Category / Research news

Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those Sound

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Research news

Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those SoundWe would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

 

Speaker: Ambrose Seddon

Title: Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those Sound

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 11 March 2015

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

Many pieces of music exhibit returning and recurring identities founded on melodic, harmonic and rhythmic patterns and formations, appearing both locally and more globally within a work. In acousmatic music making i.e. music for playback over loudspeakers only, the kinds of sound material and the possibilities of sound transformation are sufficiently different and broad that concepts of recurrence within this compositional context are valuably explored. In this talk I will present some of the ideas developed through my research and compositional practice concerning correspondences amongst the sounds within a work and organising those sounds, with a focus on my more recent acousmatic music outputs.

 

We hope to see you there.

Matt Bentley’s Fusion Fund Research – South Africa Update

BU research, Featured, Fusion, Research news, Uncategorized

Friday marked a successful visit to Abagold in Hermanus. Hermanus is famous for whale watching where the Southern Right whales can been seen close to the shore from September to November. The visit to Abagold by Matt and Carol Simon was hosted by Stoffel van Dyk who is their Operational Director. Abagold is one of the world’s premier abalone aquaculture farms producing the highest quality abalone for the export market. Abagold’s operation is sustainable and helps protect the wild abalone population from poaching activity. Abagold is also the industrial partner in the Fusion Investment Fund project. The farm will offer facilities for BU students who will trialling novel technologies for controlling shell-boring pests of the molluscs.

Taylor & Francis one of the most read publications

Publishing, Research news

Corrosion in large vehicles in the museum environment

Corrosion in large vehicles in the museum environment

Sustainable Design Research Centre recent publication “Modelling of metal-coating delamination incorporating variable environmental parameters” by Hammad Nazir (PhD student), Dr Zulfiqar Khan and K Stokes (Defence Science & Technology Laboratory Ministry of Defence industrial partner) has made it to the most read articles list on the Taylor & Francis website.

This research is co-funded by BU and Defence Science & Technology Laboratory Ministry of Defence, with in-kind support from The Tank Museum at Bovington and other industrial partners.

This paper has been available online since December 15th 2014 with 338 downloads/views recorded on Feb 28th 2015.

Keywords

cathodic delamination, coating delamination, degradation, mathematical modelling, diffusion, adhesion

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships – Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK

The Enterprise Fellowships are designed to enable an individual to advance the commercialisation of existing research results or technological developments and are tenable for a period of one year.  The Fellowships enable the holder to concentrate on developing the commercial potential of their research, whilst also receiving formal training in relevant business skills.

Award max: Unspecified  
Closing date: 27/04/2015

Industry Fellowships – Royal Society, UK

This scheme is for academic scientists who want to work on a collaborative project with industry and for scientists in industry who want to work on a collaborative project with an academic organisation.

The scheme provides a basic salary for the researcher and a contribution towards research costs.

Award max: Basic salary & research expenses up to £2000/year
Closing Date: 26/03/2015

Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme – BBSRC

Participants enter as teams and develop a business plan for a company based on a hypothetical but plausible idea based on real markets over the course of a three day residential workshop. The workshop encompasses presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry and culminates in the presentation of the business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’ drawn from industry and academia. Up to three teams for each workshop are selected to progress to the final in London.

Award max: Prize fund of £5000, including first prize of £2,500, trip to USA, invite to BIA Gala Dinner
Closing Date: 29/05/2015

Brian Mercer Award for Innovation – Royal Society

This scheme is for scientists who wish to develop an already proven concept or prototype into a near-market product ready for commercial exploitation. The scheme covers natural sciences, excluding medical devices.

Award max: £250,000
Closing date: 23/04/2015

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.

Working towards research impact in Nepal

BU research, Featured academics, Knowledge Transfer, Research assessment, Research news

BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health has a long history of working Nepal.  Last month (January 7th) BU’s partner Green Tara Nepal led the dissemination of the findings of our evaluation of key health promotion initiatives in Nepal. The evaluation was conducted in collaboration with the Government of Nepal, Green Tara Trust, a UK-based charity, several national and international non-governmental organisations and three UK universities, namely Liverpool John Moores University, Bournemouth University and the University of Sheffield. The evaluation identified key government, bilateral, UN agencies national and international non-governmental organisations working in health promotion in Nepal. Their health promotion activities and approaches were documented and gaps were identified.

As a follow up to both the evaluation and dissemination event we were asked by the journal Public Health Perspectives to write an editorial on our work.1  Our editorial ‘Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal’ highlights the research we conducted and the state of health promotion we uncovered.  We also used our editorial to explain the UK notion of impact as formalised in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF).  To explain to our non-academic readers the REF is a nation-wide system to assess the quality academic research in all academic disciplines. 2-4  One key part of the REF is measuring the ‘impact’ that a UK university has on society and/or the economy.  This REF requires UK universities to write and submit a number of case studies that show societal impact.5   The dissemination of the health promotion research in Nepal is the beginning of a REF impact case study for Bournemouth University and our UK partner Liverpool John Moores University.  The editorial is a further stepping stone in the dissemination especially since it was co-authored between UK academics, health promotion practitioners as well as a member of the Constitutional Assembly (the Nepali equivalent of Parliament).   Working with policy-makers at an early stage increases the chances of our research being incorporated in national policy-making in Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Sharma, A, Tuladhar, G., Dhungel, A., Padmadharini, van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2015) Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal, Public Health Perpective 5(2): http://phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=941#.VO4Qvn9tXkd
  2. Parker, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2012) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): Assessing the impact of Social Work research on society, Practice: Social Work in Action 24(1): 41-52.  http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/20511/2/REF%20paper%20JPEvT.pdf
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Alexander, J., Marchant, S. (2011) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): new developments to assess research in higher education institutions and its impact on society. MIDIRS 21 (3): 298-301.
  4. Hartwell, H., van Teijlingen, E., Parker, J. (2013) Nutrition; Effects of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Nutrition & Food Science 43 (1): 74-77.
  5. Research Councils UK (2015)  RCUK Review of Pathways to Impact: Summary http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

 

NERC Demand Management measures – Important changes

BU research, Funding opportunities, Guidance, Research news

NERC is implementing new demand managment measures designed to raise discovery science standard grant success rates.

This is to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme, and ensure research excellence, efficiency and value for money for the taxpayer.

Following an update on demand management measures in November 2014, NERC consulted with advisory boards and research organisations to determine the detailed mechanisms it will apply to reduce demand for discovery science standard grants.

From the July 2015 standard grants scheme, there will be a reduction in the maximum standard grant award size, from the current £1·2m to £800k (100% Full Economic Costing, £640k at 80% FEC).

At the same time, demand management measures in the form of a new institutional-level submission policy will take effect. This will be based on historic application and award data and will limit the number of applications an individual research organisation can make, where that organisation fails to meet a 20 per cent success rate quality threshold.  Research organisations that fail to meet the 20 per cent success rate threshold will have the number of applications the organisation can make in each standard grant round restricted, until the organisation meets the threshold. The data will be re-calculated annually using the most recent six grant rounds.  Restrictions will be calculated on a sliding scale with the most limiting restriction that will be applied to any research organisation being one application per grant round.

Any BU academics requiring further information on the cap should contact the RKEO Funding Development Team.  All BU academics intending to apply to the NERC Standard Grant scheme must contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.  For the foreseeable future, there will be an internal competition for NERC standard grant applications in order to ensure that the highest quality applications are submitted.

The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators); likewise the data used to calculate research organisation restrictions is only based on NERC standard grants (including new investigators).

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.  Any lead or component application from another research organisation linked to the rejected application will also be rejected. If any applications are subsequently rejected based on rule adherence or remit, a research organisation cannot submit alternative applications.

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 (component meaning where BU is the non-lead partner submitting our own application form through Je-S to accompany the lead application and case for support).

As said above, if you require further information then please contact the Funding Development Team (FDT) and if you intend to apply to future rounds then you must contact FDT as early as possible (it is advised that this is four months before a closing date).

Lunchtime Seminar with Zoe Sheppard on 4th March

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

Lunchtime Seminar on the Findings from Research Impact Scoping Exercise, Wednesday 4th March in R302

Research should make a difference, and as the Faculty’s strapline is ‘helping to make people’s lives better’, it is of relevance to us all. Our forthcoming Seminar series will showcase some of the excellent work of the Faculty to inspire other academics and PhD students.

No need to book, just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.

Future Impact Seminar dates can be found by clicking on the link below.

Impact Seminar dates 2015

We look forward to seeing you there.

Europe needs Post-Docs!

PG research, Research news, Training

You can apply to the Call for Expressions of Interest  if you are from the EU Member States and from Associated Countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Faeroe Islands, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Norway, Republic of Moldova, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.

You will also need to meet the following educational requirements:

A level of education corresponding to completed university studies of at least three (3) years attested by a diploma and

  1. at least five (5) years of professional experience in one of the fields listed below:
    – OR –
  2. a doctoral diploma in one of the fields listed below (see sections II and VI of the call):

Biology, Chemistry, Natural Sciences, Life Sciences, Biochemistry, Oceanography / Marine Sciences, Nanotechnology, Nanobiotechnology, Veterinary, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Sciences, Statistics, Material Sciences, Economics, Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Educational Sciences, Psychology , Geography, Environmental Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Agricultural Engineering, Meteorology, Ecology, Forestry, Geology, Hydrological Sciences, Medical Sciences, Pharmacy, Nutritional Sciences

If this does not apply to you but you have a colleague who would benefit from this opportunity, please pass this information on to them.

Funding Opportunities

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news

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

Medical Research Council, GB

Biomedical catalyst – developmental pathway funding scheme

The Medical Research Council invites outline proposals for its developmental pathway funding scheme, under the biomedical catalyst programme. This supports projects aiming to improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment of significant health needs, or projects that focus on research tools which increase the efficiency of developing interventions.

Award amount: not specified Closing date 25/03/15

 

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, GB

Towards engineering grand challenges – network and multidisciplinary research consortia call 

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will shortly be inviting applications for its network and multidisciplinary research consortia call under its towards engineering grand challenges scheme.

This call supports multidisciplinary research consortia that can further advance the following engineering grand challenges:

•engineering solutions to sustainably provide water for all;

•future cities – engineering approaches that restore the balance between engineered and natural systems;

•engineering across length scales, from atoms to applications;

•identifying risk and building in resilience into engineered systems, with consideration given only to network plus proposals.

Approximately three awards are available.

Award amount: Not specified Closing date: 28 Apr 15

Wellcome Trust, GB

Medical humanities research bursaries

The Wellcome Trust invites applications for its medical humanities research bursaries. These support small and medium-scale research projects based on library or archive collections supported by the trust. Projects must focus either on Wellcome library holdings or on any collection supported by a previous research resources grant, but they need not be historically grounded.

Applicants must be based in, or travelling to, the UK or Republic of Ireland. Applications are not limited to academic researchers and may be submitted by conservators, artists, performers, broadcasters, writers, public engagement practitioners and others working in the creative arts.

Bursaries are usually worth between £5,000 and £25,000, depending on the duration of research, and may contribute towards travel, accommodation, subsistence and photocopying costs.

Award amount between £5K and £25K: Closing date: 01/04/15 or later round 01/10/15

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

UK in a changing Europe initiative commissioning fund  

The Economic and Social Research Council invites applications for its UK in a changing Europe initiative commissioning fund. This aims to promote high quality social scientific research into the nature of the relationship between the UK and the EU, with a particular emphasis on making the findings of this research easily available to non-academic stakeholders. Activities covered under this programme include, but are not limited to;

•synthesising existing research findings;

•producing policy briefs presenting the findings of academic research;

•holding briefings or workshops bringing together academics and non-academic stakeholders.

UK-based researchers from eligible research organisations may apply.

Award amount max: Grants are worth up to £10,000 each. Closing date 28/03/15

Centre for evaluating complexity across the energy, environment and food nexus

The ESRC, in partnership with the NERC, DEFRA, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency, invites outline proposals for its centre for evaluating complexity across the energy, environment and food nexus. The centre aims to pioneer, test and promote innovative and inclusive methods to address the challenges of evaluating this complexity across energy, water, environment and food research. The core features of the centre are leadership, methodology development, methods applications and capacity building. Methods must contribute to the generation of evaluation evidence which can help to ensure that policy and practices are effective, and that the best use is made of public money.

Applications are open to any academics, policymakers and local practitioners provided the principal investigator is based at a UK higher education institution or independent research organisation that is eligible for ESRC funding.

Award amount: Max £2,900,000 Closing date 18/03/15

Natural Environment Research Council – NERC, GB

Standard Research Grants

The Natural Environment Research Council invites applications for its standard research grants. This is an open competition for curiosity-motivated basic, strategic or applied research. There are two calls under this programme: standard grants and standard grants for new investigators. Eligibility for the new investigator call is restricted to researchers within three years of becoming eligible for NERC funding as a principal investigator, and who have not received funding as a PI from any source. The PI must reside in the UK and be employed by an eligible UK research organisation.

Grants are worth a min of £65,000 to a max of £800,000 Closing date 21/07/15 

Please note that some funders 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.

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 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.

 

Who to contact in RKEO?

Research news

RKEO has had a lot of changes over the past six months and this guide aims to explain who to contact in the new structure.

You can read more about the roles about all staff in RKEO and access a structure chart here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/

Support with writing your bid and identify a funder/scheme/call:

– For support with developing your ideas, horizon scanning for possible funding, building networks or advice on structure and content, you should speak with your Research Facilitator:

  • Faculty of Management – Alexandra Pekalski
  • Faculty of Media & Communication – Alexandra Pekalski
  • Faculty of Science and Technology – Jennifer Roddis
  • Faculty of Health and Social Sciences – Jennifer Roddis

– For support with EU and/or international research bids you should speak with one of our EU/international funding specialist Research Facilitators:

  • Any Faculty – Emily Cieciura and Paul Lynch

 

Support with submitting a bid:

– For support with costings, internal approvals, submitting your bid, recording it on RED, using Research Professional, etc. you should contact your Funding Development Officer:

  • Faculty of Management – Ehren Milner
  • Faculty of Media & Communication – Dianne Goodman
  • Faculty of Science and Technology – Kerri Jones and Alice Brown
  • Faculty of Health and Social Sciences – Jason Edwards

 

Support with managing your research project(s):

– For support with financial and project management of your research grant, legal and audit queries, reporting, etc. you should contact your Project Officer:

  • Faculty of Management – Philip Leahy-Harland
  • Faculty of Media & Communication – Dean Eatherton
  • Faculty of Science and Technology – Laura Zisa-Swann (Laura is due to go on maternity leave soon and will be replaced by Giles Ashton)
  • Faculty of Health and Social Sciences – Cristina Lujan Barroso

– For specialist support you should contact:

  • Outputs, publishing, open access – Pengpeng Hatch
  • Complex financial queries, budgeting, forecasting – Gary Cowen
  • Ethics, governance and research data management – Eva Papadopoulou
  • Fusion investment fund administration – Sue Townrow

 

Support with knowledge exchange:

– For specislist support with KE activities, you should speak with:

  • Public engagement, including the Festival of Learning – Naomi Kay or Harry Gibson
  • HEIF projects and business development – Jayne Codling
  • KTPs – Rachel Clarke
  • Research communications, PR, research website – Rachel Bowen
  • Student engagement with research – Sam Squelch

“A Breath of Fresh AiR”

BU research, Featured, Research news

The Bournemouth University ARTS in Research Collaborative (AiR) held a two-day workshop in late summer to experiment with interviewing, narrative and ephemera, and arts-based representations of such approaches (reported here previously). An article available online from today in The Qualitative Report by Kip Jones entitled, “A Report on an Arts-led, Emotive Experiment in Interviewing and Storytelling” details the thinking behind this effort and the mechanisms put in place that contributed to the workshop’s success.

The paper reports on the two-day experimental workshop in arts‐led interviewing technique using ephemera to elicit life stories and then reporting narrative accounts back using creative means of presentation.

 Academics and students from across Departments at Bournemouth University told each other stories from their pasts based in objects that they presented to each other as gifts. Each partner then reported the shared story to the group using arts‐led presentation methods.

Narrative research and the qualitative interview are discussed. The conclusion is drawn that academics yearn to express the more emotive connections generated by listening to the stories of strangers.

The procedures followed for the two‐day workshop are outlined in order that other academics may also organize their own experiments in eliciting story using personal objects and retelling stories creatively.

Because the group wanted to take the impact of this experience further, AiR applied and was accepted to present the concept at the Social Research Association’s workshop ‘Creative Research Methods’ on 8 May at the British Library in London. The Collaborative is about to meet up to brainstorm ways in which to translate their experiences of the workshop into a more presentational one.

Anyone from across Departments, whether lecturer, researcher, student or faculty, is welcome to join the ARTS in Research Collaborative. Please contact Kip Jones if you are interested in joining or just want to know more about the Collaborative.

 This just in from Creative Quarter!

Ten ‘rules’ for being creative in producing research

Cloud and Weather Simulation for computer graphics

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Research news, student research

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

 

Speaker: Leigh McLoughlin

Title: Cloud and Weather Simulation for Computer Graphics

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 18th February 2015

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

In this talk I will discuss my work on cloud simulation for computer graphics. This work was designed to provide a means of simulating clouds and weather features, such as rain, using desktop graphics hardware. This involves elements of meteorology, numerical weather simulation and computational fluid dynamics, taken from the sciences and adapted to meet the more artistic requirements of computer graphics in which an element of control is required and the laws of physics may be wilfully disobeyed. The result is a lightweight physically-inspired cloud simulation scheme, capable of emulating the dynamic properties of cloud formation and weather effects.

We hope to see you there.