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The Year in Research 2024

2024 has been another great year for research and knowledge exchange at BU. From securing funding to disseminating findings, there’s a lot to celebrate.

A cartoon image of black and white hands clapping on a yellow background

The Month in Research

Here are just a few highlights from across the past year…

Your achievements

Thank you to everyone who has used the Month in Research online form to put forward their achievements, or those of colleagues, this year.

  • With BU ECRN Research networking funding, Dr Sarah Hambidge (Faculty of Science and Technology) set up and hosted Unveiling the Digital Trail: A Tabletop Discussion on Cyber Signatures in Human Trafficking. The event was attended by The Home Office, The National Crime Agency, The College of Policing, Chief of Staff to the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, NGOs, a number of UK police forces, and academics. The event was supported by Dr Terri Cole and Dr Kari Davies and co-hosted with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Read more about the event.
  • PhD student Damla Kuleli (Faculty of Science and Technology; the MINE lab) attended and gave an oral presentation at the 24th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents in Glasgow, receiving very valuable feedback from the experts and the opportunity to explore and enhance knowledge on embodied and conversational agents. Damla also had their first paper published from their PhD as an extended abstract titled “Exploring Influence of Social Anxiety on Embodied Face Perception during Affective Social Interactions in VR” in the ACM Digital Library, co-authored with supervisors Dr Xun He, Dr Nicola Gregory, Liucheng Guo, Professor Fred Charles, Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier, and Chang Hong Liu. The study investigates the early face perception of socially anxious individuals using EEG during social interactions with virtual agents in a VR setting.
  • Professor Amanda Korstjens and Anastasia Vayona (Faculty of Science and Technology) gave a public webinar for the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, on their public engagement project AWE (Augmented Wildlife Experiences), which combines nature and technology to create educational wildlife trails. A recording of the presentation, titled Augmented Wildlife Experiences: AWE trails to support nature connection, can be viewed on the BCS website.

In addition:

  • Research led by Professor Matthew Bennett and Dr Sally Reynolds (Faculty of Science and Technology) at White Sands National Park in New Mexico won the Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences award at this year’s Times Higher Education Awards. The project has rewritten understanding of when humans settled in America. Read more here.
  • Professor Vanora Hundley (Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) and Professor Kate Welham (Faculty of Science and Technology) have been appointed to sit on the REF People, Culture and Environment (PCE) pilot panels, exploring the practicalities of the submission and assessment to inform the REF 2029 guidance on PCE. Read more here.
  • Dr Theo Akudjedu (Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) was awarded the European Federation of Radiographer Societies award, in recognition of his research achievements in the field of radiography. Read more here.

Funding 

Congratulations to all those who have had funding for research and knowledge exchange projects and activities awarded in 2024. Across the year, BU received funding for 116 projects, totalling over £7 million.

Highlights include:

  • c.£170,000 in funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to investigate the creative and legal issues around the use of artificial intelligence in media production (Project lead: Dr Szilvia Ruszev, Faculty of Media and Communication) Read more here.
  • c.£1.4m from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to work in partnership with the University of the West of England to deliver the INSIGHT programme for South West Central region, proving research training for health and students and early career professionals. (BU Project lead: Professor Carol Clark, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences). Read more here.
  • c.£77,000 from Cancer Research UK to improve early detection of skin cancer, particularly among under-represented and high-risk groups. (Project lead: Professor Steven Ersser, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) Read more here.
  • c.£220,000 from Innovate UK for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Wimborne-based image sharing site ClickASnap to develop a bespoke AI content moderation system for their platform. (Project lead: Dr Simant Prakoonwit, Faculty of Science and Technology) Read more here.
  • c.£2.78m from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to work in partnership with the University of Plymouth to investigate the effectiveness of oral nutritional supplements for malnourished older adults in care home. (BU Project lead: Professor Jane Murphy, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) Read more here.

Publications

Congratulations to all those who have had work published across the last year.

In total, 1,214 items were added to the BURO online repository in 2024, with over 850,000 downloads throughout the year.

BU was also ranked 13th out of over 1,500 major universities for the proportion of open access research outputs in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2024. Read more here.

Content for The Year in Research has been collected using the research and knowledge exchange database (RED), the Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO) repository and submissions via The Month in Research online form, as well as news stories published throughout the year. It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list. All information is correct as of 19.12.24.

 

Predictive models for all – paper, workshop and advice for your research

Last week, Rick Stafford and PGRs Natalie Harris and Ellie Vincent from the Dept of Life and Environmental Science, along with visiting BU fellow and Southampton academic Vicky Dominguez Almela, ran a sold out workshop on simple predictive models (for non-mathematicians) at the British Ecological Society conference in Liverpool. Our paper (authored by Vicky, Rick and Abi Croker – a former BU undergrad, now a research fellow at Princeton) detailing the model, and it’s uses in ecology, environmental sciences and many other disciplines (including health, politics, economics and tourism) was also published on the same day (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305882).

A complex systems network generated by the R BBNet package

We will be running some predictive modelling workshops in 2025, so please keep a look out for these. But if anyone is interested in using these models in their research, then please get in contact.

Keynote Talk at the international conference on “DUI innovation policy”, held at Gottingen University, 21-22 November 2024

Davide Parrilli, Professor of Regional Economic Development at BUBS, was invited as Keynote Speaker at the International Conference on “DUI Innovation Policy” in Gottingen University, Germany, on November 21-22. The keynote talk was on “DUI innovation policy in catching-up regions”. The audience was formed by a group of well-known professors and academics specialised in innovation studies and regional economic development from Germany, Canada, Norway, the UK, among others, as well as government officials from the federal government of Germany that is funding this project. It represents a very good opportunity to develop an effective knowledge exchange on successful regional innovation and competitiveness experiences across advanced and catching-up economies, and a possible avenue for joint RKE projects.

Round Table on “The regional growth strategy of the UK government”, British Academy, London, 18 November 2024

Davide Parrilli, Professor in Regional Economic Development, was recently invited to an exclusive round table discussion to help shape regional growth strategies for the UK. The event, hosted by the British Academy at Carlton House in London, was organised in collaboration with the Canadian Research Institute (CAFAR).
The round table brought together leading experts in regional economic growth, with academics from universities including the University of Manchester, University of Birmingham, London School of Economics, Cardiff University, Newcastle University, Aston University, University of Reading, and Bournemouth University. Senior officials of the UK Government, representing departments for Business, Skills and Innovation, International Development, and Trade, also participated in this pivotal discussion.
The conversation centred on the regional growth strategy for the new UK government, aiming to provide direct contributions to policy-making. Further sessions are planned to continue these impactful discussions. 
We are proud to see our Business School represented in this important initiative, contributing to the future of regional economic development in the UK

Developing the potential of our BU researchers Have your say!

Are you a researcher – part of our BU post-doctoral, mid-career, or research assistant communities? Do you manage a researcher or group of researchers? We are interested in talking to researchers, and those who manage researchers to understand how to nurture them effectively and help them develop into highly skilled, confident academics.

This is your chance to inform and shape BU policies and the HR review of the academic career framework in April 2023 – so please help us and have your say!

Researchers

Are you growing and developing professionally as a researcher at BU? Do you have a career development plan? Which areas and skills do you need to develop? What could BU or your manager do to enable you to thrive?

Managers of researchers

What strategies are you using to help researchers in your team grow and develop? What can BU do to support you in your vital role? Would you like additional training in this area? Do you have ideas for how BU could improve our institutional practices or policies to enable researchers to achieve their full potential?

Over the next six months the Research Development and Support Team (RDS) will be conducting a mixed methods study to explore:

  • The experiences of researchers and your ideas for how BU could help you develop your potential more effectively
  • The experiences of managers of researchers – areas of challenge, your support needs as well as your ideas, and examples of innovation/best practice.

Phase one:. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions for researchers and for managers of researchers will commence Monday 16 January 2023

Phase two:. The Vitae CEDARS survey[1] (Culture, Employment and Development in Academic Research survey) will run in March/April 2023. This is for everyone who is research active.

 To find out more or register your interest in participating in an interview or focus group discussion please email Rachel Arnold: rarnold@bournemouth.ac.uk

Thank you, the Research Development and Support Team

[1] The CEDARS survey replaces the CROS and PIRLS surveys

Studentship Funding Panel: call for Chair, Deputy Chair & Panel Members

Funding opportunities, Fusion, PG research

***DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 6 FEBRUARY 2023***  The Studentship Funding Panel is responsible on behalf of the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) for providing internal funding and support to ensure the University maximises opportunities for investing the University’s QR RDP Supervision grant in match funded studentships, in line with the BU2025 Research Principles.

We are seeking expressions of interest (EoIs) for the Chair, Deputy Chair and Panel members for the new panel.

Chairs should be members of the Professoriate – this is extended to Associate Professors for the Deputy Chair role. Applications from underrepresented groups (minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome.

EoIs for Panel members are open to the wider academic community, not just the Professoriate.

Application: EoIs will be reviewed against selection criterion which includes knowledge and experience of knowledge exchange, innovation and impact, experience of chairing meetings and plans for leading the research agenda across the university.

EoIs for the Chair and Deputy Chair roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of one page) on the form provided outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the Doctoral College mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 6 February 2023.

EoIs for Panel member roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of half a page) on the form provided outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the  Doctoral College mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 6 February 2023.

Please note: EoIs should specify to which role the applicant is applying.

There will be a delay in response to Panel member applications until the Chair and Deputy Chair roles are appointed by 6 March 2023. After this the Panel Members will be contacted about their appointment.

There will be an orientation meeting on at 10am on 9 March 2023 for the Chairs and Deputy Chairs. This will be with Deputy VC Tim McIntyre-Bhatty.

Full details are available here:

BU Studentship Funding Panel – ToR.pdf

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Chair & Deputy Chair Role Descriptor

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Panel Member Role Descriptor

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Expressions of Interest