A few weeks ago I was invited as Associate Editor for BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth to draft a few paragraphs about how my research links to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth is an international scientific journal published by Springer. The edited version of my draft was put online earlier today, click herefor access.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
Welcome to The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.
This week, we’re chatting with Professor in Orthopaedics Tom Wainwright.
Tom Wainwright
What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?
Primarily I am interested in helping to improve the treatment of patients with hip and knee arthritis. Firstly, looking at strategies and interventions that can help patients avoid the need for surgery, and then secondly, when surgery is indicated, looking at how surgical recovery can be optimised. Arthritis is a significant socioeconomic and health burden, and at a patient level can have a hugely detrimental effect on a patient’s quality of life and daily activities. It is therefore, in my opinion, both an interesting and important research topic.
What has been your career highlight to date?
Being the lead author of the highly cited/downloaded ERAS Society international consensus guidelines for hip and knee replacement surgery. I was the first, and I am still, the only non-surgeon to ever lead the formation of an international ERAS Society guideline.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently leading a number of externally-funded research studies. These include a trial of how best to provide physiotherapy for patients with hip arthritis, and two studies that will reveal brand new insights into the post-operative functional recovery trajectories of patients following hip and knee replacement.
If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?
I would probably be working clinically as a physiotherapist.
What do you do to unwind?
Spend time doing activities outdoors with my family and friends. I like to run, bike, and spend time in the sea. I love to snowboard and surf, and play cricket and football. I also like to cook and travel.
What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?
The beach and surrounding coastline and countryside. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful spot.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?
To be able to teleport! I could surf in Portugal before coming to work, and pop to Canada at the weekends to snowboard! It would also save on my carbon footprint and mean I don’t have to do any travel booking paperwork for work trips!
If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?
A piano. I played as kid and would love to have the time to pick it up again and practice.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Remember to be present, and enjoy the small moments.
We have a newRead and Publish dealwith Cambridge. By entering the location and institution you will see the publishing agreement as below and also have links to eligible journals.
To be eligible, articles must:
Have acorresponding authoraffiliated with a participating institution as listed above.
Be original research – eligible article types are research articles, review articles and rapid communications, brief reports and case reports.
In a recent BBC news investigation, a reporter posing as a 13-year-old girl in a virtual reality (VR) app was exposed to sexual content, racist insults and a rape threat. The app in question, VRChat, is an interactive platform where users can create “rooms” within which people interact (in the form of avatars). The reporter saw avatars simulating sex, and was propositioned by numerous men.
The results of this investigation have led to warnings from child safety charities including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) about the dangers children face in the metaverse. The metaverse refers to a network of VR worlds which Meta (formerly Facebook) has positioned as a future version of the internet, eventually allowing us to engage across education, work and social contexts.
The NSPCC appears to put the blame and the responsibility on technology companies, arguing they need to do more to safeguard children’s safety in these online spaces. While I agree platforms could be doing more, they can’t tackle this problem alone.
Reading about the BBC investigation, I felt a sense of déjà vu. I was surprised that anyone working in online safeguarding would be – to use the NSPCC’s words – “shocked” by the reporter’s experiences. Ten years ago, well before we’d heard the word “metaverse”, similar stories emerged around platforms including Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel.
These avatar-based platforms, where users interact in virtual spaces via a text-based chat function, were actually designed for children. In both cases adults posing as children as a means to investigate were exposed to sexually explicit interactions.
The demands that companies do more to prevent these incidents have been around for a long time. We are locked in a cycle of new technology, emerging risks and moral panic. Yet nothing changes.
It’s a tricky area
We’ve seen demands for companies to put age verification measures in place to prevent young people accessing inappropriate services. This has included proposals for social platforms to require verification that the user is aged 13 or above, or for pornography websites to require proof that the user is over 18.
If age verification was easy, it would have been widely adopted by now. If anyone can think of a way that all 13-year-olds can prove their age online reliably, without data privacy concerns, and in a way that’s easy for platforms to implement, there are many tech companies that would like to talk to them.
In terms of policing the communication that occurs on these platforms, similarly, this won’t be achieved through an algorithm. Artificial intelligence is nowhere near clever enough to intercept real-time audio streams and determine, with accuracy, whether someone is being offensive. And while there might be some scope for human moderation, monitoring of all real-time online spaces would be impossibly resource-intensive.
The reality is that platforms already provide a lot of tools to tackle harassment and abuse. The trouble is few people are aware of them, believe they will work, or want to use them. VRChat, for example, provides tools for blocking abusive users, and the means to report them, which might ultimately result in the user having their account removed.
We cannot all sit back and shout, “my child has been upset by something online, who is going to stop this from happening?”. We need to shift our focus from the notion of “evil big tech”, which really isn’t helpful, to looking at the role other stakeholders could play too.
If parents are going to buy their children VR headsets, they need to have a look at safety features. It’s often possible to monitor activity by having the young person cast what is on their headset onto the family TV or another screen. Parents could also check out the apps and games young people are interacting with prior to allowing their children to use them.
What young people think
I’ve spent the last two decades researching online safeguarding – discussing concerns around online harms with young people, and working with a variety of stakeholders on how we might better help young people. I rarely hear demands that the government needs to bring big tech companies to heel from young people themselves.
They do, however, regularly call for better education and support from adults in tackling the potential online harms they might face. For example, young people tell us they want discussion in the classroom with informed teachers who can manage the debates that arise, and to whom they can ask questions without being told “don’t ask questions like that”.
However, without national coordination, I can sympathise with any teacher not wishing to risk complaint from, for example, outraged parents, as a result of holding a discussion on such sensitive topics.
I note the UK government’s Online Safety Bill, the legislation that policymakers claim will prevent online harms, contains just two mentions of the word “education” in 145 pages.
We all have a role to play in supporting young people as they navigate online spaces. Prevention has been the key message for 15 years, but this approach isn’t working. Young people are calling for education, delivered by people who understand the issues. This is not something that can be achieved by the platforms alone.
…repurpose unsuccessful applications amazing ideas not yet funded.
Huff, so your grant application was unsuccessful! Don’t get too comfortable in the pit of despair and generally feeling demoralised. The imposter syndrome monster eats these thoughts for breakfast!
But in all seriousness, do not to be too hard on yourself. The UK research funding systems is extremely competitive, and the reality is, even great research won’t be funded. So, see this as an opportunity to tweak the research design, get that all important key stakeholders onboard and rethink that postdoc’s training plan… so take 2 (or more).
There is so much to think about when you want to repurpose a previously unsuccessful funding application:
What can you do to make the second iteration successful?
Where will you apply, to which funder?
What sort of scheme will you apply for?
How can you increase your chances of being funded?
Have things moved on in your field since you applied previously?
Has any new research come out that changes the research landscape in your field?
Do you need to update the research?
Will you apply to the same funder, for example, if the research is a really good fit for the funder and the project is a good fit for the scheme?
Will you apply to a different funder?
Do you want to take a different approach to applying for funding?
Do you want to take some time to develop your funding profile before you apply for a large-scale grant?
The list is endless, but the Research Facilitators are here to help. We offer and organise one to one support to help you get to grips with the process of reshaping an application. Prompting you to answer/think about the above questions. But if you’d prefer a group effort and peer to peer advice and guidance. The Research Facilitators are running quarterly workshop open to all who wish to repurpose an unfunded application or would like to contribute to the support of others. Scheduled dates below:
Date
Time
Location
Monday 7th March 2022
09:30 – 11:30
Online
Friday 20th May 2022
09:30 – 11:30
Online
Thursday 7th July 2022
09:30 – 11:30
Online
The workshop covers:
Where to start – the things you will need to consider;
How to approach the unsuccessful application in order to improve it;
The fit to funder in terms of eligibility, subject remits and criteria for funding;
The types of schemes available;
How to pitch your research and structure the main proposal.
Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.
This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in English, Sam Goodman.
Sam Goodman
What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?
I have always been interested in Britishness and national identity, and this is the broad umbrella under which all my research has tended to take place, whether about twentieth-century and contemporary literature and culture, or the work I have done on alcohol, medicine, and colonial India.
I think I’ve always been interested in this subject because Britain has been in the midst of an identity crisis for what has seemed like the entirety of my adult life – this crisis has been going on since the end of the Second World War and the end of the British Empire but seemed to become acute from the 1990s onwards what with the nostalgia of ‘Cool Britannia’ and the growing popularity of historical fictions, the rebooting of so-called quintessentially British characters like James Bond, jubilees, the Olympics, and also the rhetoric leading up to Brexit. I suppose I’ve always been interested in (as Patrick Wright puts it) what it means to live in an old country, and how that affects the literature, culture and identities of the people within it.
What has been your career highlight to date?
So many come to mind! In research terms, I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to go to conferences and visit archives in various parts of the world, and having the chance to read through Ian Fleming’s papers in the US, or J. G. Farrell’s manuscripts in Trinity College library, Dublin was really exciting. Appearing at the Hay Festival and all the work I have done with the BBC has definitely been a highlight too – especially attending the Leicester Square premiere of Spectre, even though I wasn’t allowed to talk about it for a week afterwards!
When it comes to teaching, it has to be the writing and development of the unit Media & Trauma with my colleague Ann Luce – working on this unit made me think differently not just about how I teach, but about how a trauma-informed approach to working with people and tackling challenging subjects makes such an enormous difference to student wellbeing and the campus community as well as society more widely.
What are you working on at the moment?
As it happens, my latest book, The Retrospective Raj: Medicine, Literature and History After Empire, was just published with Edinburgh University Press so I am at a point where I’m taking a (much-needed) breather and considering my next long term project. In the meantime, I’m editing a special issue for the Journal of the Social History of Medicine, I have just submitted a piece on colonial memoir to Literature & History, sent off a public-facing article for TheCats Protection magazine, and I am now working on an article on space and place in the novels of Graham Swift.
If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?
Working with animals in some capacity. I always had notions of being a vet but was never good enough at science GCSE… I could definitely see myself working for a charity or for a foundation somewhere though.
What do you do to unwind?
Anything that takes me away from looking at a screen! I’ve long been a runner, and like a lot of people I ran miles and miles in lockdown which was a great way to clear my head at the end of a working day, and meant I got to explore new places near me I’d never been to before. I’m also a drummer, much to the delight of my neighbours.
What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?
For me, it’s Charminster. I’ve always loved the international shops and restaurants of Charminster; I love to cook, so it’s a great place for ingredients and inspiration.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?
Eidetic memory; it would make archival trips just so much easier…
If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?
A cafetière and lifetime supply of dark roast; I’m approximately 70% coffee and wouldn’t survive without it.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Keep your vinyl; MiniDisc is a scam.
If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.
There’s no question that finding yourself covered in mosquito bites quickly takes the shine off a pleasant summer evening. But mosquitoes are more than a nuisance. They’re also the deadliest creatures on Earth, owing to the diseases they spread.
A lot of research on mosquitoes is dedicated to understanding their behaviour and preferences for who they bite. Vision is an important sense in biting insects, including mosquitoes. Although they don’t rely on their vision alone – smell and temperature work with visual cues to help mosquitoes locate a host.
Previous research has sought to link particular colours (or the wavelengths of light which we see as distinct colours) to mosquitoes’ host-seeking behaviour. However, the results have been mixed, with the same mosquito species showing preferences for different colours in different studies.
A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications is the latest to explore mosquitoes’ attraction to different colours. Could this research tell us how to avoid being bitten simply by adjusting the colours we wear? Let’s take a look.
The researchers conducted a series of experiments on three disease-spreading mosquito species: primarily Aedes aegypti, but also Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus.
In one experiment they used a wind tunnel equipped with cameras to track the mosquitoes’ flight patterns. The tunnel was designed to encourage them to behave as naturally as possible.
On the floor of the tunnel were two small coloured spots; one to represent the colour (wavelength) of interest and a control (white). Some of the colour samples were chosen to mimic different skin tones, including one to represent the colour of tanning lotion.
In mosquitoes, only the females bite, because in most species they require a blood meal to complete the reproductive process. So 50 mated but unfed female mosquitoes were released into the wind tunnel, where they would naturally search for a host.
After an hour carbon dioxide (CO₂) was released into the wind tunnel. CO₂ is exhaled by humans and other mammals. While it’s odourless to us, mosquitoes can smell it and use this scent to help guide them to a source of blood.
Seeing red
Before the odour stimulus was released, the Ae. aegypti mosquitoes largely ignored the coloured circles on the floor, instead exploring the ceiling and the walls of the tunnel. But once CO₂ had been introduced they started to investigate the coloured circles, particularly as the wavelength increased from 510 nanometres (nm) to 660nm.
These longer wavelengths represent colours in the orange and red end of the spectrum, though the Ae. aegypti mosquitoes were most attracted to the red, and then black. Notably, these orange to red wavelengths are the same as those given off from human skin tones. Blue, green and violet weren’t any more attractive to the mosquitoes than the control.
When the skin tone spots were used, they were more attractive to the mosquitoes than the control, but no preference was observed for any particular skin tone.
The researchers wanted to explore the role of colours in attracting mosquitoes. nechaevkon/Shutterstock
Previous experiments have shown mosquitoes are more attracted to contrasting colours, like a chequerboard pattern, than one solid colour. The researchers also showed the mosquitoes different spots against both similar and contrasting backgrounds. Ae. aegypti were more interested in spots with a high contrast to the background. Scientists believe this helps the mosquitoes distinguish between an object (person) and the background, even in low light. The contrast was more important in attracting the mosquitoes than the colour itself.
Similar to Ae. aegypti, An. stephensi were attracted to black and red, with little interest in the lower wavelengths. Cx. quinquefasciatus showed interest in violet/blue and red (interestingly, opposite ends of the tested spectrum).
The researchers conducted a separate experiment in insect cages to explore the mosquitoes’ attraction to real skin tones. Six volunteers from different ethnic backgrounds were recruited to help with this test. The control was a white glove in one window and the volunteers’ hands were held one at a time in the other window to see if the mosquitoes were attracted to any particular skin tone.
The mosquitoes were more attracted to the hands than the white glove, but as with the dots, there wasn’t a preference for a particular skin tone.
What does this all mean?
This study shows that mosquitoes are attracted to the colours found in human skin, but only in the presence of CO₂, suggesting the smell of human or mammal respiration may act as the initial cue. This confirms previous research which has found CO₂ attracts mosquitoes.
The researchers found that colour and contrast were important factors for Ae. aegypti who showed a preference for red, then black. An. Stephensi were interested in colours similar to Ae aegypti, though preferring black over red. Meanwhile, Cx. quinquefasciatus were interested in a range of colours.
As the researchers recognised, their experiments didn’t account for some of the other factors that affect mosquitoes’ choice of host. These include chemicals released from human skin, the temperature of the skin, and sweat on the skin. It would be interesting for future experiments to include these factors.
So what does this mean for the average person who doesn’t want to get bitten? You could try wearing white, blue or green and avoiding black, red and orange. Definitely avoid red and black checked patterns. If there are plenty of mosquitoes on your property, pest control experts wisconsin can help.
While adjusting your clothing may reduce your risk of being bitten, there’s no guarantee it will, or how effective this will be, particularly given the apparent variation in colour preferences between species. But these findings do suggest that with more research, colour could potentially be used as a tool in mosquito control. A professional from Moxie Pest Control Tulsa will be able to tell you what exact issue you have and can come up with a customized solution as well.
The first of Bournemouth University’s online public lectures has taken place, exploring BU research into healthy ageing.
Following an introductory message from Vice-Chancellor Professor John Vinney, the event was opened by Professor of Nutrition Jane Murphy and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Sophia Amenyah, who discussed how our nutritional needs change throughout our life and the importance of good nutrition as we age.
They also shared details of their latest research projects – including the DONOR project, which will explore whether digital technology can support with the management of frailty, and how community-based food activities, such as growing, cooking and eating together, impact upon the health and wellbeing of older people.
In the second presentation of the evening, Principal Academic in Psychology Dr Samuel Nyman presented the findings of his research project which looked at whether Tai Chi had benefits for people with dementia and their carers and found that taking part in regular Tai Chi classes helped maintain good quality of life.
The presentation was followed by a live Tai Chi session with qualified instructor Michael Acton, which attendees could take part in from home.
Professor of Public Health and Wellbeing Ann Hemingway was the final speaker, talking about the Stay Active and Independent for Longer (SAIL) project, which used social innovation to support older people to remain active, healthy and independent, as well as exploring what barriers existed.
The event ended with a question and answer session and a discussion which covered topics including the importance of protein as we age, and the role technology can play in supporting health and wellbeing in later life.
Over 300 people registered to attend the event, which was the first in our online public lecture series showcasing BU’s research strengths and their impact.
Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.
This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Social Work, Mel Hughes.
Mel Hughes
What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?
As a social worker, I am interested in marginalised groups and communities currently under-served by health and social care research. My main interests in both education and research are in valuing the expertise of people with lived experience and using my platform as an educator and researcher to amplify these voices through co-produced and participatory methods.
What has been your career highlight to date?
There are two that immediately come to mind. The first was seeing a copy in print (and on Amazon!) of the book I co-authored and edited with people with lived experience and social work colleagues on Statutory Social Work Interventions: The lived experience. It was a genuine collaboration, and it was exciting hearing from all the contributors as they received their copy in the post.
The second was receiving a phone call (whilst walking on the beach) from Advance HE to say I had been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. As an Associate Professor I am as passionate about education and the student experience as I am about professional practice and research. It felt like acknowledgment of my value as an educator.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am co-authoring and editing a textbook on Social Exclusion in the UK: the lived experience and leading on a special issue of the British Journal of Social Work written by people with lived experience rather than about people with lived experience. I am also leading on an ESRC research bid on democratising public involvement in research, where we are seeking to build capacity of researchers to work alongside marginalised communities currently under-served by health and social care research.
If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?
I started my career as a social worker in substance use and mental health services. I would like to think I would still be in practice. I secretly crave the idea of being in the great outdoors on some sort of community project or farm.
What do you do to unwind?
Walking, walking and walking (usually with a dog pulling me along)
What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?
The BU Social Work and PIER Partnership teams. I can honestly say I have never worked with a more supportive group of people.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?
Invisibility. The quality that best combines the social work and academic role is curiosity (or being nosey). Oh to be a fly on the wall!
If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?
A comfy bed.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Stay true to your values.
If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.
Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.
Bryce Dyer
This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Product Development, Bryce Dyer
What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?
My research interest is the design or debate surrounding the technology we use for sport and physical activity. I love it as it bolts together my constant inquisitive inner dialogue and my hobbies.
What has been your career highlight to date?
There have been a few, but winning and then giving the Brunel Award Lecture at the British Science Festival a few years ago was one that stood out for me. The talk brought together everything I’d done in teaching, research and my professional practice at that point in my career and I then had one of those great days where the talk went really well, I got a few laughs and I had a very large and positive crowd giving me a real grilling. It was a lot of fun.
What are you working on at the moment?
I did a lot of research and projects on the run up to the 2021 Paralympic Games – I’m now writing them all up and publishing them all before my attention turns to seeking out new opportunities ahead of the next Olympic & Paralympic Games.
If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?
I would have pursued my ‘sliding doors’ decision of serving in the armed forces or have wanted to have been a professional athlete if I’d have been good enough. I was good enough to crawl through a ditch or go marching through the snow somewhere for hours on end but despite making a school team once for throwing the discus (due to what I still call one single ‘hand of god’ throw that could never be repeated), I never chose my parents well enough to have the physical capacity of being an Olympian.
What do you do to unwind?
Competitive sport and the training needed to then not come last doing it.
What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?
The huge variety of terrain, geography, and landscapes within a small radius of the town.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?
Immortality. It’s always a struggle to have enough time to cram in everything I’m wanting to do. The list just keeps getting longer.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?
My MP3 player with an abundance of questionable choices of music on it (despite then having to come up with how I’m going to power it when the battery runs out).
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Just keep going – you’ll make all the right judgement calls in the end.
If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.
Congratulations to FHSS PhD students Aniebiet Ekong and Nurudeen Adesina on the acceptance of their paper by MIDIRS Midwifery Digest [1]. This methodological paper reflects on their data collection approaches as part of their PhD involving African pregnant women in the UK.
This paper provides a snapshot of some of the challenges encountered during the recruitment of pregnant Black African women living in the UK for their research. Though there are several strategies documented to access/invite/recruit these ‘hard-to-reach population’ these recruitment strategies however were found to be unsuitable to properly engage members of this community. Furthermore, ethical guidelines around informed consent and gatekeeping seem to impede the successful engagement of the members of this community. It is believed that an insight into the experience and perceptions of ethnic minorities researchers will enhance pragmatic strategies that will increase future participation and retention of Black African women across different areas of health and social care research. This paper is co-authored with their BU PhD supervisors: Dr Jaqui-Hewitt Taylor, Dr Juliet Wood, Dr Pramod Regmi and Dr Fotini Tsofliou.
Well done !
Pramod Regmi
Ekong, A., Adesina, N., Regmi, P., Tsofliou, F., Wood, J. and Taylor, J., 2022. Barriers and Facilitators to the recruitment of Black African women for research in the UK: Hard to engage and not hard to reach. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest (accepted).
Tomorrow Friday 11th February is the UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To celebrate this event we would like to highlight the contributions of three BU female academics in the sciences in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences: Jane Murphy, Rebecca Neal and Amanda Wilding.
Prof Jane Murphy – Professor in Nutrition, Co-lead for the Aging and Dementia Research Centre
Jane is a role model as a female research leader committed to solving key nutrition problems in older adults. She has won funding from prestigious organisations like the Burdett Trust for Nursing and NIHR. Jane’s research has direct impact in practice through her clinical lead role in the Wessex Academic Health Science Network. She influences high standards in education and practice in her role as an elected council member for the Association for Nutrition.
Rebecca is an Early Career Research excelling in traditionally male-dominated field of Sport and Exercise Science. Her work in the field of Extreme Environmental Physiology is published in prestigious physiology journals and she has been the recipient of external and internal grants to advance her work. Rebecca contributes greatly to transferring her research finding to the end user, through public engagement events, magazine articles and podcasts aimed at raising the awareness of the issues and needs of individuals exercising in extreme environments.
In addition to teaching Sport and Exercise Psychology, Amanda works as a Sports Psychologist in professional male football and Army rugby. Her involvement working in male dominated sports lead to her being invited to lead a workshop on Women in Sport to women at the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Saudi Arabia.
Are you interested or involved in research? Wessex REACH Initiative- training/mentorship/funding support
The Wessex REACH Initiative is an NIHR funded Incubator working to increase health and social care research capacity in the Wessex region. To help ensure that everyone has access to the training and support they need, we are undertaking a series of group discussions to explore experiences of accessing training/mentoring/funding opportunities. All discussions will be held online.
We would really like to speak to anyone who is in the early stage of their research career. You may be an early career researcher, a first time Principal or Lead Investigator or someone who has not held research funding previously but would like to.
You are warmly welcomed to this week’s research process seminar. Hosted in FMC but open to all.
Contract Research – working with industry by Stuart Armon (BU)
Contract research is a great way of demonstrating impact. In this session I will share my experiences of working on contract research projects with industry partners: how the process is different to academic research projects; managing expectations; working collaboratively; making the research usable; thinking of the long game from the outset, and more. This will hopefully be of interest to anyone interested in developing their professional practice.
Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick.
Professor Anna Feigenbaum
This week we’re chatting with Professor of Digital Storytelling, Anna Feigenbaum.
What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?
My research looks at communication, technology and social change. I’m particularly drawn to topics that are difficult to talk about because of their technical or scientific complexity and social sensitivity. I’ve always seen my role as an academic as serving as bridge or medium between disciplines, as well as between the university and advocacy communities.
What has been your career highlight to date?
Either being quoted by AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) in a bill to the US congress on the harms of tear gas or being interviewed by Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness for his podcast ‘Getting Curious’.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m writing up findings from my AHRC project about “covid comics” and public health messaging over social media. I’m also finally starting work on my book about the cultural and political economy of infertility that got delayed because of the pandemic.
If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing?
I still regret turning down an internship at DC comics when I was 19. So in my alternative life I’d like to be writing queer feminist superhero comics.
What do you do to unwind?
Lots of things! Yoga, forest walks with our fur baby, bingeing fantasy or sci-fi series, and I’m currently teaching myself gothic calligraphy.
What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?
Dog surfing. And that people don’t take themselves too seriously.
If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?
Teleportation, so it would be easier to visit friends and family around the world – and more sustainable.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?
If I’ve also got electricity on this island, my iPad.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
It’s ok that, in 2009, when those senior people asked what you worked on at an academic wine reception you said, “I do weird sh**.” One day you’ll get promoted to full professor for doing weird sh** well.
If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.
Activist Jack Monroe recently used Terry Pratchett’s “boots theory” to explain the vicious circle for people on low incomes only being able to afford clothing that constantly wears out. Monroe has now used the Vimes index (named after a Pratchett character) of inflation to persuade the Office of National Statistics to review how it calculates the cost of living.
Raymond Williams’s classic 1977 book Marxism and Literature broke new ground arguing that fiction could influence social change. Here are five contemporary examples.
1. Bitter Fruit (Achmat Dangor, 2001)
In this novel, a bi-racial South African civil servant comes face-to-face with the white member of the state security forces who had raped his wife during apartheid. The book explores the consequences of political violence for both perpetrators and victims. There are no easy winners, pointing to the need for reconciliation – even when this feels impossible.
Reviewing the novel, South African academic Ronit Frenkel has shown that Bitter Fruit raised through fiction the questions South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission tried to answer for the whole country after apartheid. Nelson Mandela was said to be a fan and Dangor went on to head the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
2. Then We Came to the End (Joshua Ferris, 2007)
In Joseph Heller’s anti-war classic Catch-22, the pilots joke while one by one they get shot down. The combination of bleak humour with a serious message played out numerous times throughout the 20th century. Franz Kafka had already used the same logic in The Trial, where Josef K is executed for an offence he never understands. Ferris’s novel is an heir to both of these. It is set in the late 1990s among a group of advertising executives as they lose their jobs. But although it was written immediately before the financial crisis of 2007-08, it can’t help but feel like a tragicomic social critique of it.
As the characters are laid off, their dreams shrivel up and their solidarity collapses. Researcher Alison Russell describes the tension between the office workers’ desire for security being in conflict with their desire for individual achievement in Then We Came to the End. It brings to mind Pastor Niemöller’s poignant words about standing up for others, or being left with no one to defend you. It comes across as a stark warning of what happens when corporate culture is left unchecked.
The story of Martin Niemöller.
3. Elena Knows (Claudia Piñeiro, 2007)
Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro’s fifth novel to appear in English is narrated by Elena, a 63-year-old woman with Parkinson’s disease. She measures out her day through doses of medication, between which, she knows, she will barely be able to move. And yet this is not the most interesting things about Elena Knows. Her daughter Rita has died, apparently killing herself. When no one is willing to investigate, she calls for assistance on Isabel – a woman whom she and Rita had earlier dissuaded from having an abortion.
What ensues is a subtle and skilful exploration of how far women have the right to control their own bodies. This has been of particular importance in Argentina, where Piñeiro was at the forefront of the campaign to legalise abortion as recently as 2020. Its readership was huge by South American standards – Piñeiro is the third most widely translated Argentinian writer ever – and its effect has been dramatic.
4. Girl, Woman, Other (Bernadine Evaristo, 2019)
There are so many good things about this book it’s hard to know where to begin. Some readers would have been familiar with the struggles of African-American women through the work of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Black British women writers, rightly or wrongly, had not received as much attention. Until now.
The wide varieties of speech used by Evaristo’s women from many different backgrounds makes Girl, Woman, Other a joy to read. Along the way it debunks a number of mistakes about ancestry and race. And the way it handles the often-fraught politics of trans rights is both sensitive and accessible, cutting through to a far more mainstream audience than would normally consider this still-emerging issue.
5. Broken Ghost (Niall Griffiths, 2019)
This is Brexit fiction, or BrexLit. The rapidly changing political landscape of the past ten years has been just too tempting for authors to ignore, but Brexit novels are often tame and twee. Invariably they portray educated cosmopolitan types thrown into disarray. That is, BrexLit often reinforces the social divisions it should be the job of the writer to break down.
Griffiths does something different. His cast of characters – a “slut”, a “junkie” and a “thug” – are worlds away from the middle-class lives of most Brexit novels. When he takes readers to a hippie commune up a Welsh mountain to see what happens to them, they might end up understanding the world from somebody else’s perspective. In healing the divisions in Britain post-Brexit, the importance of this book can hardly be overstated. This is why in the desert of Brexit fiction, Broken Ghost is a novel oasis.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) recently awarded full-time professional contracts to 12 women players. However, the value of the contracts has not been revealed and the 12 contracts are not enough to make up a full rugby union team, let alone a squad.
These contracts are still unusual and top sportswomen continue to face more funding issues than men at the same level. Contracts offered to top women athletes are often short term, covering the weeks of a sporting competition, or part-time, and, until recently, lacking maternity leave. Women’s teams frequently face poor pitches, lower wages/prize money, and inferior conditions compared to men.
Sport has been (and largely still is) governed by male, hypermasculine former athletes. One theory argues that these managers of sport make decisions that benefit themselves and (white, heterosexual, middle/upper-class) males. As a result, women’s sport has, at many times, been misunderstood and treated poorly.
History of discrimination
Women’s sport is getting more backing, but this comes against a long history of discrimination. Last year’s Women’s FA Cup Final took place 100 years after the Football Association banned women’s football in Football League grounds. This ban fed into historic hostility towards women playing sport.
That has not gone away completely. The International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) stoked controversy with its views shortly after women’s boxing was accepted as an Olympic sport. AIBA suggested that women boxers should wear skirts when they competed to help them stand out from the men’s competitions.
While 22-year-old Ema Klinec from Slovenia, the current World Champion, is one to watch for the women’s ski jumping at the Winter Olympics this year, women were excluded from this sport for years. As recently as 2008, the International Olympic Committee cited the “technical merit” of women’s ski jumping as justification for its exclusion. Another reason was also the misguided belief by the governing body that ski jumping would damage women’s reproductive health. Following international pressure and unsuccessful court cases, it was finally accepted in 2011 and appeared for the first time at Sochi 2014.
This type of view has heavily influenced the way women’s sport is treated and its funding and resourcing.
Equal pay
Just over 50 years ago, Billie Jean King and eight other professional tennis players launched their own tennis tour to ensure that they were paid and treated on a par with men’s tennis players. Yet it was not until 2006 that the last Grand Slam tennis tournament, Wimbledon, agreed to pay equal prize money to men and women. The men’s World Number 1 tennis player, Novak Djokovic argued in 2016 that men should earn more than women players.
Even when women’s teams have successes, they are frequently paid significantly less than men. The US Women’s national soccer team filed a wage discrimination act (and later a gender discrimination lawsuit) against the governing body of their sport. Despite winning World Cups and generating more income than the men’s team, they were paid a quarter of what the men’s team earned prior to their legal action.
There are signs that change is coming. The Welsh national football association has recently pledged to introduce equal pay for its men’s and women’s teams by 2026. They have joined a growing number of national associations to have equal pay agreements for their men’s and women’s teams.
In cricket, The Hundred was the first professional tournament that put women’s and men’s teams on an equal footing, with women’s matches played on the same grounds as the men’s. Attendances for the women’s matches was higher than for previous tournaments.
Increased attendance show that when women’s sport is marketed suitably, spectators see greater value in it and are more likely to attend.
At the Winter Olympics, the inclusion of sports such as mixed team ski jumping and women’s monobob mean that there are not only more events for women but also greater opportunities for sponsorship. At the 2020 Tokyo Games, sponsorship of women athletes grew. Sponsors increasingly see value in backing women athletes.
The FA and Professional Footballers’ Association have finally agreed to include maternity and long-term sickness cover in the contract of women footballers. At the same time, the Women’s World Cup and European Championship are likely to be recognised as
two of the protected sports events made available to free-to-air broadcasters.
Progress has been made in women’s sport but until the attitudes of those running sport change, top sportswomen will continue to face more obstacles than men.
The aim of the consultation is to streamline approvals, enable innovation, enhance clinical trials transparency, enable greater risk proportionality, and promote patient and public involvement.
There will be a 1 hour meeting on Monday 14th February at 1pm until 2pm, where you can offer your thoughts and feedback for BU’s institutional response.
If you wish to attend the meeting, please get in touch to be added to the invitation.
If you are unable to make the above time but wish to offer your thoughts, please email clinicalresearch@bournemouth.ac.uk to ensure your feedback is included.
BU staff can login below:
Other services
Don’t miss a post!
Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.
A professional from 
Following an introductory message from Vice-Chancellor Professor John Vinney, the event was opened by Professor of Nutrition Jane Murphy and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Sophia Amenyah, who discussed how our nutritional needs change throughout our life and the importance of good nutrition as we age.
TANGERINE project has lift off with BPC Indian Community!
Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2024 – Closing today
THE INNOVATION COMMON ROOM: Going Old School
Apply for up to £1,000 to deliver an event and take part in a national festival of public engagement with research
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024
Horizon Europe News – December 2023