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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 fuorth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

26th January 2016

23rd February 2016

22nd March 2016

26th April 2016

24th May 2016

28th June 2016

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.

BUDMC Professor Speaks on Entrepreneurial Resilience at Prestigious IBM Client Forum in London

Business Engagement, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing, Research themes, staff profile pages, Training

On 26th November 2015, BUDMC’s Professor of Crisis and Disaster Management, Lee Miles, gave a keynote presentation at a prestigious client forum examining ‘Cyber Resiliency – Protecting Your Business in an “Always On” World’, organised by IBM Resiliency Services and held at the IBM Client Centre at IBM UK’s headquarters in London.

Lee spoke on the subject of ‘Understanding Entrepreneurial Resilience and its Contribution to an ‘Always On’ World’.  He discussed the need for senior business managers to value the entrepreneurial and innovative talents of staff in order to maximise the effectiveness of their resilience planning and processes in cyber security. Lee introduced the twin expectations of being ‘resilient about “always on”’ and ‘always on resilience’; two paradigms that successful resilience managers need to balance strategically and innovatively if they are to meet the challenges of handling future crises and disasters that have major implications for the business world.

IBM Client Forums bring together senior resilience, emergency and business continuity managers from some of the UK’s leading, and most prestigious, FTSE-indexed commercial and business interests.  The forums provide key platforms for discussing the most contemporary issues in resilience. Lee joined a high profile list of speakers that included senior representation from the UK’s Cabinet Office, the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), Barclays Bank as well as experts from IBM’s own Resiliency Services Division.

Lee also participated in a major and lively panel discussion, debating the most cutting-edge issues in cyber resilience.

Lee’s invitation and participation represent further evidence of the BUDMC’s continuing profile in all aspects of disaster management.  The substantial strategic cooperation that is developing between BUDMC and the University’s Cyber Security Unit (SCU) continues to attract external recognition. Considerable interest was also generated among members of the IBM Client Forum in the forthcoming BUDMC short course in ‘Entrepreneurial Resilience in Crisis and Disaster Management’ to be offered (in association with the BU Centre for Entrepreneurship) for the first time in May 2016.

Lee Miles Giving Keynote at IBM on 'Entrepreneurial Resilience and Cyber Security'

Lee Miles Giving Keynote at IBM on ‘Entrepreneurial Resilience’

IBM Client Forum Panel in Action

IBM Client Forum Panel in Action

BU Research Project wins THE Award

SHIVACongratulations to the SHIVA Project team who won the Times Higher Education (THE) Award in the Outstanding Innovation in Teaching or Research category.

The SHIVA Project (Scuplture for Healthcare: Interaction and Visual Art in 3D) won the award at the THE Awards, one of the most prestigious awards in the Higher Education sector.

The team from BU’s National Centre for Comptuer Animation (NCCA) developed the SHIVA software system, working with Victoria Education Centre in Dorset – a local school for children with physical and learning disabilities.

The software enables students to bring art to life by creating objects using eye gaze or touchscreen technology, before 3D printing the finished result.

The winning team for the award included: Professor Alexander Pasko, Professor Peter Comninos, Dr Leigh McLoughlin, Dr Oleg Fryazinov, Dr Valery Adzhiev, PhD student Mathieu Sanchez and Mark Moseley, who worked for Victoria Educational Centre and is now a BU Doctoral student.

To view all the winners from the evening, visit the THE Awards website.

What do we know about back pain? The Society for Back Pain Research AGM Bournemouth 2015

conferences, international, Research themes

 

SBPR logo

I was delighted to attend and represent BU at The Society for Back Pain Research (SBPR) Annual General Meeting 5-6 November 2015 which was conveniently held in Bournemouth, at Anglo-European College of Chiropractic, a partner college of BU. SBPR was formed in 1971 to promote the study of all clinical and scientific aspects of spinal pain, including the neck (my area of interest), and to encourage research into its causes, treatment and prevention. There are now over 200 members of the Society, from a wide range of disciplines including all sorts of healthcare professionals and scientists. Suffice to say if there is anything about back pain this audience does not know it is probably not worth knowing! Having said that, attending this meeting reminded me just how much about back pain is still unknown…

Biological Factors in Non-Specific Back Pain

The title of this year’s meeting was ‘Biological Factors in Non-Specific Back Pain’ to place an emphasis on the ‘biological’. It has been over 25 years since the biopsychosocial model was applied to back pain but lately research has tended to be more concerned with psychosocial aspects, such as fear-avoidance behaviour or depression; research into physical findings to diagnose back pain has sadly not been very fruitful. [An important point was made by Professor Maurits van Tulder, that research has actually been largely focused on psychological factors, to the expense of social factors]. While psychosocial factors do seem to be important in influencing patients’ recovery, they don’t get us much closer to a diagnosis, to finding out what is producing and driving the patient’s pain.
However, one of the presentations at SBPR hinted at where the research focus as regards imaging (and MRI specifically) could perhaps go. One of Associate Professor Mark Hancock’s suggestions was that we need studies that focus on changes on MRI, in response to treatment (or no treatment). But how do we best measure such changes? Which treatments and for whom? Could findings on MRI in a person without back pain predict back pain in the future?

Want to know more? For a longer version of this blog, click here.

Many thanks to the Professional Practice Development community, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, for making my attendance possible.

Dr Jonny Branney

Invitation to the 20th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES2016)

conferences

KES-2016

20th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems

Welcome to the 20th Year of KES Conferences!

We are pleased to invite participation in the 20th International Conference on Knowledge Based and Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems, KES2016 organised by KES International in the historic city of York in the United Kingdom.

The conference will consist of keynote talks, oral and poster presentations, invited sessions and workshops, on the applications and theory of intelligent systems and related areas.

The conference proceedings will be published in Elsevier’s Procedia Computer Science open access journal, available in ScienceDirect and submitted to be indexed/abstracted in CPCi (ISI conferences and part of Web of Science), Engineering Index, and Scopus (subject to confirmation).

KES2016 will be held in York, a historic walled city in the North East of England, founded by the Romans in 71AD. It possesses a wealth of historic attractions including an impressive 13th-century Gothic cathedral, York Minster, with beautiful medieval stained-glass windows, and City Walls that form a walkway on both sides of the River Ouse. The Monk Bar gate houses an exhibition tracing the life of 15th-century Plantagenet King Richard III.

The conference flyer and call for papers and special sessions can be found here.

We are looking forward to your submissions and welcoming you in York next year.

KES2016 General Chairs
Robert J. Howlett, Bournemouth University, UK
Lakhmi C. Jain, University of South Australia and Bournemouth University, UK
Bogdan Gabrys, Bournemouth University, UK

HE Policy Update

Monday

Gender Pay Gap

Information from the Office for National Statistics has revealed that the gender pay gap in higher education narrowed significantly over the past year. Gender pay gap in higher education shrinks (THE).

Tuesday

Graduate Recruitment

Early data collection by the Association of Graduate Recruiters suggests that last year about 8 per cent of job offers by graduates were accepted but turned down at a later date. Graduates are being advised not to rush into applying for lots of graduate jobs as they often turn down offers if they are given another offer later down the line, this can lead to employers not having enough time to fill the vacancy. University students told not to panic over job pitches (Financial Times).

Research and Teaching

The Green Paper is argued to create a possible disconnect between research and teaching with the introduction of a new TEF. Reform could force universities to choose between teaching and research (The Guardian).

Wednesday

Spending Review

George Osborne’s Spending Review revealed the following implications for higher education:

  • The BIS budget will be cut by 17%.
  • A reform of funding for health students by replacing grants with student loans and abolishing the cap on the number of student places for nursing, midwifery and allied health subjects
  • The Nurse Review recommendations will be implemented. Therefore subject to legislation, the government will introduce a new body – Research UK – which will work across the seven Research Councils.
  • The science budget will be protected in real terms including a new £1.5 billion Global Challenges fund to ensure UK science takes the lead in addressing the problems faced by developing countries whilst developing our ability to deliver cutting-edge research.
  • Part-time students will be able to receive maintenance loans from 2018-19.
  • Tuition fee loans will be available for all higher skills students on apprenticeships.
  • Loans will be extended for postgraduate students for everyone under the age of 60 from 2016-17.
  • For all STEM subjects, tuition loans will be extended to students wishing to do a second degree from 2017-18.
  • The government will take forward a review of the Research Excellence Framework in order to examine how to simplify and strengthen funding on the basis of excellence, and will set out further details shortly.
  • The government will reduce the teaching grant by £120 million in cash terms by 2019-20, but will allow funding for high cost subjects to be protected in real terms.
  • Current students and graduates who took out loans after 2012 will be asked to pay more in repayments, via a freeze in the £21,000 repayment threshold until April 2021.
  • Thursday

Martin Lewis

Martin Lewis, founder of the Money Saving Expert website has criticised George Osborne’s plans to freeze the student loan repayment threshold at £21,000, the government had originally pledged to uprate the threshold in line with earnings. It will mean students have to pay back more of their student loan repayments. Martin Lewis: George Osborne ‘doesn’t have balls’ to tell ‘millions’ they must pay more on student loans (THE).

HEPI

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute reveals that although universities did not suffer as much as expected in the Spending Review, poorest students may well struggle. Universities got off lightly, but will poorest students pay the price? (Guardian).

Friday

Freedom of Speech

Peers have called for Universities UK and the National Union of Students to “live up to their responsibilities” and protect freedom of speech in universities. Lords call on universities to do more to protect freedom of speech. (Research Professional). 

Metrics

An academic has argued that metrics are ultimately not about the individual student, or teacher.  Rather, they are about making educators accountable which could mean that academics will lose sight of what they are supposed to focus on. Our obsession with metrics turns academics into data drones (Guardian).

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Money Bear Funding

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

AHRC

Connected Communities Festival

The 2016 Festival will support high quality participatory arts research and research co-production activities across the UK on the theme of community futures and utopias and will provide an opportunity to explore creative ways to build upon, and widen and deepen community engagement with, research being undertaken by the Connected Communities Programme and with wider AHRC/RCUK–funded research.

Expressions of Interest (EOIs) are now invited to contribute to the Festival which will run from February 2016 through to June 2016, culminating in a major weekend-long Utopia Fair at Somerset House on 24th-26th June.

Max Award: Standard – £5,000, Augmented – £15,000
Deadline: 16 December 2015

Follow-on Funding for Impact & Engagement

Funds will be awarded for knowledge exchange, public engagement, active dissemination and commercialisation activities that arise unforeseeably during the lifespan of or following an AHRC-funded project.

Max Award: £100,000
Deadline: No deadline

Research Grants – Early Careers

The Research Grants Schemes are intended to support well-defined research projects enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research.

Max Award: £50,000 – £250,000 over max of 5 years
Deadline: No deadline

Research Grants – Standard Route

The Research Grants Schemes are intended to support well-defined research projects enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research. This scheme is not intended to support individual scholarship.

Max Award: £50,000 – £1,000,000 over max of 60 months
Deadline: No deadline

Research Networking

The Research Networking Scheme is intended to support forums for the discussion and exchange of ideas on a specified thematic area, issue or problem. The intention is to facilitate interactions between researchers and stakeholders through, for example, a short-term series of workshops, seminars, networking activities or other events.

Max Award: £30,000 over max 2 years
Deadline: No deadline

Science & Technology Facilities Council

UK-China Newton agri-tech joint call

The UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) along with the National Natural Science Foundation of China is launching a call for proposals that will advance scientific research in space applications such as remote sensing, information acquisition, data processing, modelling and simulation, to target challenges faced by the Chinese agricultural sector.

Max Award: £1,000,000 for 3 years
Deadline: 17 December 2015

Medical Research Council

UK-Korea Partnering Awards

The overarching aim of the UK-Korea Partnering Awards scheme is to provide resources to biomedical and health researchers in the UK and Korea that will allow them to forge long-term collaborations. It is hoped that the partnerships established through these awards will lead to the development of long-term collaborative research programmes that will be competitive for national funding.

Max Award: £20,000
Deadline: 15 January 2016

University of Oxford International Growth Centre

Call for Proposals

The ICG is pleased to open the six-monthly IGC call for proposals, across its four research themes: State Effectiveness; Firm Capabilities; Energy; and Cities. The IGC commissions research through the Research Programme and the Country Programme. The Research Programme focuses on cutting-edge, policy-relevant academic research shaping effective economic growth policies in the global south. The Country Programme focuses on high-quality economic growth research addressing the policy needs of IGC’s partner countries.

Max Award: Unspecified with total budget of £3,300,000
Deadline: 17 January 2016

Wellcome Trust

Collaborative Awards in Humanities & Social Science

Collaborative Awards provide flexible support to excellent research groups with outstanding track records. Proposals must address important, complex health-related questions in the humanities and social sciences that need a collaborative team effort. Funding can be used to coordinate and integrate activities, build networks, and carry out large-scale potentially interdisciplinary research.

Max Award: £2,000,000
Deadline: 22 January 2016 for preliminary application, 30 March 2016 for full submission

Natural Environment Research Council

Bilateral Research Workshops

As well as acting to further UK researchers’ involvement in EU research programmes, NERC works proactively with partners in China, India, Japan and the US in targeted joint funding initiatives. In line with RCUK strategy to promote collaboration between the best UK and overseas researchers, these four countries are prioritised either because they are historically strong in engineering and the physical and mathematical sciences, or else they are rapidly growing their capabilities in our research areas.

Max Award: Costs of hosting conferences, travelling to conferences/meetings, networking/collaboration
Deadline: No deadline

European Commission

CEF Telecom calls for proposals 2015

The 2015 CEF Telecom calls will award up to €45.6 million in the form of grants managed by INEA. A specific call for Europeana of €10 million in 2015 is managed by the European Commission. The grants under CEF Telecom will help European public administrations and businesses to hook up to the core platforms of the digital services that are the object of the calls.

Max Award: Various
Deadline: Various dates in early 2016

Solar Facilities for the European Research Area

Access to Facilities

The ‘SFERA’ Partners: CIEMAT, CNRS, PSI, UAL-CIESOL and ENEA will provide access to their state-of-the-art high-flux solar research facilities, unique in Europe and in the world. Access to these facilities will contribute to creation of the European Research Area by:

  • Opening installations to European and ICPC scientists, improving co operation.
  • Improving scientific critical mass in domains where knowledge is now widely dispersed.
  • Generating strong Europe-wide R&D project consortia, increasing the competitiveness of each member alone.

Max Award: Access to laboratories, facilities, equipment
Deadline: 31 January 2016

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

CEL funding for final year co-creation projects

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Funding opportunities

The Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) is offering funding for ten student-led projects, co-created with academics.

Taking part in a co-created project gives you the opportunity to develop news skills and confidence, learn how to apply knowledge, inform career decisions and increase your employability.

This is open to final year undergraduates and if you are interested you will need to identify a topic of relevance and an academic you would like to work with on a project that will be delivered in semester two of 2015/16. You will also need to write a brief project plan with intended outcomes (eg: publication, presentation, product). There will be £500 available per successful project.

Criteria

  • The project brings together a student and academic to work collaboratively
  • The project is delivered within 4 months
  • The project will lead to specific outputs e.g. publication, presentation, product
  • A short report on the outputs will be submitted to the programme leader on completion of the project.

Timescales

  • 23 November 2015 – Co-creation call for student led projects
  • 26 November 2015 – Co-creation workshop for students; PG30a 15.00-16.00
  • 2 December 2015 – Co-creation workshop for students; Lansdowne 12.00-13.00 R301
  • 31 December 2015 – Co-creation project bids due in
  • 6 January 2016 – Co-creation panel to meet; feedback to students within one week
  • 31 July 2016 – Brief reports from each project to be submitted

For more information and to apply please read the bidding form.

EURAXESS – November Newsletter

conferences, Funding opportunities, international

As notified in the November EURAXESS Newsletter, there are a number of research workshops open for registration under Researcher Links and the Newton Fund. The workshops give researchers the opportunity to form new international connections and Early Career Researchers may apply for grants in order to participate.
Some of the opportunities are:

Further opportunities are listed on the British Council website.

Why not sign up for the EURAXESS Newsletter so that these and further opportunities are delivered direct to your own inbox?Euraxess

Euraxess UK is a British Council hub, which aids researchers in their career development, supporting mobility and acting as a support mechanism for researchers moving abroad or moving to the UK. Their services include:

 

Spending review and autumn statement: Breakdown by department

Research-Professional-logoResearch Professional have provided a summary of the spending review and autumn statement by department.  View the article here for further details.  The article looks at what provisions it makes for science and research, broken down broadly by department.

Do also have a look at the CSR highlights for research and KE blog article posted by Julie Northam yesterday.