BU Research Blog

Ever wondered what wildlife is lurking in your back garden? Well now’s your chance to find out! Heather Dixon is the coordinator of a local project that is being co-sponsored by the Bournemouth Natural Science Society as well as Bournemouth University and a variety of wildlife societies in our area. She will be telling us all about the project and what it hopes to achieve and, more importantly, how we can all get involved!

Cafe Scientifique is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology.  Enjoy listening to a short talk from a guest speaker before engaging in debate and discussion around the topic. You can find out more here or by visiting the Cafe Scientifique website.

As ever, the talk will start at 7.30pm at the fabulous Cafe Boscanova. Doors open at 6.30pm and drinks/snacks will be available for sale.

The call to run an event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science has now opened! This is a fantastic national festival that celebrates the best of social science and engages a much wider public with the key issues that social scientists are addressing. Last year, we put Bournemouth on the Festival map, running no less than four events. We are keen to see as many of our social scientists take part in this exciting public engagement initiative as possible.

The ESRC tells us that “This year the festival will run from 2-9 November.  There are two types of application:

• You are able to apply for a maximum of £2,000 support from the ESRC to run an event.   The closing date for supported applications is Monday 3 June 2013.
• You are also able to hold an event but not apply for funding.  Applications are being invited notify us of your event, which you would like to be included in the Festival programme.  Non-funded applications are due by Friday 7 June 2012.

The Festival welcomes event applications targeting a non-academic audience including young people, third sector, the public, business or government.   Please note that organisations external to the ESRC are also welcome to apply for support and to participate in the Festival. 

For more information about the Festival or to make an application please visit www.esrcfestival.ac.uk“.

If you would like to make an application to run an event as part of the Festival, please do not hesitate to contact Becca in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office. She can help you brainstorm an idea for the Festival of Social Science and  draft your application form.

Mayank Anand, a research student from DEC, has recently presented his work on Lubricant condition monitoring for the in-service lifeboats of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) at the SET Conference, in the House of Commons.

Mayank’s PhD  is supervised by Prof Mark Hadfield and Dr Ben Thomas from BU, Mr Steve Austen (Head of Engineering) from RNLI and in-kind supported by BP Technology Ltd.

Tobias Ellwood MP (for Bournemouth East) attended the conference to speak to Mayank has posted on his website details of his work and his experience on his website. Click here for full details.

Congratulations to Mayank and DEC for taking BU research to the heart of government!

Registrations are now open for all the events included within the Festival of Learning.

There are a huge number of free to attend events.There are too many to list here, but they include:

• How to self publish (staying solvent and sane).
• Waiting for the monsoon: Nepal through my lens, a photo and storytelling exhibition
• Bioblitz
• Social media for the terrified
• Rufus Stone the movie: Community screening and feedback
• Science and the media: Issues, debates and controversies
• The fastest men on no legs: Disability, prosthesis and the role of technology in elite sport
• 20 years of law at BU
• Equipping the business leaders of the future
• Walking in the footsteps of our ancestors
• Public engagement in renewable energy and technology issues

To download an overview of what will be happening on which days, please click here. For a copy of the full Festival programme, you can download this here or contact Naomi Kay to request hard copies are sent to you.

Public engagement is at the heart of Bournemouth University – we are committed to ensuring the knowledge we create is shared with society. With this in mind, please do tell your friends, family and colleagues outside of BU all about the wide range of activities that are on offer – all are welcome!

The Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance (CCIG) at the Open University is holding a one forum (co-organised by the Creating publics project and Enactments programme) exploring enacting public engagement, with a fantastic line up of speakers. Which include:

Re-enacting the public university

Professor Rebecca Boden (University of Roehampton): ‘Rethinking an “open university”‘, embedding the academy in a social economy’

Dr Joel Lazarus (People’s Political Economy and University College, Oxford): An analysis of the recent flourishing of critical education initiatives in the UK: critical education at the heart of social transformation

Co-production and co-authorship in research

Dr Morag McDermont (University of Bristol): Productive Margins? Problematics of academics and community organisations co-producing research

Professor Les Back (Goldsmiths, University of London): title tbc

 Digital articulations

Dr Aristea Fotopoulou & Dr Kate O’Riordan(University of Sussex) : Sustaining networked knowledge: expertise, feminist media production, art and activism

Dr Nick Mahony & Dr Hilde Stephansen (Open University): Making participation public: building agendas and sites for collective action

Full details, including how to register, can be found on CCIG’s website.

The event will take place in Milton Keynes on 23rd April

Keeping Upright: the role of our perception of vertical

How do we tell where vertical is? What does this mean? Why should we care? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this month’s talk by one of our own team of organisers , Dr Sharon Docherty from Anglo European College of Chiropractic. As well as finding out how our perception helps us interact with the world around us, you will be able to test your own perception of vertical and see how it compares to that of others in a live interactive experiment.

Does this line look straight to you? Find out more on TUESDAY NIGHT at the next Cafe Scientifique. For full details, please see the Cafe Scientifique Bournemouth website. The venue is Cafe Boscanova, doors at 6.30pm, the interactive fun starts at 7.30pm. As ever, snacks and drinks will be for sale.

Maritime Archaeological Days About the Wreck – Open Event

There will be presentations on the progress of the archaeological, scientific and outreach project on the Swash Channel Wreck and an outline of local maritime archaeology. There will also be an opportunity

to view the recently created copy of the Apothecaries Jar from the wreck, pictures of which were recently posted on this site.

Talks:

–          Paola Palma (Project Manager): ‘Little’ Science on the Wreck  

–          David Parham (Senior Lecturer): The Excavation of the Wreck

–          Gordon Le Pard (Project Officer): Maritime Archaeology in Dorset

The event is free, but if you want to attend please let us know at madaboutthewreck@bournemouth.ac.uk

In this extended blog post you’ll find details of lots of new and exciting developments in the world of public engagement and impact, including funding calls.  As ever, if you are looking to develop engagement and impact around your research, please contact Becca in the Research and Knowledge Exchange office on 01202 961206 or redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk. She can help you brainstorm ideas, develop funding proposals or point you in the direction of further help. If you have any information that you would like to share, email Becca and she will include it in her round-up of information.

Events to attend

• The BIG Event 2013 is now taking bookings (early bid registration ends 31st March 2013). The British Interactive Group invites its 500+ members to this three day interaction event to keep up to date in all things STEM engagement related.
• Bristol University, is organising a History Day, including a women’s history taster session and free creche. For further details, click here

Interesting things to read

• Roger Highfield has written a blog post on ‘How I write about science’ on the Wellcome Trust blog. Click here to read more.
• On the LSE Impact Blog, is a piece by Martin Eve discussing ‘Open Access, the Impact Agenda and resistance to the neoliberal paradigm’.
• Professor Tim Darvill’s has been quoted in the Observer article: “Stonehenge remains a mystery as scientists ask: was it a health spa, or a cemetery?”

Training opportunities

• Want to take your research to the masses through TV? Click here for a range of training opportunities including how to catch the idea of a TV producer, how to shine on TV and understanding the process of making TV.
• AHRC and CARD are sponsoring a postgraduate training event on Engaging with Communities: Arts and performance-based collaborative training. The event is free to attend, although places are limited.
• Research, Researchers and the Media – an immersive three day course aimed at all academic staff, researchers and PGRs.
• CCIG Forum: Enacting public engagement: collaboration and critique within/beyond the university

Funding and awards

• The Society of Biology has announced the Science Communication Awards 2013. Deadline is 31 May 2013; two prizes are available for the New Researcher Prize and Established Researcher Prize.
• The Foundation for Canadian Studies have announced their Outreach Awards for Canadianist or Canada-linked teaching and research. Further details can be found here
• The AHRC have announced the Cultural Value Project Call – which wishes to make a major contribution to how we think about the value of arts and culture.
• NERC Knowledge Exchange projects call, closing date for expressions of interest 26th March. Details can be found here
• ESRC Retail Knowledge Exchange opportunities. Deadline is 30th April. More details can be found here
• For details of both the People and Society Awards from the Wellcome Trust, please click here
• The Institute of Physics, is offering up to £1500 for Public Engagement Grants. For more details, click here
• Royal Society Industry fellowships. Closing date 5th April. Full details can be found here