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Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

PG research, Publishing, student research

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Weekly HE Policy Update

Monday

Overseas students

Universities minister, Greg Clark, will travel to India next week to sell Britain as the best destination for international students. This follows criticism that Indian students have been put off applying for places. The trip is designed to persuade India’s government and potential students that Britain is anxious to recruit as many overseas students as possible. It follows a fall of around 15 per cent in the number of people from India studying in the UK, which critics believe is due to perceptions of an unwelcoming attitude towards overseas students in the UK as a result of the Government’s clampdown on immigration. Minister Greg Clark to address foreign students’ concerns over ‘unwelcoming’ UK, (The Independent)

More science graduates needed

In a letter to the Telegraph, major employers such as; BAE System, Shell, Nestlé, and Ford said a “fundamental misperception persists” that practical subjects are too difficult and “not relevant” for the majority of school leavers. The letter also argued that whilst significant progress has been made to promote practical subjects in schools and colleges, the UK was still not producing enough graduates and skilled apprentices with a scientific, technology, engineering and mathematical background. Teenagers turned off ‘difficult’ subjects such as science (The Telegraph)

Tuesday

PG Loans 

The chair of a consortium of six Russell Group universities, which was given £3m as part of a HEFCE project to widen access to postgraduate education, has said a state loan system won’t help those from less well-off backgrounds. The consortium says scholarships which are joint-funded by; government, institutions and employers would be a better option. Chancellor George Osborne has said there will be an announcement on postgraduate funding in next month’s autumn statement.  Six Russell Group universities reject government loans for postgrad study (The Guardian Higher Education Network)

Wednesday

Unpaid internships

Research by the Sutton Trust revealed that a third of university graduates who are employed as interns receive no payment, while paying out up to £926 a month in living costs. They argue that interns who work for more than a month should be paid at least the minimum wage of £6.50 per hour. It is estimated that 21,000 interns are working for nothing in the UK at any one time. Unpaid work costs interns £926 a month – study  (The Guardian), Unpaid internships ‘closed to all but the super-rich’ (The Daily Telegraph), Unpaid internships ‘favour the rich’ (BBC News)

Thursday

Student cap

English universities are targeting the European Union for extra student recruitment when the cap on undergraduates is lifted next year, prompting critics to warn about the additional pressure this will have on the student loans system. Recruitment drive for EU students may crash loans system (THE)

USS Pensions

The first sign of a potential thaw in the dispute over pre-1992 university pensions has emerged after the University and College Union put forward proposals accepting the end of the final salary scheme. UCU accepts end to final salary scheme but row over alternative rumbles on (THE)

Friday 

EU chief scientist

Leading academics and researchers have condemned the decision to ‘oust’ the chief scientific adviser to the European Commission, Professor Anne Glover, after a lobbying campaign led by Greenpeace. She revealed in an email yesterday to the heads of national science academies that her post had “ceased to exist” and that she would leave the commission in January. Greenpeace and eight other campaign groups wrote to Jean-Claude Juncker, the new commission president, in July urging him to abolish the post because it “concentrates too much influence in one person”. Chief scientist is forced out after green campaign (The Times)

International Conference on Innovation Through Knowledge Transfer 2015

Business Engagement, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing

 

 

InnovationKT 2015 is an international conference focussing on innovation and knowledge transfer.

InnovationKT 2015 is the conference for knowledge professionals – those academics, business people, managers and researchers working with innovation, enerprise, knowledge transfer, exchange and sharing.

Featuring world-class speakers, oral and poster presentation sessions and interactive workshops, the InnovationKT 2015 Conference will provide an excellent opportunity to disseminate, share and discuss the impact of university-business and business-business interactions. Applicable themes include:-

  • Processes of knowledge transfer, knowledge origination, knowledge exchange and knowledge sharing
  • Innovation, open innovation and the relationship between knowledge transfer and innovation
  • Human and organisational aspects of knowledge management
  • Incubators and entrepreneurship schemes
  • Commercialisation (licensing of intellectual property, spin-outs formation, and incubators)
  • Collaborative applied research and consultancy
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
  • All other aspects of university-business and business-business collaborative working

 InnovationKT 2015 will be hosted by the University of Staffordshire on its Stoke-on-Trent campus, and chaired by Dr Matthew Hocking.

Call for papers – click here for more details

Call for proposals for special sessions and workshops – click here for more details

An special session consists of a presentation session of six papers on a specific conference topic, organised as a mini-conference. We invite senior researchers or managers who have a special interest in a specific conference topic to to take responsibility for a special session, gathering papers from colleagues and managing the review process. We also invite proposals for workshops and other activities that will be of interest to delegates.
For more details see the invited sessions page.

InnovationKT2015 is organised by KES International in partnership with the Institute of Knowledge Transfer and the Staffordshire University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Location

 

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The collaboration between Staffordshire University and UK partners includes

 

excellent relationships with local and national companies as well as 17 further education

 

colleges plus charitable organisations such as the Institute for Children, Youth and Mission

 

and Oasis College.

 

 

 

Staffordshire is world renowned for its pottery and there are many beautiful attractions around

 

the area where you can immerse yourself in British culture. Take a tour around various pottery

 

museums, galleries and attractions, maybe visit Stoke Minster and round it off with a nice cup

 

of English tea at Gladstone Tea Room overlooking their famous cobbled courtyard!

 

 

 

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Further information

 

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Dorset Legacy Fund – addressing health inequalities in the region

Funding opportunities

The Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Local Authorities, supported by the Public Health team, are very keen to build on the success of the 2012 Olympics in Dorset and have developed a legacy fund to provide a significant resource for investment in innovative and evidence based local projects in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole. The aim of the legacy fund is to create a legacy and inspire communities by investing in projects that focus on the particularly vulnerable, marginalised and deprived communities in order to address health inequalities which exist in Dorset.

Project criteria:

  • Target vulnerable people or marginalised communities
  • Tackle identified health inequalities
  • Inspire people towards a healthier lifestyle
  • Have a lasting legacy

The second round of funding is due to open on 1 December with £200,000 funding available.

Congratulations to BUDI who were successful in the first round of funding.

For more information including the application process click here.

 

HSC research at RCM Conference this week

PG research, Publishing, student research

Research from staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was well represented at this week’s Royal College of Midwives Conference (RCM). The RCM Conference 2014 held in the International Centre Telford explore the theme Better Births: United in Excellence. At this midwifery conference HSC Dr. Sue Way chaired a session on ‘Perineal Care and the Management of the Second Stage’

Dana Colbourne, Postgradute student at Bournemouth University and midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust presented a poster with the title ‘PhD student Leading the way – A case study of a student midwife led postnatal clinic’.

Dr Stella Rawson, senior lecturer in midwifery presented her poster ‘Listening to Women: Exploring women’s experiences of being part of a student midwife’s caseload’.

Jan Stoziek, senior lecturer in midwifery and also Prof Doc student at the University of Portsmouth presented her poster ‘Mother’s Experience of Breastfeeding after Breast Cancer’.

Lesley Milne also presented a poster on the work around ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study’  with Prof. Padam Simkhada, HSC Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland, Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen,

Fiona Kelly represents BUDI at an international dementia conference in Sweden

On 15th October, I presented at a three-day conference at Linkoping University in Sweden on Life with Dementia 2014: Relations. There were two strands to the conference: communication and citizenship and I predominantly attended the citizenship parallel sessions as this is where I am currently focused. The conference was attended by delegates from universities in Sweden, the UK, Norway, Japan, Canada and USA, all with an interest in working and campaigning to promote the rights and inclusion of people with dementia as equal citizens or partners in interaction. In the citizenship strand, there were presentations and key notes with questions and ideas on what citizenship and rights means in the context of people with dementia, with a particular challenge of what it means for people with more severe cognitive impairment. Throughout the conference, we heard, or spoke, about interdependence, human capabilities, opportunities rather than support, inclusive research methods, co-researching, parity of participation and transformative strategies to reduce social injustice. At the end of the conference, there was a separate meeting to work on capturing the enthusiasm and commitment to ensuring people with dementia remain equal citizens, so we formed the ‘citizenship and dementia international research network’, with a view to collaborating on writing, presenting at conferences, campaigning and working on research ideas. Anyone interested in hearing more, please get in touch fkelly@bournemouth.ac.uk

BU research joins Twitter

BU research is now on Twitter and sharing the latest news and open access articles from Bournemouth’s academics, as well as some of the most popular research stories of the day.  To be kept updated, you can follow @BU_research here.

Whether you’re an undergraduate with an interest in research, a post-graduate just starting your career or are well-established in your field, we want to hear your stories.  Tweet us your research updates – can you describe your work in just 140 characters?

Next Grants Academy – Apply now!

Grants Academy, Training

The Grants Academy has been described by members as ‘brilliant’, ‘excellent’, ‘extremely educational and stimulating’ and ‘very beneficial’. It has also increased bids submissions from members acting as a Principal Investigator by 41% and 20% as a co-Investigator. Members have significantly increased their funding successes too and obtained funding from organisations such as the AHRC, European Commission, ESRC, British Academy, English Heritage and Burdett Trust for Nursing.

How does the Academy work?  Members attend an initial two day training course off campus, facilitated by an external expert bid writer with a well-developed draft proposal. The training days will cover the art of proposal craftmanship, the rules of the writing game and other invaluable information to help you perfect your proposal during the days. Feedback on these days from existing members have been very positive, ‘the workshop was the best I have ever attended’. 

Members can then further develop their proposal over a couple of weeks, gaining unlimited support from the external facilitator in doing so and the cohort re-gathers for a mock peer review panel of each other’s applications. This gives a unique insight into this process in a supportive environment and helps further refine the proposal. One member has described this session as ‘[I now have] profound insights in[to] how the system works…and to realize how that must be for professional reviewers’.  The cohort will also receive guidance about BU’s processes for applying for grants, to make sure they are aware of the support available.

What other support is given? Throughout the 18 month membership of the Grants Academy, members benefit form UNLIMITED support from the external facilitator (and in some cases additional external reviewers) which has been invaluable in helping members secure external funding ‘[His] input enabled me to produce a clearer, more logical and convincing proposal. He also alerted me to issues I had not previously considered and encouraged me to think about ‘impact’ and value for the UK in new ways’.

Members also have bespoke assistance from R&KEO in finding funding and collaborators. They also have access to a library of successful proposals from BU, a travel grant (£250), guaranteed places on Funder visits organised for them and surgeries with external facilitators. Funder visits coming up include the British Academy in early 2015.

How do I apply? To apply for a place, please contact your DDRE in the first instance.  The first cohort dates are: January 26/27 and follow up day February 16.  There will then be a second cohort: March 11/12 and follow up day April 1.

What’s the small print? When making your application, you must ensure that you are available for the 3 dates in their entirety. Membership is only obtained once all training days have been attended. Obligations of membership are that at least one proposal for external funding must be submitted within the first six months of membership. As the training days are attended with a draft proposal, this should be obtainable. Within 18 months at least three proposals for external funding must have been submitted. Failure to meet these obligations will lead to membership being revoked.

If you have any questions about the Grants Academy please contact Giles Ashton (scheme administrator) or Jennifer Roddis (scheme manager).

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

Innovative Medicines Initiative – Joint Undertaking, EU

Innovative Medicines Initiative invites proposals for its call on Ebola and other filoviral haemorrhagic fevers programme

This aims to support projects addressing challenges across the entire innovation cycle, leveraging input and multidisciplinary expertise across stakeholders.

Funding is available to both projects addressing short term challenges of the current epidemic as well as actions needed to address EVD and other filoviral haemorrhagic fevers in a sustainable way for the long term. Five topics are covered by the current call:

•vaccine development Phase I, II, and III;

•manufacturing capability;

•stability of vaccines during transport and storage;

•deployment and compliance of vaccination regimens;

•rapid diagnostic tests.

Applications are invited from consortia of any legal entities from across the world.

The indicative budget is €140 million and EFPIA companies are expected to provide an additional €140m in-kind contribution. Closing date 01/12/14 (please note Central European Time/ Brussels Time)

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US – New interventions for Global Health

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is launching a new Grand Challenge: New Interventions for Global Health.  This challenge focuses on innovative concepts for vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics with the potential to be translated into safe, effective, affordable, and widely utilized interventions to protect against the acquisition, progression, or transmission of infectious diseases, or to provide a cure for infectious diseases, in resource‐limited settings.

This request for proposals will fund full awards that could include grants, program related investments, or contracts up to USD $10,000,000 per awardee for up to four years. Closing date 13/01/15

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or see the recent post on this topic, which includes forthcoming training dates up to November 2014.

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

 

BUDI Orchestrat – a FIF CCCP project report

Research themes

At the beginning of 2014 BUDI was lucky enough to secure FIF CCCP funding to set up the BUDI orchestra, a partnership project with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra supported by BU Music Scholars and other students. I blogged about this during the rehearsal period and after the performance at the Festival of Learning, but as the project officially comes to an end as we write our final report I am blogging a final time to give a little update. First we won a poster prize two weeks ago at the 7th International Rural Dementia Summit running concurrently with the 7th Safety and Health in Agriculture and Rural Health Populations conference in Saskatchewan, Canada and Canadian colleagues are now interested in setting up their version of the BUDI orchestra in two provinces. We also secured some further funds to extend the project and are currently rehearsing for an informal Christmas performance that will take place in the Atrium/Starbucks on 12 December, do stop and listen as you enjoy your coffee! If any member of staff/student would like to join us as we rehearse, particularly anyone with a strong singing voice do get in touch with Laura (lreynolds@bournemouth.ac.uk)who can give you more information about our rehearsal schedule, as we are missing our BU Music Scholars this time round who led the singing part of the rehearsals so well in the initial project. We also secured funding from the Dorset Legacy Fund to begin a new orchestra project and this will commence in January 2015. We have submitted a larger grant application to conduct a multi-site study but we have a few months to go before we will hear if we are successful or not. We have received extremely positive feedback from our participants, students and BSO colleagues who have been part of the initial and ongoing project extension and the idea has been favourably met at regional and international conferences where we have shown the video we created documenting the project. The BU FIF provides an excellent opportunity to conduct pilot/proof of concept work and we are grateful for the funds received enabling us to undertake this work which has been the most fun project I’ve been involved with to date.

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Hean & colleagues!

Publishing

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Hean in the School of Health & Social Care and her colleagues Staddon, Clapper, Fenge, Heaslip and Jack on the acceptance of their article: ‘Improving Collaborative Practice to Address Offender Mental Health: Criminal Justice and Mental Health Service Professionals’ Attitudes Towards Interagency Training, Current Training Needs and Constraints’ by the Journal of Research in Interprofessional Practice and Education.

 

The paper is Open Access funded by BU!  A copy is available in BU’s repository BURO: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21462/

 

Well done

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH