Category / Research news

Responses to Nurse Review of the Research Councils

Research news

Following on from Julie Northam’s synopsis of the Nurse Review of the Research Councils posted last week, you may be interested to see the responses from the many interested parties, such as science lobby groups and learned societies.

sir paul nurseResearch Professional have provided an analysis of the responses that can be read here.  The individual statements are shown below:

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Research news

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.

Cross-platform production in digital mediastruct funds

Innovate UK is investing  £4 million in collaborative R&D projects that stimulate innovation in the UK’s creative industries.

This call is aimed at projects that address convergence in digital media technologies. It covers film, television, online video, animation and video games, and includes pre- production, production and post- production processes, particularly for visual effects technologies.

Projects must be collaborative and led by a business. Small businesses could receive up to 70% of their eligible project costs, medium- sized businesses 60% and large businesses 50%.

Projects are expected to range in size from total costs of £300,000 to £750,000, although projects outside this range might be considered.

This is a two-stage competition that opens for applicants on 9 November 2015. The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 6 January 2016.

Call closes @ 23 Dec 2015, 12:00

 

Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship

Royal Society and Leverhulme are inviting applications for Senior Fellows.

The award lasts between one term and one academic year. The applicant’s employing institution will be reimbursed for the full salary cost of a teaching replacement (up to the equivalent of the minimum point on the lectureship scale as paid by the host university). Research expenses up to a maximum of £2,500 are available to cover the costs of consumables, equipment, travel and communicating science.

Applications should be submitted through the Royal Society’s electronic grant application system (e-GAP).

 Call closes @ 11 January 2016

Wellcome Trust PhD programmes for Clinicians

The Trust announced that it would be refreshing its personal support schemes for clinical academics via delivering their PhD training to clinicians exclusively through PhD programmes managed by institutions.

The competition represents a unique opportunity for institutions to be innovative, create and collaborative, and to consider how best to foster the cultural change that will support the next generation of clinical academics, from undergraduate through to senior levels.

important dates for this call:

Preliminary application deadline @25 January 2016,

Assessment of preliminary applications @ 8 March 2016

Full application deadline @ 29 April 2016

Assessment of full applications @ 20 July 2016

 

Wellcome Trust Investigator Awards

The Trust has combined its New Investigator and Senior Investigator Award schemes to create a single type of Investigator Award, providing all who hold established posts in eligible organisations with the same opportunity to obtain funding. Awards are worth a maximum of £3 million for up to seven years.

Next full application closing date@ 26 February 2016

Shortlisting of candidates by Expert Review Group @ April 2016

Shortlisted candidate interviews by Interview Panel @ 5-7 July 2016

 

Innovate UK, China–UK research and innovation bridges competition

Innovate UK, the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) for the People’s Republic of China are to invest up to £16 million in collaborative research and development projects that propose new commercial solutions to critical challenges impacting the socio-economic growth and development of China in relation to energy, healthcare, urbanisation and agri-food.

Closing Date@  23 Mar 2016, 12:00

 

 

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

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

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

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

Nurse review of the research councils – key messages:

Research news

sir paul nurseSir Paul Nurse published his review of the UK research councils on 19 November. The full report is available here: Ensuring a Successful Research Endeavour: Review of the UK Research Councils by Paul Nurse. This follows close on the heels of the HE Green Paper (see this blog post for an overview), which stated that it would take the finding of the Nurse review into account alongside feedback received to the consultation.

The key messages of the Nurse review are:

Nurse strongly argues against the merger of the seven research councils.

Instead he recommends the establishment of a new body to oversee research – Research UK, “evolving out of” RCUK. Governance should include representation from government, HEFCE, Innovate UK as well as the research councils.

It’s functions world include:

  1. – engaging with government on behalf of the research councils
  2. – formulation of the overall research strategy for the UK
  3. – cross-council strategy, including best practice in research funding
  4. – managing cross-cutting funds for multi- and inter-disciplinary research
  5. – development and maintenance of research data management systems
  6. – taking on some shared admin / business support on behalf of the councils

The individual research councils should concentrate on providing “high quality strategic leadership to their research communities” in the shape of international quality peer review; speeding up grant assessments; improving reporting systems; ensuring diversity and strengthening links with their research communities.

The dual support system of research funding should be maintained and government should set up a ministerial committee to coordinate strategic research priorities across government.

He argues strongly for the retention of ring fencing for the science budget.

Research from the Department of Psychology in the New Scientist

BU research, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Research news, student research

Research resulting from a BU-funded PhD studentship is featured in this week’s edition of the New Scientist, and was also recently covered by the Independent. Under the supervision of Dr Sarah Bate from the Department of Psychology (Faculty of Science and Technology), Anna Bobak has spent the last three years investigating so-called “super recognisers”, or people with extraordinary face recognition skills. It appears that only a small proportion of the general population have these skills, yet they may be incredibly useful in forensic and security tasks, such as the identification of perpetrators from CCTV footage or in passport control. While super-recognisers have previously been identified via laboratory tests of face recognition, Anna’s work demonstrates that only some of these individuals also excel at more applied face recognition tasks. In a recent paper published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, she demonstrates that more real-world tasks are required to identify the super recognisers who can truly be of value to the Police Force and in national security settings.

Anna has recently moved into a PDRA position where she continues to work with Sarah in the field of super recognition. Her post is part of a HEIF5+1 initiative that aims to generate knowledge exchange with the Police. The team are currently working directly with Dorset Police to create screening tools that can identify officers who may be particularly suited to certain face recognition tasks, and to make a series of recommendations for best practice that are extracted from excellent performance. They are also creating resources that educate officers about the limitations and biases that act upon the human face recognition system, and how these may influence core policing activities.

Royal Academy of Engineering – Visit to the Funder

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

RAEng logo

On 2 November 2015, I attended a ‘Study Tour’ at the Royal Academy of Engineering, organised by ARMA (Association of Research Managers & Administrators).

During the Study Tour, I was welcomed into the funder’s stronghold, met the Programme Managers and spoke with the Head of Research & University Programmes. All mysteries regarding their Programmes/grants, call rules and peer review processes were slowly revealed.

The Programmes that were detailed on the day were:

  1. Ingenious – Public Engagement Awards Scheme;
  2. Research & University Programmes:
  • Research Chairs / Senior Research Fellowships – the funder’s flagship programme;
  • Newton Research Collaboration Programme – travel/network grant;
  • Research Fellowships
  • Distinguishing Visiting Fellowships – funding for overseas Fellow to visit UK institution;
  • Industrial Secondments;
  • Visiting Professors;
  • Engineering Leadership Advanced Awards;
  1. The Enterprise Hub – connecting HEIs, investors, Hub members and the corporate sector:
  • Launchpad Competition;
  • RAEng-ERA Foundation Award;
  • Enterprise Fellowships;
  • Pathways to Growth;
  • Growth Phase Silver Medal & MacRobert Award.

The day’s presentations are attached here.

Besides for the highlights on the above Programmes, there are also key points about peer review/evaluation processes for different Programmes, common mistakes by applicants and the funder’s online grants application system.

An important message was that because the funder is a ‘small’ organisation compared with the Research Councils and other major charities, awareness of its funding activities is relatively low. The funder noted that across the range of its Programmes, it received comparatively low numbers of applications and hence, success rates for applicants could be quite high. For those Programmes where it received a larger proportion of applications, the funder observed that they received applications from the same HEIs every year and it was keen to receive applications from a broader cross-section of the HE sector.

In short, that encouragement together with the fact that the funder holds a broad and loose definition of ‘engineering’ means that all relevant academics in BU should seriously consider applying!

Their website is found at: http://www.raeng.org.uk/.

If you are interested in submitting to any of the calls by this funder, you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you have any problems accessing the funder’s presentation slides, please email me at browna@bournemouth.ac.uk.

EPSRC report on REF case studies

Research assessment, Research news, Uncategorized

EPSRC logoThe EPSRC have issued a report ‘Investing in excellence, delivering impact for the UK‘, which analysed 1,226 case studies submitted to the REF, which covered a timespan of two decades.  This enabled the EPSRC to explore and understand how their investments have delivered benefits across many areas of the UK economy and society.

They found that over 85% of the impact case studies in engineering and physical sciences involved research and/or researchers who were funded by EPSRC, demonstrating the critical role of the council in supporting excellent research that delivers impact. The impact case studies cite over £1 billion of EPSRC funding coupled with a similar level of funding from other sources including government, EU and industry and provide strong evidence of the high levels of additional investment that EPSRC support can attract.

Please click on the link above to read the full report.

 

 

Chancellor sets out vision to protect Britain against cyber threat

Research news

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced in a speech from inside GCHQ plans to make Britain the best protected country in cyber space.

cyber eyeThe Chancellor announced that he is prioritising security in his Spending Review next week.  He has committed to increasing spending on cyber security to £1.9 billion by 2020, 1,900 new staff across the three intelligence agencies and the first National Cyber Centre, which will be home to the country’s first dedicated ‘cyber force’.

Osborne announced an Institute for Coding that will offer university and business collaborations the chance to compete for a capital prize of £20 million to enable training of “the nation’s next generation of coders”. Training in coding at schools and apprenticeships will also be increased, said Osborne.

You can read the full press release here.

The government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, due to be published on 23 November, is also expected to have a strong focus on cyber security.

Open letter highlighting the need for more women in science

Research news

Sex Discrimination Act 1975

Open letter to the Financial Times and the London Evening Standard

12 November 2015

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act being passed in the UK. We applaud the progress that has been made since.

But in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), progress remains slow. Women make up just 14 per cent of the UK’s STEM workforce. We want to see this be nearer 30 per cent by 2020.

It’s not the quality of our female scientists or engineers that’s the issue. Girls are outperforming boys at school in STEM subjects, but we’re losing girls at every stage between the classroom and the boardroom. The challenge is attracting, retaining and promoting female talent in the workforce.

We need to inspire more girls to choose STEM qualifications as a route into fulfilling careers that benefit themselves, future employers and our economy. Changing the messages we give girls about STEM at school and at home, and identifying more positive role models, is the first step to achieving this.

But to be successful, this must be backed by strong public policy. We challenge the government to provide a clear commitment to accelerate diversity in our STEM industries.

We cannot afford to wait another forty years to achieve this change.

Signed:

Christine Flounders
Research and Development Manager in London, Bloomberg

Naomi Climer
President, Institution of Engineering and Technology

Trudy Norris-Grey
Chair, WISE Campaign

Catherine Mayer
Co-founder, Women’s Equality Party

The HE Green Paper and research – what does it tell us?

Research news

green paperNot much. The primary focus is on teaching excellence and social mobility, however, it does reiterate and propose the following about research:

  • Government is committed to the Haldane Principle, and therefore peer review and decisions on funding made by researchers.

 

Dual support system:

  • Government is committed to the retention of the dual support system (allocation of research funding via block grants (currently via the REF) and competitive calls (currently via Research Councils)
  • It is proposed to abolish HEFCE. HEFCE’s current remit in terms of research includes policy development and management of the REF and the allocation of research block grant funding.
  • The Paper provides some options for replacing HEFCE and delivering the dual support system in future:
    • Via separate bodies (as per now, i.e. a replacement for HEFCE’s research function and the Research Councils)
    • Via one overarching body (i.e. one super research body that controls both parts of the dual support system)
  • Neither of these are perfect. With option 1, one could argue that this would cause significant disruption in the sector and achieve no benefits to the current arrangement. With option 2, having one super research body calls into question how the integrity, transparency and fairness of dual support could be maintained?

 

Research Councils:

  • Sir Paul Nurse led a review of the Research Councils in 2015 and this is due to report soon. The Green Paper states that this will be critical in informing the final decisions made about research funding in future.
  • The Triennial Review of the Research Councils 2014 noted a number of efficiencies that could be made to the work process of the councils and the Green Paper proposes that these are addressed.
  • Government wants to ensure that discipline specific leaders remain a key part of the landscape.

 

Research Excellence Framework (REF):

  • The next REF will be held by 2021.
  • The review process itself will be reviewed with the aim of retaining the strengths of the current system (such as peer review), build on the successes (such as impact), and challenge the cost and bureaucracy associated with running such an exercise.
  • There is likely to be a greater emphasis on metrics.
  • There is the suggestion of running two types of REF exercise – a full peer review exercise periodically (e.g. every 6-8 years) with a mini REF held between full exercises (every 3-4 years) for which the focus would very much be on metrics.

 

You can read the full document here: Fulfilling our potential: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice

The Green paper is open for consultation with the sector until 15 January 2016.

Successful ESRC Festival of Social Sciences in EBC today

BU research, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, Research news, student research, Uncategorized, Women's Academic Network

Slide1Slide2This afternoon Prof. Jonathan Parker introduced the final of three session in the Executive Business Centre under the title ‘Enhancing social life through global social research: Part 3. Social science research in diverse communities’.  This session was well attended and coveredwas a wide-range of interesting social science research topics.

Professor of Sociology Ann Brooks started off the session with her presentation on ‘Emotional labour and social change.’   She was followed by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen who gave an overview of research in Nepal.  FHSS PhD student Andy Harding introduced his thesis research into ‘Information provision and housing choices for older people.’  At this point Prof. Brooks gave her second talk on ‘Risk and the crisis of authenticity in cities’. Social Anthropologist Dr. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers spoke about her research on ‘Reconciliation and engaged ethnography in the Balkans.’  Dr. Hyun-Joo Lim highlighted her study on ‘North Korean defectors in the UK’ and the session was completed by Dr. Mastoureh Fathi who presented her analysis of parenting books for Muslim parents in the UK.

ESRC banner (2)

This was the last day of the ESRC Festival of Social Science at which Bournemouth University was extremely well presented!

 

Thank you to my colleagues for organising this and the ESRC for funding the events!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

(medical sociologist)

TetraGrip: A functional electrical stimulation (FES) device for restoring hand and arm functions in people with spinal cord injuries

BU research, Featured academics, innovation, PG research, Research communication, Research news

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.TetraGrip

 

Speaker: Lalitha Venugopalan

 

Lalitha is a Bournemouth University Creative Technology postgraduate student researching for a PhD in Biomedical Engineering based at the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Title:   TetraGrip: A functional electrical stimulation (FES) device for restoring hand and arm functions in people with spinal cord injuries

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 18th November 2015

Room: P302 LT, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

TetraGrip is a four channel upper limb FES device for restoring the hand and arm functions on people with C5-C7 tetraplegia. This device uses an inertial measurement sensor (IMU) for detecting the shoulder elevation/depression. The signal from the IMU is used for controlling the functions of the stimulator and for adjusting the grasp strength.

 

The stimulator is programmed to operate in the following modes: exercise, key grip and palmar grasp. Key grip mode (fig 1) is used to grasp smaller objects like a pen or a fork, whereas the palmar grasp (fig 2) is used to grasp larger objects like a glass. The exercise mode is used to strengthen the forearm muscles.

Grip_Grasp

 The system will be clinically tried on ten able bodied volunteers to evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility. If the results from this study are found to be satisfactory, then the device will be clinically tried on tetraplegic volunteers for answering the following questions:

  • Is possible for a person with tetraplegia to generate the desired input signal to control the operation of the device?
  • Does the system improve the hand and arm functions of the user?
  • Is the system easy to use for people with tetraplegia?

 

We hope to see you there.

BU PhD student Sheetal Sharma’s publication in MIDWIFERY

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

Sheetal Sharma Midw 2030

 

Ms. Sheetal Sharma, PhD student in FHSS, published her latest paper in Midwifery (Elsevier) this week. This latest paper ‘Midwifery2030, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean?’ is co-authored by a number of illustious midwifery researchers. The 2014 State of the World’s Midwifery report included a new framework for the provision of womancentred sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health care, known as the Midwifery2030 Pathway. The Pathway was designed to apply in all settings (high-, middle- and low income countries, and in any type of health system). This paper describes the process of developing the Midwifery2030 Pathway and explain the meaning of its different components, with a view to assisting countries with its implementation.

Sheetal is currently in her final year of a PhD on the evaluation of the impact of a maternity care intervention in Nepal.

Sheeta;

Sheetal Sharma

Congratulations!!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Catherine Angell & Prof. Vanora Hundley (all CMMPH)

&

Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at Liverpool John Moores University).

 

Reference:

ten Hoope-Bender, P. Lopes, S., Nove, A., Michel-Schuldt, M.,  Moyo, NT, Bokosi, M., Codjia, L.,  Sharma, S., Homer, CSE. (2015) Midwifery2013, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean? Midwifery