Category / Leisure, Recreation & Tourism

WAN speaker event: ‘Inspiring our futures: High profile women at BU’

Research themes, Women's Academic Network

A lunchtime Women’s Academic Network (WAN) event on the 4th June to participate in a panel composed of three senior, high profile BU women proved to be one of our most popular WAN events. This drew in a wide audience of female academics of all ranks from across all the Faculties of the University. We were additionally honoured to have in the audience our VC, Professor John Vinney and the PVC for Global Engagement, Dr Sonal Minocha.

The panel included Sue Sutherland (OBE) Chair of the University Board, Professor Gail Thomas, Dean of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and Head of Centre Excellence Learning and Professor Christine Maggs, Dean of the Faculty of Science & Technology.  The seminar topic focused on an interactive discussion of career progression, achievements and dealing with potholes, cul-de-sacs, obstacles and speeding highways along the way from the personal and professional perspectives of our three eminent speakers.

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree opened by the event by welcoming the audience, introducing the speakers and warmly acknowledging all the support provided by panel members and her fellow co-convenors, Associate Professor Dr Heather Savigny and Professor Chris Shiel– not forgetting every member of the WAN community, whose numbers across BU grow weekly. This has helped to make WAN a powerful and exhilarating vehicle for achieving equality in diversity at BU.

The honesty, humour, courage and grit of the speakers in talking so candidly about their road to success was a revelation to the audience who were both moved and liberated to engage fully in discussions with the panel, plying them with questions, comments and sharing their own stories. This was the opportunity to demonstrate that strength in leadership lies in being able to reveal human vulnerabilities and aspirations – a lesson that was deeply inspirational to everyone in the room.

The VC closed the event with his own account – personal, unembellished and moving, staying on to discuss with WAN members his own vision for the future in respect of our shared aims. We, co-convenors, were delighted that the success of this event as another step towards assisting our fellow female colleagues on their paths to progress where the superb examples offered by our outstanding panel received a myriad of compliments from our enthralled WAN participants.

Reminder:  Next WAN event Chaired by VC Professor John Vinney, 7th  July, 5pm   TAG02, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus.

 Topic: Getting to the top: A grand plan or serendipity?

Speaker:  Professor Judith Petts, CBE, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research & Enterprise, University of Southampton

Please note: this is an Open WAN Seminar – all academics, irrespective of gender, are warmly invited to attend.  For full details of, and registration for Event: Prof Judith Petts, PVC Southampton, please see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/getting-to-the-top-a-grand-plan-or-serendipity-tickets-17003423698

 

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Dr Heather Savigny & Professor Chris Shiel,

WAN Co-convenors

New eBU submission: identification of temporal factors related to shot performance in Recurve archery

Publishing

Did you grow up watching Robin Hood? Did you take a fancy to Errol Flynn, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner or Russell Crowe in their green tights? Have you ever picked up a bow and arrow, or have you ever wondered what are the critical factors in archery performance?

Andrew Callaway and international colleagues address this latter question in a new submission to eBU, BU’s immediate publication and open peer review working paper journal. The abstract and link to the paper are below:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal phases of the archery shot cycle that distinguish the arrows distance from centre, in an attempt to understand critical factors that effect performance. Sixteen archers of varying ability each performed 30 shots at 18m. Ten potential predictor variables were measured for statistical modeling by stepwise multiple linear regression. The results show that pre-shot time (pre-performance routine), release time (post-performance routine), aiming time and the speed of the arrow account for 7.1% of the variation in predicting shot performance. Clicker to release (CRT) variation has previously been shown to relate to shot performance. The results of this study show that this may be true for higher-level sub-populations, but not for the general wider population. The results have implications for practice demonstrating factors that coaches should focus on to develop their athletes. Further work on pre-, but more importantly, post-performance routines are needed in this field.

The paper can be accessed here, or if off campus via ‘View’ (just type eBU into a web browser), and is open for comment and review.

New Report Exposes Significant Gender Gap in Tourism Academic Leadership

Results of a new research report The Gender Gap in the Tourism Academy: Statistics and Indicators of Gender Equality reveal that women are under-represented in the majority of leadership and gatekeeping positions examined and that academic organisations continue to show highly gendered patterns.

The research project, produced by an international group of twelve tourism academics known as ”While Waiting for the Dawn”, shows that while women account for nearly half of tourism academics, only 13% of fellows of the prestigious ”International Academy for the Study of Tourism” are women. From over 6000 editorial positions analysed in 189 journals, there are only 25% of women holding top-editorial positions and the gender gap intensifies in the top 20 journals in the field (where women representation is only 21%). A similar under-representation appears among invited speakers at conferences. Among all the invited speakers of the 33 international conferences analysed only 24% are women. Conferences with a complete absence of women as invited/keynote speakers are quite common (almost one third had an all-male line up of invited speakers).

This is the first report that maps the gender gap in tourism studies. The analysis confirms similar results of other national and international studies that show men continue to be over-represented among the gatekeepers who set the academic and research agendas.

“It is a shocking wake-up call, especially for early career researchers. It pushes us to think about what it is to be an academic and how we can use our agency to break the gendered glass ceiling” says Elaine Yang, PhD Candidate at Griffith Business School and the administrator of the online community ”Women Academics in Tourism”.

Many studies of gender in research rely on national or regional labour statistics (e.g. EU), but a distinguishing feature of this report is that the data analysed takes into consideration the global nature of academic networks. It reveals that the gender glass ceiling exists not only in relation to professorships, but it extends to other forms of academic titles and leadership positions. Academic leadership is contextual to specific research communities and besides mapping career progression, it is crucial to establish other indicators to monitor gendered patterns in gate-keeping and high visibility positions in global networks.

Ana María Munar, Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School, who coordinated this research project said ”We hope this report will help to raise awareness and contribute to creating a more just academy, where women have equal opportunities to shape the present and the future of tourism scholarship”.

 A vodcast of this report and the full report can be accessed here: https://sites.google.com/site/tourismeducationfutures/about-tefi/gender-equity-in-the-tourism-ac

For questions and further information about this report, please contact:

 While Waiting for the Dawn, UK:

Avital Biran, abiran@bournemouth.ac.uk

Donna Chambers, donna.chambers@sunderland.ac.uk

The social sciences at BU

Research assessment

In response to an open email invitation, a group of social scientists from across BU met on Tuesday 17 March to discuss prospects for inter-Faculty collaboration. As in previous meetings between FMC and HSS colleagues, it was apparent that there were opportunities for more collaborative work than currently exists, and that there is considerable enthusiasm for developing links. A growing presence of the social sciences in BU, and of BU in the social sciences, was felt to be essential to BU’s development as a university with a rich intellectual community. If you haven’t received the report from this meeting by email, and would like to do so, please email Prof. Barry Richards (brichards@bmth.ac.uk)

Webb Ellis Cup visits Bournemouth University

Business Engagement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BU Centre for Entrepreneurship was delighted to welcome Rob Wingrove from RTH2015, who manage and operate the Official Hospitality programme for Rugby World Cup 2015, to the Executive Business Centre on the 23rd April.

Rob delivered a fascinating presentation which looked into three years of planning and development to deliver one of the largest commercial hospitality programmes for any global sporting event, and the marketing strategy and tactics implemented to achieve a forecast of over £110m in sales.

The audience were also delighted to have the opportunity to get up close to the Webb Ellis Cup, rugby’s most coveted prize, which had just returned from a journey around 15 countries as part of an international celebration of rugby.

Rugby World Cup 2015 is estimated to inject nearly £1bn into the British economy in 2015. With over 2.3m tickets up for sale, a global TV audience of 4bn and a record sponsor programme, Rob provided an interesting and detailed insight into how they have created one of the biggest corporate hospitality programmes in history in a saturated market.

Mark Painter, Centre for Entrepreneurship Manager, said, ‘we were absolutely delighted when Rob confirmed he would be able to find time in his busy schedule to visit us here at the Executive Business Centre. It was fascinating finding out more about the vital role hospitality will play in the success of RWC2015 and it was of course wonderful that Rob was able to bring along the Webb Ellis Cup’.

Mark added, ‘the feedback from the attendees was extremely positive and it is clear everyone really enjoyed the event.’

Rugby World Cup, the third largest global sporting event behind the Olympics and Football World Cup, takes place in England and Cardiff between 18 September and 31 October. The tournament will be hosted in 13 venues in 11 cities across the country.

The BU Centre for Entrepreneurship runs regular seminars and forthcoming events can be found at www.bucfe.com

New paper on obesity research

Publishing

Colleagues associated with the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) and the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health (all based at the University of Aberdeen), the Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Professional Research Unit (University of Stirling), the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research & Policy (SCPHRP) based at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University published their latest paper on obesity research.  The paper ‘A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men’ is published in the journal: Obesity Research & Clinical Practice.  This systematic review summarises the literature reporting the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical weight-management interventions for men. Studies were quality assessed against a checklist for appraising decision modelling studies.  This research is part of the larger ROMEO study.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

 

Reference:

Boyers, D., Avenell, A., Stewart, F., Robertson, C., Archibald, D., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men, Obesity Research & Clinical Practice (online first)

EU Radar – Societal Challenges – Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy

Funding opportunities

The following EU Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges’ calls  are all closing after April 2015. If you are thinking of applying to any of these calls, please contact RKEO Funding Development Team as soon as you are able, so that we can help you with your submission.

The date given is the deadline with all closing at 17:00 Brussels local time unless stated otherwise

Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy

 Innovative, sustainable  and inclusive  bioeconomy – 11/06/15

Sustainable food security – 11/6/15

Blue Growth: unlocking the potential of the seas and oceans – 11/6/15

 

General / Multiple Topics

Horizon 2020 dedicated SME instrument phase 1 and phase 2 –  deadlines – 17/6/15, 17/9/15 and 25/11/15

Please check the specific topics within this call which may meet your research funding needs.

 

For more information on EU funding opportunities, contact Paul Lynch or Emily Cieciura, in the RKEO Funding Development Team.