Category / RKE development framework

The ACORN Fund Additional Round is Closing Soon

Funding opportunities, Research news, RKE development framework

As advertised earlier, the ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is open for applications  for projects that can be delivered before the end of July 2021. This round differs from previous rounds due to the short turnaround time, smaller budget and limited activities eligible for funding.

The  closing date is Tuesday, 4th May 2021 (5pm) and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk. Please use only this email address for submitting your applications.

On BU OneDrive, you can find out more by reading the updated ACORN Fund Policy (the guidance document) and apply using the Application Form for this round. 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.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £3,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects.

Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on British Academy Mid-Career Fellowships

BU research, Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

The RDS Funding Development Briefings occur weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU.

Next Wednesday 5th May, there will be a spotlight on British Academy Mid-Career Fellowships.

We will cover:

  • Overview of the programme
  • How to apply
  • Q & A

For those unable to attend, the session will be recorded and shared on Brightspace here.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

 

RDS Academic and Researcher Induction – 19th May 2021

BU research, Research Training, RKE development framework

The Research Development and Support (RDS) invite all ‘new to BU’ academics and researchers to an induction.

This event provides an overview of all the practical information staff need to begin developing their research plans at BU, using both internal and external networks; to develop and disseminate research outcomes; and maximising the available funding opportunities.

Objectives

  • The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level
  • To provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU

Online induction being done a little bit differently

As this will be the second induction to be held online, we’ve learned from the first one and are doing things a bit differently this time (to avoid ‘death by PowerPoint’). RDS have prepared videos in advance so that attendees can watch these when suited to them before the induction day. There are nine videos in total (some are quite short, and the more important ones (on process) run to ~20 minutes) and all are available on Brightspace. 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

These will be sent in advance (aiming for three weeks’ beforehand) to those attending the induction.

On the day of the induction, we will run an interactive session where attendees can meet their RDS faculty-facing staff, and have the opportunity to ask any questions on any of the topics above, or anything else RDS related that they need more information on. There will be breakout rooms for each faculty, as well as a room for Research Outputs and Ethics, and a room for Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange. The main room will remain open for any questions on strategy and research at BU. This will be a great opportunity to meet your RDS colleagues and to get 1-2-1 advice.

The fourteenth induction will be held on Wednesday, 19th May 2021, 9.30-11am, online.

If you would like to attend the induction then please book your place through Organisational Development and you can also visit their pages here.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you.

Regards,

The RDS team (this photo was obviously taken pre-pandemic)

Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on Horizon Europe – Digital, Climate and Food Work Programmes

BU research, Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

The RDS Funding Development Briefings occur weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU.

Next Wednesday 28th April, there will be a spotlight on Horizon Europe Work Programmes – Digital, Climate and Food (EU).

We will cover:

  • Overview of the programme
  • How to apply
  • Q & A

For those unable to attend, the session will be recorded and shared on Brightspace here.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

 

The ACORN Fund Additional Round is Now Open for Applications!

Funding opportunities, Research news, RKE development framework

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is now open for applications  for projects that can be delivered before the end of July 2021. This round differs from previous rounds due to the short turnaround time, smaller budget and limited activities eligible for funding.

The  closing date is Tuesday, 4th May 2021 (5pm) and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £3,000 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 financial year.

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

  • All applicants must have completed their PhD
  • All applicants 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) applicants 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 funds cannot be used to cover open access fees and travel

On BU OneDrive, you can find out more by reading the updated ACORN Fund Policy and apply using the Application Form for this round. 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.

The closing date for applications is 4th May 2021. As these require faculty support, please start your application and obtain faculty approval as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off and for submitting the application to the email provided in this post.

Please address any queries to Theresa MacManus at 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).

There are eight funding panels:

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

Please see separate announcements regarding each initiative.

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 recognises 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.

Invitation to AT Virtual STEAMLab

BU Challenges, BU research, Business Engagement, Events, Funding opportunities, pre-award, RKE development framework

On Wednesday, 12 May 2021 from 11.30 to 1pm, RDS will be hosting Virtual AT STEAMlab (Science/Tech/Engineering/Arts/Maths lab) event under the strategic investment area (SIA) of Assistive Technology (AT). It will be the second of a series of up to 2-hour long virtual STEAMlabs to be held in the course of 2021.

The ideas generated at this event may also be used to help select colleagues for further Scramble events at short notice.

Booking onto this event

To take part in this exciting opportunity, we ask all participants to download and complete the AT STEAMLab Application Form and return this to Ainar Blaudums by Wednesday, 5 May 2021.

By applying, you agree to attend for the full duration of the event on 12 May from 10:30am to 1pm. Places at the event are limited and you will be contacted to confirm your “virtual space” by 7 May 2021.

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

 The Brief

We’re seeking to come up with highly innovative and urgently required research which is ambitious in scope and will require a high level of expertise, commitment and funding. The research must address challenges in the AT field.

In short, we anticipate the development of innovative, ground-breaking cross-disciplinary and ambitious projects which have the capacity to attract significant, high value external funding from the public and private sectors in the future.

Who should attend?

We welcome those who wish to contribute to having a positive impact through addressing scientific challenges, but in particular, we are specifically targeting the following:

  1. Those academics whose research aligns with one or more of the BU’s core research areas, or whose research would benefit from the multidisciplinary, collaborative engagement supported by the AT SIA;
  2. Those who have experience of involvement in medium to large scale research projects.

We will also be inviting relevant external attendees, such as digital technology companies, to contribute on the day.

Some Answers to your FAQs:

Do I need to do anything in advance?

No, you do not. During the STEAMLab, you’ll be guided through a process which results in the development of collaborative research ideas. The process facilitates creativity, potentially leading to grand, innovative and interdisciplinary research. These ideas will be shared and explored with other attendees, and further developed based on the feedback received.

 What is the immediate objective?

The objective by the end of the STEAMlab is to have scoped some leading and grand ideas around which a working group or cluster can be formed to take forward towards the development of a large grant application. This event is run to facilitate new interdisciplinary research collaborations.

What do I need to do afterwards?

Your project idea may be “oven-ready”, but it is more likely than not that, given the level of pioneering innovation sought, you/your group’s project idea/s will require some time to crystallise fully, and for the optimum partners to be found for the building a winning consortium, and bringing to fruition a fully-fledged grant application. To this end, it is envisaged that you and your potential collaborators will be committed to meeting on a regular basis, with a firm timetable.

What if my topic area is very specialised, within fields such as medical diagnostics or environmental science?

Your contribution will be very welcome! One of the main benefits of a STEAMlab event is to bring together individuals with a range of backgrounds and specialisms who are able to see things just that bit differently to one another.

Early Career Researchers – Showcase Series 20-21

BU research, ECR Network, Featured academics, Research communication, research staff, RKE development framework

Wednesday April 21st 16:00 – 17:00

The Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) at BU provides a forum for Early Career Researchers to meet each other, share experiences and learning, and potentially could lead to collaboration on research projects. This year, we are also providing a platform for Early Career Researchers to present their research and/or their experiences. We are launching this with a double bill of presentations at the ECRN meeting on 21st April 16:00 – 17:00.

April’s event features the following :

Improving care and support for people living with dementia with Dr. Michelle Heward, Post Doctoral Research Fellow and member of the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre at BU.

In this talk Michelle will discuss her research journey so far in the field of ageing and dementia. With specific examples of studies that she has been involved in that are designed to improve care and support through hearing the voices, understanding the experiences, and facilitating coproduction of people with dementia, family carers, practitioners, and care staff.

Women’s Sport Governance: Merger-Takeovers in the 1990s and beyond with Dr. Rafaelle Nicholson, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Sustainability.

Raf will be discussing the question why so few women are involved in the governance of sport in the UK, and how can we encourage more women to embrace governance roles, to ensure more diverse decision-making. To try to answer these questions, Raf has been interviewing women who were involved in sports governance in the 1980s and 1990s about their reasons for leaving. She will share some of their stories in this presentation.

These presentations will be followed by Q&A.

If you would like to attend, please contact OD@bournemouth.ac.uk

Funding Development Briefings – Here’s what you might have missed…

BU research, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

The RDS Funding Development Briefings have been occurring weekly, on a Wednesday since January. Thank you to all of you who have engaged in the sessions, it’s been a pleasure to see so many faces joining us.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU. Sessions including funding spotlights, will be recorded and made available on Brightspace after the session.

Sessions held to date include;

  • Newton International Fellowship
  • Philip Leverhulme Prizes
  • EU MSCA Fellowships
  • EPSRC Overview
  • Horizon Europe 2nd pillar
  • British Academy Post Doc Fellowship
  • NIHR Overview
  • Horizon Europe Work Programmes Health, Culture and Security
  • AHRC Research Development & Engagement Fellowship

All slides and recordings of these sessions can be found on Brighstpace here.

For the next three sessions, there will be no spotlight funding opportunity as we appreciate many will be on leave due to school holidays. The briefing of the latest funding opportunities will still occur at 12pm, and the Research Facilitators will be available to answer your questions.

The next spotlight will be on Wednesday 21st April and will feature an overview of the Wellcome Trust’s new funding programmes.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

RKEDF: Research Training Events on Wednesday

BU research, ECR Network, Events, Research news, Research Training, RKE development framework, Training

Exciting online training events for researchers on Wednesday.

Places still available. Please book now!

 

Wednesday 24th March 09:00 – 11:00

Dealing with Rejection

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen will share some practical hints and tips on how to constructively and effectively deal with a journal rejection.

To book, email OD@bournemouth.ac.uk
Wednesday 24th March 12:00 – 13:00

AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowships Information Session

This is the theme for this week’s Funding Development Briefing.

Contact ResearchDev@bournemouth.ac.uk to book.
Wednesday 24th March 15:00 – 16:00

Early Career Researchers Network Meeting

The theme of this month’s network briefing is BU’s Strategic Investment Areas, and how Early Career Researchers can get involved.

To book, email OD@bournemouth.ac.uk 

 

You can see all the Organisational Development and Research Knowledge Development Framework (RKEDF) events in one place on the handy calendar of events.

If you have any queries, please get in touch!

Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on: AHRC Research Development and Engagement Fellowships

Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

The RDS Funding Development Briefings now occur weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU.

Next Wednesday 24th March, there will be a spotlight on AHRC Research Development and Engagement Fellowships

We will cover:

  • Overview
  • Aims and scope
  • Q & A

For those unable to attend, the session will be recorded and shared on the Teams site under the ‘Files’ section, and also saved on the I Drive at I:\RDS\Public\Funding Pipeline\Funding Development Briefings.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

 

BU Research Matters: What support is on offer internally and growing capacity at BU- part 3

BU research, Research Training, RKE development framework

Following on from yesterday’s blog post on the support on offer for research applications for external funding, this post will focus on what’s available from internal funding, and how all the support on offer grows research capacity at BU.

Research Funding Panels: To help us further develop our research capacity in line with BU2025, the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) oversees research investment and performance. Under the auspices of the RPMC, Funding Panels have been established to have oversight of funding allocations, in order to further build the research environment, our external engagement and the quality and impact of research endeavours. There are seven funding panels and future calls will be released on the BU intranet. You can find out more information about each panel here, including previous funded projects. The panels include the extensive Research Impact Programme.

Strategic Investment Areas: As articulated within BU2025, our Strategic Investment Areas (SIAs) build on our existing academic strengths and future opportunities aligned to external priorities, including policy direction and funding. The four Strategic Investment Areas are:

  • Assistive Technology
  • Animation, Simulation & Visualisation
  • Medical Science
  • Sustainability, Low Carbon Technology & Materials Science.

Each SIA has an academic steering group and are supported by External Advisory Boards, made up of experts from industry and the not-for-profit sector, to ensure our research activities are informed by wider society. The purpose of these groups is to ensure that we align internal and external resources appropriately to secure the growth of BU’s research profile. All of our SIAs are inherently interdisciplinary and build on existing excellence within the University. You can find out more here, including the opportunities available to get involved and who to contact.

Stop Press: An open call for expressions of interest will go out on the BU intranet this week. The University are seeking to identify game changing research ideas and enable these to become a reality. Keep your eyes out for the launch of the call!

STEAMLabs: These offer the opportunity to meet new people from all disciplines and sectors, and to spend dedicated time developing novel ideas for research projects. We will select topics for STEAMLabs and advertise these for participants. For example, each year we run a STEAMLab for each of the four SIAs. These seek to come up with highly innovative and urgently required research which is ambitious in scope and will require a high level of expertise, commitment and funding. The research must address challenges in the topics advertised. As a result of each STEAMLab, we anticipate the development of innovative, ground-breaking and ambitious projects which have the capacity to attract significant, high value funding from the public and private sectors.

STEAMLabs used to be an all day event, in person, but we’ve amended them to online and for two hours duration. You can see here the details of the last event held in February on the SIA for Animation, Simulation & Visualisation. Check the blog for the next events coming up shortly. These will be for the remaining SIAs, Global Challenges and Industrial Challenges and will take place in April – July 2021.

Open Access Publication Fund: BU operates a dedicated central Open Access Publication Fund (OAPF). The BU Open Access Publication Fund policy and procedure has recently been reviewed and revised to reflect changes to this year’s budget. The newly revised policy and checklist can be found here.  BU now also benefit from various Open Access agreements through JISC deals including with publishers like Wiley, Sage and Springer. Please see the recent blog post, including the relevant links to publishers.

RDS: I mentioned in the two previous posts the support on offer from Research Facilitators for bid development. In addition, RDS have several faculty-facing staff (an overview and contacts are here) and areas of expertise that can support you in your research activities. The latter include:

  • Research Commercialisation Manager – Lesley Hutchins, whose overarching role is the exploitation of BU’s research IP for commercialisation and societal benefit
  • Engagement and Impact Facilitator – Genna Del Rosa and Engagement Officer – Adam Morris – support academics to develop research impact with external stakeholders. This includes supporting public engagement events, and working with academic colleagues to develop engagement strategies to enhance funding bids, and supporting colleagues to deliver and evidence impact.
  • Knowledge Exchange Adviser – Rachel Clarke has a focus on Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) and the HEIF.
  • Research Outputs Adviser – Pengpeng Hatch, who works with academic colleagues to increase output volume, quality and impact, and for championing open access publishing across the institution.
  • Research Governance Adviser – Sarah Bell and Clinical Governance Adviser – Suzy Wignall – are all things ethics and governance.

Growing research capacity at BU: Research is a key component of Fusion and plays a critical role in the achievement of our BU2025 outcomes to help us achieve our vision of inspiring learning, advancing knowledge and enriching society. In this context, BU2025 set out ambitious plans and targets for research at BU.

As Julie Northam said in her blog post on why BU research matters, research is a priority for BU. It is central to our institutional strategy and ethos and it is fundamental to Fusion. Our research capacity has grown considerably over the past few years. More staff are now engaging actively in research, as demonstrated through the proportion of staff submitted to the Research Excellence Framework (REF). This has increased from less than a third of staff (REF 2014) to over three quarters of staff (REF 2021). We have invested in the Strategic Investment Areas and new institutes (such as the Institute for the Modelling of Socio-Environmental Transitions, IMSET and the Institute for Medical Imaging and Visualisation, IMIV) to bring research to life through programmes of research and collaborative, multidisciplinary research teams. We are applying for and winning longer and larger research projects with more being sent to the prestigious funders.

This weeks posts have outlined the support on offer to BU staff to develop their research activities, regardless of career stage, showing the commitment of the university to grow capacity and build on the excellent work of our ECRs through to the excellent Leadership of our Professors, ensuring research is inclusive to all. The posts have also highlighted the extent to which support is on offer for interdisciplinary work, especially through the opportunities shown above in today’s post.

This weeks three part posts have been a snapshot of what’s available to support you in your research as a BU staff member. Do contact RDS to find out more about how we can support you in your research career. Working together, we can continue to grow research at BU.

Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on: Horizon Europe Work Programmes

Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

The RDS Funding Development Briefings now occur weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU.

Next Wednesday 17th March, there will be a spotlight on Horizon Europe – work programmes Health, Culture and Security

We will cover:

  • Overview of Horizon Europe Work Programmes for Heath, Culture and Security
  • Q & A

For those unable to attend, the session will be recorded and shared on the Teams site under the ‘Files’ section, and also saved on the I Drive at I:\RDS\Public\Funding Pipeline\Funding Development Briefings.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

 

BU Research Matters: What support is on offer for bid/publication writing and how to access it- part 2

BU research, Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework

Following on from yesterday’s blog post on the support on offer for research training and development at different career stages, this post will focus on writing and developing research applications for external funding and publications.

Horizon Scanning and finding funder opportunities: The Research Facilitators within RDS will horizon scan research funders’ strategic agendas and potential funding opportunities to ensure that BU are ready to respond to these opportunities, maximising BU’s chance of success. We provide information on the latest news from funders’ and government through blog posts, workshops and direct contact with you.

The Research Facilitators regularly send targeted funding opportunities to each Head of Department for dissemination. All Academics will have a Research Professional account, which enables personalised searches for new funding opportunities. You can also find the latest funding opportunities, targeted by RDS, on the left-hand side of the BU Research Blog homepage, together with a red button ‘view current funding opportunities’, which will take you to the latest opportunities from major funders (please note that whilst off campus you will need to follow the link shown to Research Professional in order to access the page).

Funder Briefing events: The Research Facilitators also run weekly funder briefing sessions which anyone can join. Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the MSTeams invite for these sessions. Sessions are recorded and so for those who can’t make the interactive session, you can view them here when convenient to you. The next one is being held on 10th March at 12 noon and is a spotlight on NIHR funding.

Bid writing support: In addition to the training and development on offer, we also have one-to-one support available connected to bid writing. The Research Facilitators within RDS offer one-to-one support to ECRs and those applying for high values to major funders. In addition, we have External Application Reviewers (EARs) who can help support the development of research applications that meet the following criteria:

  • The application is to a prestigious funder (UK research councils, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Royal Society, NIHR and EU Horizon 2020/Europe)
  • The application is to a strategically important funding call, including those in the BU2025 Strategic Investment Areas
  • NERC Standard Grants
  • One-off calls for multi-million pound bids (such as AHRC’s Creative Clusters Programme)
  • The applicant is a past member of the BU Research Council Development Scheme and is applying to a UK Research Council call
  • The applicant is an ECR and is applying to a prestigious funder

Your Research Facilitator will be able to discuss your needs and approval for an EAR will be considered and awarded by RDS.

Writing academy: The Writing Academy will enable you to develop the skills required to improve the quantity and quality of your publications and to develop a publication strategy which best represents you as an academic. The academy is a great opportunity for academics who are new to publishing or would benefit from some additional direction and coaching. You’ll have access to an external consultant who will advise you on techniques and style. You will also have the opportunity to discuss your ideas and issues with your peers. You will also have the opportunity to discuss your publishing goals and prepare a plan to accommodate writing within your day to day routines.

The next dates for the WA are 13th – 16th April 2021. You can book on here (apologies, but the page isn’t live just yet but will be shortly). In the meantime, contact OD@bournemouth.ac.uk if you are interested in attending.

Tomorrow’s post will focus on the internal funding support available to you, as well as how all the support on offer grows capacity and inclusivity at BU.