BU Research Blog

28 February 2017

From Nepal, to BU and back again

Recent BU graduate Dr Pratik Adhikary is currently working alongside BU researcher Professor Edwin van Teijlingen and the Centre of Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) in Nepal.

The CMMPH have been working on improving maternity care in Nepal for a number of years. They’ve most recently begun looking at the impact of women’s groups on maternal and child health uptake in Pharping- rural Nepal.

A former BU PhD student, Dr Adhikary is in charge of planning and monitoring the study, as well as training local Nepalese data collectors. He also looks after the data entry and the overall evaluation of the study.

As well as this, Newton funding is offering him his first fieldwork post as an independent researcher. Below we follow his journey from a former BU student to a BU staff member.

“I’m originally from Nepal and came to Bournemouth University in 2009 to study for my PhD. This looked at Nepalese migrant workers working in the Middle East and Malaysia – this focused on their physical and mental health, as well as any risks they took in their jobs. Previously, I studied for an MSc in Public Health at the University of Aberdeen, as well as working as a cardiac data collection officer in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,” says Dr Adhikary.

“Studying at BU was very important for my academic career. I was lucky enough to present my PhD study at an international conference, which provided me with useful feedback from both academics and early career researchers,”

“My academic supervisors Prof van Teijlingen and Dr Steven Keen were instrumental throughout my PhD- in gaining a partial fee waiver, international travel funds to attend conferences and arranging a grant from the open society foundation,”

“As a young researcher, I am planning a number of drafts for publication in 2017. Support from my BU colleagues has given me a unique stepping stone in the academic world,”

“Being at BU has enabled me to grow my researcher’s network and provided me with an insight into the some of the highest quality of research in the world,” says Dr Adhikary, “I’ve always felt at home at BU and I’m keen to continue my research career here! “

You can read one of Dr Adhikary’s PhD papers online for free here

Dr Adhikary was also a co-author on this recent 2016 paper on the BU Research Blog

22 February 2017

Student Research Assistant – Application Deadline Reminder

Funding opportunities, Fusion Investment Fund, Student Engagement, student research Rachel

A reminder that the deadline for academic applications is 1st March 2017.

Academics are invited to submit applications for the semester-based round of the SRA programme.

The programme is funded by the Fusion Investment Fund and this year has a focus to support departments in their co-creation targets whilst supporting students to undertake paid work under the guidance of an experienced academic in a research position that is directly related to their career path and/or academic discipline. Each department has it’s own allocation of funding and we encourage collaboration between departments for this scheme.

The academic applications will be assessed against the following criteria which you will need to demonstrate within the application form:

Student-centred
Co-creation and co-production
Fusion
External engagement
Impact
Cross-Faculty

Summer programme

This placement is for successful students to work for 30 hours a week for a total of four weeks in June/July 2017.The SRA programme is coordinated via RKEO and the Faculties.Academics will apply for the funding via an application form. A Faculty based panel will review all staff applications and decide which applications to continue to the student recruitment stage of the scheme. The application deadline for this round is 1st March 2017.

Approved academic applications will be advertised as SRA positions to students with student applications being received, processed and managed centrally within RKEO and distributed to the relevant academics after the closing date. The academics will be responsible for shortlisting, interviewing and providing interview feedback to their own candidates. Successful students will need to complete monthly timesheets, signed by their supervisor for payment and processed by the relevant Faculty.

These SRA vacancies will be available to taught BU students only, where SRA applicants must be able to work in the UK, be enrolled during the time of their assistantship and also have an average grade of over 70%. Staff are permitted to have multiple SRAs.

If you have any queries, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP and Student Projects) – sra@bournemouth.ac.uk

20 February 2017

14:Live presents- FoodSMART: Eat out smarter!

Student Engagement, student research hjones

Have you ever considered what’s in your food when you’re eating out?

14:Live will be welcoming FoodSMART on 28 February, at 14:00-15:00.

FoodSMART is an innovative technical ICT solution which uses QR coding on your smartphone to provide nutritional information and deliver personalised advice when eating out. This means that consumers can make an informed choice about what they’re eating. The app can even be tailored to your individual dietary requirements or tastes.

It can be quite difficult to eat healthily when in a restaurant or cafe, as menus often give you limited information about the ingredients in a meal. By working with partners across Europe- nutritionists, chefs and other universities- the team have developed an app that can show exactly what is in your meal. The app gives consumers all the data they need and encourages the food service industry to support healthier eating.

Come along to Floor 5, of the Student Centre, on Talbot Campus to hear from Dr Heather Hartwell as she speaks all about the project and even get a chance to test out the prototype.

If you have any questions, then please contact Hannah Jones

13 February 2017

BU staff, students and alumni celebrate the launch of Events Management: An International Approach

student research nferdinand

Dr Paul Kitchin, Lecturer Sports Management, Ulster University and Dr Nicole Ferdinand, Senior Lecturer Events Management, Bournemouth University, Editors for Events Management: An International Approach

On January 25^th 2017, Bournemouth University staff and students celebrated the launch of Events Management: An International Approach. The text brings together the work of 22 authors boasting 11 nationalities. At the launch event, which was hosted at King’s College London, leading Editor for the publication, Dr Nicole Ferdinand, Senior Lecturer in Events Management at Bournemouth University was joined by BU colleagues, current students and alumni as well as staff and students from a range of universities and other organisations – including Goldsmiths University, University of East Anglia, University of East London, University of West London, Set Square Staging Limited and Vodafone.

Ms Emelie Forsberg, Event Manager for British Private Equity and Venture Capital, Panel Member, Author and BU Alumnus

Mr Christian White (pictured left), BU Alumnus and Youngest Author of Events Management: An International Approach

The event started with an international networking reception in which attendees from 15 different countries were given the opportunity to meet individuals from a variety of cultural and also professional backgrounds. At the end of the reception two lucky attendees received free copies of the text.

Networking session in full swing

Dr Paul Kitchin hosted the book launch, providing an overview of the text and facilitating the academic versus industry panel discussion which was the highlight of the evening’s proceedings.

Author panel members (from left to right) Academics: Professor Stephen Shaw, Emeritus Professor, York University, Dr Nicole Ferdinand, Senior Lecturer, Events Management and Dr Nigel Williams, Senior Lecturer Project Management both at Bournemouth University, Industry: Mr Bruce Johnson, Manging Director, Bruce Johnson Consultancy, Ms Emelie Forsberg, Event Manager, British Private Equity and Venture Capital and Mr Michael Chidzey, Marketing Director, Chillisauce Events

Events Management: An International Approach is available for purchase from Amazon.co.uk: https://goo.gl/c8rZ3O

8 February 2017

HEIF project on managing peatlands for biodiversity and cultural heritage

Festival of Learning, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement, REF Subjects, Research themes, Student Engagement, student research pgillingham

Improving the Condition of Natural and Cultural Capital in Dorset and Hampshire: A HEIF project

By Alexander Lovegrove

Dorset and Hampshire are counties rich in natural beauty, biodiversity, and sites of archaeological importance. Within both counties, there are organisations dedicated to either conservation or preserving areas of historical importance, but they rarely work together or manage both. This new HEIF-funded project, led by Dr. Phillipa Gillingham, aims to bring these organisations and BU students together to change this and use their collective knowledge to preserve areas of natural beauty and historical importance. “We want to be able to manage them both for conservation purposes and for their rich archaeological heritage,” says Dr Gillingham. This project focusses on peatland ecosystems, which have significant importance both locally and internationally for their biodiversity, ecosystem services and cultural value. “Ultimately, we hope to be able to develop a case study of the area to demonstrate how you can manage peatlands for the benefit of both archaeologists and conservationists. This will make a difference locally and for the further research we hope to do in the Atlantic regions.”

Key objectives of the project will include collecting data on the pressures reducing these natural and cultural assets, such as recreational use and land use change – including a Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of land managers (which has already begun) and Student Environment Research Team (SERT) work by students carried out over the easter break. This will lead to scientific output documenting the pressures and impacts facing these valuable environments. Further scientific work will investigate the changes in condition of these ecosystems over time, using palaeoecological and archaeological evidence together with recreation of ecological surveys carried out in the 1950s.

One of the most important aspects of the project will be the opportunity to bring together several different conservation organisations in the local area in order to share knowledge and build new relationships. This will involve building a network with stakeholders to exchange knowledge on current approaches to assessing the condition and trends of natural and cultural capital assets in peatlands. Additionally, sharing of best practice guidelines for monitoring and managing the condition of natural and cultural capital assets will be carried out through this network, an exhibition on Dorset and Hampshire peatlands, an event at the Festival of Learning and reports from the SERT teams.

The project, led by Dr Pippa Gillingham, includes ecologists (Dr Anita Diaz, Prof. Adrian Newton, Alexander Lovegrove), archaeologists (Prof. Mark Brisbane) and Palaeoecologists (Dr John Stewart). The team also includes in its network Dr Lawrence Shaw from the New Forest National Park Authority, Toby Branston at the RSPB and David Brown from the National Trust, who manage land locally for both cultural heritage and biodiversity, and Prof. Nigel Webb from Dorset Wildlife Trust. “We hope that the knowledge we develop will be of real benefit to them.” Funding is provided through HEIF – HEIF 5+1+1 – with funding running from 1 August 2016 until 31 July 2017. Please contact P.I. Dr Phillipa Gillingham (pgillingham@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Research Assistant Alexander Lovegrove (alovegrove@bournemouth.ac.uk) if you have any questions about the project.

7 February 2017

Standing up for Science media workshops- applications now open!

PG research, student research hjones

Early career researchers- this is your chance to find out how your voice can be heard in the media!

Sense about Science will be running Standing up for Science media workshops for early career researchers to learn from scientists who have or are actively engaged with the media. You can also hear from respected science journalists who will teach you how the media works, how to respond and comment. As well as hearing what journalists want and expect of scientists. The first workshop of 2017 will be on Friday 7 April, at the University of Manchester.

The workshop is open to early career researchers and scientists (PhD students, post-doctoral fellows or equivalent) in all sciences, engineering and medicine and is free to attend. The event will discuss science-related controversies in media reporting with practical guidance tips for working with the media.

Apply by 9am on Tuesday 21 March or click here for more information.

3 February 2017

Student Research Assistantship – academic applications now live

Funding opportunities, Fusion Investment Fund, Student Engagement, student research Rachel

Academics are invited to submit applications for the semester-based round of the SRA programme. Application deadline is 1st March 2017.

The programme is funded by the Fusion Investment Fund and this year has a focus to support departments in their co-creation targets whilst supporting students to undertake paid work under the guidance of an experienced academic in a research position that is directly related to their career path and/or academic discipline. Each department has it’s own allocation of funding and we encourage collaboration between departments for this scheme.

The academic applications will be assessed against the following criteria which you will need to demonstrate within the application form:

Student-centred
Co-creation and co-production
Fusion
External engagement
Impact
Cross-Faculty

Summer programmeThis placement is for successful students to work for 30 hours a week for a total of four weeks in June/July 2017.

The SRA programme is coordinated via RKEO and the Faculties.

Academics will apply for the funding via an application form. A Faculty based panel will review all staff applications and decide which applications to continue to the student recruitment stage of the scheme. The application deadline for this round is 1st March 2017.

Approved academic applications will be advertised as SRA positions to students with student applications being received, processed and managed centrally within RKEO and distributed to the relevant academics after the closing date. The academics will be responsible for shortlisting, interviewing and providing interview feedback to their own candidates. Successful students will need to complete monthly timesheets, signed by their supervisor for payment and processed by the relevant Faculty.

These SRA vacancies will be available to taught BU students only, where SRA applicants must be able to work in the UK, be enrolled during the time of their assistantship and also have an average grade of over 70%. Staff are permitted to have multiple SRAs.

If you have any queries, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP and Student Projects) – sra@bournemouth.ac.uk

25 January 2017

Augmented Reality Technology for Minimally Invasive Surgery

student research djohn

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.

Speaker: Long Chen

Title: Augmented Reality Technology for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 1^st February 2017

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

Abstract: This research presentation will demonstrate a novel approach of using augmented reality technology to provide rich additional information in for Minimally Invasive Surgery. The research addresses a number of challenges in terms of dealing with monocular visual sensor, and 3D surface reconstruction via state of the art computer vision algorithm. In recent years, laparoscopic scene tracking and surface reconstruction has been a focus of investigation to provide rich additional information to aid the surgical process. In this project, we developed an AR framework to compensate the depth perception issue of monocular laparoscopic scenes. Monocular laparoscopic techniques are arguably the most common techniques used in minimally invasive surgical paradigm. Yet, it is one of the technically demanding procedures from surgeons, and in which information is provided primarily through the video outputted from endoscopes. The major challenge in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) such as laparoscopy is the lack of depth perception. We developed a robust 3D surface reconstruction and augmented reality with depth perception on the reconstructed scene by using the state-of-the-art visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm for the sparse salient point clouds detection. We then develop a robust global 3D surface reconstruction framework to obtain smooth surfaces from the unstructured sparse point cloud. The evaluation results illustrating the potential of our algorithm for depth augmentation and depth-correct augmented reality in Minimally Invasive Surgery.

We hope to see you there.

24 January 2017

Submissions for the Research Photography Competition are closing soon!

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Fusion, PG research, Student Engagement, student research hjones

There’s not long left to submit your entry to the Research Photography Competition. Submissions will be closing on Friday 27 January at 5pm.

We have already seen a number of fantastic images submitted from both our staff and student researchers, but there’s still time to submit your image. This a great opportunity to present your research that you’re either currently working on or have already completed. The competition allows your research to be showcased across BU and is a great addition to your portfolio.

You can find out more information here.

If you have any questions then email us.

Please read through the terms and conditions here.

23 January 2017

Faculty of Management: PhD students of the year 2016

PG research, student research cmartins

Great news; two PhD students from the Faculty of Management, Department of Tourism and Hospitality have won PhD student of the year 2016.

Sarah Pyke; Institute of Travel and Tourism (ITT) PhD Student of the Year 2016 was awarded her prize at the House of Commons on July 20, 2016. Her research ‘A Systems Theory Approach to the Well-being Effects of Tourism’ was supported by the National Coastal Tourism Academy (NCTA) and was part of the ESRC Destination FeelGood project. It extends the forefront of the tourism discipline and makes a unique contribution to knowledge by using Hagerty’s systems theory approach (a model extracted from the public health sector and for the first time applied in a tourism context) to quantitatively measure the well-being effects of tourism on the individual.

Sarah Price; EUROCHRIE, (the biggest Hospitality Conference in Europe) PhD Student of the Year 2016 was awarded her prize in Budapest, October 2016. Her research ‘Trust in Foodservice’ was supported by the EU project FoodSMART and identified key factors that consumers look for when selecting meals in workplace canteens. The project offered her the opportunity to be part of an International research team and take secondment periods in both France and Austria.

Many congratulations to you both – we are very proud of you

17 January 2017

Not long left to submit to 2017’s Research Photography Competition 2017

PG research, student research hjones

We’ve had some fantastic entries so far for this years Research Photography Competition and there’s still time left to submit. The past two years have seen some great entries from both our staff and students, across all our faculties here at BU. This year we are looking for an image that will show the impact your research will have on your chosen field. Here’s just some of the brilliant entries from our very first competition in 2015.

‘LEAP: Landscape Ecology and Primatology’

Amanda H. Korstjens and Ross A. Hill
Faculty of Science and Technology

‘All you need is Ubuntu!’

Jill Davey
Faculty of Health and Social Care

‘Even in Health Research, Laughter is the Best Medicine’

Sheetal Sharma
Faculty of Health and Social Care

‘Mixing Business with Pleasure: Fieldwork and Friendships in Jordan’

Daniella Voss
Faculty of Science and Technology

Have something in mind? You can find out more information here. Or simply send over your photo with a 100-200 word blurb to research@bournemouth.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is 5pm on Friday 27 January 2017.

If you have any questions then get in touch with Hannah Jones.

Please have a read through the terms and conditions here.

11 January 2017

FHSS Dr. Pramod Regmi speaking in India

conferences, international, PG research, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Two BU papers and a poster at the International Conference on Transforming Lives & Healthcare through Technology

On 9^th January 2017, I presented a paper entitled ‘Qualitative research in health technology assessment’ in a scientific session at the International Conference on Transforming Lives and Health Care through Technology (TLHTicon 2017), Wardha, India. This paper was prepared jointly with by Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and BU’s Visiting Prof Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University). At the same conference Mrs. Preeti Mahato’s poster on ‘Factors affecting health facility delivery in rural Nawalparasi, Nepal’ was also displayed. Preeti is a PhD student in FHSS. In another scientific session, BU visiting faculty Prof Padam Simkhada presented a paper around global public health and health technology assessment. Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Pramod Regmi co-authored this presentation.

The conference, which attracted more than 180 oral scientific papers and 97 posters, was organized jointly by Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, DU, Datta Meghe Institute of Engineering, Technology & Research and Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering in association with the Global Consortium for Public Health Research. The Global Consortium for Public Health Research was recently formed [1]. Prof Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr Pramod Regmi, both from HSS, BU are part of it among the 14 academics/researchers from UK, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and few other Low and Middle-Income Countries. Some of them are BU visiting faculty too. Unfortunately, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen could not get a visa in time for India, so he recorded a good-luck message. This pre-recorded message was played to the conference goers.

I found the scientific sessions were a nice blend of scientific talks, plenary sessions, symposia and scientific track sessions. Overall, this conference provided a much-needed platform for academicians, researchers, practitioners and professionals from medical, engineering and industry to disseminate their innovations in interdisciplinary field of health sciences through technology. The conference show-cased innovations in health-care through technology, which shall be useful in transforming lives of people in Low and Middle Income Countries. In these two days; I have been able to all refreshed with thought-provoking & informative talks rendered by experienced researchers around technology in health care.

Dr Pramod Regmi, Post Doc Research Fellow, HSS

Reference:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P.R. et al., 2016. Need and scope of global partnership on public health research. Journal of Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences University, 11 (2), 202-204.

4 January 2017

Media coverage in Nepal

international, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, Public engagement, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday’s health promotion dissemination meeting in Kathmandu has been widely reported in the national media in Nepal. Some of the national media focused largely (but not solely) on the words of the Minister of Health Mr Thapa, whilst the television news reports included the organisers and presenters at the event. The Green Tara Nepal Health Promotion Dissemination conference in Kathmandu was supported by the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health at BU and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and Green Tara Trust UK (a Buddhist charity based in London). BU has been working with Green Tara Nepal for the past eight years on a number of maternal health promotion projects in rural Nepal. Overall the media in Nepal had difficulty understanding the notion of ‘health promotion’, therefore many journalists focused on health services as this was mentioned by the Minister of Health.

The event was also attended by BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at LJMU), CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahato and FHSS Post-Doc. Dr. Pramod Regmi.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

21 December 2016

Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) Wins – December 2016

Business Engagement, HEIF, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Student Engagement, student research jcodling

Reporting on the KEIT wins for December – I thought I would work with a festive theme and have chosen the song “12 Days of Christmas” to summarise our activities not only for this month but also reflecting on 2016 and into 2017. (Humming the tune is optional whilst you are reading the blog post)

12 Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) projects

The latest round of HEIF funding is HEIF 5+1+1, and runs from 1 August 2016 until 31 July 2017. There are twelve projects currently live and more information on each project can be found using this link to the BU Research Blog. Subject areas are broad, ranging from forensics to environmental sciences to health apps, musical technologies and virtual sculpting tools. A new funding round – HEIF 6 is due to be announced in 2017.

11 Festival of Enterprise

BU’s second Festival of Enterprise took place in November 2016, including a fantastic array of events. Over 320 people interested in modern business and entrepreneurship attended the free festival, which promoted collaboration between students, staff and local businesses. Members of the of the KEIT team were involved in the planning and running of the events during the festival that involved a number of external partners aswell as academics at BU.

10 Inaugural Lecture Series

BU’s new public lecture series kicked off in October (10/2015) with the last of this year’s inaugural lecture series took place in early December. Professor Tim Lloyd from the Faculty of Management shared his insights into supermarket scanner data and how that should shape our shopping habits. The event sold out. The next lecture will take place in early 2017 and details will be available soon.

9 Members of the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT)

Ensuring that BU’s knowledge is informed by society, for the benefit of society, is at the core BU’s vision and values. As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office, the nine members of the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) work hard to bring this vision alive through corporate level initiatives for knowledge exchange with multiple audiences including the public, industry and students.

8 Festival of Learning

A date for your diaries 8 – 12 July 2017. 120 events have been proposed for both the UK and Global Festival of Learning, to take place overseas in April, May and June, and in the UK in July. The events are currently being reviewed and applicants will be contacted in the New Year. We look forward to working with you all on another fantastic festival.

7 Café Scientifique

Café Sci (for short) runs every first Tuesday of the month and taking a break in January the first event date in 2017 is Tuesday 7 February. Enjoy listening to a guest speaker before engaging in debate and discussion around the topic. For the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology. The speaker for February has been confirmed.

6 British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR)

In 2017 the BCUR will be held at BU. The first conference was held in 2011 and 6 years later BU will host this prestigious conference taking place in April. The deadline for Abstract Submission is 15 January. We’ve had over 225 submissions from across the UK & overseas, 40 are from BU and are expecting more before the deadline.

5 Innovation

Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency and work with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy. With a focus to accelerate sector growth the latest delivery plan sets out a 5-point plan in order to:

turn scientific excellence into economic impact
accelerate UK economic growth
build on innovation excellence throughout the UK
develop Catapult centres within a national innovation network
evolve funding models; ensuring businesses we work with get the right type of funding including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) and innovation funding.

4 Faculties

KEIT work across all four faculties, in order to support the academic community with the varied mechanisms for knowledge exchange. These include the Festival of Learning, Research Communications and Impact, business engagement opportunities including KTPs and HEIF. New student research initiatives have also launched this year and are crucial in supporting Fusion at BU. These include The Student Project Bank and The Student Research Assistantship (SRA) programme. 14: Live is a monthly lunchtime talk and is well established in the research events calendar. The next 30-minute presentation is 16 February and students and staff are welcome.

3 Research Photography Competition

We’re delighted to announce that the Research Photography Competition will be returning for a third year. Over the past two years we’ve set BU academics the challenge of telling the story of their research, through a single image. This year we want to focus on the impact that your research can have or will have outside of academia. Not only this, we want staff and student researchers from across the university to get involved.

2 The Student Project Bank

Two projects are now “live” as part of The Student Project Bank (SPB) initiative, having only launched in October this year. This means 2 students at BU have been successful in applying for and are now working on a live project with the potential for real-world impact. These involve creating a short documentary about community living and developing and implementing a marketing strategy for a new juice bar.

1 Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT)

The Research & Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) supports all stages of the research lifecycle. One of the teams within RKEO is KEIT. Ensuring that research at BU has an impact on society is a fundamental part of the research lifecycle. External funders, industry and the general public increasingly expect universities to demonstrate the value of our research.

KEIT are able to support researchers at BU in achieving this goal and we look forward to working with you in 2017 to achieve this!

19 December 2016

New blog on Open Access publishing

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Some months ago Andy Nobes asked my colleague Prof. Padam Simkhada and I if we could write a blog about why we had so many papers in freely available online journals in Nepal. Andy is the Programme Officer, Research Development & Support at INASP, which is an international development charity based in Oxford working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

We had a whole range of immediate answers to Andy’s question, including ones like: we both love Nepal; we are on the editorial board of a few journals that are part of the NepJOL group; and editors invite us to submit articles and/or editorials. Moreover, we feel reasons for Open Access publishing are very similar to our key reasons for working in a low-income country like Nepal. These principles are (a) conducting applied academic research in low-income countries for the greater good; (b) helping to build research-capacity; and (c) telling the world about our research through quality academic publications. This week saw the publication of our blog ‘Publishing in journals of the NepJOL family’ on the AuthorAid website, click here to read the post.

Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at Bournemouth University and Padam Simkhada, Professor of International Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and BU Visiting Faculty.

13 December 2016

New publication CMMPH student Donna Wixted

Festival of Learning, PG research, Public engagement, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to CMMPH’s Donna Wixted, Joint BU-Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, doctoral student who just had a paper published in MIDIRS.[1] The paper is titled ‘Drinking in pregnancy: poor guidelines or lack of evidence?’ The paper reports a very lively debate at the 2016 BU Festival of Learning which was a debate around the motion: “Advising pregnant women to avoid drinking alcohol during pregnancy is symptom of the Nanny State and another step towards the medicalisation of childbirth”. The debate was chaired by CMMPH’s Prof. Vanora Hundley.

The Festival of Learning event grew out of Donna’s PhD research. Donna’s PhD is jointly supervised by Dr. Greta Westwood of Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust & the University of Southampton and FHSS academics Dr. Liz Norton and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

Reference:

Wixted, D., Hundley, V., Norton, L., van Teijlingen, E., Westwood, G. (2016) Drinking in pregnancy: poor guidelines or lack of evidence? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 26(4): 462-65.

13 December 2016

The Research Photography Competition is Returning for its Third Year!

Student Engagement, student research hjones

Want to submit to this years Research Photography Competition but not sure where to start? Need some inspiration?

Over the past two years the competition has seen some fantastic entries from both staff and students across the University. From photos of the heart of a fly, the monsoons in Nepal, to Napoleon looking over St Helena and photos which represent the fantastic work academics at Bournemouth University are doing to improve nutritional care for the elderly. You can submit an image for any area of your research and it can be as creative or as simple as you like. Take a look below at some of the entries we had last year.

‘The heart of a fly- exploring cardiovascular disease’

Dr Paul Hartley

Faculty of Science and Technology

‘Monsoons in Nepal’

Professor Edwin Van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

‘Napoleon looking over St Helena’

Dan Hogan

Faculty of Media and Communication

‘Dignity in care: improving nutrition in people with dementia’

Professor Jane Murphy

Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Want to submit? All you have to do is send an email to research@bournemouth.ac.uk with your image and a 100-200 word blurb about the research behind the image, by 5pm on Friday 27 January.

If you’d like more information have a read through here or you can email Hannah Jones if you any questions.

Take a read through the terms and conditions here.

7 December 2016

History and Biography in the Sociology of Welfare: The importance of student fieldwork

Fusion, student research Jonathan Parker

Sociology, as an emerging discipline, developed within the crucible of historical studies of changing lives, transforming events and a search for alternative ways to understand history. We see this in the works of such illustrious progenitors of sociology as Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber but it has itself been marginalised, even hidden, as social, political and historical events have unfurled and a turn to biography has displaced the historical. Furthermore, historical sociology has taken something of a battering since John H Goldthorpe decried its relevance towards the end of the last century. However, it is perhaps this railing against the historical which has lent itself to a resurgence through such key figures as Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol and Shmuel Eisenstadt amongst others. But what of its place within contemporary undergraduate sociological education?

In an attempt to introduce today’s BU undergraduates to the important interdisciplinary fusion of the social, the biographical and the historical we have developed an innovative exploration of the histories of social welfare that students take in their second year of full time study. This involves the broad study of social and political welfare initiatives through to the Poor Law, its reform and the implementation of the Welfare State, retrenchment and contemporary attacks on welfare and those who claim benefits. So what? You may say. This is similar to most programmes of study charting welfare policy. However, two specific aspects mark out this module. The first is the assessment, reported elsewhere, which requires groups to explore the experiences of characters in specific historical periods through the construction of a narrative. This allows students to enter into the social and political worlds of individuals in need of social welfare and support.

The second innovative aspect relates to the continuing strands running through our explorations – we take Richard Lachmann’s approach to historical sociology to understand how the present, and future, is contingent on the past. Throughout the course, we examine seemingly inconsequential events leading to change, and why ‘transformative’ events, such as the introduction of the British Welfare State in 1948, occur when they do. Moreover, we embed this learning in a hands-on fieldtrip to the historic market town of Sherborne. Though a visit to the historic St Johns’ (two of them) almshouses, the architecturally stunning abbey, students are exposed to the religious beginnings of charity and alms, the turn to the Parish and the body politic in dispensing poor relief and an appreciation of the overt discrimination between deserving and undeserving. Indeed, they experience that the ‘poor are always with us’ and also they are stratified in society by those with power. As one student stated:

The trip … showed us how throughout history policies have changed, yet some have remained the same as 600 years ago. It made us appreciate and value history more. We learned how the welfare state changed with time to adjust to the environment and the social conditions (war, economic state, health condition of people etc).

The students undertaking this trip have experienced the importance of an historical sociological approach to social welfare policy and application marrying this with the contemporary focus on biography and merging analytic thought, and an appreciation of the affective. This was particularly evident in discussion of the contemporary foodbank provision which religious and lay people undertake to offset some of the hardships experienced by those requiring benefits today:

I also found it interesting how the food bank is run. I think it is so lovely that the people of Sherborne deliver the food bags to the people who cannot come to collect them. I have never heard of anywhere else that does this before and think it shows just how close a community can be and that we should all work together to help each other.

This takes historical sociology into a contemporary arena in which the biographical is included, and offers the students a chance to bring in the personal and to reflect on experiences whilst acknowledging the historical and the structural:

I was really surprised to find out that there are people still living in the alms houses today! I was not expecting that. I found it really interesting how there are still so many similarities to how it was ran when it began to how it is ran now. Before the trip my understanding was that to live in the alms houses wouldn’t have been a nice experience but from the trip I was able to understand that it was actually built with the intention to help people and that is exactly what it did and still does today. I made connections with the histories of social policy and welfare when I understood that the people who came to live in the alms houses were the ‘deserving poor’.

Jonathan Parker (Department of Social Sciences and Social Work), Nezhat Habib and Bonnie Brown (students on BA Sociology and Social Policy programme)

Sherborne Abbey

Category / student research