Category / RKE development framework

How to plan for impact from your research: sign up now for new training!

Planning for impact: Thursday 2nd December, 9.30-11.30

Do you want to ensure your research has real-world impact? Would you like to understand how to integrate impact into your project plan to enhance the chance of getting funding? This new online impact training session provides the tools and insights you need.

Impact consultant Saskia Gent, director of Insights for Impact, explores how to plan for impact throughout the research lifecycle.  The session addresses the key elements of impact planning by asking five questions:  why, who, what, how and how do we know?

This approach enables you to consider your impact goals, identify relevant beneficiaries and stakeholders, plan engagement activities and consider evidence requirements and opportunities.

Sign up here.

This session is useful for you, whichever stage of your research career you are at, and ECRs are welcome to attend.  You are also encouraged to attend if you are considering applying for the Research Impact Fund (which closes 10th December).

 

The ACORN Fund Round 4 is Now Open for Applications!

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers Round 4 is now open for applications.

This round slightly differs from previous rounds. Two options for ECRs are available – Standard Grants up to £5,000 that can be delivered before the end of July 2022 and Large Grants up to £10,00 for projects to be completed within 12 months. For more details, refer to the ACORN Fund Policy Autumn 2021 document.

Each applicant is allowed to only submit one proposal for Round 4 and should use one of the supplied templates accordingly. The closing date is Friday, 10th December 2021 (5pm); to be considered eligible, all applications must be submitted to the email account acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk before the deadline.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £5,000 each and up to two awards, of up to £10,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These awards support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and are made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation for 2021/22 financial year.

For eligibility, you must be able to comply with the following:

  • Applicant must have completed their PhD;
  • Applicant must have a post at BU (established or fixed term) for the full duration of the award and the post-award commitments or longer;
  • To be considered an early career researcher (ECR), applicant should have held a 0.2 or above research contract for no more than six years in total, excluding periods where the applicant was involved in non-research employment or not at work (e.g. caring responsibilities);
  • ACORN award holders cannot hold more than one BU internal award concurrently.

Note that open access publication costs are not eligible, but these can be requested from the BU Open Access Publication Fund (OAPF). Any planned travel expenses are subject to COVID restrictions and, generally, are not recommended.

Following links, you can find ACORN Large Grant and Standard Grant application forms. In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Internal Funding Sample Costs. As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

Applications require support from faculty and mentor, so please start your application early and obtain all approvals as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off before submitting the application.

For those interested to find out more, we will be running a workshop led by the ACORN Panel Chair Prof Jan Wiener on Tuesday 23th November 2021 from 2pm to 4pm. Workshop will take place in a face-to-face setting, please come to F106 (Fusion Building) with your questions.

Please address any further queries to RDS via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

Putting the ACORN Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC):

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. Research Impact Funding Panel
  3. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  4. ACORN Funding Panel
  5. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  6. Charity Support Funding Panel
  7. SIA Funding panel

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, please refer to:

  • Principle 5, which sets of the context for such funding panels;
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9, which recognise the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH);
  • Outcomes 4 and 5, where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience.

Funding Development Briefings – back in September

The RDS Funding Development Briefings have occurred weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon since January 2021.

Thank you to those of you who have joined us to discuss the latest funding opportunities, ask questions, and share your research ideas. We will be taking a break over August, with the briefings returning in September.

Over August, we will still update the Major Opportunities pipeline on a weekly basis so you have access to the latest funding opportunities. The pipeline is available on the I Drive here: I:\RDS\Public\Funding Pipeline. The Research Facilitators will still be available over the summer to discuss your research bidding plans, so please do get in touch when required.

Details of the Funding Development Briefings for 2021/22 will be available shortly. Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

We hope you have a restful summer, and look forward to seeing you in September!

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 – July update

As it was announced earlier this week, on 22nd July from 10am to 3pm, RDS will host an online workshop for those interested in applying for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) 2021 call. Please email OD@bournemouth.ac.uk by the end of the next Monday 19 July if you’d like to attend; both supervisors and potential fellows are welcome to participate. Link to join the event to those registered will be sent early next week.

Proposal submission deadline for MSCA PD 2021 call is 12 October 2021, the deadline for submission of Intention to Bid form to RDS is 16 August 2021.

The workshop will consist of two sessions led by Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. In the morning session (10am to 12 pm) we will review general MSCA PF rules and 2021 call novelties. In the afternoon (1pm to 3pm) we will focus on proposal preparation providing useful tips and advice. Both parts will end with Q&A sessions.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are part of the First Pillar within the new Horizon Europe (HEU) framework programme. These actions are open to all research areas and support fundamental research through to near market activities. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (formerly Individual Fellowships) are aimed at individual fellows who already have a doctoral degree and wish to enhance their creative and innovative potential and acquire new skills through research and training activities supervised by experienced academics.

The overall structure of the proposal template and information requested to be addressed in the proposal has not changed significantly from Horizon 2020. However, some of the text has been revised, and a few additional subheadings have been included. The guidance on how to complete Part B of the proposal is no longer included in the Guide for Applicants but is included in the template itself. More information is available on the MSCA-2021-PF call page under ‘topic conditions and documents’ section.

 

 

MCSA Postdoctoral Fellowship – Call Status and Workshop

This call is expected to be open shortly, and the deadline for submitting your Intention to Bid form to RDS is at close of Monday 16th August.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers holding a PhD and who wish to acquire new skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to excellent researchers of any nationality.

There are 2 types of Postdoctoral Fellowships:

  1. European Postdoctoral Fellowships. Open to researchers moving within Europe or coming to Europe from another part of the world to pursue their research career. These fellowships take place in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country and can last between 1 and 2 years. Researchers of any nationality can apply.
  2. Global Postdoctoral Fellowships. They fund the mobility of researchers outside Europe. The fellowship lasts between 2 to 3 years, of which the first 1 to 2 years will be spent in a non-associated Third Country, followed by a mandatory return phase of 1 year to an organisation based in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. Only nationals or long-term residents of the EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries can apply.

This scheme also encourages researchers to work on research and innovation projects in the non-academic sector and is open to researchers wishing to reintegrate in Europe, to those who are displaced by conflict, as well as to researchers with high potential who are seeking to restart their careers in research.

MSCA WORKSHOP

22nd July 10:00  – 15:00

A workshop organised by RDS will be held for those interested in applying for an MSCA post Doctoral Fellowship. Please email OD@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to attend.

Follow this link to learn more details about MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships

 

Medical Science Virtual STEAMLab LAST CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

This is a reminder that on Thursday 22nd July 2021 from 2-4pm, RDS will be hosting a virtual STEAMLab event under the strategic investment area (SIA) of Medical Science.

As there are a limited number of spaces remaining, we have extended the timeline for applications. Therefore please apply for a space by 5pm Monday 28th June.

We ask all participants to download and complete the Application Form and return this to Lisa Andrews. 

For more information, please see our previous blog post.

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact RDS Research Facilitators Lisa Andrews or Ehren Milner.

RKEDF training: impact and funding bids

Don’t forget to book your place on the RKEDF online training session Impact and Funding Bids on Thursday 17 June 13:00-14:00! Although the UKRI removed the Pathways to Impact sections of grant applications last year, they expect impact to be embedded within bids and this session will help you understand how to write about impact.

Although the session will include a brief look at definitions of impact, it is advised that you watch the 10-minute introduction to impact video on Brightspace beforehand to get the most out of the training.

Booking: Please email OD@bournemouth.ac.uk with evidence of approval from your Head of Department or Deputy Head of Department. You can see all the Organisational Development and Research Knowledge Development Framework (RKEDF) events in one place on the handy calendar of events.

Reminder: Medical Science Virtual STEAMLab APPLY NOW

This is a reminder that on Thursday 22nd July 2021 from 2-4pm, RDS will be hosting a virtual STEAMLab event under the strategic investment area (SIA) of Medical Science.

Please apply for a space by 5pm Monday 14th June.

We ask all participants to download and complete the Application Form and return this to Lisa Andrews. 

For more information, please see our previous blog post.

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact RDS Research Facilitators Lisa Andrews or Ehren Milner.

Getting started with research at BU – videos

Research Development and Support (RDS) run induction sessions for all new starters and those who want a refresher in research. We recently revamped these so that we could have more interactive conversation on the induction day. In order to do this, we created a series of videos, which were sent to attendees three weeks’ beforehand.

We’re now making these videos available to all BU staff who want to get started with research at BU or want a refresher.

The videos can be found on Brightspace. The link should take you to the section ‘RDS Academic and Researcher Induction’ (if it doesn’t, you just need to scroll down to this section). There are nine videos in total (most are quite short and the longest one (five) runs to ~20 minutes). The video topics are:

  1. Overview of research at BU and Research Development and Support (RDS)
  2. Overview of the Funding Development Team
  3. Overview of the Project Delivery Team
  4. Overview of the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  5. Applying for Research Funding at BU
  6. Managing your awarded grants
  7. Research Outputs
  8. Research Ethics
  9. Research Impact

If you can’t access the Brightspace link, please contact us at ResearchDev@bournemouth.ac.uk.

As a reminder, you can find a whole host of supporting information on research at BU on the research blog under ‘research toolkit‘ and ‘research lifecycle‘.

Academics – we need your help!

BU has a subscription to LinkedIn Learning. This is a brilliant resource for supporting staff in developing all areas of their roles.

As part of the RKE Development Framework, we want to put together a suite of videos that are related to research activities, that can then be made available to all academics. Our first focus will be on all things related to planning research projects and bidding for funding. This will include tips on writing excellent bids, research methods, through to impact, and everything else in between.

As LinkedIn Learning is so huge, we’re asking for suggestions on videos that you have found helpful with the above. Please can you send any suggestions (with their links) to ResearchDev@bournemouth.ac.uk ?

Thank you!