Category / Research news

Universities increase income from business collaboration

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer, Research news

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 Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, Research news

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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.

Congratulations to Prof. Hundley on her latest systematic review paper

BU research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

This week Professor Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) published a systematic review form with her international collaborators working on early labour.   The paper is called ‘Diagnosing onset of labor: A systematic review of definitions in the research literature‘ and can be found it the Open Access journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth. [1]

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Hanley GE, Munro S, Greyson D, Gross MM, Hundley V, Spiby H and Janssen PA (2016) Diagnosing onset of labor: A systematic review of definitions in the research literature. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 16: 71 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0857-4

 

Sign up to EU RSS News Feeds to keep up to date

EU, Events, Funding opportunities, Info Days, Research communication, Research news

Hate that sinking feeling of finding out that you have missed out on a key funding Info Day or brokerage event?

Sign up now and be in the know.

The European Commission’s DG Innovation and Research provides subject-specific news feeds to help you to keep up to date with your research activities in your discipline and EU opportunities, including funding and networking events. To do this, the place to go is their RSS page. Instructions on how to add these to your news feed are also given on this page

Main topics include:

To see the full list and subsets of those listed above, please go to the main RSS page and find all the relevant RSS news feeds for you.

 

NERC Call for participants: Using natural processes to reduce flood risk workshop

BU research, Research news

NERCNERC, the EA and Defra are interested in identifying the key environmental research priorities related to using natural processes to reduce flood risk, with a view to potentially developing a collaborative research programme in this area. To support this process a scoping workshop will be held on 09 June 2016.  This is a great opportunity to contribute towards a potential funding stream at its inception.

For more information please see the following webpage: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/latest/events/list/flood/

Reminder of BU’s Bridging Fund Scheme for researchers

Research news

Golden gate Bridge wallpaperIn summer 2015 we launched the new BU Bridging Fund Scheme which aims to provide additional stability to fixed-term researchers who continue to rely heavily on short-term contracts usually linked to external funding. This situation sometimes impacts negatively on continuity of employment and job security and can result in a costly loss of researcher talent for the institution.

The new Bridging Fund Scheme aims to mitigate these circumstances by redeploying the researcher where possible, or where feasible, by providing ‘bridging funding’ for the continuation of employment for a short-term (maximum three months) between research grants. It is intended to permit the temporary employment, in certain circumstances, of researchers between fixed-term contracts at BU, for whom no other source of funding is available, in order to:

(a) encourage the retention of experienced and skilled staff, and sustain research teams and expertise;

(b) aconcordat to support the career development of researchersvoid the break in employment and career which might otherwise be faced by such staff;

(c) maximise the opportunity for such staff to produce high-quality outputs and/or research impact at the end of funded contracts/grants.

To find out more about the scheme, including how to apply for bridging funding, see the scheme guidelines.

This is a great step forward for BU and for BU’s researchers and is an action from our EC HR Excellence in Research Award which aims to increase BU’s alignment with the national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (further information is available here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/).

RKEO faculty-facing staff – when and where?

Research news

RKEO has a number of posts that directly support colleagues in the Faculties with bid preparation and submission and the post-award management of grants and contracts. These staff members spend approximately 50% of their time based in the Faculty offices. Information on when and where you can expect to find them when they are working in your Faculty is available here on the Research Blog here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/faculty-facing-staff/.

New paper out this week by Dr. Regmi

BU research, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Cover of NJESince his arrival in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences last year postdoctoral researcher Dr. Pramod Regmi has been busy getting his publications out.  Yesterday saw the latest of his articles appear in print, this time in the latest issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology.  The editorial, co-authored with Dr. Om Kurmi (University of Oxford) and Dr. Puspa R. Pant at the University of the West of England, addresses the growing problem air pollution in low-income countries such as Nepal.  The paper is called: ‘Implication of Air pollution on health effects in Nepal: Lessons from global research’. [1]

The journal is Open Access so the article can be accessed by anybody across the globe for free.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1.   Kurmi O, Regmi PR, Pant PR. Implication of Air pollution on health effects in Nepal: Lessons from global research. Nepal J Epidemiol. 2016;6(1); 525-527. (online at: http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14733/11949 )

Latest Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

money and cogs

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

NERC

Improving Health with Environmental Data

NERC, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (CSO) are investing up to £600,000 in projects to identify and fill knowledge gaps around the potential of environmental data to improve health outcomes in the UK. This call will focus specifically on using environmental data on air pollution and/or environmental hazards alongside health and biomedical data.

Maximum Award: £60,000 Deadline: 18 April 2016 for application to attend brokerage event on 10 May 2016, full proposal by 12 July 2016

AHRC

Leadership Fellows scheme – ECRs

The AHRC’s Leadership Fellows scheme provides time for research leaders, or potential future research leaders, to undertake focused individual research alongside collaborative activities which have the potential to generate a transformative impact on their subject area and beyond.

Maximum Award: £50,000 – £250,000 Deadline: Open

Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection, EU

Buffer capacities for addressing temporary shortcomings in extraordinary disasters

This programme opens the possibility for financial assistance to make available capacities additional to Participating States’ existing capacities (hereafter “buffer capacities”), which would contribute to addressing temporary shortcomings of response capacities in extraordinary disaster situations.

Maximum Award: total budget – 2,700,000 euros Deadline: 2 June 2016

ERA-Net Sumforest, EU

Sustainable forests for the society of the future

The present call for proposals focuses on basic and applied research that aims to support policy decisions regarding multifunctional forestry. Proposals are expected to be transnational, and innovative forms of cooperation such as interdisciplinarity are encouraged.

Maximum Award: Unspecified Deadline: 17 June 2016

Directorate-General for International Co-operation & Development (EuropeAid), EU

Engaging civil society in pan-African issues

The Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation (EuropeAid) invites concept notes for its call on engaging civil society in pan-African issues. This aims to improve the contribution of civil society organisations to continental decision- and policy making processes in Africa, in particular in the areas of good governance, democracy, human rights, peace and security and women’s rights.

Maximum Award: 2 – 5 million euros Deadline: 13 May 2016

Department of Energy & Climate Change, UK

Small modular reactors competition, phase 1

The Department of Energy and Climate Change under the nuclear research and development programme invites expressions of interest for its small modular reactors competition – phase one. This call aims to gauge market interest among technology developers, utilities, potential investors and funders in developing, commercialising and financing small modular reactors in the UK.

Maximum Award: total budget – £250 million Deadline: 6 May 2016

European Society of Cardiology

Research prize in acute cardiovascular care

The European Society of Cardiology’s Acute Cardiovascular Care Association invites applications for its research prize in acute cardiovascular care. This recognises unpublished research in the area of acute cardiovascular care applied to the development of novel therapeutic, diagnostic and logistical strategies to improve patient care and long-term outcomes. There are three categories for submission:

  • clinical outcomes;
  • quality of care;
  • translational.

Maximum Award: 3000 euros, prizes, registration to conference Deadline: 13 May 2016

Irish Marine Institute

Marine Socio-economics

The Marine Institute is pleased to invite Project-Based Award applications from academic institutions under the Research Programme Marine Socio-Economics for a project titled “Valuing and understanding the dynamics of Ireland’s Ocean Economy“.

The project aims to strengthen the valuation and understanding of Ireland’s ocean economy, ensuring the timely availability of marine economic statistics, providing an evidence–base for policy and decision-making, economic forecasting and scenario planning.

Maximum Award: 600,000 euros Deadline: 27 April 2016

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

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

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

NERC standard grants (July deadline) – internal competition launched

Funding opportunities, Research news

NERC

 

NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures at I:\R&KEO\Public\NERC demand management 2016.

As at March 2015, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. The next available standard grant round is July 2016. The process for selecting an application for this round can be found in the process document in I:\R&KEO\Public\NERC demand management 2016 – the deadline for internal Expressions of Interest which will be used to determine which application will be submitted is 8th April 2016.

NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RKEO submit applications through Je-S on behalf of applicants, RKEO will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RKEO Contacts

Please contact Jennifer Roddis, RKEO Research Facilitator – jroddis@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

 

The Research Blog – a new look!

BU research, Research news

In an effort to improve the research blog, we have added a few updates including a brand new face lift.

  • Home page
    Posts are now grouped by category, rather than as displayed as a full list. If you’d still like to see the full list of blog posts in date order, there is a link to the full blog at the top of the home page.
  • Individual blog posts
    Adding a blog post works in the same way, but the published post has a slightly different look to reflect the new brand.

    You can attach images as normal to your blog post.  However, if you want this image to appear next to the summary of your post shown on the blog homepage and on the daily digest then you also need to click on ‘set featured image’ (from the menu options, normally under ‘tags’) and select the image.

    Please do continue to share information, experiences, successes, advice and news with colleagues, and to promote your research both internally and externally through regular blog posts.

  • Daily digest
    The daily digest also has a new improved look.  Make sure that you are subscribed to receive the daily digest emails; this is the best way to keep up to date with research and knowledge exchange information at BU.

If you experience any problems with the updated blog, then please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

We are still looking to make further improvements, so if you have any comments please do complete our Research Blog Survey.

Please note, if you are using an older version of Internet Explorer and are having issues with the blog layout, please ensure that ‘compatibility view’ is disabled via the icon in the address bar.

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Research Blog Survey

BU research, Research news

Here at RKEO we are always trying to improve the services and information we provide to our audience and the research blog has been our main tool for communicating news to our audience. The research blog has been running since its first post back in March 2011, which makes it 5 years old this month!

With this historic achievement of age it doesn’t  mean that there isn’t room for improvement. If you have the time it would be greatly appreciated if you could fill out this quick survey about the research blog. This will allow us to improve the site and in turn provide a better service for you!

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FHSS paper in Journal of Neonatal Nursing

BU research, international, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Cover image volume 22, Issue 2The April issue of the Journal of Neonatal Nursing will publish the latest article written by a combination of Faculty of Health & Social Sciences staff and Visiting Faculty.  The paper ‘Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature’ offers a systematic narrative review on issues affecting fathers, whose babies are admitted to neonatal units. [1] The authors include Visiting Faculty Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust midwife Jillian Ireland and Prof. Minesh Khashu (consultant neonatologist) and FHSS staff Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor, Luisa Cescutti-Butler, and Edwin van Teijlingen.  Twenty-seven papers in this interesting review highlighted four key themes: (1) stress & anxiety; (2) information (or lack thereof); (3) gender roles and (4) emotions.  This paper adds to the growing literature (and understanding) of the role and place of men in maternity care generally and for fathers of babies in neonatal care in particular.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Ireland, J., Khashu, M., Cescutti-Butler, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2016) Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature, Journal of Neonatal Nursing [pre-published]

Latest Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

money

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

ESRC

ESRC-NRF Newton call for collaborative research – Higher education in Africa

The funder invites proposals which address the following themes:

  • Organisation of higher education systems, higher education institutions (HEIs) and alternative providers
  • Equity in higher education access and participation
  • Curriculum, pedagogy and modes and levels of provision
  • Higher education for the public good
  • Higher education and the labour market

Maximum Award: GBP415,000 – 630,000 & R1.67m to 2.5m
Deadline: 3 May 2016

Wellcome Trust

Society Awwards

This scheme aims to:

  • stimulate interest, excitement and debate about biomedical science and/or the history of medicine
  • support formal and informal learning
  • reach audiences of all ages and from all walks of life and inform, inspire and involve them
  • encourage high-quality interdisciplinary practice and collaborations
  • investigate and test new methods of engagement, participation and education.

Maximum Award: GBP40,000 – 180,000 Deadline: 16 September 2016

European Defence Agency, EU

Pilot project on defence research

The European Defence Agency invites proposals for its pilot project on defence research. This supports two technological development projects in the area of defence and one research and development project linked to certification for military and civil use.

Maximum Award: 475,000 euros
Deadline: 20 May 2016

Reta Lila Weston Trust

Microbiome & neurodegenerative disease programme

The Reta Lila Weston Trust is delighted to issue a request for proposals for novel research with respect to the microbiome that will accelerate the development of therapeutics, identify preventative strategies for neurodegenerative diseases and neurocognitive decline or understand the resilience against such conditions or decline in elderly individuals as a result of the microbiome.

Maximum Award: GBP200,000
Deadline: 29 April 2016

Society for Endocrinology

Equipment grant

This grant is to support members who are principal investigators wishing to establish a lab. The grant is aimed at those in a first lectureship or those holding a charity fellowship and who are not in receipt of a substantial fellowship.

Applications can be for pieces of equipment, part pieces of larger equipment or basic lab items. Equipment service or maintenance costs can be included if justified appropriately.

Maximum Award: GBP10,000
Deadline: 27 May 2016 & 27 November 2016

The Palaeontological Association

Research grants

Grants should support a single research project, or a ‘proof of concept’ proposal with an aim of supporting future applications to national research funding bodies. Field-based projects are also eligible, but the scientific objectives and outcomes of the research must be made clear.

Maximum Award: GBP10,000
Deadline: 1 March 2017 recurring

ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs, EU

Feasibility studies of regional digital manufacturing innovation hubs

This aims to expand the coverage of I4MS technologies to regions that show limited activity in the field of digital manufacturing. The feasibility studies will present a solid plan for creating a RDMI hub in the regions by a consortium of relevant organisations and should include a plan for financing such a hub.

Consortia of organisations that show expertise, infrastructure and a preliminary network in the domain of digital manufacturing in regions where there is no or limited competence centres planned or present are eligible to apply.

Maximum Award: 50,000 euros
Deadline: 28 April 2016

European Commission H2020

ECSEL Key Applications & Essential technologies

Proposals may address the following topics:

  • key applications, including smart mobility, smart society, smart energy, smart health and smart production;
  • essential capabilities, including semiconductor manufacturing, technology, equipment and materials, design technologies, cyber-physical systems, and smart integration systems.

Maximum Award: total budget of 65m euros available
Deadline: 24 May 2016

Canada Council for the Arts

Cultivate: Creative Development Grants

Cultivate: Creative Development Grants program provides support to individual artists who are Deaf, have disabilities and/or are living with mental illness to pursue research, creation and production projects in dance, inter-arts, media arts, music, theatre, visual arts and/or writing/literary arts, leading to a new artistic work or body of work intended for public presentation, exhibition, publication or distribution. Research/Creation Grants provide artists the time and resources to explore, develop and/or create a new artistic work or body of work. This may include the research and development of ideas, concepts, themes or techniques. A completed work or public presentation is not required.

Maximum Award: $10,000
Deadline: 15 September 2016

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

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

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

Free speech only applies to those with nothing to say…

Research communication, Research news

for-humanitySome things are worth fighting for… liberty, freedom of speech…people have died for these.

When the war between Iran and Iraq finished, I realised that we had lost some of the most courageous young men who lived through moments that one thought only existed in action movies.  I was old enough to understand death, the risks they took and the fact that we will never see them again…they were gone. Although we were quick to judge them, I knew they fought for what they felt was right. Likewise and more so, there were plenty of brave young souls who sacrificed their lives on cold and damp foreign soil during the First and Second World Wars. The soil still seems fresh in graveyards for the loss of soldiers in recent wars, God bless them all.

For those of us unlucky enough to have lost loved ones, the images of those young lives sit in frames on fireplaces or shelves where, if we are lucky we might get glimpse of the smile that they left for us. Could one wish more than if they could just touch them and feel the warmth of their scent one more time … they are gone.  For those of us left behind, what is their legacy? Do we see their legacy through planting poppies and celebrating their sacrifices in remembrance days? One minute’s silence would be enough to thank them? They were told they that they were fighting for freedom, have we done enough to make sure that was achieved? Liberty and freedom of speech are under constant threat and today more than ever with the terrorist threats around our world.

Recently we started a campaign aimed at challenging the narrative of the terrorist group known as ISIS. An inhumane group who have misused the narrative of religion in order to associate themselves with what they describe as a ‘pure’ version of religion. I grew up in the Middle East and went to school at a time when extreme values were at the forefront of every school curriculum and life. I do remember being called into the office of the headmistress when I was 15 because I was wearing socks that were white whilst wearing trousers and brown ankle boots. Days like these made me realise that freedom had been taken hostage and caged.  In those days questioning was a rare reality.  “You don’t questions some matters, you just do as you are told”. What about the thoughts inside your head? Was I not allowed to think about anything? Freedom is important.

In spite of everything that I have witnessed; a revolution, assassinations,  imprisonment, acts carried out by different sides, I have also been fortunate enough not to witness at first hand the acts of extremism in the 21st century, happening now in the Middle East. I have not seen the carnage that some people have carried out in the name of religion, in what is known as ISIS held territories. These territories that owe their foundation to the seeds that were originally planted by Saddam’s Baath party. I say this but I am puzzled, I remember their brutality in the longest conventional war of the 20th century from 1980 to 1988.  It still sits firmly in my memory when my eyes stared open in shock, when the religious study school teacher told us that they used naked women hostages, who they had first raped, as human shields.  In that conservative society I thought death was the easier option and I still do even now. Later on they didn’t even consider the lives of their own people and the Kurds, and so the scars of chemical attacks still lives on among those who fought them in the front line. The brutality of what we witness today is not new for those people that live in the region, it is just being carried out under a different name.

From those extreme groups such as ISIS, whose brutality did not spare the innocent lives of journalist or aid workers from Steven Sotloff, David Haines, James Foley, Alan Henning, Abdul Rahman (Peter) Kassig to the hideous attacks that recently took place in Paris, there is a connecting issue. The liberal democracies of Western society has provided the fertile ground that helps them promote their cause and yield the “reaction” that they live for, because they know that people in Western Societies place a much greater value on lives and property than they do in many of the countries where these terrorist groups are formed. This, alongside the powerful western media, combined with the virulent nature of social media, reinforces the civilian shock and works in favour of their goals of intimidation and publicity with wider targets and victims in Muslim communities.

The campaign we have launched under the title of ‘for humanity’, challenges violent extremism in general but in particular, counters the falsehoods spread by ISIS in a positive manner, with an assertion of shared humanity.  The reach of our campaign will address those in the Muslim community feeling distanced from the rest of society, building on the notion of “concentric loyalties” to expand the horizon of vulnerable segments of the community and encouraging them towards assimilating more fully into their wider community.  We set up the campaign to voice our idea of bringing the community together no matter what the religion, colour or race, we thought we could stand up for the loss of freedom and civil liberties and the very basics of humanity with the weight of the legacy which was left standing on our shoulders.

However, it transpires that this is not an easy thing to do in a society that is tolerant. We were told by some that our message, “I am against ISIS for humanity” is in fact “offensive”Offensive to whom? Would you be offended if I said I am against football hooligans? Don’t get me wrong, political correctness has its place in fighting racism, gender attacks etc.  But does it really have its place when fighting inhuman behaviour?  But political correctness can become as much a cancer as the evil that ISIS breeds.

I believe Britain to be a tolerant society, but to whom do we show that tolerance? Where do we stand as a society in this 21st century world? A tolerant society that values freedom of speech? Or a society that is indifferent and turns a blind eye? Or maybe we have just come to realise that our ‘tolerance’ has been caged by our own political correctness?

In meetings I am sometimes told “don’t mention this or that because it gets minuted”, does free speech not get minuted? If free speech is not minuted where is the record of the legacy of those that fought for us over the centuries? If we speak out against the brutality that we see happening in the world can this really be considered to be offensive? Does freedom of speech only apply to people who have nothing to say?

 

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