/ Full archive

CMMPH at the 10th International Normal Birth conference

Grange-over-Sands in Lancashire was once again a beautiful setting from 15th-17th June for one of the most inspirational midwifery research conferences. Attracting a significant international attendance from eminent researchers, clinicians and user representatives from as far afield as Australia, China, Canada, Brazil and across Europe (many regular attendees), the conference is now in its 10th year. Hosted by Professor Soo Downe and her team from UCLAN, it brings together researcher across all maternity professions, to present and debate work primarily relating to physiological birth. Two members of CMMPH were presenting (and tweeting!):

Professor Vanora Hundley discussed ‘Do midwives need to be more media savvy?’, a presentation created with Professor Edwin van Teijlingen and Ann Luce, based on a previous FoL public debate at BU relating to the role media plays in creating fear in childbirth  https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/engagement/fear-in-childbirth-are-the-media-responsible/ . She highlighted the need for midwives to be more aware of how to work with the media in order to harness the power to present positive messages, as well as understanding impact on women and health care providers. A paper on this presentation is accessible from: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21600/

Jenny Hall with Maltese midwives and other delegates

Jenny Hall with Maltese midwives and other delegates

 

Dr Jenny Hall presented as part of a symposium with midwifery colleagues from Malta on an ongoing educational project relating to promotion of physiological birth in Malta. Malta has one of the highest Caesarean section rates in Europe and the team have been working together to develop midwives confidence in facilitating physiological birth as well as supporting them to educate women and families.

 

All delegates also received a copy of the book ‘Roar behind the silence: why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care’, that includes chapters by two BU authors: Dr Jenny Hall and Consultant midwife, Katherine Gutteridge. ( see http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2015/02/28/stop-the-fear-and-embrace-birth/ for further information)

As usual the conference provided extensive opportunity for networking and developing links for future collaboration in a considerably relaxing environment.

A tweet storify and photographs of the whole conference are available which includes contribution from BU researchers:

https://storify.com/SagefemmeSB/normal-labour-birth-10th-research-conference

https://animoto.com/play/M21BCHDHihSqkH3LdxU0hw

 

 

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Research themes

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

 

The Department of Health, including NIHR, invites tenders for its small business research initiative call on faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. The call aims to find innovative new products and services to help with faecal and urinary incontinence in frail elderly people. Tenderers should address prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management.

Phase 1 shows the technical feasibility of the proposed concept, and Phase 2 contracts are intended to develop and evaluate prototypes or demonstration units from the more promising technologies in Phase 1. Only those projects that have completed Phase 1 successfully will be eligible for Phase 2.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project over six months

Closing date:  12:00pm,  11/08/15

 

NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders for minimising the impact of falling. This competition focuses on minimising the impact of falls and the fear of falling in older people, and should address a range of unmet needs, expressed as ‘what if’ scenarios, that could improve the care that clinicians are able to offer to patients in terms of outcomes, experience and efficiency. Fall prevention services provide assessment, strength and balance training, occupational therapist support, vision assessments and medicines review. Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15

 

NHS England, under the Department of Health, invites tenders to address functional needs in the elderly. This competition aims to find technologies to help address, as well as provide solutions for, functional difficulties associated with patients, particularly the increasingly frail elderly suffering multi-morbidities (defined as suffering two or more chronic conditions). Technologies should be aligned to the three key challenges which are commonly associated with functional difficulties; these are: detecting frailty and monitoring deterioration; activities of daily living (including dressing above and below the waist, grooming, bathing and showering, light housework and preparing meals); and treatment burden, including adhering to disease management plans and lifestyle changes, as well as drug concordance, adherence and compliance.  Tenders should show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept.

Maximum award: up to £100,000 per project for a maximum of six months.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 11/08/15

 

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Newton Fund invite proposals for their collaborative call with China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam on rice research. This aims to build on the combined strengths of academic research groups within China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and the UK to work together on collaborative interdisciplinary and innovative basic, strategic or applied research that contributes to and underpins the long-term sustainable production of rice, and also an understanding that rice production sits alongside the provision of other ecosystem services. Projects of up to three years in duration and addressing the following challenges will be encouraged:

• Greater resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses;

• Improved resource use efficiency, including nitrogen, phosphorous and water;

• Improved quality of rice, including nutritional enhancement and grain quality;

• Novel research tool and technology development supporting the above areas, including systems biology, bioinformatics, screening and characterisation of germplasm for gene and trait discovery.

In addition to the challenges listed above, proposals will also be welcomed in the following areas and countries:

• Improved photosynthetic efficiency in rice (China, Thailand, UK)

• Environmentally sustainable rice cultivation systems (Thailand, Philippines, UK)

• Utilisation of rice by-products (Philippines, Vietnam, UK)

• Sustainably increasing the genetic yield potential of rice (China, UK)

Each proposal must involve at least one applicant based in the UK and one based in either China, the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam. All proposals are required to have a UK principal Investigator, in addition to a PI from one or more of the partner countries.

All applicants must adhere to the national eligibility rules for research proposals.

The total budget from BBSRC and NERC is worth up to £6.5 million, with matched funding from the partner agencies in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Projects may last up to a maximum of up to three years.

Closing date: 16:00, 13/08/15

 

The Natural and Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) are inviting research proposals under this ‘Understanding and Sustaining Brazilian Biome Resources’ call. This call is supported by the UK through the Newton Fund which forms part of the UK governments Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and is only open to joint UK-Brazil applications.

This call aims to improve the understanding of the role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems, the drivers and impact of change, and management and restoration options in Brazil. The call’s objectives are:

• Improve understanding of the role of biodiversity in major biome biogeochemical cycles at the whole-biome level;

• Explore the spatial correlations between ecosystem function in terms of biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of species of conservation concern, within a range of Brazilian ecosystems including forest and non-forest biomes;

• Critically assess the potential and trade-offs of ecosystem management and policy options to protect both key ecosystem functions and biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

Projects must undertake research at the biome spatial level, and should seek to utilise new or novel technological capability and make use of existing long term data sets that are available from other projects.

UK-based researchers associated with organisations eligible for NERC funding may apply. Brazilian researchers associated to public or non-profit higher education and research organisations in the state of São Paulo may apply.

NERC will provide up to £2 million at 80 per cent full economic cost for UK-based researchers with FAPESP providing matched equivalent effort to Brazilian researchers.

It is expected that two to three project proposals, lasting up to three years, will be funded.

Closing date: 16:00, 02/09/15

 

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council has extended the closing date for technical assessments and applications for their ARCHER leadership projects.

The previous deadline of 1 September has been extended to 7 September 2015. All other call details remain the same.

These awards provide direct access to the UK’s national supercomputing facility ARCHER for computationally intensive individual projects. Eligible projects may include the following:

• Leadership calculations that push the boundaries of scientific high performance computing;

• Calculations that require a large number of processing cores;

• High-risk, high-reward projects that rely heavily on high performance compute resource and have significant potential for large future impact;

• Substantial computational projects by experienced teams that need large compute resources, but do not rely on additional support by EPSRC or NERC;

• Pre-competitive computational production runs by non-academic research groups within sectors related to the remits of the ARCHER partner research councils.

Applicants should be individuals eligible to hold a full EPSRC or NERC grant, or persons of similar standing in industry or the third sector.

A total of 2m kAU is available, split between EPSRC and NERC remits at the ratio of 77 % EPSRC and 23 % NERC. Each applicant should apply for at least 100,000 kAU for a maximum period of two years.

Closing date: 16:00, 07/09/15

 

The Centre for Defence Enterprise and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory invite innovative proposals for their themed competition on ‘what’s inside that building’. This supports phase one research projects that aim to develop novel techniques which remotely provide information about the layout and situation inside a building, or underground facility from a range of at least 100 metres. Projects should develop and mature technology readiness level 2 to 3 concepts based on both direct sensing and inference from indirect measurements. In addition, they should address the following technology challenges: novel applications of traditional sensing methods; new technologies and approaches.

Proposals may include technologies that address the following:

• Detecting concealed manufacturing activity;

• Finding out about the internal structure of a building in preparation for entry, including walls, furniture and electrical equipment;

• Identifying illegal storage activities;

• Working out the number of people in a building and what they are doing;

• Detecting people who are hiding or being held against their will;

• Supporting disaster relief, for instance seeing under collapsed buildings.

Preference may be given to projects that produce a technology demonstration as opposed to projects that only deliver a written report.

The total budget for phase one of this competition is worth £650,000. There is no cap on proposals, however MOD is more likely to fund phase one projects worth between £50,000 and £100,000. Successful projects may receive an additional £500,000 for phase two of the competition, in which funding is awarded on a per-project basis. Proposals should focus on a short, sharp, proof of concept phase, typically lasting between 3 to 8 months.

Closing date: 17:00, 10/09/15

 

Nesta, in collaboration with Innovate UK, invites proposals for the Longitude prize. This rewards the development of a transformative point-of care diagnostic test to revolutionise the delivery of global healthcare and conserve antibiotics for future generations. The test must be accurate, rapid, affordable, easy to use and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. It should be able to identify when antibiotics are needed and, if they are, which ones to use.

Anyone and any organisation may enter. Teams must include a member who has a presence in the UK. The competition is only open to those who have developed a new diagnostic test.

The winner is awarded £8 million. £2m is awarded to support promising entries along the way. The prize money must be used to develop and market the winning solution.

Closing date: 30/09/15

 

Innovate UK’s IC tomorrow, in collaboration with several partners, invites proposals for its digital innovation contest on games. This supports the development of an innovative commercial prototype service or application across five areas which different areas of the games industry. Proposals should address one of the following challenges:

• Second-screen use in a game, supported by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE);

• Open street map data, supported by Crytek UK;

• New markets and perceptual computing, supported by Intel;

• Wider games distribution on mobile web, supported by Google Chrome;

• Games and cinema, supported by Odeon Cinema and Pinewood Studios.

Businesses based in the UK and EU may apply.

Five companies may receive up to £25,000 each. The total budget is £125,000.

Closing date: 12:00pm, 16/10/15

 

Follow-on funding from The Natural Environment Research Council

As the name suggests, the Follow-on Fund picks up where research programme and discovery science (responsive mode) grants leave off, and enables their commercial potential to be realised by further developing the research outputs.

Examples of activities funded include technology licensing, launching technology-based products or services, selling know-how based consultancy services, and the commercialisation of NERC-funded datasets.

Researchers who are receiving/have received NERC funding may apply. Proposals must build on the outputs of recent/previous NERC-funded research activity. Applicants are encouraged to seek input from potential commercial stakeholders and end-users before submitting an application. Projects do not have to be based on proprietary, patentable intellectual property, though all proposals must have demonstrable economic potential, and be likely to deliver some form of societal or environmental benefit.

Each proposal may receive up to £100,000 at 80 per cent full economic cost.

Closing date: 22/10/15

 

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.

 

Call now open ! Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF): money available to support your business engagement and knowledge exchange ideas

HEIF

Further to the earlier blog giving you the “heads up” on the HEIF interim call. To confirm this is now open. The information is on the research blog and more details can be found on the staff intranet.

This funding has been made available to run from 1 August 2015 to 31 July 2016. This is known as HEIF 5+ and will be used to fund new projects.

The proposal deadline when applications close is Friday 3 July.

For more information please use the link to the information on the staff intranet.

Please feel free to contact Jayne Codling if you have any queries, however I have produced a set of FAQS that I hope will help and save some time if you do have any questions.

 

RKEO and Legal Services Coffee Morning – Thursday 25th of June

Coffee Morning

coffee morning pics****LAST REMINDER for the 25th of June****

Join us at our next RKEO coffee morning will be taking place on Thursday the 25th of June and will be held in conjunction with our colleagues from the Legal Services team.

Members of the RKEO and the Legal Services teams will be in the Retreat, Talbot Campus from 9.30 to 10.30am.

Come along and discuss your research plans with our RKEO team and check out how they can support you through the whole research funding process from applying to successful project management and delivery. We can also help you find the right funding opportunity, discuss the processes relating to funding schemes, as well as identifying potential collaborators and partners to strengthen your application. We can help with public engagement, knowledge transfer opportunities and much, much more….

Representatives from Legal Services will also be available to answer queries on matters such as contracting arrangements, freedom of information and data protection.

Come along and have a chat with us and see how we can help you, or just pop by and enjoy a coffee and a cake.

We look forward to seeing you!

 

The importance of Information Security

cyber eyeInformation security has recently been making headline news with a growing rate of daily reports on cyber-attacks on individuals, businesses and government establishments. This has resulted in an increase in the need for infosec professionals with the proven skills to alleviate the growing cyber risks and attacks; so much so that the demand for experienced and qualified professionals has outstripped supply.

Kevin Henry is recognised as one of the Leaders in the field of Information Security worldwide and recently he visited Bournemouth University to give ‘An Overview of Information Security Today and into the Future’. He highlighted importance of the right Infosec practitioners by describing:

  • How important it is for businesses not only to have the right technologies in place but also the skilled operators to use them to their full extent.
  • Often there are several systems working side by side in a business, but not together, leaving gaps which can be easily exploited. It takes a skilled professional to see those gaps and close them.
  • The need for security to be reasonable, simple and without burden to the user was also stressed. It should not slow a process down but should always be one step ahead of the curve. However, there will always be a balance to be found between system security and availability.

Kevin emphasised the need for:

  • Building a strong security culture both in our individual lives and in our professional lives: we all rely on technology in one form or another so each individual needs to take responsibility and not rely on others to tell us what to do, we should all be using the mantra ‘security is my job’.
  • Security awareness is paramount, businesses need to be constantly reminding staff what they should and should not be doing. Importantly, security needs to be regarded as being a positive influence and not as merely catching people out when they do something wrong.
  • Businesses and Infosec professionals need to look ahead and consider where their business will be in two or three years’ time; what are the emerging technologies and how can we prepare and invest now?

Concluding thoughts on how businesses should manage Information Security:Due to the very nature of risk, specifically its unpredictability, it can be difficult to justify expenditure on systems and professionals mitigating it. By the same token, it is difficult to measure the success of implementing Infosec procedures and systems. Ultimately, each business needs to take ownership of the information they hold, whether it is Intellectual Property or the card details of customers and understand the impact of a security breach. A decision can then be made as to how much time and money to invest. Ignorance to the risks can no longer be used as an excuse, a security breach resulting in the loss of credit card details for example would be seen as irresponsible rather than unlucky.
The team at Bournemouth University Cyber Security Unit (BUCSU) have the skills and experience to assist businesses in developing their own personalised Information Security systems and processes. In addition we undertake bespoke security awareness training for all levels of staff. Our enterprise consultants can provide advice and assistance in accessing the various funding available to businesses to improve their Infosec position through consultancy and collaborative research. For more information on any of these points visit the BUCSU website or contact bucsu@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Last chance to book on to the Networking Development workshop on Thursday!

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) are hosting a one-day networking development workshop for academics who are interested in working with business.

Held off-site in Bournemouth from 9am-5pm on Thursday 25th June, this workshop aims to focus on developing your personal skills where key learning outcomes are: communication, persuasion, influence and talking to a business audience.

This workshop is ideal for academics who wish to work with industry on projects such as consultancy or KTP.

We only have two spaces left!  If you are interested in attending, please book your place via Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP) on 01202 961347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk

ERASMUS visit to Freiberg University, Germany

Returning earlier visits from teams of Freiberg University Jens Hӧlscher stayed with colleagues in Saxonia to deepen research collaboration and teaching exchange experience. Freiberg will host a conference as part of the ESRC funded seminar series ‘Access to Finance for SMEs’ www.bournemouth.ac.uk/access-to-finance in January 2016. Jens gave a seminar on publication strategies for early career researchers. In his capacity of Research Professor of the Halle Institute for Economic Research he also finished a paper on 25 years of German Unity on that occasion, which has now been published in ‘Wirtschaftsdienst (Economic Service)’ http://www.wirtschaftsdienst.eu/archiv/autor/jens-hoelscher/ .

Freiberg_Obermarkt

Policy Update w/c 15 June

Monday

Student Funding Panel

The Student Funding Panel has published its final recommendations today which calls for maintenance support for students to be enhanced, while highlighting that rising government costs in the student loan system are of concern in the short term, but repayment thresholds for graduates could be frozen to offer savings in the long term.

Funding panel: keep £9K fees, boost living costs support Times Higher Education

Students ‘don’t know when to pay off loans’ The Times

Graduate opportunities

A number of stories on how top firms are “using poshness to keep poor out of best jobs”. Executives are more likely to judge potential recruits by how they speak than by how well they might do the job, research by Alan Milburn’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found. Its review shows that more than two-thirds of the job vacancies in top legal and City firms are filled by university graduates who have been through private or grammar schools.

Firms should break through the ‘class ceiling’, says Sir Terry Leahy The Daily Telegraph

‘Poshness test’ is the new glass ceiling The Independent

Apprenticeships

The government has protected the term “apprenticeship” in law they announced yesterday.

  • apprenticeships to be given equal legal treatment as degrees
  • commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships by 2020 will be enshrined in law
  • public sector bodies will be set targets to help reach 3 million

Government kick-starts plans to reach 3 million apprenticeships BIS 

OFFA’s Access Agreement 10th birthday

The Office for Fair Access (OFFA) are celebrating their 10th anniversary today of the first access agreements being approved by OFFA. They will be celebrating the anniversary by tweeting out using the hashtag #accessagreements10

Tuesday

Student Opportunity Allocation funding

Million+ has said Student Opportunity Allocation funding is the most vulnerable to short-term cuts. Chief executive Pam Tatlow says the fund provides long-term economic benefits by cutting drop-out rates.

University fund for struggling students ‘under threat’ BBC News

Maintenance grants

Comment piece from a student receiving maximum maintenance grants calling for the government not to cut them as they are essential for lower income students who want to succeed at university.

Don’t rob working-class students like me of our grants Guardian

Brexit impact on science

Comment piece from leading UK physicist Athene Donald about the ERC which awards grants solely on the excellence of the science proposed and the proposer. “The UK has been spectacularly successful in winning grants. Currently we host over one thousand ERC grants worth over €2 bn in total. It is worth stressing that if the UK restricted mobility – or voted to leave the EU altogether – these funds would be inaccessible. UK scientists could not apply for ERC grants at all, as Switzerland has already found out to its cost. Our science would undoubtedly suffer hugely.”

Excellent science in the UK is at risk if it votes for Brexit Guardian

Wednesday

Poshness tests

There have been several letters to the editor in both the Times and the Telegraph from a number of correspondents including Sir Peter Lampl (Sutton Trust) in response to coverage of the “poshness” tests for top firms. Sir David Lewis, Former senior partner at Norton Rose (law firm), has said that “City law firms have done an immense amount in recent years to create a level playing field for applicant trainees, paying trainees through their legal courses, for example. City firms should not be blamed for the shortcomings and lack of investment in primary and secondary education by successive governments.”

Letters: A world-class education should not be the preserve of the privileged few The Daily Telegraph

Letters: ‘Poshness’ test and social mobility The Times

Moocs

UK Mooc platform FutureLearn is to offer programmes by lower-ranked universities with specialist centres of excellence in a move likely to open the door to post-92 institutions. Having initially partnered only with those among the top 1 per cent of university rankings – which equates to about 200 institutions globally, including 40 UK universities – FutureLearn says that it is now seeking to broaden its membership base.

FutureLearn looks beyond the 1% to offerings of post-92s THE

Thursday

Student complaints

Universities in England and Wales paid £400,000 in compensation to students last year, following complaints. In 2014, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) ruled on 2,175 cases, with 500 going in favour of the students. Disputes over academic issues such as degree classification or marks for work formed 61% of complaints.

Students awarded £400,000 compensation after complaints  BBC News

Degrees awarding powers

BIS has imposed a “moratorium” on new applications submitted after 2 April for applying for degree-awarding powers and university title – the routes for private providers to cement their place in the sector – pending the completion of a review. Degree-awarding powers were at the centre of a separate development this month when Global University Systems, the umbrella group for several private colleges, completed its purchase of the University of Law.

BIS shelves bids for degree-awarding powers during rules review THE

David Willetts

Interesting and in-depth article with David Willetts – well worth a read. Discusses his experience and opinions on raising tuition fees, riots, alternative providers and student numbers cap. He always wants tuition fees to rise in line with inflation. Teaching quality he says, is “unfinished business”, asserting that “teaching has been by far the weakest aspect of English higher education”. Also mentions his irritation with the most selective research universities over their suspicion over scrapping the student numbers caps – “My view was that precisely because of their eminence, they had a leadership role for the sector as a whole. So I hoped they would look to the interests of the sector and the interests of young people…I get frustrated when higher education is treated as a zero-sum game: that if someone else benefits it must be at my expense.”

David Willetts interview: ‘what I did was in the interests of young people’ THE

Friday

Graduate teachers

Several stories on how teaching (in state schools) is attracting more graduates from Oxford and Cambridge following a report from the Sutton Trust which showed that the number has doubled in a decade. However independent schools are three times more likely to have Oxbridge-educated teachers than state schools.  The Sutton Trust stresses a top university degree is not the only factor needed for good teaching, but highlights its own earlier research saying solid subject knowledge is a key quality for able teachers.

Teaching attracting more Oxbridge graduates BBC News

Press release: Oxbridge graduates teaching in state secondary schools double in decade Sutton Trust

Select committee chairs

Chairs have now been elected for the select committees.

Iain Wright – BIS

Dr Sarah Wollaston – Health

Nicola Blackwood – Science and Technology

Full list

Attend our Webinar 8th July – Maximising the Impact of Horizon 2020 Projects – IP Rights

Funding opportunities, Training

euflagMaximising the Impact of Horizon 2020 Projects

Join RKEO staff at this free webinar presented by Dr Eugene Sweeney of the EU Intellectual Property Rights Helpdesk. This will take place on Wednesday, 8th July in Room P403, from 9:30 to 10:45

According to the website, in this 60 minute session, you will:

Learn more about exploitation of IP rights in H2020 projects. This webinar gives an overall view of the creation and the development of IP rights both through and after the duration of an H2020 project. The most common planning mistakes will be analysed and some practical tips will be given, so that you can have the best possible results from an H2020 project.

Learning Objectives

After the training, participants should have a better understanding of the following:

  • The IP in the Consortium Agreements: a particular regard to the results of the research.
  • Which are the best means to maximize the value of your IP?
  • Assessing your IP: How can you estimate the value of your IP?
  • Which criteria should be taken into account when it comes to determine how much your IP is worth?
  • Which are the best exploitation strategies and business plans for entering the market?
  • Reap the rewards of your IP: licensing and post deal managing.

As part of the webinar, there will be around 15 minutes after the presentation for Q&A. Depending on attendees, there may be the opportunity for BU-related discussions after the webinar.

To attend, please contact Dianne Goodman in RKEO to secure your place.

 

Your brand is your BIGGEST asset!

Business Engagement

Academic consultants from Bournemouth University hosted an event for local businesses at the BU Centre for Entrepreneurship last week. The theme of the session asked local business leaders to consider whether they were making the most of one of their most valuable assets…their brand!

The team provided a thought provoking seminar on issues such as brand identity, image, values, co-creation and protection. The topic created a lot of discussion and interesting questions from the audience, so much so, that a number of local businesses have subsequently been in touch with the team to develop consultancy projects.

Branding Seminar

(L:R) Dr Chris Chapleo, Dr John Oliver, Mark Painter (BU Centre for Entrepreneurship Manager), Melanie Gray, Graham Goode and Dr Tauheed Ramjaun.

Meet the brave, Team PhD!

BU Challenges, PG research

In the team of three psychology PGRs are Becca (2nd year), Anna and Simon (both 3rd years working hard on their theses). They have teamed up to race in the Bournemouth International Triathlon on 5th July doing the sprint distance: 750m Channel swim, 22k bike ride, and a 5k run between Bournemouth and Boscombe piers. Tri1 (2)

Becca, Anna and Simon are raising funds for Marie Curie UK, a charity that helps people affected by terminal illnesses.

Why are they doing it? Because they want to help; one night of nursing care costs an £160, which is a lot of money for those affected and needing support. Anna, one of the team members says: “My undergraduate lecturer died of cancer last year at the age of thirty six. Nurses and staff at a Marie Curie hospice had helped him tremendously during his struggle with the illness and he was always praising them for their dedication and all the work they did. If we can provide some comfort to others by our fundraising initiative, then this is all we want to do. We’ll do all the running anyway!”

Tri 2 (2)

 

The team has a very successful record of supporting Marie Curie UK and has taken part in Pandemonium Obstacle Race in 2014, raising an amazing £385 for the charity.

This year so far, team PhD has collected £335 via their Just Giving page and with two weeks until the race, there is still time to raise more! If you would like to sponsor Anna, Becca and Simon, please visit their Just Giving Page on: https://www.justgiving.com/Team-PhD/

TeamPhD (2)

BUDI hosts its second Masterclass

Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

20150617_153842

On Wednesday 17th June BUDI hosted the second in its series of one-day Masterclasses, this time on “Financial & Legal Aspects of Dementia Care”.

It was a very thought-provoking day prompted by our set of highly knowledgeable guest speakers.

Our speakers included practising solicitors (Malcolm Skinner and Stuart Bradford), a recently retired independent financial advisor (Vivien Zarucki), and a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards manager (Esther Donald), who each have several years’ experience in their roles. They all provided interactive and stimulating sessions on the very practical and pertinent legal / financial issues that concern people affected by dementia and the common pitfalls to be avoided. The sessions included discussion of Power of Attorneys, the Mental Capacity Act, and the Care Cap due to come in force next year.

The feedback has been very positive and we are grateful for the contributions from our speakers. We now look forward to the next Masterclass!

The BUDI Masterclasses are open to BU staff and students to attend but advance booking is essential.

The next Masterclasses are:

Wednesday 30th September – Creative Approaches in Dementia

Wednesday 2nd December – Promoting Wellbeing at the End of Life

Should you require any further information or wish to book a space on either of these Masterclasses please contact us at budi@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Implementation of the HEFCE Open Access policy for the post-2014 REF: a progress report to JISC

BU Challenges

Original post by Neil Jacobs on this JISC website.

Background

Over the past month, Research Consulting has been undertaking a review of UK higher education institutions’ progress towards implementation of the open access policy for a post-2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). Based on the six institutional workshops, completed with the support of the Jisc Open Access Good Practice Pathfinder projects, as well as interviews with Jisc and HEFCE staff, the study has identified how much progress has been made across the sector to implement the policy and distinguished where there may be further opportunities to support institutions in this area.

Summary Findings

The Collaborative Institutional Assessment of Open access (CIAO) tool was used to gauge institutions’ current level of readiness of the REF policy. Based on responses from 37 participating institutions, summarised below, the study found that, whilst all institutions were actively pursuing implementation of the REF open access policy, research-intensive institutions were generally found to have more developed open access capabilities than teaching-led institutions.

CAIO-results-May-2015Key Challenges

Across all institution-types, however, the following key challenges were given high priority as potentially critically affecting the institution’s ability to comply with the policy:
• Difficulties in identifying accepted articles
• Difficulties in monitoring and benchmarking compliance
• Difficulties in tracking deposits in subject repositories
• Uncertainty over audit requirements, particularly in relation to exceptions
• Systems deficiencies which may result in significant compliance issues.

Other significant issues of note

• A tendency towards ‘gold-plating’ of processes and uncertainty over audit requirements which could be alleviated through reliance on institutional internal audit functions.
• The added value of self-archiving where articles are made OA through the gold route appears limited relative to the effort involved.
• The SHERPA/REF tool, in development, could save time and promote greater author engagement with the policy, if the results delivered were formally endorsed by HEFCE.

Resourcing also presented a further challenge for institutions, due to a rapid rise in deposits and potential inefficiencies in current processes. A large number of less significant issues were also raised, including difficulties in securing and identifying the AAM, uncertainties over dates of acceptance and publication, and concerns over staff recruitment and retention.

This PDF provides a full breakdown of the implementation challenges

Projects services directly/ indirectly supporting REF compliance

There are a range of existing Jisc projects and services with the potential to address some of the issues identified. The most important are considered to be the SHERPA services, Publications Router and the RIOXX/CASRAI projects, but institutions also see scope for ORCID, IRUS-UK, Jisc Collections and CORE to support REF compliance.

This PDF provides a full list of the Jisc projects and services seen by respondents to be useful for the REF

Recommendations

The recommendations to Jisc arising from this work are as follows:

1. Jisc should review its arrangements for supporting institutional repositories, in view of the concerns identified over usability, required levels of technical support and uncertainty over how some specialist institutions can achieve compliance with the REF OA policy.
2. A comprehensive picture of the current research information system (CRIS) and repository solutions in use by UK HEIs, and the interactions between them, should be developed in order to effectively inform planning of Jisc projects and services.
3. Jisc should actively develop relationships with the major CRIS vendors, to ensure the sector’s requirements in respect of the REF OA policy are clearly understood and reflected in supplier roadmaps.
4. A working group should be convened to explore the role of subject repositories, and consider what opportunities exist to enable REF-compliant deposit in these repositories, with metadata subsequently shared with institutions.
5. Jisc should explore opportunities to collect and share relevant data on compliance with the REF OA policy, for example through further development of the CORE service.
6. The OA Pathfinder programme should take these recommendations into account, and seek to develop and disseminate good practice in the management of exceptions, among other areas.

Next steps

Jisc is committed to supporting the sector in their implementation of the policy and to focus its efforts and resource on those areas recommended by this study. Over the coming weeks, therefore, Jisc will be considering how its projects/ services can potentially be refocused/ reallocated to address the most urgent issues faced by institutions and will release details of these plans as soon as they become available.

The Future of Research Practice

REF Subjects, Research assessment

NealWhite

 

 

 

Blog post by Professor Neal White, Faculty of Media and Communication

 

The Future of Research Practice

At a HEFCE sponsored conference run at Goldsmiths in London last week, a very large body of academics invested in the Future of Practice Research in the Arts and Humanities, gathered to hear HEFCE’s position on the area.

Following a stimulating keynote on the history and value of Undergraduates in this area by the artist Anne Tallentire, Professor Emeritus Central Saint Martens University of the Arts London, the audience was given an update on the state of play from HEFCE’s perspective.

In doing so Ben Johnson, Research Policy Adviser and then Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy at HEFCE, underlined the critical importance of practice research and the wide range of outputs considered in the recent REF. Central to their statements was an analysis of the amount and the impact of practice research submitted to the Panels. Writ large was the fact that one third of the overall REF submission was practice research and here was the first surprise, from HEFCE and REF position, this was a disappointing figure.

The reason for this, as Professor Bruce Brown (Pro VC Research at of Brighton University, lead of Arts and Humanities Panel D) expressed, was the overall balance of text and non-text outputs; simply put, there were not enough non text outputs at 36% of the submission. The apprehension had been that in UoAs 34-35 at least, these figures should have been reversed, with 64% practice research expected.

With many institutions hesitant about how to capture and articulate not only practice research, but specifically Impact, we were reassured that we had nonetheless delivered exceedingly high levels of world leading and international research in the REF – around 80% in total (BU return to Impact in UoA34 was 60/40 – 4*/3*), underlining our role in articulating and facing head on societal challenges to the human condition and ways of life. And so we were reminded of our contribution to not only the search for new knowledge, but our contributions to ‘enhanced understanding’ (a key definition outlined by HEFCE) in terms of the recovery of lost knowledge, and the testing of existing knowledge.

So what do we need to do in order to increase the amount and quality of practice research as will be expected, to deal with a problem that has for many been attributed to the confidence of our institutions, and those who lead the returns, for we were told, it does not reflect what is going on in UK Higher Education, as designers, performers, artists and other creative intellectuals continue to undertake and are leading the world in practice research.

In later presentations, and woven throughout the day were themes and concerns about practice research and its status in the Academy, running from staff requiring PhD’s, to the poor auditing tools available to them and the lack of understanding in the sciences, who largely run the exercises. Many points were highly valid, and some very familiar, but at the end of the day, HEFCE, who was in listening mode noted down and responded to the key suggestions and proposed actions.

More practice research figures it was agreed should and will be appointed to bodies like the British Academy. There would be less emphasis on the PhD from HEFCE in this area. A separate research practice policy lobbying body such as exist in Science would be supported. Overall, it was clear the value that practice brings, with HEFCE underlining the contributions to economic, social and cultural values in particular.

HEFCE and the REF need and expect much more non-text outputs – the role of practice in particular in the communication and engagement with research across the board should not and cannot be underestimated, they declared. They want and expect more scholarly forms of practice research, an area in which we now lead the World. But together, the next job is also to ensure that the government does not dismantle one of the liveliest and most engaged research bases in the World, aided and abetted by disciplinary divisions; the power bases of science and the arts respectively. Least we forget, the contribution to GDP from the fast growing sector of our economy, the creative industries was recorded in 2014 at £71.4 Billion (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/creative-industries-worth-8million-an-hour-to-uk-economy).

In briefly summarising all of the fascinating discussions and agreements, for there was much consensus, was a single line, delivered by Bruce Brown at the end of his own presentation in the morning that made an awful lot of sense to those of us trying to persuade our colleagues of our own value. The argument for practice research is won he declared on behalf of HEFCE and REF, the future of research practice is clear. We simply need to ensure that we can now; ‘Get over it and get on with it’.

Neal White is Professor of Media Art. He contributed to BU’s leading return in the RAE in 2008 and REF 2014, with one of two Impact Case Studies. He currently is REF leader for UoA34 and heads Experimental Media Research in the Faculty of Media and Communication.