BU Research Blog

As we move into an era where the emphasis on carbon reduction will come to the fore, we are sharing with you a brief summary of the Paris Agreement and the implications for Bournemouth University. This is an extract from a longer paper that includes the implications for Industrialised and Developing Nations as well as  policy implications. Aplologies but it was just too long for a blog post.

At Bournemouth we have achieved much to reduce carbon and to develop iniatives to secure more sustainabel development. In the light of the Paris Agreement, we need to do more in 2016!

Main Points of the Paris Agreement:

• The main difference between this treaty and others that have gone before it is its scope. In particular, the draft lays out plans to limit temperature rises until at least 2050 – this is much longer term than has ever been agreed before.
• 187 countries have put forward plans to cut and curb carbon emissions to 2020, and beyond.
• Within the agreement, the targets are known as Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs). All 187 countries have submitted their INDCs.
• Developed and developing countries are required to set targets to limit their emissions to levels which would see warming of 2°C, with an aspiration of limiting warming to 1.5°C. Vulnerable countries – like the Marshall Islands in Micronesia – pushed for a 1.5°C limit but the draft deal only promises to make it a target rather than a pledge.
• However, observers have calculated that all of the targets, if delivered, will not keep warming to 2°C but to 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels. Above this 2°C threshold, effects of climate change such as droughts, floods, heat waves and sea level rises are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.
• Additionally, emissions targets are not legally binding and are determined by individual countries. However, it promises to hold countries to account if they fail to meet the targets they set out in their plans to reduce emissions during the 2020s.
• Countries are required to review and submit their emissions targets every five years with the “first global stocktake in 2023 and every five years subsequently”. The review process is to ensure that targets are in line with the latest scientific advice. This review process is legally binding.

• The agreement covers “loss and damage”: finance will be provided to poor nations to help them cut emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather. The agreement makes some concessions to developing countries, acknowledging “urgent need to enhance the provision of finance, technology and capacity” and promote “universal access to sustainable energy” – particularly in Africa – with a focus on renewables. There will be a $100 billion fund from developed economies to help emerging and developing nations decarbonise their energy mix. Countries affected by climate-related disasters will gain urgent aid.

• The agreement also requires a limit on the emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100.
• IMPLICATIONS FOR BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY

• In the aftermath of the Paris Agreement, it is more important than ever that BU makes a commitment to reduce its carbon emissions as much as possible, as quickly as possible. However, commitment alone is insufficient if it does not translate into effective action.
• The EU is one of the top greenhouse gas emitters accounting for 9% of global emissions.
• As a large organisation, we emitted 7,680 tonnes of carbon in 2014. BU needs to play its part in helping the UK meet its reduction targets.
• With social and environmental responsibility at the heart of the BU ethos, we must take our role in curbing global warming seriously.
• BU2018 states: “We will consider corporate social responsibility as we develop policies and procedures across all relevant areas for example corporate governance, environmental management, stakeholder engagement, employee and community relations, social equity, and responsible procurement.” This is directly in line with the Paris Agreement, with regards to ensuring the poorest people in developing nations are protected from the worst effects of climate change.
• BU is committed to “ensuring we operate an affordable, sustainable and secure estate”. It is quite possible that in order to control UK greenhouse gas emissions, we will see higher energy prices and increased taxation on emissions in the future. From a financial standpoint, BU needs to do everything it possibly can to reduce its emissions as a business as usual scenario is likely to seeing spiralling costs over the coming years and reduce the competitiveness of the University as a whole.
• Embedding sustainability into the culture of BU will be important to secure further reductions; technological solutions alone will not suffice.
• BU aims to “ensure that graduates develop a global perspective and understand the need for sustainable development by seeking to embed sustainable development across the curriculum”. If sustainable development is more fully embedded within the curriculum and across the extra-curricular sphere the impact will be to reduce unsustainable behaviours (with reductions of carbon and utilities) but also BU graduates will be better prepared for an employability context where carbon reduction is a key focus.

Thanks to Victoria Penson (for starting the paper) and  Dr. Neil Smith for their contributions. Please contact me if you would like to read the other sections.

Monday

Green Paper

The independent reports that Oliver Letwin, David Cameron’s policy advisor, thinks that green paper reforms, such as increasing tuition fees, could be introduced as secondary legislation rather than as an Act of Parliament. Government trying to ‘sneak’ tuition fee increases into controversial reforms (Independent).

State School Access

The latest Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report has revealed that Oxford and Cambridge recruit a much lower proportion of state school pupils than their calculated benchmark suggests. Oxford and Cambridge condemned over failure to improve state school access (Guardian).

Tuesday

TEF

The president of the Higher Education Policy Institute has claimed that English universities are “not very good at teaching”. He said he welcomed the TEF because universities needed “a counterweight to the imperative to do research”. English universities ‘not very good at teaching’, says Hepi president (THE).

NHS Student Funding

The Guardian looks at the impact of replacing student nurse bursaries with loans, including the idea that this move will reduce the diversity of those able to access a career in healthcare. George Osborne considers axing student nurse bursaries (The Guardian).

Wednesday

University Research Funding

Baron Stern of Brentford, president of the British Academy, will lead a review into university research funding. The review will look at how to cut the “administrative burden” on academics and will also “strengthen the focus on excellence”. REF sceptic to lead review into research assessment (THE).

Thursday

UCAS

Following the publication of the UCAS 2015 End of Cycle Report, women are 35% more likely to start a degree course than their male counterparts. Among those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the report reveals that young women were 52% more likely to go into higher education than their male counterparts.  Women take record number of university places (BBC News).

Friday

Curriculum Design         

THE looks at the different ways in which students are helping to shape curriculum, teaching and assessment – leading to better teaching, more effective learning and graduates who are better prepared for the workplace. Should students be partners in curriculum design? (THE).

The Centre for Qualitative has received approval to continue as a Research Centre within Bournemouth University.  Kip Jones will act as Centre Director, with Caroline Ellis-Hill acting as Deputy Director. The Centre will be part of the new Department of Health Sciences & Public Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. Members are welcome from across departments and faculties at BU.

The Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR), a long-standing resource for research practice and postgraduate learning at BU, has recently undergone a ‘refit’ of its web pages.  Content from the old site has been moved over to the new platform for Bournemouth University groups and centres. The new format now makes it possible to link with work taking place in other Schools and research sites. In addition, Impact, Public Engagement and Postgraduate Research links feature on every page.

CQR is held in high esteem globally for its innovative work and commitment to qualitative research. The refreshed web pages provide an international ‘shop window’ for CQR, School of Health & Social Care and BU more generally in regards to cutting-edge qualitative work. CQR has always engaged across Schools at BU and welcomes new opportunities for collaborate efforts.

The new CQR pages include information, resources and links organised around the following areas of research:

• Humanising Health and Social Care
• Novel and Innovative Research Methodologies
• Performative Social Science

In addition, areas such as Biographic Narrative Interpretive Research, Cut-up Technique and Appreciative Inquiry are covered. A new page outlining the ‘Gay and Pleasant Land? Project and Rufus Stone’ has been added. The recently organised, cross-Schools ARTS in RESEARCH (AiR) collaboration is also featured.

The new web pages include new information and resources, links to further information and even videos for viewing pleasure! Last but not least, a photo has been added as a ‘Featured Image’ highlighting the essence of each page.

Have a look around this interesting site!

WAN celebrated Christmas with a networking event, and an inspirational presentation from Felicity Aston, MBE.

Felicity started her career as a Senior Meteorologist working with the British Antarctic Survey. When she started in Antarctica (having completed her MSc), she knew that she would not be returning home for some time – she spent three summers and two winters at the station, as is typical for staff. Her love affair with a snowy landscape went from there….

Felicity shared some of her subsequent experience, including:

• The Polar Challenge – in 2005, she was part of the first all-female team to complete the race across Arctic Canada to the North Magnetic Pole coming 6^th out of 16 teams
• In 2006, she was part of the first all-female British expedition across the Greenland ice sheet
• In 2009, she was the team leader of the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. The team comprised women from six Commonwealth member countries and they skied to the South Pole to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth.

However, most of her presentation was about the motivation and endurance required to complete her most extreme journey, crossing the Antarctic, by herself, using muscle power alone – an accomplishment that was truly astounding.

She started by asking the audience: “When were you last actually alone?” This prompted the audience to think about how little time any of us spend completely by ourselves; who we are is very often a product of those around us. Would we want to experience ‘self’ in a period of long isolation? Could we do so without any other human reference points? What would be the cognitive dissonance?

It was good to hear that Felicity is very human (rather than a super warrior) – once the intrepid achiever had been dropped off and her transport had departed the first thing that Felicity did, was to sit down on her sledge and cry! Being reduced to tears when a hurdle seems un-surmountable is a common experience for many; hearing that this courageous woman did likewise, was heartening.

She experienced physical anxiety, including breathing difficulties, a raised pulse and actual shaking. But then she pulled herself together and just got on with it, although ‘getting on with it’, required more endurance than any of us can imagine! She was pulling her supplies in two sledges, weighing approx. 85kg, in temperatures of -22F (-30C), on a journey that would take 59 days, many of which were complete white-outs.

She became anxious about losing kit, or things not working. Her broken lighter left her with just 46 matches to light her stove. She had panic attacks at times and had to focus on her breathing. Her mask to protect her from exposure froze like iron against her face each morning. She had to remember to break her food into postage-stamp sized peices to pass through the small gap in the mask during the day. She started thinking that “if you think something will go wrong, it probably will – so take action”. She spent ages one day, securing her one and only spade, as the thought of it falling off the top of her sledge without her notice, had occupied her thoughts.

As days passed, it became harder and harder to motivate herself. The little voice inside her head would say “just stay in your tent another hour” but another voice would come up with incentives to continue: “if you get up and go, you can eat all your chocolate in one go.” In the end, common-sense prevailed and the over-arching ‘mantra’ became “just get out of the tent”.

“Just get out of the tent” was a powerful message – once the first step is taken the next one follows.

She spent Christmas and New Year alone. Eventually after so little visual stimulation, she started talking to the sun; eventually the sun spoke back. She then had hallucinatory episodes where she saw dismembered floating hands pointing the way, and a gnome-like man who rode off on a small dinosaur. She shared her photos, made jokes and laughed at herself. She spoke with frankness about her weaknesses, demonstrating true humility and lack of ego – something that is uncommon in male achievers.

The audience were endeared to her!

In conclusion, it now makes applying for promotion, submitting that publication, going for that award etc., seem like an easy step in comparison. So, as Felicity would suggest, “just get out of the tent” – achievement begins with that first easy step!

Finally, big thank you to Sara who had organised the event but was off sick – get well soon and a very Happy Christmas, to our WAN community from your co-convenors – Heather, Chris and Sara.

Hello !

The entries to this year’s Research Photography Competition are now open!

Can you convey your research through an image?

We are looking for academics and postgraduates to tell the story of their research through a photograph, which can be used to inspire current BU undergraduates.

All submitted images will be showcased on the BU website late 2015, where staff and students will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite image/s. An exhibition will also be displayed in the Atrium Art Gallery during February 2016. Winners will then be announced during an Awards Ceremony which will take place on Thursday 4 February 2016.

How to enter the competition:

Step 1: Take your photo!

You can be as creative as you like in capturing the essence of your research. You could take a photo of your research in progress, showing how it is developed. Or you could focus on the people involved – the people behind the research, or the people benefitting from it. Unusual or artistic images are encouraged!

Step 2: Submit your photo

Submit your photo to the research email inbox, along with a 100–200 word description of your research by the 13th of January 2016.

Need inspiration?

Then take a look at our regular ‘Photo of the Week’, where you can read about the research behind the images or visit the Research Photography Competition 2015 webpages which highlight last year’s Research Photography Competition entries.

Sophie Smith, Lecturer in Occupational Therapy (Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) has been awarded a ‘You’re Brilliant!’ Award by the Occupational Therapy students.

The awards which were introduced to BU in 2010 have been a great way for students to nominate staff who they think are brilliant. And Sophie definitely fits that description. Sophie was praised as being fun, approachable, warm, welcoming, calm, happy, positive and a fantastic teacher.

Sophie would like to say a big thank you to all who nominated her for their kind words.

Well done Sophie!

The Festival of Learning enters its fourth year in 2016 and will be running from Saturday 25 – Wednesday 29 June. It’s a fantastic public engagement opportunity for BU to showcase the great research coming out of the university. The call for proposals is now open and the process for submitting an application is simple:

1. Think of an idea for an event that demonstrates your research – will it be innovating and interesting to members of the public? Watch our video from 2015 for some inspiration.
2. Decide if you want your event to be a bookable event that people can sign up for or whether you’d like a run a stall or drop in activity instead (i.e. an activity based on passing traffic rather than pre-bookings)
3. Consider who you want to be your target audience (adults, families, businesses etc.)
4. Consider whether your event meets the Festivals objectives, what you plan to do during the event, how it will appeal to your intended audience and what your attendees will get out of attending the event.
5. Complete the Festival of Learning event application before January 31^st 2016: see here (We are unable to accept late proposals due to the tight turn around between the call closing and review by the panel.)

If you would like to discuss an idea in more detail, please call/ email Naomi Kay (Public Engagement Officer) 61342/ nkay@bouremouth.ac.uk or click here for more detailed information about submitting a proposal.

As part of the pre-award review conducted in early – mid 2015, one of the approved actions was for the RKEO pre-award team to provide the following:

1. Pre-award Application Timeline: to inform you of what happens in the pre-award process and the timeframes required for steps to be followed for internal approvals and costing preparation. The internal legal and finances approvals processes need to be followed to comply with BU’s Financial Regulations. The Quality Approval process aims to bring your funding proposal to the best quality possible in the competitive bidding arena. As these processes involve various parties within BU, this Timeline assists you to understand the timeframes involved for each step so that we can provide you with optimal support.

2. Sample Costs: this provides the base rates of some common costing items and is to assist you to fill in the ‘Costing Information Request’ section of the Intention to Bid (ITB) form. When the ITB form is received by RKEO, your Funding Development Officer will use the base rates you provided to prepare a more accurate costing.

These documents are titled “RKE Application Timeline” and “RKE Sample Costs” – they can be found on the Staff Intranet under the section “Research”.

If you have any queries or have any issues with accessing these documents, please contact your Funding Development Team.

Dr Debbie Sadd from the Faculty of Management, is travelling to Japan as a guest of the British Council as a keynote speaker at the Sharing experiences from London 2012 symposium in Tokyo on the 18th December (https://www.britishcouncil.jp/en/events/2020-games-university-symposium).
The Knowledge Partnership, based in London, approached selected UK universities to write case studies around the roles and opportunities they gained from London 2012 and in particular to share experiences and forge a deeper UK-Japan collaboration.
Debbie’s case study of BU’s opportunity to reform the learning environment and curriculum, raise our institution’s reputation, and build our brand image from on-going legacy projects was selected as one of the exemplars for the symposium. There will be over 80 Japanese Universities in attendance as well as members of the Japanese Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.
Debbie will report further once she has returned from her trip.

‘International social work’ – this phrase to those who are interested in the profession and its developments, will either dilate eyes with lit up interest or will be scanned and dismissed as irrelevant to parochial concerns. In our experience it’s simply not a neutral subject, nor an uncontested one but is in fact replete with rich histories, cultural clashes as well as alliances; where grassroots initiatives and discourses engage a guerrilla warfare with dominant hegemonies; where neo-liberal colonialism competes for terrain and influence in poorer nations, wealthy in potential.

These were some of the topics that were discussed both formally and informally at the 2^nd International Social Work Conference 2015 held last week in Penang, Malaysia in collaboration with the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and prestigious Institut Sosial Malaysia. The organising committee was led by under the organisational leadership of our good colleague, Associate Professor Dr Azlinda Azman, Chair of the Social Work Programme at USM.

In our formal affiliation as visiting professors and editorial board members at each institution respectively, we (Profs Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Jonathan Parker) were extremely honoured to be invited to be plenary speakers at this excellent conference with the keynote delivered by Professor Dr Vimla Nadkarni, President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work. This was a star-studded event with an opening speech by Dato’ (Dame) Sri Rohani Abdul Karim, the Minister of the Ministry of Women, Family & Community Development in Malaysia. We were also able to catch up with the President of the Malaysian Association of Social Workers, Teoh Ai Hua, by now an old friend and colleague. We also met Dr Al-Azmi Bakar, Director of the Institut Sosial Malaysia. Sara even managed to catch up with her delightful, former student, Chan Soak Fong, now an elegant, professional woman and prominent social work wheel!

It was also an opportunity to reflect upon the shifting positions of power where Western social work is declining in global influence and the new star of social work rises in the East. Civilisations fade – and in the West we have had our day in the sun, which appropriately enough is setting in this direction. The social work models we developed and imported from Britain (along with those from the USA) during our heyday, have an honoured place in the new world order, but it is quite clear that vigorous pan-Asian paradigms are decentring Western models by taking centre stage in international social work. This trend unfortunately is particularly accelerated by an inward looking stance where the energies of social work in England and Wales seems heavily occupied in negotiating the radical shifts to the profession, which many would argue are jeopardising both its independence, its diverse remit as well as threatening to dilute its intellectual rigour. In the meantime schools of social work in the USA and Australia are jostling aggressively for influence in the Asian world in a neo-colonial push for power bartering their richer resources for a place at the Asian social work table.

It was therefore exciting and important to debate with Professor Nadkarni and other colleagues, these global trends, the opportunities and the threats. We discussed the rise of expertise in Asia, particularly but not specifically located in India, and where in countries like Malaysia social work is being rightly recognised as having great power and influence globally. Accordingly, Asian governments are beginning to recognise its huge potential to help transform national landscapes and therefore to bring international prestige to nations. This seemed symbolised by the media attention the conference commanded, where both the conference and its speakers appeared in all the major newspapers and on national television twice in two days. Sadly social work commands little public or political interest in the historical land of its birth, Britain especially in England, except to focus on deficits, failures and gleeful witch-hunts of hapless social workers caught in the crossfire.

We, in England, can learn much from the Asian experience, however, and the importance of accepting the wisdom of others whilst reigniting the grassroots activism from which much social work was original forged. It changes our position and perspective but perhaps in late modern society this is good for us, challenging us to think differently. For ourselves, our social research in Malaysia, and Southeast Asia as a whole, has opened up exciting vistas for us which we will explore and immerse ourselves in as we move forward into this new age and contest for authentic, impassioned social work, welfare and grassroots action

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree & Jonathan Parker