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KTP Academic Development Scheme – Applications Live

Business Engagement, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Staff are now invited to apply for a place at the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Academic Development Scheme (KTPADS).

What is KTP?

A KTP is part-funded by the government and the aim of this scheme is to encourage collaboration on projects between businesses and academics.  KTP had previously been called the Teaching Company Scheme (TCS), though a rebrand a decade ago saw the TCS become KTP.  KTP is managed by Innovate UK and provides benefits to all parties involved – this scheme offers a fusion of academic and industry collaboration supported by an associate (graduate).

What is to benefit to me?

KTP is an excellent way of bringing in income and developing knowledge exchange with a clear pathway to impact.

Key benefits of KTP are as follows:

  • Facilitates research impact
  • Increases research funding, including supervision time for the Knowledge Base Supervisor (academic) to the Associate (graduate), this time averages at half a day a week
  • Contributes to the University’s REF submission
  • Improve links with industry partners
  • Apply knowledge to innovative business-critical project
  • Raise your profile among colleagues/the Institution

How do I apply?

To apply for a place on the scheme, please compete this application form and send to Rachel Clarke before the application deadline on Sunday 22nd November.  This form will need to be signed by yourself and your Line Manager.  Applications open on Monday 9th November and close at midnight on Sunday 22nd November.

If you would like to discuss this scheme, please contact Rachel Clarke, Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP) on 01202 961347 or clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk

KTP@40-block-logo

BRAD: Robust adaptive predictive modelling and data deluge workshop

student research, Training

Data-science-history

To book your place on this workshop- CLICK HERE

We are currently experiencing an incredible, explosive growth in digital content and information. According to IDC [11], there currently exists over 2.7 zetabytes of data. It is estimated that the digital universe in 2020 will be 50 times as big as in 2010 and that from now until 2020 it will double every two years. Research in traditionally qualitative disciplines is fundamentally changing due to the availability of such vast amounts of data. In fact, data-intensive computing has been named as the fourth paradigm of scientific discovery [10] and is expected to be key in unifying the theoretical, experimental and simulation based approaches to science. The commercial world has also been transformed by a focus on BIG DATA with companies competing on analytics [12]. Data has become a commodity and in recent years has been referred to as the ‘new oil’.

There has been a lot of work done on the subject of intelligent data analysis, data mining and predictive modelling over the last 50 years with notable improvements which have been possible with both the advancements of the computing equipment as well as with the improvement of the algorithms [1]. However, even in the case of the static, non-changing over time data there are still many hard challenges to be solved which are related to the massive amounts, high dimensionality, sparseness or inhomogeneous nature of the data to name just a few.

What is also very challenging in today’s applications is the non-stationarity of the data which often change very quickly posing a set of new problems related to the need for robust adaptation and learning over time. In scenarios like these, many of the existing, often very powerful, methods are completely inadequate as they are simply not adaptive and require a lot of maintenance attention from highly skilled experts, in turn reducing their areas of applicability.

In order to address these challenging issues and following various inspirations coming from biology coupled with current engineering practices, we propose a major departure from the standard ways of building adaptive, intelligent predictive systems and moving somewhat away from the engineering maxim of “simple is beautiful” to biological statement of “complexity is not a problem” by utilising the biological metaphors of redundant but complementary pathways, interconnected cyclic processes, models that can be created as well as destroyed in easy way, batteries of sensors in form of pools of complementary approaches, hierarchical organisation of constantly optimised and adaptable components.

In order to achieve such high level of adaptability we have proposed a novel flexible architecture [5-6] which encapsulates many of the principles and strategies observed in adaptable biological systems. The main idea of the proposed architecture revolves around a certain degree of redundancy present at each level of processing represented by the pools of methods, multiple competitive paths (individual predictors), their flexible combinations and meta learning managing general population and ensuring both efficiency and accuracy of delivered solution while maintaining diversity for improved robustness of the overall system.

The results of extensive testing for many different benchmark problems and various snapshots of interesting results covering the last decade of our research will be shown throughout the presentation and a number of challenging real world problems including pollution/toxicity prediction studies [8-9], building adaptable soft sensors in process industry in collaboration with Evonik Industries [6-7] or forecasting demand for airline tickets covering the results of one of our collaborative research projects with Lufthansa Systems [3-4] will be discussed.

Given our experiences in many different areas we see that truly multidisciplinary teams and a new set of robust, adaptive tools are needed to tackle complex problems with intelligent data analysis, predictive modelling and visualisation already indispensible. It is also clear that complex adaptive systems and complexity science supported and driven by huge amounts of multimodal, multisource data will become a major endeavour in the 21st century.

We will hold discussions surrounding:

  • Rapidly expanding digital universe
  • New decade of advanced/predictive analytics
  • General Fuzzy Min-Max (GFMM) Neural Networks as an example of early realisation of flexible predictive system
  • To combine or not to combine? – Multiple classification and prediction systems
  • Water quality monitoring based on biomarker data – can it be done?
  • Revenue management for airlines – can we forecast anything?
  • Adaptive soft sensors for process industry – here’s a real problem!
  • Self-adapting architecture for predictive modelling
  • Complex adaptive systems and complex networks

Professor. Bogdan Gabrys

To book your place on this workshop- CLICK HERE

Researcher Development Framework

Guidance, student research, Training

Vitae_RDF_logo_2011Vitae is an organisation set up to promote career development in both postgraduate researchers and academic staff. Their Researcher Development Framework is intended to help people monitor their skills and plan their personal development. At BU we will be using this framework to format the training on offer for the postgraduate research students and academic staff.

The Vitae website is an excellent resource and the organisation regularly runs free training events for researchers, PGRs and those involved in research development. Upcoming events include Vitae Connections: Supporting Open Researchers.

The Researcher Development Framework (RDF) is the professional development framework to realise the potential of researchers. The RDF is a tool for planning, promoting and supporting the personal, professional and career development of researchers in higher education. It was designed following interviews with many successful researchers across the sector and articulates the knowledge, behaviours and attributes of a successful researcher.

There is a planner available on the Vitae website to help you assess which stage you are at with your skills and a tutorial providing guidance on how to use the framework.

Top 10 tips from researchers on using the Researcher Development Framework (RDF):

1. You might choose to use the RDF for short term as well as long term development. The RDF can be used in planning for your long term career ambitions but also to make a feasible short term plan. It can be useful to imagine your long term ambitions in order to focus your career path however the reality of progressing through to the higher phases may be more difficult to plan. In the short term, making decisions about how to progress to the next phase or what sub-domains are most important for you will be easier. Try to be realistic when setting these short term goals.

2. Use the RDF to highlight your strengths and areas for development and how these might be used to benefit/influence your personal, professional and career development.

3. Use the RDF to highlight your applicable and transferable skills. This is important for career progression within or outside academia.

4. Prioritise those areas which are most relevant. You don’t have to try to develop in all the areas of the RDF at once. There may be some sub-domains/descriptors where there is less relevance in progressing through the phases for you.

5. Draw on experiences outside of work to evidence your capabilities.

6. Progression to the highest phase in a descriptor will not be applicable to everyone but being aware of the possibilities can aid personal and career development.

7. Talk to others to get their views about your strengths and capabilities. Your supervisor, manager, peers, family and friends are a great source of information to find out more about yourself. Talk to them about how they perceive your capabilities. By understanding how others view you, you will be able to make more informed choices about your future.

8. To move from one phase to the next why not explore attending courses. These courses may be run at a local level (within your University) or may only be run nationally or internationally so awareness of opportunities for training is important. Vitae also run a wide range of courses which address many aspects of personal and career development.

9. Some phases may only be reached through experience and practice however good self-awareness and professional development planning will aid the process.

10. Networking is likely to enable you to reach more experienced phases.

Sociology meets Archaeology – Stonehenge as a site of multiplicities

Fusion

Sociology students at StonehengeSara Ashencaen Crabtree, Stewart Davidson, Alexandra Jarrett, Georgia Larkins, Ana Paixao Pancada, Charles Scovell-Burfutt, Seval Fleming

Recently FHSS Sociology+ and SciTech students undertaking the final year sociology unit ‘Seekers, Believers & Iconoclasts: Sociology of Thought’, joined up with BSc Archaeology students for a joint Faculty trip to Stonehenge, led by Professor Tim Darvill and Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Dr Eileen Wilkes and Professor Jonathan Parker. The field trip provided a very important exploration of the overlapping domains of belief, from the prehistoric to the contemporary world, exemplified by Stonehenge, one of the most visited ancient sites in the world.

The day started inauspiciously being dark with rain. After visiting the considerably improved new information site with its excellent exhibits, including an appealingly nostalgic one of historical tourism to Stonehenge, we visited the monument itself. Always impressive and endlessly enigmatic, windswept Stonehenge offers endless variation of vista, where the scale and positioning of the stones appear to change immensely from different viewpoints. From there we followed the processional route in reverse away from Stonehenge negotiating mud and sheep dung on our cheerful march. Tim, charisma totally undampened by the rain, led us on a mobile lecture tour around much of the great prehistoric landscape of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments studded with a bewildering range of burial barrows, dented with ditched enclosures and crossed by great processional avenues.

It was a privilege to visit Stonehenge with our two BU archaeologists on hand to properly explain the relevance of the landscape that would otherwise have been trodden with little appreciation of the incredible importance of what lay underfoot and what it meant, where Stonehenge sits at the centre of a vast metropolis of monuments.

Later the sociology students reflected on what they had learned. Alex, taking BA Sociology & Anthropology, spoke of the epiphanic moment of drawing essential connections between the generic theoretical and specific social phenomena that lay around her. Georgia on BA Sociology & Social Policy (BASSP) thought about material culture, and how the ancient and modern participant engages in the drama of performance. As sociologists we learned from our archaeological colleagues that Neolithic Britons with great subtlety and vast ingenuity orchestrated this physical pilgrimage over the landscape, drawing ancient pilgrims from huge distances, through the construction of an approach where Stonehenge is dramatically obscured and revealed successively en route – thus channeling both physical approach, perception and therefore experience.

Stewart on BASSP wrote a lengthy analysis: ‘My time throughout BU has given me a much broader perspective on this academic discipline, all too often other social sciences are intertwined. However, when Tim conceptualised this idea of Scienti, the merging of ideas that contributes to a new way of understanding, I challenged my own perception and it’s given me an alternative way to examine things.

I did not hesitate to sign-up for this field trip… I mean it’s not every day one gets an opportunity to have a reconnaissance guide (Tim Darvill) take you around the landscape to expand our understanding of our pre-historic ancestors’ rich history and an opportunity to see it through Stone-age eyes! I have gained transferable skills and drawn comparison to even another unit! My understanding is clearer now on what Bourdieu is suggesting in terms of habitus: we become a structured structure. This even has links with labelling theory and the fluidity/structures flows in everyday practice. This is from observing these momentous structures encountered on the day and the assimilation of these ancient societies.’

To conclude, the success of this trip, where sociology meets archaeology in a synergistic appreciation of the multiplicities of meanings in belief systems, has inspired us as an academic group to explore more opportunities for cross-Faculty engagement, in terms of both research as well as teaching – and where the Stonehenge landscape is now clearly on our sociological map.

 

 

 

BU academic to appear at BBC Free Thinking Festival 7/8th November

BU lecturer Sam Goodman (Journalism, English & Communication) will be appearing at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival this weekend. Held in Gateshead over Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th November, the festival features a range of popular and academic talks and workshops designed for a public audience. Sam’s talk is entitled ‘Beer & the British Empire’, and builds on his research into the history and cultural representation of Britain’s colonial presence in India. In his talk, Sam examines the contested history of the use of beer and other alcoholic beverages in medical practice throughout the nineteenth century through to their place within contemporary ideas of well-being. Following the festival, the talk will be broadcast on R3’s The Essay on the 18th November: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06p5999.

HE Policy Update

Monday

Conservative Article

An article on Conservative Home raised speculation around the upcoming Green Paper.  Amongst several assertions, the article claims that HEFCE, QAA and OFFA are likely to be replaced with one teaching, quality and access focussed super-regulator. The accountability and transparency revolution. Coming soon to a University near you – courtesy of Jo Johnson (Conservative Home).

Tuesday

TEF

The Guardian identifies flaws in the measures of student satisfaction that will inform the Teaching Excellence Framework. The article states the TEF is unlikely to encourage discussions around the structure of programmes and modules which is crucial for students. The Teaching Excellence Framework: can higher education up its game? (The Guardian).

HEFCE Figures

A ‘transposition error’ meant that HEFCE wrongly stated that state school leavers were more likely than private peers to get a good degree at university. In fact it is private school students who are more likely to do better at university according to the figures. State schools versus private schools: Hefce sets the record straight (THE).

Wednesday

Student Protests

On Wednesday, a student protest ‘grants not debt’ marched through London. The protest was calling for the abolition of tuition fees and the retention of maintenance grants. Students protest against tuition fees (BBC News).

Thursday

Gender Gap

According to a new analysis of 2013-14 data by the Equality Challenge Unit, some 37,425 male academics are paid at least £50,000, compared with just 17,415 female academics. Similar disparities exist for professional and support staff, with 3.9 per cent of women paid more than £50,000 compared with 7.9 per cent of men. ‘Striking’ inequalities in higher education fuel gender pay gap. (THE).  

Friday

Higher Education Green Paper

The government’s higher education Green Paper was published today, it outlines major proposals which if enacted, will see great changes to the higher education sector. The main points from the paper are below.

  • The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) will start next year and will consist of different levels (1-4). For the first year, providers will automatically gain a level 1 TEF award if it meets the current quality assurance threshold. Providers will be able to apply for higher levels of the TEF in consequent years, however there will be pre conditions. The government will set a maximum fee cap for institutions successful in the TEF and providers will be entitled to raise their fees in line with inflation.
  • HEFCE and OFFA will merge to create a new Office for Students (OfS). This body will have responsibility for access agreements, teaching funding, the TEF and quality assurance.
  • Similar to that of private providers, institutions will not have to respond to Freedom of Information Requests.
  • The next REF will be held by 2021, however the government proposes to challenge the associated cost and bureaucracy that attracts negative views concerning the REF.

KTP Academic Development Scheme

Business Engagement, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

The next cohort for the KTP Academic Development Scheme (KTPADS) will go live for applications on 9th November.

The aim of this scheme is to equip you with the necessary skills and knowledge needed to engage with business and work towards a collaborative project with a business.  The end result aims to see the business using Bournemouth University as a knowledge base for a KTP.  The scheme will be made up of a series of workshops on business engagement and networking opportunities with local business, it will also include regular support from the Innovate UK regional KTP Adviser and the Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP).

Should you be interested in this scheme or require further information, please contact KE Adviser (KTP), Rachel Clarke on 01202 961347 or email KTP@bournemouth.ac.uk 

KTP@40-block-logo

 

BURO intermittently unavailable

BRIAN, open access

BURO, BU’s open access repository for research, is currently experiencing some intermittent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which means that occasionally it has been temporarily unavailable to our BURO Editorial Team and external users of open access content.  Please note, this does not seem to have affected the uploading files to BURO from BRIAN or the links to open access works embedded in your Staff Profile Pages.  The company that host BURO have been contacted and we hope all will be resolved shortly.

If you have any concerns please report to IT Services.

The guide Open Access and Depositing your Research will help answer some of your questions about open access.

If you have any further questions about depositing your research open access please contact buro@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Inge Award 2015 received by Julia Round (CsJCC)

Women's Academic Network

In March 2015 I received QR funding to attend the Popular Culture Association conference in New Orleans with colleagues from the CsJCC. This was a fantastic experience due to the scale and scope of this international conference. It is split into a number of strands and I found many that informed my research (Adaptation, Gothic, Children’s Literature – and, of course, Comics and Sequential Art).

I presented a paper on ‘Revenant Landscapes in The Walking Dead’ as part of the Comics and Sequential Art strand. This argued against the perception that comics can be treated as ‘storyboards’ for adaptations, and offered a deeper analysis of the way space works on the page and screen. I was delighted to hear last month that it was awarded the 2015 Inge Award for Comics Scholarship, given to the best paper in this strand. This award is judged anonymously and has been given to a number of extremely influential scholars in the past (including Jeet Heer, Gene Kannenberg, Jr, Amy Kiste Nyberg and Mel Gibson), so I am extremely happy and grateful for the support I have received from the CsJCC and BU, without which this would not have been possible.

Full paper available at www.academia.edu and via BRIAN

Full paper available at www.academia.edu and via BRIAN

 

International Longevity Centre host blog by HSS PhD student Andy Harding

PG research, student research

The following was hosted by the International Longevity Centre:

The Future of Welfare Consumerism: Future challenges and opportunities of welfare consumerism in health and social care

Welfare rights and financial advice_mThe rationale for the creation of the welfare state in the post war period was, in large part, because a market approach to welfare had failed. So how can the market and consumerism now be the solution? Despite this philosophical question, for more than two decades welfare consumerism and markets has been and continues to be at the heart of UK health and social care policy. This presents many challenges and opportunities for practitioners, policymakers and researchers alike – particularly concerning older people. Older people are the largest ‘customer’ of welfare services, thus any welfare policy has major ramifications for us all in later life. But what are the important issues? The important issues are basic, but at the same time complex. There is not one welfare market, and with older people not a homogenous group, there are different types and cohorts of consumers.

The basic issue is simple. It is perhaps not comfortable to label welfare as a commodity. A commodity implies a good or service that we purchase to suit a desire. Yet, rarely does welfare satisfy a desire. On the other hand, we access welfare provision because we have a need. Indeed, it is a commodity and market unlike mainstream markets. Whereas mainstream consumers can use their ‘invisible hand’ to navigate markets and access the type or brand of tea, coffee, tablet or laptop that they like, the need to access welfare is characterised by significant information asymmetries, and often complex, vulnerable and emotional circumstances.

Considering these relative complexities, we know remarkably little about how older people act in welfare markets. Although the welfare consumer might have little in common with the mainstream consumer, nevertheless consumer theory provides a platform to outline the more complex challenges for future research and policy.

Implicit in using markets as a means to allocate resources is that consumers are informed and make good quality choices. This in turn requires us to focus on how older welfare consumers become informed – are they adequately informed? Do they seek impartial and independent information and advice (I&A)? How do they act on and use I&A? How can we ensure that I&A services are funded properly and have adequate coverage? These are just some of the broader future challenges and questions that must be addressed.

These are challenges for both health and social care, where the consumerist landscape created by individual budgets and direct payments, first trail blazed in social care (and mostly lobbied for by younger groups), is now being introduced for increasing numbers of older people with chronic and longer term health conditions. Choices of provider and care package/pathway are now and will increasingly be the norm in health and social care.

In addition, my own on-going doctoral study with FirstStop, a third sector provider of information and advice on housing and care issues in later life, acts to highlight another under looked area – housing. Housing may have a longer association with markets and consumerism, yet it is nevertheless a central pillar of welfare. And for good reason – the appropriateness of housing (e.g. preventing falls and fractures in the home as the stereotypical and archetypal example) in later life can be a key determinant of health and wellbeing. In other words, appropriate housing can reduce the likelihood that an older person needs to access health services and social care.

This final point should also chime with the fiscally minded – informed older welfare consumers, through accessing good quality I&A equates to older people making more informed choices about welfare and enables independence. By implication, this means less dependency on welfare – something which, as consumers who will all grow old one day, should be desirable to us all.

 

Congratulations new publication Dr. Pramod Regmi in FHSS

Publishing

Asia Pac J PH 2015Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health published an editorial with Dr. Pramod Regmi as its first author.  The editorial ‘Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal.’  The authors argue that despite progressive legislative developments and increased visibility of sexual and gender minority populations in the general population, mass media often report that this population face a wide range of discrimination and inequalities. LGBT (lesbian, gay, and bisexual, and transgender) populations have not been considered as priority research populations in Nepal.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Regmi, R.R., van Teijlingen, E.  Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal

Asia Pac J Public Health 2015 27: 806–808,

BRAD: Career Trajectory 20th Novemeber 2015

Training

Prof Matt Bentley, SciTech Deputy Dean – Research and Professional Practice, will give an insight into the management of the career trajectory of an academic. Far from being down to chance, Matt will explore the activities, which can career trajectorybe undertaken to direct your academic career and how to make the most of opportunities and challenges along the journey. This session is open to academics at all stages of their career. Perhaps you are just starting out and need advice on how to move to the next stage or, perhaps, you have reached a plateau and wish to reflect upon the need to change direction to achieve your career aspirations.

This session will include career management advice, responsiveness to opportunities, reputation, and esteem. It will finish with a Q & A session and a networking lunch.

You may also be interested in the following online resources:

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

Reports highlight economic impact of business innovation funding

Business Engagement, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Training

Innovate 2011v4

 

Independent reports on Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and Smart highlight significant impacts from these Innovate UK funding programmes.

If business enagement is an area you are keen to develop – why not attend the sesion being run on this topic as part of the BRAD training later this month. You will get a chance to hear from internal and external speakers who have worked and are working with BU.

KTP

KTP is managed by Innovate UK and aims to help businesses improve competitiveness and productivity through a partnership with a university or research institution and the employment of a recent graduate with relevant experience – known as the associate. For every £1 invested by KTP sponsors has returned £7 to £8.50 to the UK economy

 

KTP partnership infographic

Read the KTP impact report here.

Find out more about KTP.

Smart

The second study by SQW Ltd, working with Cambridge Econometrics and BMG Research, found that Smart funding since 2011 had had a positive impact on business R&D, expenditure, employment, turnover and propensity to export.Smart provides funding of up to £250,000 to support small and medium-sized businesses working on innovative R&D projects that could lead to new products or services. Businesses that responded to the authors’ survey forecast a return by 2017 of £5 for every £1 invested in Smart funding in 2011 to 2012 and 2012 to 2013. The report added that the true extent of the impact of Smart funding since 2011 was not likely to be seen until 2017

Smart RoI forecast infographic

Read the Smart impact report.

Read how Smart helped Ceres Imaging develop its hologram technology

Book onto the training session on Business engagement and networking.

 

 

 

 

 

Royal Society & EPSRC Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship

Funding opportunities

Royal SocietyThis scheme is for outstanding scientists in the UK at an early stage of their research career who require a flexible working pattern due to personal circumstances such as parenting or caring responsibilities or health issues.

Applying for this scheme

This scheme offers you the opportunity to:

  • hold appointments on a part-time basis or convert from full-time to part-time and back again to help match work and other commitments, such as parental or caring responsibilities etc.
  • claim back time spent deferring the fellowship and/or working part-time at the end of the fellowship.
  • claim limited funds for family support where these can be justified on scientific grounds, e.g. the cost of child care during a conference or collaborative visit abroad (those funds can be applied for during the Fellowship).

Am I eligible to apply?

The scheme covers all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excluding clinical medicine.

You must be able to demonstrate a current need for flexible support due to personal circumstances at the time of application. This can include current parenting or caring responsibilities (such as raising children or looking after ageing or seriously ill family members), clinically diagnosed health issues or other personal circumstances that create a need for a flexible working pattern. Please contact the grants team if you would like clarification on whether you meet this eligibility requirement.

Applicants must take a leading role in the project.

You can apply for this scheme if you:

  • are at an early stage of your research career (have completed your PhD but have no more than 6 years of research experience post PhD by the closing date of the round)
  • do not hold a permanent post in a university or not-for-profit organisation in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in Switzerland
  • are a citizen of the EEA or are a Swiss citizen (or have a relevant connection to the EEA or Switzerland)

The European Economic Area (EEA) consists of the European Union (including the UK) plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.

Before applying, please ensure that you meet all the eligibility requirements, which are explained in the scheme notes.

Flexibility

The Society’s fellowships are highly flexible and part-time working, sabbaticals and secondments can be accommodated. There is also provision for maternity, paternity, adoptive or extended sick leave.

When applying, the Society will consider time spent outside the research environment when assessing eligibility. Additionally, where applicants have taken formal periods of maternity, paternity, and adoptive leave as the primary carer (either the mother, father, partner or adopter), or extended sick leave, the Society will allow an additional six months for each period of leave when assessing eligibility.

More information can be found in the Society’s policy on maternity, paternity, adoptive or extended sick leave.

What is the scheme’s value and tenure?

The scheme provides funding for 5 years. It covers:

  • The applicant’s salary costs up to a maximum of £39,389.64, estate costs and indirect costs for 5 years. Under the full economic costing model, 80% of these costs will be met by the Royal Society.
  • Research expenses (up to £13,000 for the first year and up to £11,000 annually thereafter)

Successful Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows and University Research Fellows who are about to start their first year are eligible to apply for a research grant of up to £150,000. A significant proportion of first year Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows and University Research Fellows will receive this additional start up grant.

Before applying, please read the scheme notes for full value and tenure information.

What is the application process?

Applications should be submitted through the Royal Society’s electronic grant application system (e-GAP).

Applications will initially be reviewed and then shortlisted by members of Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship Selection Panel. You will be notified if you have reached the short listing stage by March.

The shortlisted proposals will be reviewed by three independent referees suggested by the panel members and successful applicants will be shortlisted for an interview. You will be informed of the result of this stage in May and interviews will take place in June.

The final decision is made at a meeting of the Panel in June, and you will be notified of the result in July.

Please note that interviews for the fellowships will be held at the Royal Society. You are asked to keep the third week of June free. Only applicants that pass the other stages of assessment will be invited.

EPSRC logoAdditional awards are available for outstanding early career researchers who are working within EPSRC’s remit. 

Case studies

Dr John Apergis-Schoute

Dr Lynda Brown

Dr Patricia Sanchez Baracaldo

 

RKEO availability on Monday 9th November 2015

office moveRKEO’s office is being re-organised on Monday, 9th November 2015.  This will mean that most staff will not have access to computers or telephones for some parts of the day, but mainly the morning.  RKEO hope to be back up and running by the afternoon.  Please bear with us whilst we re-organise and if you have a deadline with us on Monday then please contact us by this Friday so that we can ensure that your work is not effected.

If there are any urgent matters on Monday that really can’t wait then please contact either Jo Garrad, xt. 61209 or Genna West, xt. 61538 and we will respond to your query as quickly as possible.

Thanks for your understanding.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

British Council

The british Council, via the Netwon Fund invite applications for grants to run international research workshops for UK and Brazilian researchers, as part of Researcher Links. These workshops will allow early career researchers  and a partner country to make international connections that could improve the quality of their research. Proposals should contribute to the development and social welfare of Brazil. Closing date: 4pm, 11/12/15

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, IE

The DFA invites applications for its reconciliation fund. The fund supports organisations involved in the reconciliation work between people on the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. Support will focus on repairing issues which lead to division, conflict and barriers to a deeply reconciled and peaceful society; building a strong civil society that encompasses all communities, through the continued implementation of the agreements and promoting a rights-based society, political stability and respect for all. Award amount not specified. Closing date: 5pm, 11/03/16

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

EPSRC invites expressions of interest  for the near-term translation of regenerative medicine technologies for the treatment of civilian blast injuries fund. The fund aims to suport the academic community to propose approaches to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine technologies for the treatment of blast injuries, primarily in countries in which the civilian population is affected by landmines and other unexploded remnants of war. The total budget is worth £5million, which aims to fund one or two projects over a maximum period of five years. Expressions of interest due by 4pm, 27/11/15. Competition closing date: 24/03/16

EPSRC invites outline proposals for its call on intelligent technologies to support collaboratove care, which supports research that aims to develop reliable and intelligent technologies to support collaborative care in the community. Proposals should address the need for new technologies which can reliably and intelligently interpret multiple inputs from multiple sources and initiate actions as appropriate to support the self-management of chronic health conditions. A budget of £10million is available to fund between five and seven projects. Closing date for outline proposals: 05/01/16

European Commission

The EC invites tenders for media analysis services for the European Commission, which will provide high-quality expertise and support in undertaking in-depth media analysis on EU-related topics across different types of media. The evidence-based  analysis will contribute to the development and implementation of a long-term communication and media relations strategy. Contracts are worth €10million over four years. Closing date: 4pm, 04/12/15

The Directorate-General for the Environment invites tenders for evaluation studies that support the evaluation of the zoos directive. Studies will assist the European Commission in the evaluation of the zoos directive by compiling, assessing and synthesising evidence for evaluation. Studies will examine relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and cohrence as well as its EU added value. The contract is worth between €200k and €250k over 15 months. Closing date: 4pm, 08/12/15

The EC invites applications for its H2020 Clean Sky 2 call for core partners (third call). Funding supports proposals from partnerships in the form of innovation actions. The call supports a number of topics and you are advised to look at the funder’s call pages for more specific information. Award amount not specified. Closing date: 5pm Brussels time, 04/02/16

The EC invites applications for its  H2020 Competitive Low-Carbon Energy call. Funding supports proposals from partnerships in the form of innovation actions. The call supports a number of topics and you are advised to look at the funder’s call pages for more specific information. Each award will be in the region of €2million to €6million. Closing date: 5pm Brussels time, 16/02/16

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, EU

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions invites tenders for the provision of a research study on game-changing technologies in European manufacturing. The aim will be to develop five studies, each focusing on a different technology, which will take the form of exploratory case studies. Funding is approximately €120k over 15 months. Closing date: 07/12/15

Innovate UK

Registrations are invited for the innovation fund for preventing terrorism. The aim is to fund projects that develop new methods and / or technologies, which will protect vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism. New methods and / or technologies will have the potential for replication nationally. Proposals should be in the region of £100k or less. Registration closes 25/11/15.  Competition closing date: 12pm, 02/12/15

Natural England Environment Council

NERC invites applications for its follow-on fund pathfinder grants (up to £20K at 80%  fEC), which are designed to realise the commercial potential of NERC-funded research, using a combination of complementary technical and commercial engagement work programmes. The award is open to researchers with current or past NERC funding and proposals must build on the outputs of the previous NERC-funded research activity. Closing date: Not specified

NERC invites outline proposals for its Changing Arctic Ocean: implication for marine biology and biogeochemistry research programme. £8.4million is available to fund up to four research projects that address how the change in the physical environment (ice and ocean) will affect the large-scale ecosystem structure and biogeochemical functioning of the Arctic Ocean, the potential major impacts and provide projections for future ecostsem services. Closing date: 4pm, 08/12/15

Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust invites applications for its seed awards in Humanities and Scocial Science to develop a novel idea to a position where they could be competitive for a larger award from the Wellcome Trust or another funder. They can support research in any field of the humanities and social sciences that can enrich our understanding of human and animal health. Awards will typically range from £25-£50k. Closing date: 15/01/16

Wellcome trust invites applications for its engagement fellowships, which aim to support and develop upcoming stars in public engagement with science. Applicants should have a strong track record of engaging the public with ideas around biomedical science and/or medical humanities, who want to makea step change in their careers. Closing date: 12/02/16

Wellcome Trust invites applications for its capital awards for public engagement and medical history. The aim is to build or redevelop projects for public engagement with science. Awards will generally be upwards or £200k.  Closing date: 13/05/16

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

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

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.