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Neurogenetics in Bonn

Following on from a Fusion funded workshop hosted by BU on Psychiatric Genetic Counselling in February, two PGR students, Zara Ghodsi and Rosa Spencer-Tansley were invited by Dr Franziska Degenhardt to spend two weeks of training in Neurogenetics at the University of Bonn, Germany this May.

The course comprised the basis of human molecular genetics and disease gene identification in the first week and molecular genetics of specific disorders and novel statistical analysis of genetic studies in the second week. Sessions were led by world leaders in the field, including Prof. Markus M. Nöthen.

Both BU PGR students said: “We were happy to find that the course comprised of a  well-balanced mixture of molecular genetics and statistical analysis of genetic disorders. This meant we were able to consolidate our previous experiences in psychiatric genetic studies as well as expand our knowledge in new areas.”

They also added: “We found the discussions one of the most valuable aspects of this course; there was a wealth of experience and variety of viewpoints and ideas being shared ​amongst both lecturers and other students. This aspect of the course made us to evaluate what we had learnt already, consider future directions in the field of psychiatric genetics,  and  reflect on how we can integrate this information into our research projects. We enjoyed the whole experience of taking this course, exploring the beautiful city of Bonn and the rich culture of Germany”.

Their supervisor, Dr Kevin McGhee said: “I am delighted that both of my PGR students were offered this opportunity. I would like to personally thank Dr Degenhardt for her generosity and for the useful advice she gave Zara and Rosa on moving their projects forward. The course has provided further networking and collaborative opportunities for my students, hopefully leading to quality publications in the near future. On their return, we also identified how we will incorporate some of the course information into the final UG year Genetics unit.”

Zara will next be presenting a poster at the European Society of Human Genetics in Glasgow in June and Rosa is analysing her data for presentation at the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics in Toronto in October. Zara is also supervised by Dr Hossein Hassani and Dr Demetra Andreou.

 

WAN speaker event: ‘Inspiring our futures: High profile women at BU’

Research themes, Women's Academic Network

A lunchtime Women’s Academic Network (WAN) event on the 4th June to participate in a panel composed of three senior, high profile BU women proved to be one of our most popular WAN events. This drew in a wide audience of female academics of all ranks from across all the Faculties of the University. We were additionally honoured to have in the audience our VC, Professor John Vinney and the PVC for Global Engagement, Dr Sonal Minocha.

The panel included Sue Sutherland (OBE) Chair of the University Board, Professor Gail Thomas, Dean of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and Head of Centre Excellence Learning and Professor Christine Maggs, Dean of the Faculty of Science & Technology.  The seminar topic focused on an interactive discussion of career progression, achievements and dealing with potholes, cul-de-sacs, obstacles and speeding highways along the way from the personal and professional perspectives of our three eminent speakers.

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree opened by the event by welcoming the audience, introducing the speakers and warmly acknowledging all the support provided by panel members and her fellow co-convenors, Associate Professor Dr Heather Savigny and Professor Chris Shiel– not forgetting every member of the WAN community, whose numbers across BU grow weekly. This has helped to make WAN a powerful and exhilarating vehicle for achieving equality in diversity at BU.

The honesty, humour, courage and grit of the speakers in talking so candidly about their road to success was a revelation to the audience who were both moved and liberated to engage fully in discussions with the panel, plying them with questions, comments and sharing their own stories. This was the opportunity to demonstrate that strength in leadership lies in being able to reveal human vulnerabilities and aspirations – a lesson that was deeply inspirational to everyone in the room.

The VC closed the event with his own account – personal, unembellished and moving, staying on to discuss with WAN members his own vision for the future in respect of our shared aims. We, co-convenors, were delighted that the success of this event as another step towards assisting our fellow female colleagues on their paths to progress where the superb examples offered by our outstanding panel received a myriad of compliments from our enthralled WAN participants.

Reminder:  Next WAN event Chaired by VC Professor John Vinney, 7th  July, 5pm   TAG02, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus.

 Topic: Getting to the top: A grand plan or serendipity?

Speaker:  Professor Judith Petts, CBE, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research & Enterprise, University of Southampton

Please note: this is an Open WAN Seminar – all academics, irrespective of gender, are warmly invited to attend.  For full details of, and registration for Event: Prof Judith Petts, PVC Southampton, please see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/getting-to-the-top-a-grand-plan-or-serendipity-tickets-17003423698

 

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Dr Heather Savigny & Professor Chris Shiel,

WAN Co-convenors

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

Coffee Morning, Funding opportunities

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!

Academic induction to Research and Knowledge Exchange at BU

Guidance

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) invite all ‘new to BU’ academics and researchers to an induction.  The purpose of the induction is to inform you of the following:

  • how we can support you when planning your research career;
  • how to apply for funding (the policies and processes around costs and approvals);
  • how to manage your successful research applications (including ethics, governance, risks and finance);
  • how we can support you on impact, public engagement, outputs and open access, case studies, and a whole lot more.

The second induction will be held on 16th June 2015 on the 4th floor of Melbury House.  The format of the day is as follows:

9.00-9.15 – Coffee/tea and cake will be available on arrival

9.15 – RKEO academic induction (with a break at 10.45)

11.30 – Opportunity for one to one interaction with RKEO staff

12.00 – Close

There will also be literature and information packs available.

If you would like to attend the induction then please contact Charmain Lyons, clyons@bournemouth.ac.uk for an official invitation.  We will directly contact those who have started at BU in the last five months.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you.

Regards,

The RKEO team

Research Professional Funding Insight module – research active volunteers required

Funding opportunities

Research Professional are visiting BU on the morning of 23rd June to demonstrate their ‘Funding Insight’ module.  Their description of Funding Insight is that it ‘helps you avoid spending too much time on funding applications that fail. It reveals the hidden structures in the research funding landscape, giving you deeper insight and helping you make better applications’.

As part of the demonstration, they will also arrange trial access to the module.  If you are a research active academic and would like to attend the demonstration and participate in the trial of the module then please contact Jo Garrad by 12th June.

Next Research Staff Association (RSA) meeting -10 June – Guest Speaker Dr Zoe Sheppard

We would like to invite all research staff at BU to the third meeting of the recently formed Research Staff Association (RSA), on Wednesday 10th June from 3-4pm in S219.

This meeting will provide research staff with an opportunity to hear about the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, as well as network with other researchers and feedback any comments or concerns.

We are also delighted that Dr Zoe Sheppard, from the Faculty of Health and Social Science, will be joining us as our Guest Speaker talking about her career progression at BU.

Refreshments will be available so please confirm your attendance by email to: rhurst@bournemouth.ac.uk

We look forward to meeting you.

Michelle Heward and Ana Ruiz-Navarro
Research Staff Representatives – Research Concordat Steering Group

Launch of EPSRC communities

Funding opportunities

EPSRC logoAs part of the improvements to the EPSRC website they have been developing a new communities section where people can:

  • create accounts
  • manage subscriptions (calls email alert)
  • create favourites / bookmarks
  • update profiles

This will allow you to get the most from their website and enable EPSRC to communicate with you more effectively.  More details can be found on the EPSRC website here.

BRIAN training dates now available!

BRIAN, Post-award, Publishing, Training

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the recent BRIAN upgrade, we are happy to inform you that the system is now functioning as normal. In the unlikely event that you do encounter any problems following the upgrade, please do email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of the team will be able to assist you.

We have also lined up a couple of BRIAN training dates in June and July. Please see details below:

28 Jan 2016  –   9.00am to 10.30am      –      S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

24 Feb 2016   –   2.00pm to 3.30pm       –      C203, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus

16 Mar 2016   –   2.00pm to 3.30pm        –      S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

5 April 2016   –   9.30am to 11.00am      –      C203, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus

25 May 2016  –   10.00am to 11.30am    –      S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

Please get in touch with Organisational Development to book a place in this training. If you have further queries regarding this training, please get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (01202 961354).

Sport Psychology Researcher to Visit BU

Dr Sylvain Laborde a researcher from the German Sport University Cologne is visiting Bournemouth University this week. His research concerns performance psychology in sport in particular trait emotional intelligence and heart rate variability.

He will be giving a talk about heart rate variability and its uses within sport and exercise psychology this Thursday (4th of June) at 10am in PG19. Please see the below abstract for a summary of the content.

“In this talk I will introduce heart rate variability (HRV), the change in the time interval between successive heart beats, as a psychophysiological parameter being able to play a role of utmost relevance regarding the theoretical, methodological and applied advancement of the field of sport and exercise psychology. I will first review four theoretical models focusing on HRV. Then I will discuss shortly some methodological considerations regarding HRV measurement. Afterwards I will introduce a broad range of sport and exercise psychology phenomena where HRV could be integrated, such as: aggressiveness; cognition; ego depletion; health behaviour; injury recovery; motivation; personality-trait-like individual differences; sleep; social functioning; stereotypes; stress, coping, and emotions; training recovery and overtraining; resilience; and talent identification and development. Finally, at the applied level, I will detail how HRV can be used as a basis to improve many aspects related to health and sport performance, through HRV biofeedback and daily monitoring with smartphone apps. In summary, this talk will show how an unspecific marker, HRV, can, cautiously used, help sport and exercise psychology embrace fully psychophysiology to impact human performance and health-related issues at a society level.”

 Keywords: Pressure, competition, vagal tone, parasympathetic nervous system, neurovisceral integration model, polyvagal theory, resonance breathing frequency, psychophysiological coherence

If this is of interest to you let me know via email emosley@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Sport Psychology Researcher to Visit BU

Dr Sylvain Laborde a researcher from the German Sport University Cologne is visiting Bournemouth University this week. His research concerns performance psychology in sport in particular trait emotional intelligence and heart rate variability.

He will be giving a talk about heart rate variability and its uses within sport and exercise psychology this Thursday (4th of June) at 10am in PG19. Please see the below abstract for a summary of the content.

“In this talk I will introduce heart rate variability (HRV), the change in the time interval between successive heart beats, as a psychophysiological parameter being able to play a role of utmost relevance regarding the theoretical, methodological and applied advancement of the field of sport and exercise psychology. I will first review four theoretical models focusing on HRV. Then I will discuss shortly some methodological considerations regarding HRV measurement. Afterwards I will introduce a broad range of sport and exercise psychology phenomena where HRV could be integrated, such as: aggressiveness; cognition; ego depletion; health behaviour; injury recovery; motivation; personality-trait-like individual differences; sleep; social functioning; stereotypes; stress, coping, and emotions; training recovery and overtraining; resilience; and talent identification and development. Finally, at the applied level, I will detail how HRV can be used as a basis to improve many aspects related to health and sport performance, through HRV biofeedback and daily monitoring with smartphone apps. In summary, this talk will show how an unspecific marker, HRV, can, cautiously used, help sport and exercise psychology embrace fully psychophysiology to impact human performance and health-related issues at a society level.” 

Keywords: Pressure, competition, vagal tone, parasympathetic nervous system, neurovisceral integration model, polyvagal theory, resonance breathing frequency, psychophysiological coherence

If this is of interest to you let me know via email emosley@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Funding Opportunities

This weeks funding opportunities: 

 

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

NERC/Welsh Government high level policy placement

NERC’s Policy Placement Fellowship Scheme allows researchers and other staff involved in environmental science research to work closely with policymakers within government and other public and third sector organisations in the UK. The scheme also allows placements of government and third sector policymakers to work within NERC head office and research centres.

NERC has launched three opportunities for policy placements with:

  • Welsh Government
  • Scottish Government
  • Go-Science

Please note this scheme is not open to research students. NERC has a separate policy internship for students.

Fellowship policy placements are organised by NERC in collaboration with a policy-making body, for example a government department, devolved administration or agency. The applicant applies for the position, which will be for a fixed term and on a specified topic. The placement is jointly funded by NERC and the partner organisation on a 50:50 basis, with the exception of NGOs, who are asked to provide 25% of the funding. Successful applicants will be awarded a NERC grant. During the placement, the fellow will remain employed by her/his institution. Applicants must be from a NERC research centre or a HEI in receipt of NERC-funded research. The fellowship can be taken up by post-doctoral researchers at any stage of their career or policy makers with at least two year-experience. Requirement for each fellowship may vary and this will be specified in the announcement of opportunity.

Sabbatical arrangements available to the applicant will not count towards the fellowship period, but could add value to it, before or after.

Closing Date: 08/July/2015


Economic and Social Research Council, GB

Urgent research grants – strategic call for proposals related to the Mediterranean migration crisis

ESRC Urgent Research Grants: Strategic call for proposals related to the Mediterranean migration crisis

In July 2013, ESRC piloted an Urgency Grants Mechanism, managed on a responsive mode basis, to respond to rare and unforeseen events where there is a strong case for immediate social science research. Following a review of the pilot scheme, Urgent Research Grants are now run on a strategic basis, with ESRC inviting calls for projects in areas deemed to require rapid action. We are now opening an Urgent Research Grant all for projects related to the currently unfolding migration crisis in the Mediterranean. Through this call, we aim to test and demonstrate the capability of the UK social science community to respond to urgent social crises. We aim for projects to commence by 1 August 2015.

Proposals are expected to demonstrate:

  • a robust social science methodological framework to conduct qualitative and/or quantitative research among migrant groups, informed by appropriate, current social science conceptual frameworks
  • suitable connections with governmental and/or non-governmental actors in one or more relevant countries to enable access to the migrant populations
  • a management plan for how the project will enable fieldwork to commence in a matter of weeks
  • plans to make the data and analysis available as quickly as possible to relevant practitioners and policymakers, with appropriate considerations for security, privacy, confidentiality and research ethics.

We invite proposals for a duration of up to 24 months, to a maximum amount of £200,000 (100 per cent fEC). As normal, ESRC will pay 80 per cent of the fEC, with the research organisation contributing the other 20 per cent. This length of time is intended to enable analysis of the data, and potentially some additional fieldwork in 2016. However, we expect that the majority of data collection activity will take place this summer and early autumn. We expect to fund one or two projects under this call.

Key dates

Project outlines must be submitted by 16.00 UK time on 9 June 2015

Full proposals must be submitted by 16.00 UK time on 30 June 2015

Grants to commence – 1 August 2015

 

Innovate UK, GB and other funders

Enhanced individual protective equipment

Up to £1 million is available for Phase 1 of this two phase competition funded by theMinistry of Defence (MOD).

The mission of the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is “To equip and support our Armed Forces for operations now and in the future.” DE&S is responsible for procuring and supporting all the equipment and services for the UK Armed Forces.
  The ability to operate in harsh, hostile and toxic environments, whilst maintaining operational effectiveness is an enduring challenge. The overall aim is to provide fit, form and function. That is, provide the user with IPE that is comfortable to wear whilst also ensuring the user is able to operate safely, effectively and efficiently; whether this is on land, sea or in the air (or a combination of these).
The overall aim of the E-IPE challenge is to improve user effectiveness through a coherent and integrated clothing and protection system and bidders are requested to focus on one or more of the following seven key themes:

  • CBRN Protection – low burden, broad spectrum respiratory and dermal protection against toxic vapours, liquids and aerosols via integration with existing operational equipment
  • Climatic/Environmental Protection – for integration of protective clothing against extremes of hot and cold e.g. on the upper deck of a carrier
  • Fire Protection – enhanced level of protection and reduction of the thermo physiological burden of the fire protection on board ships/carriers
  • Industrial Protection – for personnel against, for example, hazardous materials or substances, noise etc
  • Blunt and Ballistic Protection – for integration of protective material into clothing without unduly affecting the human factors (bulk, thermal burden, range of movement)
  • Enhanced Hand Protection –to increase the capability and interoperability of gloves whilst providing increased functionality e.g. touch screen capability
  • Novel Fitting Techniques – to enable accurate measuring of the user for IPE in order to improve the accuracy of armour positioning and optimise the sizing and fit.

This competition opens on Monday 1st June and will close at 12 noon on Wednesday, 29th July, 2015.

A briefing event will be held in London on Tuesday 14 July 2015.

Birth paper cited one hundred times in Scopus

Publishing

We have just been alerted that our paper has been cited for the hundredth time in Scopus. The paper ‘Maternity satisfaction studies and their limitations: “What is, must still be best’ was published in Birth. The paper originated from the Scottish Birth Study which we were both part of in our previous academic posts at the University of Aberdeen.

This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of satisfaction studies in the field of maternity care, including the issues that service users tend to value the status quo (i.e. What is must be best) . The implications are that innovations, of which users have no experience, may be rejected simply because they are unknown. The paper warns that problems may arise if satisfaction surveys are used to shape service provision. We advised that satisfaction surveys should be used with caution, and part of an array of tools. While involving service users is important in designing and organizing health services, there is still the risk that using satisfaction alone could end up promoting the status quo.

 

Professors Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Rennie, A-M, Graham. W., Fitzmaurice, A. (2003) Maternity satisfaction studies and their limitations: “What is, must still be best”, Birth 30: 75-82.

RKE Showcase at Festival of Learning

As part of the Festival of Learning, the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office are putting together a Research and Knowledge Exchange Showcase.

This will be a visual showcase based in the Atrium throughout the Festival where colleagues across the Institution will have the opportunity to showcase their Research and/or Knowledge Exchange activities via posters, photos and the like.

Colleagues are invited to submit an existing or new poster (or photo/abstract) highlighting a KE project to showcase to the public.

Poster sizes of A2 or A1 are welcome.

If you have a poster or picture you would like us to display (staff or student), please let either Jennifer Roddis (Research) or Rachel Clarke (Knowledge Exchange) to express interest in submitting a poster by Friday 12th June.  Actual posters, or poster artwork for printing, will need to be received by Tuesday 30th June.

 

 

2015 BU PhD Studentship Competition – Round 3 Call for Proposals

The Graduate School is delighted to announce the launch of Round 3 of the 2015 BU PhD Studentship Competition. Potentially, there will be up to 8 studentships available across two parallel strands: (1) Matched Funded and (2) Fully Funded/Part-Funded.

At this stage, Academic Staff are invited to submit proposals for studentship projects which, if successful, will be advertised to recruit PhD candidates for an January or April 2016 start.

Full details can be found on the Graduate School Staff Intranet.

Submission Deadline:

Applications should be submitted on the Studentship Proposal Form to the Graduate School via email to phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk no later than 5pm on Monday 13 July 2015.