Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulation to BU’s Prof. Tiantian Zhang who has been awarded at Visiting Professorship at the University of Oxford. Her research area is cryopreservation of biological materials for medical applications. Tiantian is now affiliated with the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research, which is the University of Oxford’s first overseas centre for advanced physical and engineering science research.
Well done!
Prof Edwin van Teijlingen
Calling Gen Z (16-19 yrs)! Join us for a morning of sharing your experiences & engagement with the world around you. Take part in discussion about creating videos based on your stories! Free lunch & Storyboard books to continue your ideas!The Project Zed Group at Bournemouth University and Space Youth Dorset are excited to learn about young people’s experiences of being the latest generation of teens and their interface with the world around them! The morning is part of a pilot for a potential larger project for teens to tell their stories on a video channel. Participants will very much be “co-creators” in this process.
This Friday Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen has been invited to present at this week’s ‘Behind The Trauma’ Conference in Merley House, Dorset . This practitioners’ conference is organised by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and tickets are available here! Edwin will be offering a sociological perspective on trauma. His presentation links research conducted on the social/medical model of pregnancy and childbirth [1-6] as well as research on the portrayal of childbirth in the media [7-13]. Bournemouth University’s interdisciplinary research into media and childbirth is conducted jointly with Prof. Vanora Hundley and Dr. Catherine Angell, both in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH), and Dr. Ann Luce in the Faculty of Media & Communication.
Edwin will be sharing a platform with two Bournemouth University Visiting Faculty, both based at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: Prof. Minesh Khashu, Consultant Neonatologist and Clinical Director Wessex Maternity Children and Young People Clinical Network and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate.
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The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s author and Executive Producer, Kip Jones.
The film is available to view here.
This week saw the publication of ‘Perceived barriers to accessing Female Community Health Volunteers’ (FCHV) services among ethnic minority women in Nepal: A qualitative study’ [1]. This article in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE highlights the key role volunteers play in delivering health services to minorities/the poorest people, especially in low-income countries like Nepal.
This paper studies community health workers in Nepal, who are known as Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs). To address this issue, we conducted a qualitative study to explore perceived barriers to accessing maternal and child healthcare services among ethnic minority groups in two different parts of Nepal with varying degrees of access to local healthcare centres. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty FCHVs, 26 women service users and 11 paid local health workers. In addition, 15 FCHVs participated in four focus group discussions.
A thematic analysis of the data identified five major themes underlying barriers to accessing available maternal and child healthcare services by ethnic minority groups. These themes include: a) lack of knowledge among service users; b) lack of trust in volunteers; c) traditional beliefs and healthcare practices; d) low decision-making power of women; and e) perceived indignities experienced when using health centres. The paper concluded that community health programmes should focus on increasing awareness of healthcare services among ethnic minority groups, and the programmes should involve family members (husband and mothers-in-law) and traditional health practitioners. Both the FCHVs and local healthcare providers should be trained to communicate effectively in order to deliver respectful care among ethnic minorities if we want to achieve universal healthcare coverage for maternal and child health in low- and -middle income countries.
The paper is based on the PhD research conducted by Dr. Sarita Panday in ScHARR at the University of Sheffield. Dr. Panday is currently affiliated with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Centre (APARC) at Stanford University in the USA. Her co-authors are Prof. Paul Bissell at the University of Huddersfield, FHSS’s Visiting Prof. Padam Simkhada at the Liverpool John Moores University and BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. This is the second paper from Dr. Panday’s excellent thesis, the first paper was also published in an Open Access journal BMC Health Services Research [2].
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Thursday 20 June from 10.30am – 3.30pm, Talbot Campus
This event is a one-stop shop in assisting academics in finding out more regarding research communication and outreach to external audiences. The day will be particularly helpful for academics new to BU, or early career researchers of all levels who wish to increase their public profile and the impact of their research.
Nineteen workshops will be on offer in the afternoon, covering a wide range of topics vital to researchers and academics – from broadcast training to sharing research through social media. Included in these are two one-to-one sessions – one with the editor from the Conversation, and another with the Impact Officer team.
By the end of the day, attendees will understand the benefits of communicating their research, how to go about this, and who in BU can help them. The event is sure to be of great use to academics and researchers.
More information is available on the staff intranet.
The photo of the week series is a weekly series featuring photos taken by our academics and students for our Research Photography Competition, which provides a snapshot of some of the incredible research undertaken across the BU community.
This week’s photo of the week, ‘A quiet moment at my local, but I can’t relax. How am I going to find the dream placement?’ is by Vianna Renaud, a placement development advisor and postgraduate researcher from the faculty of media and communications.
Each year second year university students prepare for their sandwich placement search. Whilst a variety of both academic and support staff promote employability activities to help students gain a better idea of what is out there, student engagement can be quite low. Given the success of peer assisted learning initiatives across the HE sector, I am researching the potential impact of an employability coaching and mentoring programme on both first year and final year students.
The journal Women and Birth (by Elsevier) published the latest academic paper by Dr. Alison Taylor today. Alison’s paper ‘The therapeutic role of video diaries: A qualitative study involving breastfeeding mothers’ had been online as a pre-publication for a while but today in appeared officially in print [1]. Alison is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and this scientific paper is part of her completed PhD research project. 
The paper is based on a large number of video clips recorded by new mothers. The total recording time exceeded 43 hours. This paper focuses on one theme, the therapeutic role of the camcorder in qualitative research. Four subthemes are discussed highlighting the therapeutic impact of talking to the camcorder: personifying the camcorder; using the camcorder as a confidante; a sounding board; and a mirror and motivator. Dr. Taylor and colleagues conclude that frequent opportunities to relieve tension by talking to “someone” without interruption, judgement or advice can be therapeutic. Further research needs to explore how the video diary method can be integrated into standard postnatal care to provide benefits for a wider population.
This is the second paper originating from Alison’s PhD research, the first one appeared in Midwifery (also published by Elsevier) [2]. Dr. Taylor’s PhD thesis was supervised by Prof. Emerita Jo Alexander, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (in CMMPH) and Prof. Kath Ryan at the University of Reading.
[Drawing of Breastfeeding Woman by Allison Churchill.]
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The Project Zed Group at Bournemouth University and Space Youth Dorset are excited to learn about young people’s experiences of being the latest generation of teens and their interface with the world around them! The morning is part of a pilot for a potential larger project for teens to tell their stories on a video channel. Participants will very much be “co-creators” in this process.
We will spend the morning watching some videos about teen’s experiences and talking with teenagers about their own. We are interested in their ideas of identity, gender and sexuality and their relationships with each other. We will give them the chance to begin thinking about how their stories might contribute to a larger story on video or film.
Storyboard sketchbooks will be distributed for participants to go away and begin to plot their own ideas for a story graphically. They don’t have to be great artists, just people with great ideas!
At the end of the morning, we will provide a Bar-B-Que lunch. We will meet up again a month later so that everyone can share their ideas and storyboards together.
The Spring newsletter of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) is available online now, click here! Also you can read more about our Centre on our webpages. CMMPH embraces the notion of FUSION as a key Bournemouth 
University centre. This is illustrated in each newsletter which always has sections on the three segments of Fusion: Education, Practice and Research.
On behalf of Bournemouth University Dr Shanti Shanker and Prof Edwin van Teijlingen signed a research collaboration with Dr Anita Patankar of Symbiosis School of Liberal College (SSLC) in India. This collaboration is part of a Research England GCRF-funded project. Our collaborators in rural Ratnagiri District (Maharashtra) include Dr Shrutika Kotkunde, Dr Sachin Yadav and Dr and Mrs Reelkar to name a few.
Sheetal Astitva (meaning Calm Identity) is the name of our project which aims to understand the maternal health and state of neuropsychological rehabilitation in rural India.
Through Sheetal Astitva we will be developing a model of lay counsellors (LC) with focus to improve: a) Maternal mental wellbeing; and b) Neuropsychological rehabilitation and integrating a collaborative step care (CSC) intervention. The training will be adapted on empirical evidence and methods developed for India by Sangath (Shine et al., 2013).
One of intermediate outcomes of the project is to co-create a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in India with the partners to be ensure longer-term sustainability. Sheetal Asthitva will be working in India to improve maternal wellbeing and integrate neuro-rehabilitation in the community to enhance the quality of life and mental health.
If you are interested to know the updates, follow us on twitter: @AstitvaSheetal
We welcome Dr Gayatri Kotbagi as local collaborator, who will soon be joining BU as a post-doctoral research fellow on this project!
I have just returned from Brazil where I engaged in three academic activities.
First, I co-delivered the inaugural lecture of the PhD programme in Tourism at São Paulo University. My presentation focused on providing a number of recommendations for internationalising the research carried out as part of the programme. Based on my in-depth knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of tourism research carried out in Brazil, I set to cover a number of issues that I consider critical in facilitating greater levels of internationalisation. Through comparing article titles of international and Brazilian tourism journals, I addressed the issue of over-emphasising the context of research at the expense of the theoretical underpinning and methodological rigour.
The second activity and the main reason for the trip to Brazil was my participation in the III Forum ABRATUR. ABRATUR is an Academy devoted to the internationalisation of tourism research in Brazil, of which I am a founding member. Academy members have a distinguished international publication record and act as mentors to young and established researchers aiming to internationalise their research. I delivered a keynote presentation on the first day entitled “doing literature reviews of international standard: what you should know but no one tells you”.
The Forum attracted over 100 participants (including more than 80 paper presentations) from across the country, featuring a very exciting social programme. The forum took place in Joinville (Santa Catarina State) which hosts the only school of the Bolshoi Theatre outside Russia. Forum participants had the opportunity to look behind the scenes followed by a beautiful performance courtesy of final year students. As someone who had never watched a ballet performance live, I was impressed with its beauty, emotion and technical skill required. The educational program of the school consists of eight years of intense learning, where students get ballet training as well as formal education, at no cost due to generous donations by businesses and individuals. Once they graduate, students are ready to embrace a career as ballet dancers.
The third and final activity involved delivering a workshop to master students and academic staff of the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality at Fluminense Federal University in Niteroi (Rio de Janeiro State). The workshop started with an introduction to the three pillars of research (process, content and context), followed by a discussion of student’ dissertation titles using this tripartite approach to evaluating research titles.
The trip was an opportunity to interact with old friends and make new ones, and many opportunities for future collaboration were discussed.
As the month of Pride begins, focus group research linked to a British Academy Small Grant project explored the benefits of water-based active leisure for a local transgender group. On Saturday 1st June, at Bournemouth Library in The Triangle, research participants shared their experiences of attending a local swimming pool during privately hired sessions. The cost of the private-hire sessions are covered by the BA Grant and this affords the group exclusive access. Initial findings reveal that such access means group members feel safe, and are able to support each other. Many of the group had stopped swimming and not visited a pool for a long time because of perceived and actual transphobia as well as feelings of fear, and becoming isolated.
The focus group covered topics such as: How important is physical activity to transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming participants? How have the swimming sessions made you feel about your body? And, do you want the sessions to carry on? A transgender artist attended the focus group and captured the responses via illustrations.
The findings, so far, indicate the positive social and wellbeing aspects of attending the pool sessions. Physical activity was viewed as important in enabling good mental health. Having fun, feeling liberated and free, and being in your own body were common themes. At the same time, feeling unwelcome in public space, and changing room infrastructure presented barriers to active involvement.
During the month of Pride, we cannot forget that statistics indicate LGBTQ+ experience higher levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal feelings as a consequence of feeling isolated, and experiences of rejection and bullying. Within the community, the figures are higher for transgender people (see: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/trans_stats.pdf)
If you would like to more about the project please contact: Jayne Caudwell (jcaudwell@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Carly Stewart (cstewart@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Quick reminder to please register for our Improving Nurse Retention Conference that will be held here at Bournemouth University on July 1st.
This project dissemination conference will explore the outcomes of Burdett Trust for Nursing funded collaborative research (Bournemouth University and Royal Bournemouth Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) which focused on improving nurse retention (Making TRACS to improve nurse retention: https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/projects/making-tracs-improve-nurse-retention). There will also be a small exhibition and the opportunity to share practice through participation in workshops focused on authentic leadership and valuing staff, supporting staff health and wellbeing and staff development.
This conference will take place in the Fusion Building from 10am-3pm on July 1st 2019.
This is free to attend and a buffet lunch will be provided.
Please register now as space is limited!
Registration via Eventbrite :
The photo of the week series is a weekly series featuring photos taken by our academics and students for our Research Photography Competition, which provides a snapshot of some of the incredible research undertaken across the BU community.
This week’s photo of the week, ‘Post-feeding Blood pattern comprised of the artefacts of the blowfly Calliphora vicina enhanced with Bluestar,’ is by the winner of this years Research Photography Competition, Christopher Dwen, a TTO Demonstrator In Forensic Science.
Blowflies have a high affinity for some bodily fluids such as blood, semen and saliva when other food sources are absent. For this reason, they are frequently found at crime scenes if they have access through open doors or windows.
Because some foods are difficult for a fly to breakdown in their pure forms, it first uses the proboscis (mouth parts) to draw it up, which it then mixes with digestive enzymes to break it down. This food is then expelled, again via the proboscis, and returned to at a later time when it is more easily consumed. Often, this type of feeding behaviour will leave ‘spotting’ stains on a surface as the fly dabs a surface with the proboscis following ‘bubbling’, which involves the fly repeatedly expelling and reabsorbing a bubble of regurgitated liquid (in this case, blood) from its proboscis.
The attached image is of a bloodstain pattern created entirely by just five blowflies (Calliphora vicina), and then enhanced with Bluestar® Forensic latent bloodstains reagent. A petri dish of horse blood in the centre of the pattern was the food source, and the resulting pattern shows the density and distribution on deposited fly artefacts in relation to that source.
BU PGR Adedoyin Festus Fatai was one of three PhD students accepted to present at a 3-days intensive workshop on “Tourism: Economics and Management. Tourists as Consumers, Visitors and Travelers” in honour of Lionello F. Punzo which held at the Department of Economics, University of Siena, Siena, Italy (Italia), between 30 May – 1 June 2019.
It was an invaluable experience to serve as a discussant alongside other researchers in the field and to receive feedback on one of the empirical chapters from my PhD research. Additionally, there were comments from well-experienced journal editors with opportunities for collaboration.
An important lesson from the 15 papers discussed is that knowledge of research methods is not enough! instead, having a ‘story’ is more important. A good story will always sell as long as it identifies a clear gap to fill; is significant and has a strong motivation for it to be published in a journal with high impact factor.
Festus
Sexual harassment in academia was the serious and, as our eminent keynote speakers demonstrated, woefully neglected subject of the 3rdAnnual Women’s Academic Network (WAN) Symposium on the 29thof May, 2019.
Eva Tutchell, an expert education adviser working with all age groups on gender issues, and John Edmonds, former General Secretary of the GMB trade union and Visiting Fellow of Kings College London and a Visiting Professor at Durham University Business School, presented their current research. Their study is an incisive and eye-opening account of the scale of sexual harassment among both staff and students in higher education. In particular they highlighted the difficulties faced by victims and survivors when they try to seek help and report incidents, especially the failure of universities to develop clear and accessible policies and procedures until engulfed by a sexual abuse scandal. We very much look forward to the publication of their book later this year: Unsafe Spaces: Ending sexual abuse in Universities.
WAN co-founder Heather Savigny, a Professor at De Montfort University, identified the pernicious ways in which the online abuse of female academics has the effect of discriminating against them in relation to REF and Impact outcomes. This on-line abuse can discouraged women academics from maintaining the high profile and public engagement which can form the core criteria of dissemination, reach and impact. Heather’s research indicates that on-line abuse is a form of ‘cultural sexism’ that can serve to ‘silence’ of women. She wryly noted that her own experiences of on-line abuse while patently demonstrating ‘impact’ were not counted as such.
Finally Peter Hills, Head of the Psychology Department at BU, reviewed his research with undergraduates which worryingly revealed the gulf in their judgement of consent in relation to a variety of scenarios from consensual sex to sexual harassment and abuse. Dr. Hills’ aim is to find more effective ways of communicating the important message that only a verbally expressed ‘yes’ counts as consent.
The talks generated much lively discussion and ideas for future research. The topic of sexual harassment in academia will be followed up in forthcoming WAN events.
If you would like to join WAN please contact Frances, Lorraine, Jayne or Sara:
CQR’s webpages have now migrated to the new Centres and Institutes pages of the Bournemouth University website. We are in the progress of refreshing and updating the new pages, but you can still connect to the old CQR webpages, at least for the time-being. It is here that you can find links to many of the specialisations of members including
Humanising Health and Social Care;
Novel and Innovative Research Methodologies;
Performative Social Science and Arts-led Research;
Narrative and Biographic Research
Humanising Care, Health & Wellbeing
13-14th June 2019
The Humanisation approach is supported by working practices which encourage connection to personal experience and research approaches which privilege subjective experience and knowing. Organised and led by CQR’s Deputy Director, Caroline Ellis-Hill.
CQR Members presenting at the Conference include: Camila Devis-Rozental, Caroline Ellis-Hill, Chantel Cox, Clare Gordon, Karen Rees, Lee Ann Fenge, Liz Norton, and Sally Lee.
CQR Members, Associates, and Doctoral Students are also busy writing. Below, just a taster from a range of members’ recent wide variety of methods and subject matter, now in press or about to be. CQR members come from across FHSS departments and several other BU Faculties. CQR and CEL have particular synergies around creativity in research and education. Many faculty claim membership in both Centres!
Assoc. Member Lee-Ann Fenge:
Fenge, L., Oakley, L., Taylor, B. and Beer, S. (in press) The impact of sensitive research on the researcher: preparedness and positionality, International Journal of Qualitative Methods
Fenge, L., Melacca, D, Lee, S. and Rosenorn-Lanng, E. (in press) Older peoples’ preferences and challenges when using digital technology: a systematic review with particular reference to digital games, International Journal of Education and Ageing
Fenge, L. Cutts, W. and Seagrave, J. 2018. Understanding homelessness through poetic inquiry: looking into the shadows, Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 19 (3), 119-133
BU Visiting Prof Catherine Hennessy:
Hennessy, C.H. and Means, R. (2018). “Connectivity of Older People in Rural Areas”, Chapter 8 in A. Walker (ed.) The New Dynamics of Ageing, Bristol: Policy Press.
Member Camilla Devis-Rozental:
Devis-Rozental.C. (2018). Developing Socio-Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education Scholars. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Member Jo Thurston:
Thurston, J., 2020. Opening a Door to a Private World: Using Auto/biographical Methodology to Explore Health Experience. SAGE Methods Cases.
Assoc. Member Carly Stewart:
Sparkes, A. C. & Stewart, C. 2019. Stories as actors causing trouble in lives: a dialogical narrative analysis of a competitive cyclist and the fall from grace of Lance Armstrong. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.
Stewart, C., Woodward, M. and Gough, R., 2019. ‘I’ve drawn, like, someone who was the world’: drawings as embodied gestures of lived yoga experience. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.
CQR Director Kip Jones, Member Jo Thurston, Assoc. Member Louise Oliver
Thurston and Oliver prepare for the interview
Jones was invited by Sage Publications’ MethodSpace to write a blog article for their June/July Special Issue on Creativity. Kip transcribed his interview on biographic research conducted by CQR members, Joanna Thurston and Louise Oliver. The pair interviewed Jones, along with several other academics, for their film, “It’s not research, it’s just stories!” The film was screened at the British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Study Group Conference in December 2018. Kip Jones discusses “Biography, Auto-biography, and Creativity” in the MethodSpace blog piece.
Assoc. Member Lorraine Brown:
Kichuk, A; Brown, L; Ladkin, A 2019 Talent pool exclusion: the hotel employee perspective International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
Member Jenny Hall:
Crowther, A. Stephen & J. Hall (2019) Association of psychosocial–spiritual experiences around childbirth and subsequent perinatal mental health outcomes: an integrated review, Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology.
Assoc. Members Janet Scammell, Vanessa Heaslip, Karen Cooper
Rosser, E., Scammell, J., Heaslip, V., White, S., Phillips, J., Cooper, K., Donaldson, I., Hemingway, A., (2019). Caring values in undergraduate nurse students: a qualitative longitudinal study. Nurse Education Today.
Member Michele Board, Associate Member Vanessa Heaslip
Board, M., Pigott, L., Olive, H. and Heaslip, V., 2019. Better Together – A Day Hospital’s move towards Integrated care. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation.
Kip Jones held a successful video session for the recent Social Fiction Conference at the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives at the University of Manchester. He will be conducting another session via video link with postgrad students at Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education in Kazakhstan in a few weeks’ time. Both sessions centre around the award-winning short film, RUFUS STONE and Jones’ part in creating it.
CQR Deputy Director Caroline Ellis-Hill:
Ellis-Hill C, Lamont –Robinson C & Galvin K (2019) Sustaining wellbeing after a stroke: reflections on humanising lifeworld processes within an Arts and Health group – HeART of stroke EACS conference – Sustainable Caring for Health and Wellbeing Oct 1st -3rd 2019 Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
Paglioni M, Ellis-Hill C, Board M and Branney, J and Valentine J (2019) Exploring the experience of older people who attend a hospital … The British Society of Gerontology 48th Annual Conference: University of Liverpool 10 -12 July 2019.
Doctoral student, Charlotte Clayton, has a poster accepted for presentation about her PhD research fort the University of Southampton conference, ‘Pregnancy, Maternity and the Self’ 21st June.
Assoc. Member Trevor Hearing presented:
“The Scholarly Studio: The Application of the Television Studio as a Performative Research Tool” at: Creative Practice Research in the Age of NeoLiberal Hopelessness 10-12 May 2018 University of Bedfordshire.
CQR members Lee-Ann Fenge, Kip Jones, Vanessa Heaslip Took part in the Charity Research Showcase at Bournemouth U.
Participants discussed their research with the charity sector and a wide range of charity partners.
Following on from yet another successful year of CQR Lunchtime Seminars, it is time now for CQR members, Associate Members and Doctoral Associates, to be thinking of ideas for seminars for the next academic year. The theme for the year will be: “Methods to Our Madness!” Informal talks followed by interactive discussions are the order of the day!
There certainly will NOT be time to explain a whole research method! Instead, presenters are asked to informally talk about how they decided on a method for a piece of research, and perhaps how that worked out (or not!) for them. CQR audiences are particularly interested in what we might call the application of ‘Creative Methods” in research!
CQR members are asked to submit ideas now as it takes time to organise the calendar for these ahead of time. Please send your thoughts via email to Kip.
BU staff can login below:
FHSS academics teaching in Nepal
New weight change BU paper
One week to go! | The 16th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference
Geography and Environmental Studies academics – would you like to get more involved in preparing our next REF submission?
Congratulations to three former BU staff
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
Applications are now open for 2025 ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships!
Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars
MaGMap: Mass Grave Mapping
ERC grants – series of webinars Last reminder – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 internal deadline next week
Research Information Network