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ESRC Leadership Co-ordinator for Brexit Priority Grants, the UK in a Changing Europe

Funding opportunities

The ESRC wishes to invite proposals for a Leadership co-ordinator to provide intellectual leadership for, and to maximise the impact of the portfolio of recently commissioned 25 UK in a Changing Europe Brexit Priority Grants. In addition, the Leadership coordinator will also co-ordinate activity associated with the proposed Governance after Brexit programme and assist in scoping out additional future research activity on the longer-term impact of Brexit and other governance-related issues.

The Leadership Co-ordinator will play a vital role in:

  • Co-ordinating activities of the 25 UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) Brexit Priority Grants, including:
    • liaising as appropriate with Brexit Priority Grant holders
    • connecting and communicating findings and outcomes with users
    • generating evidence and maximising the impact of the Grant’s policy agenda through engagement with a range of policymakers (especially government departments) and stakeholders both in the UK and internationally.
  • Supporting the activities of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative, and collaborating with the Director and Deputy Director accordingly. This will include working closely and meeting regularly with the UKICE Director.
  • Providing strategic and intellectual leadership over the ESRC’s wider research plans in the area of democracy and governance, identifying synergies as appropriate and supporting the development of a cohesive portfolio.
  • Finalising research priorities for the Governance after Brexit programme and co-ordinating activity supported through this investment.

This is a complex and fast-moving portfolio, and therefore it is anticipated that the appointment will possess senior level expertise in this area. It is anticipated that appointment will be made at the level of senior fellow. The Leadership Coordinator will also need to be based at an eligible UK Research Organisation (RO).

Application process

The maximum budget for the post is £410,000 at 100% fEC. In accordance with RCUK policy, the ESRC will contribute up to 80% of fEC.This budget is expected to cover the Leadership Coordinator’s salary costs, additional research salary costs, any support staff, as well as networking, travel, dissemination, knowledge exchange and impact activities. Applications should be submitted through the Je-S system by 16:00 on the closing date on 23 August 2017.  You will need to contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance.

The appointment is for a fixed period of 40 months. The successful individual should take up the post on 1 December 2017.

Call documents

Contact

AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange Fellowship Scheme

Funding opportunities

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are pleased to invite applications to the AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange (KE) Fellowships scheme. The scheme will provide the opportunity for each intake of fellows to be seconded into the FCO to work alongside, advise and influence policymakers. Fellows will bring fresh thinking, depth and breadth of expert knowledge and apply their learning to policy challenges. This is not a scheme to support research projects about the FCO. It will build new capacity in the FCO and across the UK research base.

The fellowship scheme will go beyond current ad hoc arrangements, create deeper engagement between academia and policy, impact on diplomacy, increase the professional reputation of participating scholars and build long term, two way relationships. The benefits will flow to the wider academic community through fellows’ engagement with their home research organisation and wider research communities as well as through a dedicated policy seminar series hosted by the FCO during the lifetime of the scheme.

The partners anticipate supporting three-four KE Fellows working between 0.6 to 0.8 FTE for 24 months. The maximum amount available for one Fellowship will depend on individual applications. The costs will be met by the participating Research Councils. Consistent with the Research Councils’ arrangements for fEC, the AHRC and ESRC will contribute 80% of the costs and the remaining balance must be guaranteed by the Fellows’ research organisations.

How to apply

This call will be managed by the ESRC on behalf of the two participating Research Councils. In the first instance, an application should be sent as an email attachment to the ESRC on fcofellow@esrc.ac.uk by 16:00 on 31 October 2017. Applications received after this time will not be considered.

Please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance as all applications will need to be costed and approved by BU.

Call documents

Contacts

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Research-Professional-logoEvery BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

25th July 2017

22nd August 2017

26th September 2017

24th October 2017

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

HEIF-6: funding now available for innovative KE projects

HEIF

HEFCE provide Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) to universities to facilitate a broad range of knowledge-based interactions between them and the wider world, which result in economic and social benefit to the UK. The current round of funding is referred to as HEIF-6 and runs from August 2017 to July 2022.

An internal call is now open for applications from BU colleagues who wish to develop innovative projects. Funding will be awarded to those applications that clearly demonstrate how new/existing collaborations will be developed and how societal/economic impact will be achieved. Interdisciplinary and/or cross-Faculty/PS proposals are encouraged, as are proposals with international collaborators.

We anticipate making awards of £10k-100k per project per year. Projects should be between one and three years in duration and must align to one of BU’s HEIF-6 themes:

  • Advanced manufacturing
  • Health (focusing on digital health and e-health)
  • Digital and creative

Colleagues wishing to apply should read BU’s HEIF-6 strategy and the HEIF-6 FAQs before completing the HEIF-6 application form. These documents can be found on the i-drive (I:\R&KEO\Public\HEIF 6). Applications must be supported by the Project Lead’s Faculty and signed by the relevant Deputy Dean (Research and Professional Practice). Any queries should be sent to Julie Northam (jnortham@bournemouth.ac.uk) in the first instance.

Completed applications should be sent to Rebecca Edwards (redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk) by midnight on Sunday 23rd July. We aim to confirm the outcomes within a fortnight of the closing date.

Festival of learning 2017: “Human Psychology: When your mind is in my mind”.

Festival of Learning

Evolutionarily, human beings are shaped as social animals and often engage in interpersonal interactions. Recent findings in psychology suggest that one person’s cognition and behaviour could be shaped by another person who performs similar tasks along with that person. The influenced cognitive abilities include memory, attention, face cognition, and action. During this talk, we will introduce some of these scientific findings and the theories behind, along with their potential implications for our everyday life. You will also have the chance to see psychological experiments in action, and to try some of them on-site (if you are willing to volunteer for that :P).

If you are curious about it and want to come along, please try the link below, where you book the tickets for the event and join as on the talk.

Date: Saturday 8 July
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Talbot Campus

https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/human-psychology-when-your-mind-is-in-my-mind/

EU AniNex Workshop and Networking Event (22-23 June 2017)

The 3rd Workshop for EU IRSES project on Next Generation Computer Animation Techniques

 

The “AniNex” workshop on ‘Next Generation Computer Animation Techniques’ was coordinated as part of the Edutainment 2017 conference programme at Bournemouth on 23 June 2017. The workshop was led by program Chair Dr. Jian Chang, co-Chair Prof Jian J. Zhang and Prof Nadia Thalmann.

Over 40 delegates from Europe and China have attended the “AniNex” Workshop. There were 27 submissions out of which 17 were accepted that will be published at the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (LNCS) by Springer.

The program of the workshop included a keynote presentation on the topic ‘Virtual Humans Modelling and Applications in Gaming and Cultural Heritage’ by Yvain Tisserand and Prof Nadia Thalmann, MIRALab, University of Geneva, Switzerland and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

The “AniNex” is funded by the European Commission FP7 Marie Curie Action – international research staff exchange scheme. The project “AniNex” is designed to prepare and lead the development of next-generation techniques related to computer animation and its applications. For more information about the project, please visit project website (http://www.aninex.org)

Innovative narrative concept now available across several platforms

PG research

FHSS’ Prof Lee-Ann Fenge & Dr. Kip Jones

FHSS’ Kip Jones and Lee-Ann Fenge are pleased to announce that their article , “Gift Stories How Do We Retell the Stories that Research Participants Give Us?” is now available across several platforms.  Along with the open-access version from Creative Approaches to Research now being available, it can be downloaded on Academia.edu and BRIAN.

Jones and Fenge comment: “We can no longer afford to ignore the great advances made in representation of qualitative data. These have been overwhelmingly demonstrated by the successes achieved in auto-ethnography, poetic enquiry, ethno-drama, film, Performative Social Science and/or other arts-based efforts in research and dissemination”.

Narrative methods contribute greatly to the advances made in qualitative research. A narrative style should also be promoted in publications and presentations. This study on older LGBT citizens in rural Britain highlights this by means of a report on one part of that study—a Focus Group.

Narrative researchers are natural storytellers and need to foreground this when reporting studies for publication. Qualitative research is always about story reporting and story making, and narrative research (listening to and retelling stories) is a key democratising factor in qualitative social science research.

BU successful in retaining HR Excellence in Research Award

We are delighted to announce that following an external review in spring 2017, BU has been successful in retaining our HR Excellence in Research Award.

The reviewers particularly commended the significant achievements made over the full review period (January 2013 to December 2016) which have demonstrated our commitment to ensuring research staff are recognised, supported, valued and their voices heard.

The Award demonstrates BU’s commitment to aligning process and practice to the UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and therefore improving the working conditions and career development for research staff. In turn this will improve the quantity, quality and impact of research for the benefit of UK society and the economy. The external review required us to highlight the key achievements and progress made since BU gained the award in January 2013 and to outline the focus of our strategy, success measures and next steps for the following four years.

Key achievements made at BU since 2013 in support of this agenda include:

 

Over the next four years we will focus on:

  • Reviewing and improving the conditions of employment for research staff
  • Further embedding the ownership and implementation of the Concordat and action plan at Faculty level
  • Standardising procedures for research staff, e.g. induction, appraisal and pay progression
  • Further strengthening the documentation and support for research staff and research leaders/managers
  • Further strengthening the voice and visibility of research staff, both internally and externally

You can read our progress review and future action plan (2017-21) in full here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/

Read the full announcement on the Vitae website here: https://www.vitae.ac.uk/news/vitae-press-releases/hr-excellence-in-research-award-june-2017

Festival of Learning event – Making a difference: BU research in our community – 11th of July

Festival of Learning

RKEO and the LLS Academic Liaison team have organised an event for the Festival of Learning. The details are below.

                                     Making a difference: BU research in our community 

Where: Bournemouth Library, 22 the Triangle, Bournemouth, BH2 5RQ

When: 11th of July, 3pm to 7pm.

What are BU researchers working on, how is it making a difference and how can you access it?  Have you ever wondered what research BU undertakes and how it’s shaping our community? Join a team of academics, librarians and research experts to explore some of their projects and how you can access their publicly funded research.

Some of the many exciting topics Bournemouth University academics have been researching include the psychology of sport performance, the development of material culture and social networking in ancient civilisations, community based exercise interventions in older people and advertising.

The event will comprise:

  • Inspirational talks by Bournemouth University academics
  • Practical workshops on how to access quality research papers
  • Exhibition of static materials

All welcome. We look forward to seeing you (and friends and family) on this exciting event!

More information here: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/making-a-difference-bu-research-in-our-community/

BU’s PGR Isabell Nessel at the Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton

PG research

 I had the pleasure of spending the last three weeks in the Department of Life Sciences (University of Roehampton), working with Dr Giulia Corona and Dr Volker Behrends. We successfully validated an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method to analyse lipid peroxidation products (breakdown products of fats) in human urine samples.

Our ultimate goal is to identify the time-course of oxidative stress and subsequent breakdown of lipids in neonates, by analysing urinary lipid peroxides, to facilitate evidence-based approaches to antioxidant support in preterm neonates. My supervisors Dr Simon Dyall and Prof Minesh Khashu and I are currently developing a pilot study in cooperation with Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to test the feasibility of measuring these products in urine samples from preterm neonates. However, before moving on to preterm samples, the method had to be tested and validated, using adult urine samples.

The project was made possible by an HSS Seed Corn fund obtained by Dr Simon Dyall, the PGR fund of Isabell Nessel, the collaboration with Dr Giulia Corona and Dr Volker Behrends at the Department of Life Sciences (University of Roehampton) and collaboration with Dr Thierry Durand and his group from the Institute des Biomolecules Max Mousseroux, (Montpellier, France) who generously provided the standards used in this analysis. I am grateful that I had this opportunity to further develop my research skills and to learn a new state-of-the-art technique and would like to thank all involved for making this possible!

If you would like to learn more about our research please feel free to contact me at inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Isabell

BU research recognised by The Renal Association Investigator Award at UK Kidney Week 2017

student research

BU research, (led by me, Dr Paul Hartley), was recognised at UK Kidney Week in Liverpool last week. We were invited to speak about our fruit fly model of human renal disease, work that has been variously supported by grants from the British Heart Foundation and Kidney Research UK. The conference was an excellent opportunity to showcase the model and highlight our current collaborations with consultant-scientists based at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital as well as a number of different groups at the University of Bristol, the University of Osnabruck in Germany, Harvard Children’s Hospital and the University of Edinburgh. The research work is based in Dorset House labs and is supported by a wide network of talented people within BU as well as our undergrad and post-grad students.

Announcing the Prize Draw Winners of the 2017 HEA PRES and PTES Surveys

PG research

Thank you to everyone who completed the recent postgraduate surveys. We achieved 43% response rate for PRES and 17% for PTES and the survey results will be published at the end of the Summer.

 

Congratulations to the prize drawer winners who received either a £100 Amazon Voucher or a year’s BU Gym Membership: Rachael Hopkins, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (Masters), Nikki Burgess, Faculty of Media and Communication (Masters), and Duncan Ki-Aries and Anupama Patil, Faculty of Science and Technology (Postgraduate Researchers).

CQR Summer Surgery Sessions about to begin again!

PG research

Last Summer the Centre for Qualitative Research organised a series of short (half hour) surgery sessions where participants could ask us any questions that they might have about qualitative methods and their research. If we didn’t have the answer, we have a list of CQR Members who often do!

Dr Kip Jones, Centre Director and Deputy Director, Caroline Ellis-Hill will offer sessions this Summer!

To book a half hour (in person) with Kip at Royal London House on a Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon, just email kipworld@gmail.com with your possible date. Kip will get back to you with a time.

To book a a half hour (via Skype only) with Caroline on a Wednesday morning, email cehill@bournemouth.ac.uk with our possible date. Caroline will get back to you with a time and Skype arrangements. (We particularly hope that colleagues and students at Yeovil and Portsmouth will take advantage of this particular distance resource.)

CQR members have expertise in a wide range of methods. If necessary, through the surgery process we can connect you up with a particular resourceful person.

  • Research as Film/Film as Research
  • Photo-elicitation
  • Grounded Theory
  • Performance Poetry
  • Ethics
  • Interviewing
  • Focus Groups
  • Ethnography
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Autobiography
  • Auto-ethnography
  • Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method
  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Arts-based methods
  • Telephone interviews
  • Questionnaire design
  • NVIVO
  • Performance Poetry
  • Reflexivity
  • Performative Social Science

Sessions will generally run through July and the first half of August.

These sessions seemed to work quite well last Summer. We hope that you will find them a valuable assistance. No need to be a CQR member (but you may want to become one!)

Kip and Caroline

Photo of the Week: Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

Improving Vehicle Transportation Safety and Security

Our next instalment of the ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Dr Neetesh Saxena‘s image of research being undertaken to improve vehicle transportation safety and security. The series is a weekly instalment which features an image taken by our fantastic BU staff and students. The photos give a glimpse into some of the fascinating work our researchers have been doing across BU and the wider community.

This research involves securing communications efficiently among vehicles (electrical vehicles, petrol/gas vehicles, and hybrid vehicles) between the vehicles and the road side equipment. This work ensures the availability of critical information to these vehicles that will ultimately help in reducing road accidents and injuries. This work is carried out in collaboration with Georgia Tech and BU.

If you’d like find out more about the research or the photo itself then please contact Dr Saxena.

This photo was originally an entry to the 2017 Research Photography Competition. If you have any other questions about the Photo of the Week series or the competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk