Category / Research news

Research Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news, Uncategorized

Below are this weeks funding opportunities:

Welcome Trust- Senior Investigator Awards in Biomedical Science.

Senior Investigator Awards support exceptional, world-class researchers, who hold an established academic position. We will support researchers who have an international track-record of significant achievement relative to their career stage, who have demonstrated the originality and impact of their research, and who are leaders in their field.Senior Investigator Awards provide flexible support to enable the best researchers to address the most important questions about health and disease. Awards may be small or large, but candidates must be able to articulate a compelling vision for their research and set out the approaches they will take.

Senior Investigator Awards provide a flexible package of funding that is driven by the requirements of the proposed research. A Senior Investigator Award might be anything up to £425k per year, and for any duration of up to a maximum of seven years. Costs should be suited to and clearly justified by the proposed research and the approaches you will take.

  • Full application closing date: 20/02/2015
  • Shortlisting of candidates by Expert Review Group: April-May/2015
  • Shortlisted candidate interviews by Interview Panel: 7-9/06/2015

Innovate UK- Innovation Vouchers

An Innovation Voucher gives you up to £5,000 to work with an external expert for the first time. It allows you to gain new knowledge to help your business innovate, develop and grow. That expert help could be advice on a novel idea, on using design within your business or on how to make the most of intellectual property (IP). Our national Innovation Voucher scheme gives you access to a wide range of expert suppliers. They include universities, further education colleges, research and technology organisations, Catapult centres and technical, design and IP consultancies. For instance, equipment.data.ac.uk is an excellent source of advice on university research equipment.

You can apply at any time, with around 100 vouchers being awarded every three months – in October, January, April and July.

The next deadline is 21/01/2015. 
 
 

The ESRC in partnership with a range of funding partners jointly invites full proposals from eligible research organisations to bid for funding to undertake evidence programmes to underpin a new and independent What Works Centre for Wellbeing.

Interest in wellbeing is growing both nationally and internationally and the UK is regarded as one of the leading countries in this area in terms of measurement, innovative uses of wellbeing data and academics in the field. International focus has been on how societies, governments, communities and populations measure their progress, in more holistic ways – including the UK’s Legatum Institute’s Commission on Wellbeing and Policy. In November 2010, a national ‘measuring wellbeing’ programme was launched by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) driven by public consultation. ONS now publishes regular wellbeing reports and data at a national and local level and has developed a measurement tool for wellbeing comprising 10 domains. A recent All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics has published a report on translating wellbeing evidence into policy, which argues that ‘the time is right to move from national wellbeing measurement to a national wellbeing strategy’.

 Extending Deadline: 21/01/ 2015
 
 
 
 

Proposals are invited for the 2015-16 Advanced Training: Short Courses (ATSC) training initiative. Initiatives funded as part of this scheme must be completed by 31 March 2016.

This call invites proposals offering training initiatives in a variety of forms that fall both within the NERC science remit as well as addressing one or more of the Priority Training Areas contained within the ATSC Announcement of Opportunity document. These training initiatives must prioritise NERC-funded PhD students or develop the skills of environmental sciences early career researchers (working within academic and/or non-academic settings) for future careers in research and other contexts.

NERC has a total budget of £1m for this scheme. The maximum applicants can apply for to run a training initiative is £100k although it is expected that most training initiatives will request £20k-£50k.

Deadline for Submission: 4pm on 13/01/2015.
 
 
 
 

The Wellcome Trust is particularly interested in receiving applications from university lecturers within the first five years of their independent research careers. New Investigator Awards are intended to support strong researchers who are in the early stages of their independent research careers and have already shown that they can innovate and drive advances in their field of study. Candidates should be no more than five years from appointment to their first academic position.These Awards provide flexible support at a level and length appropriate to enable the best researchers to address the most important questions about health and disease. Awards may equally be small or large, but candidates should be able to articulate a compelling vision for their research, while ensuring that their proposal and requested funding is appropriate to their research experience to date.

New Investigator Awards provide a flexible package of funding that is driven by the requirements of the proposed research. An award can be worth anything up to £425k per year and for any duration up to a maximum of seven years. Requested costs should be suited to, and clearly justified by, the proposed research, and candidates should ensure that the scope of the proposal and the associated resources are appropriate for their career stage and research experience to date.

  • Full application closing date: 20/02/ 2015
  • Shortlisting of candidates by Expert Review Group: April-May/2015
  • Shortlisted candidate interviews by Interview Panel: 7-9 /07/ 2015
 
 
 

The AHRC and BBC Radio 3 are looking for applications for the New Generation Thinkers of 2015.  This pioneering scheme aims to develop a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience – through BBC broadcasting. It’s a chance for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community.Each year, up to sixty successful applicants have a chance to develop their programme-making ideas with experienced BBC producers at a series of dedicated workshops and, of these up to ten will become Radio 3’s resident New Generation Thinkers. They will benefit from a unique opportunity to develop their own programmes for BBC Radio 3 and a chance to regularly appear on air.

The aim of the scheme is to provide a development opportunity for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community. The scheme wants to find the new generation of academics who can bring the best of the latest university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience. Applications should demonstrate an engaging and stimulating programme but also demonstrate an ability to talk about other subjects areas within the arts and humanities in an accessible andrefreshing manner, with awareness of the wider listening audience. We would recommend that you listen to the 2014 winners’ programmes on BBC iPlayer Radio.

Closing Date:  15/12/2014

 

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

BU research, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

HSC research at RCM Conference this week

BU research, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized

Research from staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was well represented at this week’s Royal College of Midwives Conference (RCM). The RCM Conference 2014 held in the International Centre Telford explore the theme Better Births: United in Excellence. At this midwifery conference HSC Dr. Sue Way chaired a session on ‘Perineal Care and the Management of the Second Stage’

Dana Colbourne, Postgradute student at Bournemouth University and midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust presented a poster with the title ‘PhD student Leading the way – A case study of a student midwife led postnatal clinic’.

Dr Stella Rawson, senior lecturer in midwifery presented her poster ‘Listening to Women: Exploring women’s experiences of being part of a student midwife’s caseload’.

Jan Stoziek, senior lecturer in midwifery and also Prof Doc student at the University of Portsmouth presented her poster ‘Mother’s Experience of Breastfeeding after Breast Cancer’.

Lesley Milne also presented a poster on the work around ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study’  with Prof. Padam Simkhada, HSC Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland, Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen,

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

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

Innovative Medicines Initiative – Joint Undertaking, EU

Innovative Medicines Initiative invites proposals for its call on Ebola and other filoviral haemorrhagic fevers programme

This aims to support projects addressing challenges across the entire innovation cycle, leveraging input and multidisciplinary expertise across stakeholders.

Funding is available to both projects addressing short term challenges of the current epidemic as well as actions needed to address EVD and other filoviral haemorrhagic fevers in a sustainable way for the long term. Five topics are covered by the current call:

•vaccine development Phase I, II, and III;

•manufacturing capability;

•stability of vaccines during transport and storage;

•deployment and compliance of vaccination regimens;

•rapid diagnostic tests.

Applications are invited from consortia of any legal entities from across the world.

The indicative budget is €140 million and EFPIA companies are expected to provide an additional €140m in-kind contribution. Closing date 01/12/14 (please note Central European Time/ Brussels Time)

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US – New interventions for Global Health

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is launching a new Grand Challenge: New Interventions for Global Health.  This challenge focuses on innovative concepts for vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics with the potential to be translated into safe, effective, affordable, and widely utilized interventions to protect against the acquisition, progression, or transmission of infectious diseases, or to provide a cure for infectious diseases, in resource‐limited settings.

This request for proposals will fund full awards that could include grants, program related investments, or contracts up to USD $10,000,000 per awardee for up to four years. Closing date 13/01/15

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or see the recent post on this topic, which includes forthcoming training dates up to November 2014.

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

 

98,735 unique visitors in one year! A review of the readership of the BU Research Blog

Research news

We regularly monitor engagement with our award-winning BU Research Blog using the fabulous Google Analytics tool. Over the past year engagement has been incredible. The stats below are based on the period 6 November 2013 to 5 November 2014 (1 year).

On average during this period the blog received 98,735  unique visitors, each spending approximately 3 minutes on the site. The blog is generally much busier on weekdays attracting between 250 and 1,200 unique visitors each day. In total there have been almost 200,000 page views.

The majority of our visitors came, unsurprisingly, from Bournemouth and Poole (23%), indicating that the blog is alive and well among BU colleagues. The next ten UK cities from which visitors most frequented the blog were:

  1. London
  2. Southampton
  3. Manchester
  4. Birmingham
  5. Edinburgh
  6. Sheffield
  7. Exeter
  8. Bristol
  9. Cambridge
  10. Bath

This map shows the locations of all the cities from where the blog has been accessed in the past year:

 

46% of all visitors are from outside of the UK and over the past year we have received visits from people based in 197 different countries. The top ten countries from which visitors most frequented the blog were:

  1. USA
  2. Philippines
  3. Spain
  4. India
  5. France
  6. Germany
  7. Canada
  8. Australia
  9. Italy
  10. Netherlands

Approximately 61% of visitors find us via internet search engines. The top search terms that led readers to our blog over the past year are:

  • sky
  • poverty
  • environment
  • Africa
  • USA
  • transport
  • Santander
  • help
  • good luck
  • jcr 2013 / journal citation reports 2013
  • BU Research Blog
  • welcome
  • sport
  • world poverty
  • tourism
  • Brazil
  • human resources
  • recommendation thesis
  • health and wellbeing
  • lay summary

29% of visitors are direct traffic, i.e. via the web address, the BU Staff Intranet, or the Daily Digest email. This is excellent as it shows that you lovely people who work at Bournemouth University are using the blog – hooray!

9% of visitors are referred to our blog by external sites. Our top referring sites are:

Over the year 25% of visits to the blog were made by returning visitors and 75% were made by new visitors.

Of those who access the blog direct (i.e. mainly BU staff) the 10 most accessed pages last year were:

This is all excellent news 🙂 We’re always open to receiving feedback about the blog – please email us at any time with any comments, suggestions, etc, or add a comment to this blog post.

If you would like access to add your own stories and posts to the blog then email Rhyannan Hurst (rhurst@bournemouth.ac.uk) and she’ll get you started!

Do you already have NERC funding? Then read on…..

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

This is a reminder that the Pilot Follow-on Fund closing date is 16.00 hrs on 18th December 2014. Panel interviews with applicants will be held in London on 26 February 2015.

This pilot round of the NERC Follow-on Fund has increased the previous maximum amount that could be applied for (£125k) to up to £250k (£200k at 80% FEC).  As part of the pilot, NERC has also introduced more flexible time scales, ie funding for projects lasting between 3 and 24 months.  These changes have been introduced to provide projects with the very best opportunity for commercial exploitation.

There is also an optional Pathfinder grant available to strengthen your market knowledge and make your Follow-on Fund application more persuasive for the Panel.

For further information go to the NERC website.

Please make sure that you contact your School’s Funding Development Officer for help and support.

 

 

Have you checked out the interactive Research Lifecycle diagram yet?

BU research, Research news

If you haven’t then you most definitely should! Our Research Lifecycle diagram is a jazzy new interactive part of the BU Research Blog that shows the support and initiatives that are available to staff and students at each stage of the research lifecycle. The information is general enough so as to apply to all disciplines and you can use it to organize and identify the many activities involved in your research. You can explore the Research Lifecycle to find information on how to get started with:

1. Developing your research strategy

2. Developing your proposal

3. The research process

4. Publication and dissemination

5. Impact

RKEO will be adding to the Research Lifecycle to ensure it always contains the most up to date information to support you with planning, organising and undertaking your research.

You can access the diagram from the links in this post or from the menu bar that appears on all screens in the Research Blog.

 

RKE Ops and the RDU are no more – welcome the revamped Research and Knowledge Exchange Office

Research news

Two months ago we launched the revamped Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO). This signaled the end of the previous structure and with it the end of RKE Ops and the Research Development Unit (RDU). Going forth we are simply called RKEO.

RKEO is made up of three functional teams:

  • Funding Development Team
  • Project Delivery Team
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

This new structure mirrors the research life cycle and will ensure that academics get dedicated and high quality support throughout all parts of the research and knowledge exchange process. A summary of the remit of each of the new teams is provided below:

  • Funding Development Team: Support and advice with all pre-award activities, such as horizon-scanning, identifying funding opportunities, developing and submitting proposals, and development schemes such as the Grants Academy.
  • Project Delivery Team: Support and advice for all post-award activities, to include project and financial management of grants and contracts, ethics and outputs.
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team: Support and advice for all corporate-level knowledge exchange initiatives, including business engagement, the Festival of Learning, research communications and research impact.

You can access information on the new structure, team members and the new structure chart here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/

Potential Changes to Horizon 2020 Priorities

EU, Research news

The European Commission intends to introduce three major funding streams into Horizon 2020 and ditch six others, a draft plan obtained by Research Europe says.

The new focus areas for the 2016 and 2017 work programmes will be the Internet of Things, automated road transport and an approach to sustainable industrial production called “the circular economy”, according to the draft plan.

Work programmes for 2014-15 were built around 12 priorities, but only six of these—digital security, smart cities, energy efficiency, low-carbon energy, blue growth and food security—will remain for the next phase of the programme.

The six surviving priorities and three new ones will form the backbone for calls for proposals in pillars two and three, covering industrial leadership and the societal challenges. The document also promises a stronger role for the social sciences in 2016 and 2017.

The six areas to be downgraded are personalised healthcare, waste, water, mobility, disaster protection and tackling the financial crisis. They will no longer be considered as overarching focus areas, according to the plan. Instead, they are likely to be tackled through individual Horizon 2020 calls.

The 12-page draft has been developed on the basis of recommendations from about 20 advisory groups, as well as public consultations. It is still subject to alteration, but has been passed to member states’ representatives on the Horizon 2020 programme committee.

According to the document, the selected nine focus areas offer the best chance for Horizon 2020 to support EU policy goals, including economic growth and employment, the development of a digital single market and improved energy supply. They will also help the EU to raise its manufacturing success by developing emerging industries such as cyber-physical systems and 3-D printing, it says.

On the social sciences and humanities, the document says the Commission will include the disciplines as an “integral part in the conceptual design” of calls this time round. This follows a recommendation from the European Forum on Forward Looking Activities, or Effla, that non-technical solutions to problems should be given more emphasis. “A lot of the societal challenges are driven heavily by human behaviour, and that didn’t seem to be coming out sufficiently [in the last work programmes],” says advisory member Luke Georghiou, the vice-president for research and innovation at the University of Manchester.

The document also indicates that 2016-17 work programmes will more actively seek non-EU participation, as was recommended by member states. “Many topics will be flagged as being specifically relevant for international cooperation,” the document says, and specific funding will be offered “to ensure the right international partners are attracted”.

Other areas considered more important than before include public procurement to fund commercial R&D, the use of challenge prizes to solve particular problems, and gender studies. Measures will be taken to raise the participation of female researchers, it says.

The document is accompanied by 17 annexes setting out plans for each of the societal challenges and the enabling technologies for 2016-17, as well as the Future and Emerging Technologies, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and research infrastructures from the first pillar. These documents are the basis for the work programmes, due to be finalised in the second half of 2015.

But despite acknowledging that Horizon 2020 has more flexibility than Framework 7, Georghiou says the Commission could still do more to update its priorities, even after the work programmes are under way. “It’s an in-built problem, if you set out a programme that has a several-year horizon and is focused on societal challenges, that the nature of those challenges will evolve as the programme proceeds,” he says. “You can’t start with an initial list of topics and expect that to be unchanged, so you have to keep updating and revising it.”

BU subscribe to Research Europe, which is part of the many resources provided by ResearchResearch.  To find out more and to add Research Europe to your personal alerts, please see the recent post on Research Professional.

European News – Evolving Work Programmes for 2016-17

BU research, EU, Funding opportunities, Research news

The European Commission has announced intentions to bring in three major funding streams into Horizon 2020.  In relation to 2016 and 2017 work programmes, these will comprise: the Internet of Things, automated road transport and an approach to sustainable industrial production called “the circular economy”, according to the draft plan. Specific reference is given to social sciences and humanities, following a recommendation from the European Forum on Forward Looking Activities, or Effla, that non-technical solutions to problems should be given more emphasis. 

Further details can be found in Research Fortnight: https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/europe/horizon-2020/2014/11/Horizon-2020-s-second-phase-takes-shape.html

New EU Funding Guide for Tourism

BU research, EU, Research news

A new guide for EU funding in the tourism sector has been published in line with a European Commission drive to promote competitiveness in the European tourism sector.  The guide provides details of: type of tourism-related actions eligible for funding; type and level of funding; who can apply and how to apply. The guide is updated periodically and gives specific funding examples from previous projects. 

 

For further details, please follow the link: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=7843

Third time lucky in Bangkok

Post-award, Research news, Uncategorized

 

Group photo of the delegates at the opening of the Researcher Links Workshop in Bangkok on November 2

Working with partners at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, a team from BU led and participated in a British Council Researcher Links Workshop in Bangkok from November 2 to 4.

For Professor Tom Watson of the Media School and Associate Professor Jirayudh Sinthuphan of Chula’s Faculty of Communication Arts, it was ‘mission accomplished’, as the Workshop had been postponed twice in February and May because of Thailand’s febrile politics.

“This time, there were no problems as Bangkok was about as quiet as it will ever be,” said Professor Watson. “As a result, the Workshop was attended by representatives of four UK and seven Thai universities who worked very well together”.

From the three days of collaborative working, four projects related the Workshop theme of ‘the impact of social media upon corporate and marketing communication in Thailand and UK’ emerged. They will be developed over the coming months into research actions, bids for funding and publications.

With Professor Watson were Associate Professor John Oliver (Senior Researcher), Dr Ana Adi (Deputy Workshop Coordinator), Dr Tauheed Ramjaun and Mona Esfahani, all from the Corporate & Marketing Communications academic group. Among the Thai participants was Dr Waraporn Chatratichart of the University of the Thailand Chamber of Commerce, who is a PhD alumna from the Media School.

“The Workshop also reinforced the existing relationship between BU and Chulalongkorn University as the Dean of the Faculty of Communication Arts, Dr Duangkamol Chartprasert, and Professor Parichart Sthapitanonda both took part as Senior Researchers,” said Professor Watson. “The BU-Chula relationship has great potential for research collaboration and staff exchanges. I hope that other BU staff will follow the opportunity that the Workshop has opened up.”

 

NIHR Public Health Research Funding Board

Research news

Dear colleagues,

We would like to bring to your attention that the NIHR Public Health Research Funding Board is currently recruiting new members.

You can find out more information about the positions on the NIHR website here: http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=5959c256494563d480b887fce&id=956d9306c8&e=19509b734a

The deadline for applications is 1pm, 17 November 2014.

Best wishes,

Jason Edwards

British Council – Newton Institutional Links Opportunity

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

Newton Institutional Links are grants for the development of research and innovation collaborations between the UK and partner country institutions at the group, departmental or institutional level, as well as the commercial and not-for-profit sector. The countries included in this call are: Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. In addition to this general Newton Institutional Links call, which includes Chile, there is a UK-Chile FONDEF IDeA call (formerly called Chile-specific CONICYT call) with separate guidelines and a different closing date.

Grants will be £30,000 to £300,000 over two years (depending on the country) and will cover collaborations between the UK and partner country. Grants can cover costs which support research and innovation collaboration, including:

  • research-related costs
  • the exchange of researchers, students and industry staff (including SMEs and not-for-profit organisations)
  • the costs of organising meetings, seminars, training
  • other activities to establish and strengthen collaborative links.

Other activities can also be funded. For a full list of eligible and ineligible costs, please read the guidelines document on the website link given above.

Under this Institutional Links call the British Council can commit up to £6 million, depending on matched funding from partner organisations and institutions.

Key Dates:

Deadline for applications: 16.00 UK time on Thursday 20 November 2014. Applications with Chile and Turkey (general Newton Institutional Links) close 27 November 2014.

Deadline for applications for the UK-Chile FONDEF IDeA call: Tuesday 18 November 2014

Please contact RKEO if you wish to apply.

See the website for other Newton Fund opportunties.