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2018 BU PhD Studentship Competition – Round 2

Funding opportunities

Call for submission of a further 18 matched funded Postgraduate Research Projects now OPEN

The Doctoral College is delighted to announce the launch of a second round for the 2018 BU PhD Studentship Competition, with up to 18 further matched funded projects available.

At this stage, Academic Staff are invited to submit proposals for matched funded studentship projects which, if successful, will be advertised to recruit PhD candidates for a September 2018 start.

Full details can be found on the Doctoral College Staff Intranet where the following information can be found:

Submission Deadline:

Applications should be submitted on the Studentship Proposal Form to the Doctoral College via email to phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk no later than 5pm on Monday 26 March 2018.

The Doctoral College will manage the recruitment process along the following timetable:

Date Action
February 2018 Launch PhD Studentships Internal Competition – development of proposals
26 March 2018 Closing date for submission of proposals
w/c 2 April 2018 Faculty panel meetings to rank projects
w/c 16 April 2018 Central panel meeting to allocate funding
14 May 2018 Launch PhD Studentships External Competition – recruitment of candidates
30 June 2018 Closing date for External Competition
September 2018 Successful Candidates start

 

Interdisciplinary Research Week 2018

international, Training

The third Interdisciplinary Research Week (IRW) is being held from 19th to 23rd March 2018. Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s interdisciplinary research, and stimulate new collaborations and ideas amongst the University’s diverse research community.

The week-long event includes a programme of lectures, workshops, and discussions, aimed at promoting interdisciplinary workings; to provide an understanding of how to get involved in Interdisciplinary Research.

Programme

Inspirational Speaker – Professor Celia Lury

British Academy Visit – Interdisciplinary Research

Collaborating with Others: Becoming a Better Team worker

Networking: Making the Most of an Upcoming Event

New research realities and interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinary research with industry

Speed Collaborations event

Lighting Talks: What can and should be achieved in Interdisciplinary Research

 

 

Awarded Student Research Assistantships

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, student research

The following projects have been awarded for the summer round of the Student Research Assistantship (SRA) scheme. Projects are open for applications and students can apply via MyCareerHub using the links below.

This summer programme is for 120 hours work between May and 31st July 2018 and is open to all campus-based undergraduate and postgradaute-taught students from all faculties, who have grades of over 70%.

2D/3D Animation Tool Developer – Student Research Assistant – Dr Xiaosong Yang

An analysis of Channel 4’s broadcast coverage of the 2016 Rio Paralympics – Student Research Assistant  – Dr Dan Jackson and Dr Emma Pullen

Augmented Reality Student Research Assistant – Dr Tom Wainwright

Blockchain and its potential to transform business operating models in tourism and hospitality – Student Research Assistant – Dr Viachaslau Filimonau

Brythm App Project: Producing media content to support implementation of an app for clinical trials – Student Research Assistant – WeZ Nolan

CAIRIS Research Software Engineer – Student Research Assistant – Dr Shamal Faily

Creating a citizen science website for identifying wildlife habitats: Wildlife Space Search (WiSS) – Student Research Assistant – Dr Anita Diaz

‘Debt Financing Impact – Family Firms UK’ Student Research Assistant – Dr Suranjita Mukherjee

Digital connectivity and leisure in later life – Student Research Assistant – Prof. Janet Dickinson

Entrepreneurial Graduates Student Research Assistant – Clive Allen

Evaluator for children’s emotional education and well being – Student Research Assistant – Dr Ching-Yu Huang

Facebook Personalisation and Digital Literacy (Algorithms and Fake News) – Student Research Assistant – Dr Roman Gerodimos

Student Research Assistant: Food donations in the UK grocery retail sector – The role of local charities – Dr Viachaslau Filimonau

Food waste collection and recycling by local councils in England: identifying ‘best practice’ models – Student Research Assistant

– Dr Viachaslau Filimonau

‘Housing Information Retrieval System’ Student Research Assistant – Dr Edward Apeh

HTML5 Game developer – Student Research Assistant – Dr Vedad Hulusic

Inter-professional attitudes and beliefs about pain management: support to write a research paper – Student Research Assistant – Dr Desiree Tait

Low power IoT devices for Network Visuals – Student Research Assistant – Liam Birtles

Marketing & Economic Well-being Student Research Assistant – Prof. Juliet Memery

Marketing and Media Student Research Assistant – Dr Tom Wainwright

Modelling and System design for Intellectual Property law application – Student Research Assistant – Dr Sofia Meacham

M-shopping and senior consumers: A multi-method investigation into attitude and shopping process – Student Research Assistant – Dr Jason Sit

Older carers story project research assistant post – Student Research Assistant – Dr Mel Hughes

Public Engagement Student Research Assistant (Virtual Avebury) – Prof. Kate Welham

Public Service Motivation and Civic Engagement – Student research Assistant – Dr Joyce Costello

Quantifying Dyslexic Performance in Classroom Copying Tasks – Student Research Assistant – Dr Julie Kirkby

Reconstructing Disney Films – Student Research Assistant – Dr Alexander Sergeant

Student Research Assistant for a Political Anthropology Project on Gibraltar & Spain – Dr Laura Bunt-MacRury

Research Assistant: Economic Impact of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis – Dr Mehdi Chowdhury

Student Research Assistant in Managing Crises and Disasters at International Sport Events – Dr Richard Shipway

Student research assistant to support the development of a change framework for Higher Education – Dr Lois Farquharson

Researching the role of public engagement events to increase understanding of financial scams – Student Research Assistant

– Dr Sally Lee and Prof. Lee-Ann Fenge

Student Research Assistant to The TACIT Trial: TAi ChI for people with demenTia – Dr Samuel Nyman

Story-mapping Marginal Voices: Using Modes of Interactive Storytelling – Student Research Assistant

– Dr Paula Callus

AI and Business Applications – Student Research Assistant – Dr Martyn Polkinghorne

Public Engagement Activities of Postgraduate Researchers – Student Research Assistant – Dr Martyn Polkinghorne

Entrepreneurship Education – Student Research Assistant – Dr Mili Shrivastava

Student Research Assistant (micro-plastics and disease dynamics) – Prof. Robert Britton

Student Research Assistant in Law & AI – Dr Argyro Karanasiou

The effect of signage on driving performance: Student Research Assistant – Dr Christos Gatzidis

The material culture of mantelpieces as expression of self-identity – Student Research Assistant

– Dr Fiona Coward

Traveling with Diabetes – Student Research Assistant

– Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis

Understanding the Hackers: Student Research Assistant – Dr John McAlaney

‘Who’s a scientist?’ Project Student Research Assistant – Dr Shelley Thompson

Team-based Learning Student Research Assistant – Lucy Stainer

‘TRAnsparent Web protection for alL, TRAWL’ Student Research Assistant – Dr Alexios Mylonas

Please promote these vacancies to students where applicable.  All jobs are live on MyCareerHub, our Careers & Employability online careers tool.  You will need to use your staff/student credentials to login.

Please do look out for SRA updates on the BU Research Blog.

If you have any questions about this scheme, please contact Charlene Parrish, Student Project Bank Coordinator, on 61281 or email sra@bournemouth.ac.uk.

ADRC and BUCRU host ‘Ageing, Frailty and Dementia Steamlab’ 2018

The Ageing, Frailty and Dementia Steamlab took place at BU on the 14th February, co-hosted by the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) and Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU). The Steamlab brought together academics and clinicians from across the county with an interest in the topic area.

The event kicked off with an introduction by the Directors of the host research centres: Prof Jane Murphy, ADRC; Prof Jan Wiener, ADRC; and Prof Peter Thomas, BUCRU. Attendees were then given some time to individually reflect on their own skills, knowledge and experiences, and asked to identify current key challenges in the field. Guest speaker Esther Clift from Southern Health gave an interesting talk about her experiences of frailty based on her practice as an Occupational Therapist and the importance of what she believes is the first community-based Multidisciplinary Frailty Team in the UK, which she is based in in the New Forest.

After lunch, attendees heard from guest speakers: Prof Peter Thomas from BUCRU about how BU can support practitioners undertaking clinical research with an overview of the staff and services that BUCRU provide; and Dr Mike Vassallo from Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital about his personal experiences of undertaking research as a practitioner and the value that this has had on his clinical practice.

Attendees then teamed up to develop a research project idea based on one of the areas identified as a key challenge from the morning session. Teams then had 5 mins to each feedback their ideas to the group. Attendees voted for the project they felt was the strongest. The winning team with representatives from BU and Poole NHS Hospital Trust have been given the chance to submit a proposal for some pump prime funds to kick start work on a new project to inform a larger research bid!

With over 30 people attending, the Steamlab was lively and lead to some interesting discussion and debate about the key challenges we face as an ageing society. The opportunity to think about and discuss challenges through the integration of research and practice was particularly useful.

For more information about the ADRC or BUCRU.

 

 

YouTube: a look into the future

The future of YouTube is focus of a new co-created paper by Dr John Oliver (FMC) and Emma Parrett, Strategic Partnerships Director at OMD UK. Published in the US based journal, Business Horizons, the paper presents theoretical and empirical findings on how Scenario Planning was used to enable media executives to strategize and prepare YouTube for multiple futures, with multiple strategies.

The paper combines imaginative and systematic thinking in a way that provides a unique insight into future media environments and how YouTube could compete in each scenario.
Dr Oliver commented that “this co-created paper illustrates the benefits of academics working with industry professionals to create knowledge and impact with multiple stakeholders”.

The full article can accessed from: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Wbaj1lnoC6sq

Himbasha and YouTube – field work with unaccompanied minor refugees

“Facebook! WhatsApp!” – shouts one of the Eritrean teenagers. “No, Viber!”  – contradicts his friend. The promt for this, was the question: what is your favourite app? I’m in a centre in the north of the Netherlands which accommodates 20 unaccompanied minor refugees. I’m here because we’re conducting an EU-funded Marie Curie project on how these displaced children (aged 14-18) use digital technology and (social) media.

I’m running the focus group in the mentors’ office, while in the kitchen some other boys are listening to Eritrean music. From one of the rooms, I can also hear Arabic music playing. Wherever I went during the two weeks field work in the Netherlands, music was the one constant. Most of the time YouTube was on auto play, and I watched some of the videos together with the teenagers.

“What is it about?” – I would ask. The girls would start laughing: “Ah it’s too complicated.” “Is it about love?” – I continued. “Yes!”- they’d reply and laugh even harder.

In the two weeks spent in the Netherlands, I interviewed 16 unaccompanied refugee children. In that time, I was lucky enough to be invited into their homes. Upon entering I was regularly offered tea, or in one house, a traditional Eritrean cake called Himbasha. Despite their struggles and constant waiting for their families to arrive from a different country, these teenagers were trying their best to live a fairly normal life.

I was also humbled by the work of their mentors. The mentors are employed by a Dutch non-governmental organisation, and have a very important role: to help young refugees adapt to their new country, help them understand the way Dutch society functions and to support them in their everyday life. From applying for a new bus card for the teenagers to asking them about school work, the mentors are basically a new family to them. Some of the mentors I’ve met, have themselves arrived as refugees to the Netherlands. Needless to say, their work is equally demanding and fulfilling.

The final aim of this project is to understand unaccompanied minor refugees’ lived media experiences in order to create media literacy educational materials for them. I hope that our work will be as beneficial as the work I’ve seen done by these mentors.

 

photo credits: Nidos, RedDishKitchen

I’m very grateful to the non-governmental organisations Nidos and Vitree for their support during this field work.

 

LGBT+ Sport, Leisure and Wellbeing

To mark LGBT History Month and Football v Homophobia Month of Action [see: http://www.footballvhomophobia.com] staff in the Departments of Sport & Physical Activity (Carly Stewart, Emma Kavanagh & Adi Adams) and Events & Leisure (Jayne Caudwell) ran a LBGT+ Sport, Leisure and Wellbeing symposium (Weds 21st Feb). Statistics demonstrate homophobia, biphobia and transphobia exist in sport, physical activity and active leisure. For instance, Stonewall reported (2016) that 72% of football fans have witnessed homophobic abuse, and 43% of LGBT people consider public sporting events as unwelcoming for LGBT people.

At the symposium, we discussed experiences of, and challenges to homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Speakers included Communi-T, a Bournemouth based social group for trans people and anyone who is on the trans spectrum. We know little about transgender and non-binary people’s participation in sport, physical activity and active leisure. The symposium provided opportunity to consider what can be done to address incidents of transphobia. A significant issue is the way we organise sport, physical activity and active leisure, especially infrastructures such as the changing rooms. This aspect was the focus for one of the speakers – Ali Greey a Masters student at the University of Toronto. Ali provided a compelling pre-recorded presentation entitled: It’s a bad case of the locker room blues [see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGiEWy7o_XM&feature=youtu.be]

The symposium was supported by local organisations keen to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Speakers from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue service, Dorset Police and Dorset Football Association discussed policies of inclusion and processes of reporting hate crime as well as the Prejudice Free Dorset partnership.

Bournemouth University students present their research in Parliament

Knowledge Exchange, Student Engagement, student research

Two Bournemouth University students, Grace Connors and Emily Rogers, have presented their undergraduate research to MPs and policy makers at the annual ‘Posters in Parliament’ event.

Around 40 students from across the UK are given the opportunity to share their research in Parliament each spring.  The exhibition allows MPs and policy makers to learn more about the innovative undergraduate research taking place across the country.  It’s also an excellent opportunity for current undergraduates and recent graduates to hone their presentation skills as they share their work with lay audiences.

Grace Connors, a BA English student from the Faculty of Media & Communication, presented her research into BBC drama The Fall which explored the representation of women in crime dramas.

“I looked at the way female characters were treated in The Fall¸ and whether or not it impacts on the way that real women are treated,” explains Grace, “I’ve always been interested female characters and the way they’re portrayed.”

“The Fall is often described as being a feminist or woman-led show, despite the fact it has numerous poorly treated female characters.  I wanted to see if there was a link between poor treatment of women in a ‘feminist’ programme and how women are treated in reality.  Through my research, I found that the prevalence of negative treatment towards women often leads to people no longer finding this kind of behaviour taboo.”

Emily Rogers, a BSc Nutrition student from the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, shared her research into boosting fruit and vegetable consumption of school-aged children and their parents.  Previous research has suggested that family meals can help to improve dietary intake, so Emily decided to see if meal time frequency could help to boost a family’s fruit and vegetable consumption.

“I chose to work with children aged 9 – 11 years old and their parents, as statistics showed that by the time children reach 10 – 11 years old one third are overweight or obese.  63% of adults in the UK are overweight or obese too, so I wanted to see if good eating habits were being shared throughout families,” says Emily.

“I sent out over 200 questionnaires to parents of year 5 and 6 children at Christchurch Junior School.  To encourage a high response rate, I gave children the opportunity to win a couple of hampers filled with prizes designed to help them get more involved in food production and preparation: gardening tools, seeds and cooking utensils, as examples.”

“My research showed that there was a positive link between family meal times and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption for both children and adults,” continues Emily, “Children had more opportunities to eat healthily and adults, perhaps because they were modelling good eating practices for their children, also improved their diets.”

“I was inspired to submit my research to SURE, BU’s undergraduate research conference, and Posters in Parliament by my lecturer, Dr Fotini Tsofliou.  She has always been extremely supportive, and I can’t wait to use both opportunities to inspire others and help to create healthier communities.”

More information about BU’s undergraduate research conference can be found on the SURE website.  Staff and students are welcome to attend the conference on 7 March and can book free tickets via Eventbrite.

BU Briefing – Locating the ‘third voice’: participatory film making and the everyday in rural India.

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

This research reflects on practice-led research involving a community video project in southern India – Andhra Pradesh. Four of the women involved in this project were asked if they would use their cameras to film their everyday lives.

The aim of this paper was to build on current practice by combining participatory filmmaking with traditional observational documentary techniques and video diary interviews to locate a ‘third voice’ in order to create an engaging narrative and new perspectives on life in rural India.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Dr Sue Sudbury at smsudbury@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

What is Open Access?

BRIAN, Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open access is about making the products of research freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increased use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.

There are two complementary mechanisms for achieving open access to research.

The first mechanism is for authors to publish in open-access journals that do not receive income through reader subscriptions.

The second is for authors to deposit their refereed journal article in an open electronic archive.

These two mechanisms are often called the ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to open access:

  • Gold – This means publishing in a way that allows immediate access to everyone electronically and free of charge. Publishers can recoup their costs through a number of mechanisms, including through payments from authors called article processing charges (APCs), or through advertising, donations or other subsidies.
  • Green – This means depositing the final peer-reviewed research output in an electronic archive called a repository. Repositories can be run by the researcher’s institution, but shared or subject repositories are also commonly used. Access to the research output can be granted either immediately or after an agreed embargo period.

Article first published – http://www.hefce.ac.uk/rsrch/oa/whatis/

To encourage all academic communities to consider open access publishing, Authors Alliance has produced a comprehensive ‘Understanding Open Access‘ guide which addresses common open access related questions and concerns and provides real-life strategies and tools that authors can use to work with publishers, institutions, and funders to make their works more widely accessible to all.

To access and download the guide, please follow this link – http://authorsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Guides/Authors%20Alliance%20-%20Understanding%20Open%20Access.pdf

For any other open access related queries, please do get in touch with Shelly Anne Stringer in RKEO.

International Conference on Quality Education in Federal Nepal

Bournemouth University is closely involved the international conference organised by HISSAN in Kathmandu this week.  HISSAN is the overarching organisation of over 1,100 independent higher education colleges and secondary schools in Nepal. Together with 16 education partners from Nepal and abroad HISSAN runs the first ever International Conference on Quality Education in Federal Nepal to help build the future education system in the new federation. The conference will be held in Kathmandu on 22-23 February this week.

This is a broad-spectrum education conference bringing together delegates from colleges and universities who represent a wide-range of disciplines taught at colleges across Nepal, from Computing to Management and from Engineering to Public Health.

Our intention is that delegates from Nepal can discuss and learn from education innovations in their own country as well as from abroad. There will 31 interesting sessions over two days, including some exciting plenary presentations.

Speakers are from different academic disciplines representing views from Management Studies, Education, Public Health, Law, Nursing, Disability Studies, Engineering, Disaster Management, Human Rights Research, Ageing, Road Safety Research and Science & Technology.

Many different countries are represented at the conference. Apart from papers on Nepal, there will be presentations or speakers from China, India, Bangladesh, the UK, Israel, Vietnam, the USA, and Sweden.

Different speakers will be addressing various aspects of education and education development, including Prof. Stephen Tee from Bournemouth University. He will be addressing the question: ‘What Can Nepal Learn from the Latest UK Technology-Enhanced Teaching Learning?’    Other interesting contributions in the programme, that caught my eye, include Prof. V. G. Hegde from the Faculty of Legal Studies at the South Asian University in Delhi (India) who will be presenting a paper called ‘Implementation of Right to Education in a Federal Context: Lessons from India and Nepal.’  And also the paper by Prof. Qin Jie from the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing (China) who will be talking about ‘The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and Higher Education in China.’

 

Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

*Reminder* Ken Emond – British Academy visiting BU – 6th March

british_academy_logo

Ken Emond from the British Academy will again be returning to BU on Tuesday the 6th March 2018. Don’t forget to get yourself booked in!

This is an invaluable opportunity to find out more about the international and domestic funding available through the organisation.  For those of you who are not familiar with the British Academy, it is the UK’s leading independent body for the humanities and social sciences, promoting funding, knowledge exchange and providing independent advice within the humanities. 

The session will last just over  1 hour (12:30pm-13:30pm) and will comprise a presentation focusing on international and domestic funding opportunities along with an overview of the British Academy and any recent developments, followed by a Q&A session.

Representatives of the British Academy will be available to answer any individual queries not covered in the presentation or Q&A session, and members of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be on hand should you wish to discuss BU’s processes for bidding to the organisation.

Places for this event can be reserved through Organisational Development here