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BU Researchers Deliver Journalism Training for the Big Issue

Fusion

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The Big Issue Online Journalism training programme finished off last week with a gallery exhibition of the participants’ work, open to the public. The event which took place in Poole Library featured articles and photos produced by the trainees during the 6-week course. The course, organised by the Big Issue, in collaboration with communications agency Poached Creative and Bournemouth University, targeted as participants Big Issue sellers or unemployed people with an interest in writing or photography. Its main aim was to equip the trainees with basic journalistic skills that would help them find their own public voice and offer a pathway to future employment.

BU researchers Dr Ann Luce, Dr Dan Jackson and Dr Einar Thorsen were approached by the Big Issue to deliver part of the training, after their successful collaboration with Access Dorset – a charity for disabled people – on a similar project that aimed at empowering people with disabilities through citizen journalism.

The Big Issue Online Journalism included lessons on news and features writing and photography, with a focus on interviewing and how to connect to the audience, as well as promoting work through social media. Participants also had the opportunity to put their newly adopted skills to practice by creating photo-essays and covering the Wheels Festival in Bournemouth, and individual choices for stories included such on the Dino Exhibition in Christchurch and a feature article about Chaplin’s bar in Boscombe. Works by all of the participants were published on the project’s blog. Guest talks were also given, including one by the editor of Dorset Life magazine.

One trainee said: “Training like this is not available anywhere. This is really good because it’s hands on as well as the written part of it. I’ve learnt a hell of a lot in a short period of time.”

Another participant also praised the course: “I’m stepping back into the right zone of getting back to work. Freelancing is difficult. This is good for networking, getting back with people, seeing how different people work and getting good feelings about yourself.”

Many said the training had given them a clearer idea of what topics they want to implement in their work, and a better understanding of what editors are looking for in order to get their work published in the future.

All of the participants had an artistic background and were engaged with writing, photography, music or painting – a hobby for some, a means for a living for others.

Dr Dan Jackson and Dr Einar Thorsen – assisted by students Daniel Weissman, Naomi Mihara and Stefani Tasheva – also worked on evaluating the project through interviewing the participants prior to their training as well as after to learn about their background, their expectations of the course and their experiences throughout the six weeks, and in what ways it was beneficial to them. The data from these interviews will be disseminated in upcoming publications.

 

 

COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS EVENT

A Bournemouth team from the Faculty of Management, which included an MSc student, two PhD students, two early career researchers and two senior members of staff, presented 6 different papers at the First World Congress of Comparative Economics.
All were very well received! You see Sydney Sydney Chikalipah, Peter Howard-Jones, Khurshid Djalilov, Jens Hӧlscher, Rossella Trappa, Merima Balavac and Allan Webster, who also had a good time in Rome.

Rome
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Funder Information events

Funding opportunities, Info Days, Training

If you are forward-thinking, attending a funder information event or conference can give you the edge when it comes to applying.

Looking at Horizon 2020 as an example, the following events are a sample taking place over the coming months:

Events are added regularly to the Horizon 2020 pages.

If you attend an external funder event of this type, please remember to let your RKEO Facilitator or Officer know. It may be that we can help share information that you obtain with others at BU with similar interests or alert you to others who might be potential partners.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships – Important news for applications for 2015

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities, Training

Logo_Marie-CurieIf you are hoping to apply, then you MUST send us your Intention to Bid for this call by 13 July 2015 with one form per Fellow.

[Form now removed as deadline has passed]

It is essential that you do this so that RKEO can plan for the resources that will be required to support each application.

If you need to find out more about this call before submitting your Intention to Bid, please go to the dedicated website

 

 

The Early Career Physics Communicator Award 2015

Delicious links

The Institute Of Physics (IOP) has recently announced its Early Career Physics Communicator Award 2015. This is an amazing opportunity for an early career physicist to be acknowledged as a leader in their field, and also to win £250!

Eligibility:

Applicants do not need to be a member of the IOP, but should be one of the following:

  • A person currently studying an undergraduate degree in physics or engaged in postgraduate study of physics within five years of their first degree qualification
  • An undergraduate physicist
  • A person working as a physicist in UK or Eire within the first five years of their physics career

Application:

Submission of a report of their communication activities which should be no more than 1500 words long.

Further details and the application form are available by clicking the ‘Group Prize’ tab here:

Application Deadline:

Monday 5th October 2015

The Prize

The winner of the 2015 IOP Physics Communicators Group award will receive £250 and an award certificate at an event to be held on Monday 23 November. As well as providing recognition of the winner’s work through the prize money, the process will also facilitate networking opportunities for all participants.

Award Ceremony:

Four finalists will present their work at the prize final on Monday 23rd November 2015 at IOP, Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT.

The prize will be awarded by materials scientist, engineer, broadcaster and writer, Mark Miodownik

For more details, please get in contact with the Physics Communicators Group Secretary, Chris Sinclair:

christopher.sinclair@ucl.ac.uk or click here to see a further breakdown of the results from the 2014 Prize Event.

Career Management Training for Researchers

Training

How well do you understand your skills, values and motivations?

The Vitae website has a wealth of personal development resources and advice designed specifically for researchers, including self-assessment tools that allow you to explore your motivations and identify career path options. Visit the VITAE website and register using your BU Login.

Please note that BU BRAD training courses are running this week; there are still places available on most courses including a career trajectory seminar.

Newton Fund seeks Peer Review Panel Members

Training

newton fundThe Newton Fund is actively inviting expressions of interest from senior and early career researchers to expand their pool of panel members for the Newton Fund initiative and, potentially, other British Council programmes.

Looking at the specialisms below, BU has significant expertise in many of these areas.

They are looking for early career researchers who would like to broaden their experience of peer review as a career development opportunity, and for senior researchers who are willing to share and use their experience to support the review panels. Please note that we can only consider researchers based at UK institutions.

By getting involved in funding panels, you will gain invaluable insights into how a funder functions, how they assess applications, build your network, raise your profile in your field and, potentially, give you the opportunity to influence future funding decisions.

For this particular invitation:

Eligibility  Senior and early-career researchers. Early-career researcher is defined as being aCollaborative Decision Making PhD holder + up to 10 years. For fields where a PhD is not a usual career requirement, sufficient research experience will be accepted.

Researchers with the following specialisms are eligible to apply:

  • Biological and Medical Sciences
  • Environment and Agriculture
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Social Sciences
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences

In particular, the Newton Fund would like to hear from researchers who have the following subject specialisms:

  • Human rights
  • Forensic anthropology
  • Marine biology/Oceanography
  • Aquaculture
  • Public health/Nutrition
  • Food science
  • Microbiology
  • Earth Sciences

Find out more and apply!

HE Policy Update

Monday

Graduate Debt

The UK Graduate Careers Survey carried out by High Fliers Research, revealed that students leaving university this summer, who were among the first to pay £9,000-a-year tuition fees can expect much higher debts (an average of more than £30,000) than their predecessors, who had an average debt of £20,400 in 2014, £20,300 in 2013 and £19,400 in 2012. Graduates ‘now £30,000 in debt but more upbeat’ (The Daily Telegraph).

Value For Money

Four in 10 of the first students to pay higher fees do not believe their courses have been good value for money a survey carried out by ComRes reveals. The survey found there were differences of opinion between students doing different types of courses. Two-thirds of those studying science, technology, maths and engineering (subjects that require a lot of practical teaching and staff time) said their courses had been good value. 44% of humanities and social science students, which tend to receive less direct teaching time, said they felt their courses represented good value. Four in 10 students say university not good value – survey (BBC News).

Tuesday

Response to Anthony Seldon

A number of letters have been published in response to an opinion piece from Anthony Seldon (who becomes VC of Buckingham University in September) in the Times on Saturday saying that universities are lazy and ‘an ocean of complacency exists in the sector’. Respondents/defendants include David Willetts and Nicola Dandridge from UUK. Letters: Do UK universities need to raise their game? (The Times).

Wednesday

EU 

Both academics and UUK are warning that leaving the EU would mean the UK would lose access to research funding provided by the European Union, and would also make it harder for academics to collaborate on international projects. They have also warned that it could lead to a decline in student numbers, as EU students would be recruited on the same basis as overseas students, leading to a rise in their tuition fees and inclusion in immigration figures. Leaving the EU would ‘damage’ UK universities (The Daily Telegraph).

Teacher Training

University initial teacher training (ITT) providers will be able to recruit as many students as they want under radical new plans being introduced by the government for the next academic year. Teacher training recruitment uncapped for universities (THE).

Thursday

International Students

A new survey commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) reveals that students believe they benefit in many ways from studying alongside people from other countries. However, the benefits are clearer to international students, the survey also suggests that international students work harder than British students. The Daily Telegraph has turned the survey on its head to say that one in three students believe international students detract from learning. Overseas students considered hardest workers, survey finds (THE).

Size of Research Groups

The trend among research funders to give out fewer but larger grants may not be the best use of resources, a study of scientific productivity suggests.  Chasing big bang for bucks might be poor use of cash (THE).

Vocational Degree Awards

The government could be poised to rekindle a polytechnic-type model for awarding vocational degrees that could pitch them in direct competition with further education colleges. The plans which are outlined in a government consultation cites the role of the former Council for National Academic Awards, which awarded degrees when post-92 universities were polytechnics. This is said to have grabbed the attention of Jo Johnson, the new Universities and Science Minister, who is set to outline his major priorities for higher education in a speech this week. Polytechnic-type proposals alarm post-92 group (THE).

Friday

Value of HE

A critical article looks at the value of higher education in the Telegraph. It states that amid the austerity of government cuts, higher education is in fact witnessing a boom. Booming universities take taxpayers for a ride (The Daily Telegraph).

Destination of Leavers from Higher Education

HESA has published the first release statistics from the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education study. The top line figures show a slight increase in the numbers of graduates in work/further study six months after graduating.Graduate employment and salaries up, but gender pay gap remains (THE). Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education in the United Kingdom (HESA).

Removing con-fusion: combining genetics, ecology and engineering in fish population restoration

Work on our fusion-funded co-creation and co-production project heats up in July as students get to work with our partners on our project ‘Fusing ecology, engineering and genetics to deliver sustainable river management’.

Working with the Environment Agency, the University of Insubria, Italy, we are investigating how river management strategies in the UK can be more sustainable in relation to river engineering and fishery management. This is important given river management focuses mainly on delivering socio-economic benefits (e.g. via flood defence) that are detrimental to fish communities (e.g. due to habitat loss). These impacts are usually mitigated by releasing (‘stocking’) high numbers of fish reared in captivity. There is, however, little consideration given on the fate and impact of these fish, providing the basis for our work.

Work to date has included our research assistant, Caterina Antognazza, collating samples and information to enable our student teams to run their genetic and ecological analyses, and engineering projects that designed sustainable engineering solutions to restore river habitats. Consequently, teams of placement students will very soon be commencing work in Italy and BU to determine the genetic and ecological impacts of fish stocking, with particular focus on whether the policy of stocking farmed fish has resulted in genetic impacts for fish populations at a regional level. We are also running a workshop very soon to bring together external stakeholders to discuss these issues. Given the expected fast pace of progress in the next five weeks, we’ll report back on our outputs by the end of July so watch this space!!

Catarina

Caterina prepares the samples for the students.

– Rob Britton, Demetra Andreou, Ben Thomas