Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Are you attending The 11th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference?
If so I would like to encourage you to bring along your [Doctoral College] reusable water bottles and hot drinks cups for the day. There will be refreshments available including tea and coffee and many water fountains throughout the Fusion Building.
There are still some conference spaces available: register here.
We’re continuing our look back at the ESRC Festival of Social Science, you can catch up on our coverage so far on the Research Blog.
Dr Sally Lee and Stefan Kleipoedszus led an exploration at Shelley Theatre on Tuesday, on ‘Trauma-informed health and social care’, or how social care practice can improve the wellbeing of individuals who are experiencing, or who have experienced childhood adversity or trauma. Using a World Café format and innovative creative methods for evaluation and engagement, they were able to integrate the event into their research project.
Stefan Kleipoedszus
Dr Sally Lee
In addition to valuable discussions facilitated by Sally and Stefan, the event welcomed a number of guest contributors with valuable insights for working in a supportive role. This included Professor Ann Hemingway presenting her research into The Horse Course, to understand how learning natural horsemanship skills can have a positive effect on mental health outcomes.
Prof Ann Hemingway
Dr Humaira Hussain
Dr Humaira Hussain presented her research on using ‘neonatal simulators’, high-tech dolls, to replicate the symptoms of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and provide a more interactive education for midwifery students.
One set of guests proved themselves particularly popular – Caring Canines brought a few of their trained dogs and explained how they provide support and therapy in mental health units.
On Tuesday evening, Dr Elvira Bolat and Dr Emily Arden-Close took over our regular Café Scientifique slot to discuss the ‘Hidden stories of online gamblers’, exposing how gambling companies use masses of data to engage customers, and setting out their work in how this data can be turned around to help problem gamblers.
Dr Emily Arden-Close
Dr Elvira Bolat
In concert with this event, we produced an online exhibition, featuring the stories of gamblers as expressed through art pieces commissioned from Arts University Bournemouth students.
Hidden Stories of Online Gamblers Online Exhibition
Whether you are a professional, student or amateur photographer, you’re invited to enter the Wellcome Photography Prize 2020, which celebrates compelling imagery that will encourage conversations about the health challenges of our time.
For 2020, the theme is Mental Health, which covers two of the five prize categories. However, you can still submit photographs exploring other global health issues that may not relate directly to mental health, in the Social Perspectives, Medicine in Focus and Hidden Worlds categories.
The winning entries will be shown in a major public exhibition and winners will receive up to £15,000.
Earlier this month saw BU host ten events as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. The Festival is a nationwide celebration of the social sciences, with 475 events held across the UK this year.
Over the next week, we’ll be sharing regular posts to look back over these events.
The Festival is designed to promote and increase awareness of social science and ESRC-funded research, enable social scientists to engage with non-academics and increase awareness of the contributions the social sciences make to the wellbeing and economy of UK society.
BU contributed to the Festival this year for the eighth time in a row, holding a variety of events spanning research areas and faculties, which were held on campus, off campus and online.
Our programme kicked off with ‘Living Your Best Life: Positivity for Wellbeing’ on Saturday 2 November, with Dr Camila Devis-Rozental and Susanne Clarke leading a keen public audience through a journey of positivity in Poole’s Lighthouse Centre for the Arts.
The audience learned how a few simple tips and techniques can make us more resilient, with a more positive attitude towards life. These included mindful eating – taking time to enjoy and experience tastes, how learning new skills can boost your confidence, expressing gratitude and the importance of ‘hippo time’ – giving yourself permission to wallow before moving on with purpose.
“Reminded me of positivity in all areas of life – so thoroughly enjoyable” – Feedback
On Monday 4 evening, Dr Emma Kavanagh and Dr Adi Adams presented an innovative and thought-provoking event in ‘Ways of Seeing Sport Coaching Violence’, an audio-visual exhibition conveying experiences of coach-athlete violence. Working with students, including project collaborator Terri Harvey, to develop and deliver the event provided a rewarding and productive experience for all involved, students and academics.
The varied audience included sports coaching students and representatives from local sport coaching organisations, sparking interesting debates and discussions on best practice in coaching.
You can read more about the event in this post by Impact Officer Matt Fancy.
We’ll continue our series with a new post tomorrow.
The Physiological Society are hosting a free online webinar titled “Making your research more accessible” on 2 December 2019 from 12:00-12:45. The webinar is free and open to all, but mainly aimed at researchers with a little experience of public engagement who would like to take this to the next level and/or start designing their own activities.
Science Education Consultant Sai Pathmanathan will share her 20+ years’ experience of running successful public engagement activities across STEM to offer some top tips on:
Registration closes on Thursday 28 November 2019.
Academics in FoM have worked for many years in informal collaboration with the Federal University of Santa Catarina’s (UFSC) Food and Nutrition research centre. The most notable collaboration being Veg+ an Institutional Links project jointly funded between the British Council Newton Fund and the Brazilian FAPESC Fund. The aim this project is to address Brazil’s Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) challenges of poor diet and sustainability through innovation in training, research and science. Research has understood the routes to market for small scale family farmers in Brazil strengthening the economic potential of the 5 million ‘family farms’ which employ three quarters of the farm labour force and are responsible for one third of agricultural income. Additionally, consumer research is helping to understand young adults’ consumption of vegetables and the most effective ways that this can be increased.
We are delighted that these institutional links have been formally recognised through a partnership agreement which will support further research development.
Last week the IOM (Int
ernational Organization for Migration) in Nepal, the UN Migration Agency published a new report online: Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal. This report mentioned the input and advice of Bournemouth University (BU) staff, including Dr. Nirmal Aryal, who worked on the report prior to his appointment at BU and who is listed as Co-Investigator, furthermore listed as Resource Persons are: Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Working with the charity Green Tara Nepal (GTN) on this study has been good for IOM and BU. All of use have worked on the report in different kind of ways and to different degrees. The publication suggested a corporate authorship as ‘International Organization for Migration’, which is great for the status of the report as it is a UN agency. We feel part of this as BU academics and feel we are part of the team despite this not being a BU publication!
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
International Organization for Migration (2019) Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: International Organization for Migration. Available at : https://nepal.iom.int/sites/default/files/publication/Research_on_The_Health_Vulnerabilities_of_The_Cross_Border_Migrants_from_Nepal_0.pdf
Registration has opened! Draft programme available.
Spaces for the oral presentation session are limited. Please only book sessions you can commit to attending. Lunch will be provided to those attending oral presentation sessions and conference presenters.
To attend the Keynote by Professor Genoveva Esteban please book onto session 2 oral presentations.
No need to book for the Live Research Exhibition or Poster Presentations, please just come along to FG06 between 09:30 – 11:30 to visit the exhibitions. However, if you are based at Lansdowne you may wish to register for a ticket as you can show it on the bus for free U1 UniBus travel between campus during the conference.
Register now and spread the word.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Professor Ann Hemingway and Dr Katey Collins will be sharing their latest research at a lunchtime seminar session on Wednesday (13th November). All are very welcome to attend. The session will run from 1:15 – 2:00 in B321, Bournemouth House. Please feel free to bring your lunch.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place on Tuesday 10th December at 2:3opm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
Background call for evidence:
Life span has increased over recent decades, but health span, the period of time people live in good health, has generally not kept pace, and so older people are living longer with ill health. This increased duration of ill health, both physical and psychological, and often compounded by loneliness, can be challenging for individuals; and the increasing number of people affected is placing pressure on health services and social care, threatening to overwhelm the funding mechanisms, and failing those in need.
Increasing health span has been adopted as a policy objective by the UK Government in the Industrial Strategy’s “Ageing Society” Grand Challenge, which aims to ensure that people can enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035. This House of Lords inquiry will seek to determine whether the Government’s ambition to increase health span is achievable in principle, and which approaches may be most successful in practice.
Interdisciplinary research is at the heart of our BU2025 strategic plan, and moving into a new role can offer opportunities to work with others. The call for from the House of Lords Science and Technology Healthy Ageing Committee enabled me to partner with a new colleague, and for us to both think about our disciplines in different ways. Taking the ideas we discussed for submitting written evidence, we are now in the process of applying to a charity for a funded PhD student to take the work forward.
BU policy team
Interdisciplinary written submissions to the Committee kept our BU policy advisors, Jane Forster and Sarah Carter busy! BU researchers Katherine Appleton, Samuel Nyman, Debbie Holley and Vanessa Heaslip all submitted evidence.
Dr Samuel Nyman, Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health,
A multidisciplinary approach to promote physical activity and exercise among older people
Dr Samuel Nyman is a leading researcher on preventing falls and promoting physical activity among older people. With a background in health psychology, his interests include the use of behaviour change techniques to promote exercise among older people and people with dementia. Dr Nyman was consulted for his expertise by Haringey Council in October 2016, for his input into the council’s Physical Activity for Older People Scrutiny Review. This directly led to recommendations that were agreed by the council.
This evidence is submitted in response to the government’s call, so that policy makers are aware of the need for a multidisciplinary perspective for promoting physical activity and preventing falls. This will include the use of psychological knowledge on behaviour change but also the expertise of others including urban planners to make environments more conducive for physical activity among older people.
His evidence can be read here:
Professor Katherine Appleton
Professor Katherine Appleton is a Chartered Psychologist and Registered Nutritionist. She has researched human eating behaviour since 1998, with a special interest in the older population since 2006. Much of her research focuses on the optimisation of human health and well-bring in the normal population considering nutrition, physical activity and their impact on behaviour.
Her evidence can be read here:
Professor Debbie Holley and Associate Professor Vanessa Heaslip
In our submission, we reflected on the role of technology in healthy ageing, and suggested some ‘tech’ futures areas for consideration.
Executive Summary
Technologies to provide a solution for loneliness (e.g. the virtual tea party) and virtual health care can provide efficiencies for the NHS as well as improved access for marginalised communities. However, key barriers are the spread and access to technology (especially rural communities) the skill set (and costs) necessary for the ageing population to engage with this technology, alongside the upskilling of the current NHS workforce to work virtually need careful consideration. Some barriers can be directly addressed by Government 5G and NHS workforce priorities; there is a clear role for charities; other barriers will need universities and industry to work together to engage with agile and rapid prototyping and testing. The methods of procurement need to be revisited, currently excellent SMEs are filtered out – working across with the Department of Business could provide ways of supporting innovation. Further work with experts is needed to invest in effective scaling solutions across the sector, and learning from examples/solutions/suggestions are contained in the text below. More of the same is not going enable the huge changes that demographic pressures are bringing to bear on an already stretched NHS; and work of effective data capture is needed to identify and bring the policy makers lens onto those belonging to marginalised groups.
The link to our full evidence submission here:
Earlier this month I took part in a ‘Creative Industries Workshop’ in Istanbul. This was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Istanbul Development Agency. About 40 of us had won funding to attend – a mixture of UK and Turkish ‘experts’ (academics and industry representatives) – and we were tasked with addressing the challenges faced by Turkey’s creative industries.
The key issue presented to us was how to maximise the potential for growth, diversification and resilience in Turkey by identifying the specific affordances of the creative industries. There is clear ambition in Turkey to “increase the value added of goods and services produced in the country” and the UK is seen as a model for such growth.
The thematic areas which we addressed were: Ecosystem – the structures of finance, networking, collaboration, services, and actors which facilitate growth; Demand – the sensitivity to awareness, ‘customer needs’, and particularly the ways in which other sectors (such as tourism) might complement and stimulate this; Design and value added – the emphasis on digital transformation trends which might ‘intensify user experience’ through improving the quality of life; Data and knowledge – how the creative industries are defined, the relationship between data and policy, and possible research which might produce new models.
The workshop was a very stimulating fusion of different perspectives, and each group presented ‘solutions’ to the funding bodies which drew on our experience and understandings of successful policies and practices. Some of us, however, of a more critical mind set (and I won my funding on the basis of promising to provide this) had further questions that we wanted to pursue, for example: the need to avoid a kind of ‘colonial approach’, dispensing ‘wisdom’ from the UK; the problematic relationship between the creative industries and the craft industries – ways of achieving complementarity without collapsing key differences; the notional affordances of ‘ecosystems’ – some of us suggested that ‘true creativity’ prospered despite, rather than because of ‘ecosystems’; and, ultimately, the nature of this thing called the ‘creative industries’, which is often presented as an ‘ontological category’, but which tends to be a strategic category – some transparency about this seems to be required.
There will be a further call from the AHRC intended to nurture some of the collaborations that were made possible in the workshop, and the challenge will be to maintain this critical stance whilst working together to stimulate worthwhile projects (and we saw some excellent examples of existing initiatives). As we face life post-Brexit, Turkey is likely to be a significant partner, given its position, between Europe and Asia.
Mark Readman, FMC
On 24 October 2019, the GCRF Panel of the University hosted the first GCRF Best Practice Workshop that brought together well-over 20 academics, GCRF Principal Investigators/Co-Investigators and interested parties to discuss best practice from existing ongoing GCRF projects and activities being undertaken at BU.
The day began with a rough guide to GCRF terminology delivered by GCRF Panel Chair, Professor Lee Miles of the BUDMC and the morning session was completed by targeted presentations by GCRF project leaders at the University on the nature and progress of their respective projects. This latter session not only provided an opportunity for all those present to have a detailed insight into the diversity of work going on at the University under GCRF auspices – from research on elephant movements in Sumatra, to disaster management scenario building and guidance in Africa and Nepal, to the challenges of utilising new technologies to communicate the views of indigenous communities in South America.
This was followed in the afternoon by detailed sessions chaired by members of the GCRF Panel on design, implementation, monitoring and reporting and synergising of GCRF projects that were not only opportunities for those at the workshop to learn some of the challenges and instances of best practice, but also provided a chance to further discuss the nuances of the respective GCRF open call competition that is presently being advertised by the University.
A vibrant and good natured discussion was a characteristic of all the respective sessions. Informal feedback has been very positive and the GCRF Panel intends to capture some of the insights and commentary of the GCRF workshop to inform its future deliberations.
The ‘photo of the week’ is a weekly series featuring photographs taken by BU academics and students for our Research Photography Competition which took place earlier this year.
These provide a snapshot into some of the incredible research taking place across the BU community.
This week’s photo of the week was taken by PhD Student Orlanda Harvey and is titled;
‘The Place: A health and fitness shop’
‘The placement of this model of the Incredible Hulk outside a health and gym store embodies one of the initial findings from my research. Part of my exploration into the experiences of men who use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) evidences that one driver for building muscle is the link between muscularity and masculinity. Interviewees referenced the influence of social media images and ‘ripped’ celebrities as a reason for the current increase in use of AAS for recreational purposes and others talked about the muscular physique as being ‘what women want’.
‘Using hyper-muscular images, such as the Incredible Hulk to encourage people to purchase supplements, which have been found to illegally include AAS (Evans-Brown et al. 2012). This is tapping into the trend for men to have increasingly muscular physiques. This trend is seeping into western cultural norms and has influenced the design of toys, e.g. the chest sizes of G.I. Joe and Barbie’s Ken (Brownell and Napolitano 1995, Pope Jr. et al. 2016) have significantly increased, unrepresentative of achievable norm. Men, like women, are bombarded with unrealistic images of body shape, which could encourage some to take potentially risky routes such as using AAS to try to achieve the ‘ideal’.
If you have any questions about the Photo of the Week series or the Research Photography Competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk
We have some great events coming up over the next few weeks to support you in your research activities.
| Tuesday 5th November | RKEDF: Clinical Research- documentation and filing |
| Wednesday 6th November | RKEDF: Research Outputs – Writing Day |
| Wednesday 13th November | RKEDF: EndNote Desktop for Managing References and Writing for Publication |
| Monday 18th November | RKEDF: UKRO Visit |
| Tuesday 19th November | RKEDF: Environment Narrative Day |
| Tuesday 19th November | RKEDF: Advanced Literature Search Techniques |
| Tuesday 19th November | RKEDF: Working with Industry |
| Tuesday 19th November | RKEDF: Building Evidence for REF Impact Case Studies |
| Tuesday 19th November | RKEDF Impact Planning Session |
| Wednesday 20th November | RKEDF: Inspirational Impact Journey |
| Wednesday 20th November | RKEDF: Leverhulme Trust Visit to BU |
| Tuesday 26th November | RKEDF: Evaluation: Developing your approach |
| Wednesday 27th November | RKEDF: Measuring the Impact of Your Research with Advanced Citation Tools. |
You can see all the Organisational Development and RKEDF events in one place on the handy calendar of events.
Please note that all sessions are now targeted, so look closely at the event page to ensure that the event is suitable for you. In addition, most RKEDF events now require the approval of your Head of Department (or other nominated approver). Please follow the instructions given on the event page and the template email for you to initiate the booking request.
If you have any queries, please get in touch!
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place on Tuesday 10th December at 2:3opm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
Academia has become more demanding than twenty years ago, particularly, the job outwith university. Just this morning I received three requests to review a paper. Each from a very reputable journal and a each a legitimate requests, i.e. I asking me to assess a paper in a my academic field. 
Reviewing papers and grant applications is, of course, part of my academic responsibilities, and hence part of my scholarly practice. But I am already reviewing five NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) grant applications this weekend, as well as an other paper for BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, and there are two PhD theses next my bed which I need to exam. On top of this I have been ignoring several reminder invitations to review a research proposal for the Croatian Science Foundation, as I simply do not have time to do so, however, much I would like to do so.
The forthcoming REF 2021 is not helping. UK academics are frantically submitting their manuscripts to academic journals to have them in print before the end of 2020, to beat the REF 2021 deadline. The flip-side of this reviewing coin is that my collaborators and I have had three papers turned down in the past year by a reputable journal as it could not find appropriate reviewers. Three articles on three very different aspects of our work, one a UK-based study, one a European study and one a study based in Nepal. For two of these manuscripts the journal took nearly a year to come back to us, wasting the chance to submit the paper elsewhere.
Perhaps it is due the rose-tinted spectacles of looking at the past, perhaps is it simply my level of seniority (compared to twenty years ago) but I don’t think so. The underlying trend is that the volume of papers submitted to journals is growing faster than the number of academics volunteering to review. This blog is, therefor, also a call for my academic colleagues to step up and agree to review on (extra) paper. Interestingly, I made a not dissimilar call in a BU Research Blog eight years ago! Unfortunately, the overall situation has not improved.
I haven’t even mentioned the exponential growth in email requests to academics submit papers to so-called predatory journals! I counted 15 requests in the past two days alone and it is only 10 AM on Saturday morning so more to follow later today.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
BU staff can login below:
FHSS academics teaching in Nepal
New weight change BU paper
One week to go! | The 16th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference
Geography and Environmental Studies academics – would you like to get more involved in preparing our next REF submission?
Congratulations to three former BU staff
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
Applications are now open for 2025 ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships!
Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars
MaGMap: Mass Grave Mapping
ERC grants – series of webinars Last reminder – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 internal deadline next week
Research Information Network