team page.

Kites

URA Academic Applications – FINAL CALL

Funding opportunities, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Transfer

The deadline for the Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA) programme is Sunday 21st February.

The application form to apply for funding to recruit a student to work on your research full time for six weeks during the summer can be found here.

The programme is funded by the Fusion Investment Fund and aims to support undergraduates to undertake paid work under the guidance of an experienced academic in a research position that is directly related to their career path and/or academic discipline.

The summer programme is for students to work full-time (37.5 hours per week) for six weeks over the summer. This programme will have the capacity for approximately 20 placements.

If you have any questions relating to the programme, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP) on 01202 961347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk