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eBU news, updates and success story!

PG research, Publishing, Research themes

eBU news: updates and achievements

It’s been a while since I posted about eBU. Since my last post there has been some exciting updates and progress to report. There are some new faces to welcome, a reminder to encourage students to submit, news that eBU is supporting outputs from the PGR conference and will support outputs from an exciting new conference, and…  (drum roll…) a paper originally submitted to eBU has been published in an external journal!

Welcome aboard!

Heather Savigny has joined me as a co-editor. I have met with Heather a few times now, and it is obvious that she is passionate about developing writing and scholarly skills. On this basis, Heather is a perfect addition to the team. We have both met with the new PVC Prof John Fletcher, and I’m glad to say that, like his predecessor, he is very supportive of eBU. Shelly Maskell from R&KEO has also come aboard and will provide vital support in helping develop eBU.

Encourage students to submit

One immediate challenge for eBU is not appeal to students. eBU launched a bit too late last year to appeal to students who would have made important submissions at the end of last academic year (dissertations etc), but hopefully we will be well placed to appeal to them this year! So I urge all academic staff to encourage students who produce good quality to a) encourage them to spend a little bit more time and format their work into a publishable output and b) offer some support to this end.

PGR conference

eBU is well placed to help early career researchers and students make that leap into the ‘publish or perish’ world of academia. On this basis, it is a tool that PGRs should take advantage of. We are actively encouraging people who presented their work at the PGR conference to submit their work to eBU. We have received a good number of abstracts and posters already, and eBU will be a great platform to showcase this work BU wide. Outputs associated with the PGR conference to have deadlines, and these are:

  • Please submit posters before Friday 14th March.
  • Please submit abstracts before Friday 14th March.
  • Please submit conference papers before 12th April

I would encourage those who made an oral presentations to write it up as a conference paper. There is guidance for PGRs on myBU and on the Graduate School website, but do feel free to get in touch with any questions. We don’t generally set deadlines, so please remember that you can submit any other papers you might have in the pipeline (e.g. review papers) at any time, and we will guarantee a quick internal and open peer review.

Future scope

Congratulations to Luciana Esteves from ApSci, who has been successful in winning some Fusion funding to kick-start an annual undergraduate research conference at BU – SURE@BU. This is something to look out for in the future, but it is worth stating now that eBU will play a key role in the publication of conference abstracts, posters, conference papers etc.

Success!!!

I’m glad to report that one of the submissions to eBU has been published by an external journal, and I believe others will shortly follow suit. The successful paper in question is a paper that I wrote with colleagues. However, it is a useful little case study to illustrate how and why eBU works.

Myself and colleagues in HSC and outside (University of Exeter, University of Plymouth and Westbourne Medical Centre) submitted a grant application in the second half of last year. In most grant applications you have opportunity to summarise the key literature, and this one was no different. Unfortunately whilst the grant application was unsuccessful, I took a senior colleagues advice and spent a little bit of time turning the application into a paper. After a few weeks I submitted it to eBU (the phrase ‘put your money where your mouth is’ comes to mind!). As I had a bit of a vested interest it was processed by editorial colleagues and reviews were uploaded after a few weeks. It really helped having two sets of informed but fresh eyes scrutinise the paper, and changes were made on the basis of these reviews. The paper was submitted to a journal and accepted with suggestions for minor changes.

When I wrote this article I was a Research Assistant here and, like many early career researchers, I had aspirations of becoming published in peer reviewed journals. One of my trepidations was getting that first publication. I’m now a PhD student here, and I’m sure the floodgates will open (along with another colleague have since have had another accepted!) as I now have many ideas for potential papers and now – thanks to eBU – I have no fear of the unknown!

Andy Harding

Doctoral Researcher and eBU co-editor

 

Workshop on Streaming Analytics Thursday 13th March 10:30.

Fusion, PG research

As part of a collaboration between BU and several other EU based universities and intitutions we will be hosting SAAT 2014 a workshop on the emerging area of streaming analytics. The workshop is open to all for the first day (the second day is taken up with management meetings). The focus of this workshop is on the technical aspects of how to provide streaming analytics.

Scalability and responsiveness of algorithms and architectures for large scale data streams are fundamental to harvesting the power of data generated in real-time networks. The workshop seeks to bring together industry and academic partners to explore specifically the requirements of data processing, the real-world target applications and develop from there the techniques required. The scope thus includes applications, scaling algorithms, streaming platforms, integration of streaming and batch algorithms, graph partitioning together with machine learning for streaming, concept drift and dynamic data analysis. Additional topics such as security issues and tool and platform development are of interest.

Aims:
The key aims in this workshop are several fold. Primarily we seek to identify the key issues associated real world streams of data, including key target applications. Integrated  solutions, combining appropriate topics from the scope which target likely directions in this field is the end goal. Specifically, the aim of the workshop is to facilitate interaction as a crucible for consortium building in advance of Horizon 2020 (call 1.A.1.1 from the 2014-15 draft work programme.).

Organisers: Dr. Hamid Bouchachia(DEC) , Dr. Damien Fay (DEC)

Higher Education in the News

Nowadays in Higher Education we are increasingly being asked to respond to Government priorities, the needs of society, and changing attitudes towards the role of universities.

To help us navigate this increasingly dense minefield of ‘external context’ I have been collating the key policy indicators from the press at the end of each week – please find below the summary from last week for your information / personal amusement.

If you’d like any further information or have trouble accessing any of the articles please just email me at ccherry@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Friday

The government’s new immigration minister, James Brokenshire MP, is trying to make a name for himself by threatening to make it tougher for education institutions to keep their student visa licences. He warned that he has “considerable concerns” about some education institutions; rejected fears that immigration policy is harming “world-class” universities as a “ludicrous fiction”; and dismissed anger from academics about the immigration checks they must mount on students.

Thursday

Today’s pick is an interview with Nicola Dandridge (CEO of UUK) in which she says that she hopes student fees and university funding will not be election issues. She also warns that UUK will not support any Labour pledges for £6,000 fees or a graduate tax. Fees ‘amnesty’ tops UUK’s pre-election wish list (THE)  

Student places

Universities may need to cut their spending per student next year because teaching funds will have to cover up to 30,000 extra students, sector figures have warned. More students will stretch unit of resource, some fear (THE)

Also, institutions could be inspected if they take on “unusual” numbers of “unplanned” extra students when the cap on undergraduate recruitment is lifted in 2015-16, according to David Willetts. ‘Unusual’ growth in student numbers will be reviewed (THE)

Immigration policy

Home Office officials often make “poor quality” decisions when they reject student visa extension applications, UUK argues, making it vital that the government does not scrap the right to appeal. Vice-chancellors urge retention of right to appeal on visas (THE)

Also, open warfare has broken out between Vince Cable and his cabinet colleague, Theresa May, over immigration with the Liberal Democrat business secretary saying that every time he puts his head “above the parapet” by talking positively about migrants he feels he needs “a reinforced tin hat”. Coalition war breaks out as Vince Cable attacks Tory immigration target (Guardian)

World rankings

The THE have released their World Reputation Rankings today which ranks institutions by “reputation”. The table is based on academic votes with 10 UK institutions featuring (Cambridge – 4, Oxford – 5, Imperial – 13, LSE – 24, UCL – 25, KCL – 43, Edinburgh – 46, Manchester – 51/60, London Business School – 91/100, School of Hygiene and Trop Medicine – 91/100).

Student bursaries

A report from OFFA finds that some £1.3bn spent on bursaries over a five-year period had “no effect” on students’ chances of dropping out of university. 

Research

Undergraduates at UCL could be helping academics to conduct research from day one of their degree courses, according to plans unveiled by Michael Arthur aimed at boosting the student experience. Research to start on day one of degree course (THE) 

A look at Poland – Student numbers

Dwindling student numbers are causing a problem for universities in Poland. After growing rapidly for two decades, higher education enrolments peaked in 2009, having risen fivefold to almost 2 million. This year, the numbers have tailed off and are set to fall further, even though Poland’s university enrolment rate is the fourth highest among OECD nations. Poland: growth stalls in an academy overdue for reform (THE)  

Appointments

The vice-chancellor of Durham University is to step down from his position later this year. Chris Higgins to step down as Durham v-c (THE) 

Wednesday

Research excellence

Three universities which research brain tumours have been named as centres of excellence, two of which are Alliance universities. The University of Portsmouth, Plymouth University and Queen Mary University of London will be part of a national network of scientists. The aim is to revolutionise research into the tumours, which kill more people under 40 than any other cancer, a spokesman said. Universities named centre of excellence for brain tumours (BBC)

International students

Several UK universities have seen the number of Indian students plummet by more than 50 per cent in recent years. The figures came to light during a series of evidence sessions for the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, which is investigating the effects of immigration controls on international student numbers in STEM subjects. Universities detail hit to Indian demand (THE)

Private institutions

Regent’s University London has become the second private institution to be admitted to UUK, following the University of Buckingham. For-profit institutions BPP University and the University of Law are other potential candidates that could seek to join UUK. Regent’s University London joins UUK (THE)

Tuesday

There is a damaging “apartheid’’ at the heart of England’s education system that is dividing academic qualifications from the pursuit of vocational skills, Michael Gove has warned. In a speech at the McLaren technology centre in Surrey, Gove said it was vital that school pupils should have access to both types of learning to ensure they are prepared for the changing labour market, which increasingly values technological ability and innovation. Michael Gove warns of UK education’s damaging ‘apartheid’ (FT)

Apprenticeships

Katie Allen, writing in the Guardian, looks at the growing attraction of apprenticeships. She says, “with half of new graduates trapped in low-paid, low-skilled work, the appeal of on-the-job training is growing fast.” Financial: Meet the white collar apprentices – no milk round, no tuition fees and no dirty overalls (Guardian)

HE policy

Step 1 of the government’s plan was George Osborne removing the cap on student numbers. Step 2 will remove ‘red tape’. And step 3? An end to the £9,000 cap on fees, says Peter Scott. Education: End to cap on university student numbers clears path for private equity (Guardian) 

The Oscars

Gravity, the space thriller starring Sandra Bullock, won seven Oscars this year. 40-50 graduates from Bournemouth University worked behind the scenes and played a key part in the process. The Gravity graduates: experience that’s out of this world (Guardian) 

And finally…..

Michael Gove will make political history as the first Conservative education secretary to send his child to a state secondary after his daughter won a place at the comprehensive school of her choice. Michael Gove’s daughter wins place at state school (Telegraph)

Monday

More than 160 academics have written to the Guardian to protest at being used as an extension of the UK border police, after universities have come under more pressure to check the immigration details of students.

While a fight is raging between the Tories and Liberal Democrats after Vince Cable suggested the recent increase in immigration figures was a “good thing”. Responding in the Mail on Sunday, Theresa May said that “we need boundaries” as there is “an overwhelming incentive for people to move from poorer nations to richer states.” While Liam Fox has said that the Tories must change their policy to win back voters from the UK Independence Party

However the Guardian has come to the defence of Vince Cable by arguing that pulling up the drawbridge in the face of global economic change and the digital era is simply not possible. Beyond the blame game (Guardian)

Labour education policy

All teenagers will have to study maths and English up to the age of 18 under a Labour government, the party will announce today as it unveils plans for a “national baccalaureate” to better equip young people for the workplace. All children to study maths and English to age 18, says Labour (Observer)

Social mobility

Harry Mount, writing in the Sunday Times, “argues that people in the Middle Ages had more chance of improving their station than we do”. He says this is, “bad news for the Tory toffs trying to rebrand themselves as the party for aspirational workers.” If you want to improve social mobility Mr Cameron, dish out new genes (Sunday Times)

 

“Six-hit” for PR History

Publishing

Collating and editing six books on the history of public relations is one of the main projects being undertaken by Professor Tom Watson of the Media School during his FIF-supported study leave.

The books will be the first-ever study of PR’s history outside North America. Collectively the series is entitled “National Developments in the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices” and is being published by Palgrave in its new Pivot model.

The first book, Asian Perspectives in the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices, is now in production and will be published in May. It will be followed by Eastern Europe and Russia (being edited), Middle East & Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, Western Europe and a final book of essays on the theorisation of public relations history.

“In public relations literature for several decades, it was assumed that PR was an American invention,” Prof Watson said. “And American scholars nationalistically purveyed that world view. Since the start of the International History of Public Relations Conference at BU in 2010, it was evident that PR and informational/promotional communications have many sources which depend on social, political and cultural influences.

“This series will shift the historiography of PR and related methods of communication away from the US to the ‘other voices’ of the series title. It is an important development that keeps BU as a world leader in PR and media/communication history research, alongside the work of the Centre for Media History.”

Prof Watson says publication of the series should be complete by mid-2015. Each Pivot volume is up to 50,000 words and is published by Palgrave in e-book and print-on-demand formats. The publisher undertakes to publish each book within three months of its submission.

Vice-Chancellor PhD Scholarships

The Graduate School is delighted to announce the launch of the 2014 Vice-Chancellor Doctoral (Fee Waive) Scholarships (VC PhD Scholarships) which will offer support to up to 25 outstanding postgraduate research students (PGRs).

The VC PhD Scholarships will be awarded to candidates who meet the eligibility criteria, have the support of their supervisory teams, are accepted by the relevant Academic School and UET.

Details of the Scholarships:

The VC PhD Scholarships will provide a full fee waive for up to 36 months, and exceptionally to a maximum of 48 months in the case of part-time candidates.  Fees will be charged after 36/48 months respectively.  To be clear about the ‘48 month exception’: this is included so that in some cases a sponsor or employer may continue to provide candidates with part-time employment, effectively releasing them for doctoral study part-time.  Please note these scholarships will only be allocated to part-time candidates in exceptional circumstances.  The Scholarships may NOT be used to support professional doctorates, current BU postgraduate research students, nor may they be used to support BU staff to complete doctoral programmes.

Stipends, to cover living expenses, are NOT included in the scholarship and candidates must demonstrate at application stage that they are able to support themselves as part of the application process.

It is up to the Academic School or Faculty the number of Scholarships allocated.  Please speak to your Deputy Dean for Research & Enterprise for guidance on the number that will be available for your School/Faculty.

For full details about the Scholarships, including Candidate Eligibility, Process and Timetable, please refer to the VC PhD Scholarship 2014 – Policy

Prospective applicants should be directed to: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/pgr/vice-chancellor-phd-scholarships/

 

 

PGR Development Fund – March Deadline

PG research

The PGR Development Fund closes at the end of this month, so if you are planning to attend a conference or research development activity over the coming months, don’t forget to submit an application for financial support to the Graduate School by 31st March.

Awards are available of up to £1,000 and will cover direct costs, such as – travel, subsistence, training or development costs.

Don’t forget you will need to seek the support of your Supervisory Team and Deputy Dean for Research, so please factor this in when submitting your application.  Completed applications should be emailed to gsfunding@bournemouth.ac.uk by 5 pm – 31st March 2014.

Full details can be found on myBU – Graduate School PGR Community – remember you’ll need to log on with your student username and password.

International Women’s Day and Burlesque

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights” Gloria Steinem

8th March was International Women’s Day. First observed in 1911, it is a national holiday in many non-western countries (full history here) and has its roots in the struggle for women’s rights.

International Women’s Day is a day of reflection and celebration.  Women have made considerable advances in contemporary society.  Women now vote, have been and can be Prime Minister. Women now work and have historically unparalleled legislative rights. Indeed so successful have these gains been that it is not uncommon to hear it said that women now ‘can have it all’.  Recently released UCAS  data suggests that applications from UK girls outnumber boys at undergraduate level (and across most areas of study).  Mary Curnock Cook has warned that young men risk becoming a ‘disadvantaged group’.   Yet, to look at these statistics in isolation from the wider context is fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in our society. Numbers of applications may well be declining for young men, but that doesn’t seem to stop men being over represented in the major institutions that dominate our society. Indeed, 88% of MPs in British Parliament are male. 80% of board members of  FTSE 100 companies are men.  86% of UK Vice Chancellors are male. Advances in education are not translated into advances in the corridors of power.

At the same time, in the last week we have seen reports that tell us over half of British women have been physically or sexually assaulted in the workplace .  In the UK, there has been an increase in numbers of rapes of adults and children.  This takes place in a wider educational and political context where the issue of consent is not understood by both politicians and young people alike. There is not yet a legal requirement to discuss consent in  sex education in schools.  This lack of awareness is situated in a wider media and cultural context: Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’, also known as the  ‘rape song’ includes the lines ‘you know you want it, cos you’re a good girl’.  This song has been banned by some politically active student unions around the country, but it is indicative of a wider set of cultural problems endemic in what is increasingly labelled  ‘rape culture’.  And from popular culture to state sponsored violence – rape is still a weapon of warfare which remains largely unprosecuted (Sheppard, 2009).

This handful of examples, suggest that yes,  we do need a day to highlight the importance of women and their interests whatever their ethnicity, class or geographical location.  We also still need to ask questions about the structural disadvantages that women still face.  Women are over represented in (British) educational contexts.  Yet, in 2014 we are still needing to ask why are women and their diverse interests still under represented across the social, political and economic sectors across society? Stopping to reflect on the nature of power, invites us to reflect on ways in which we might challenge it. A central aim of the feminist agenda has been to do just this in a multiplicity of ways. Dissent within and without being part of a healthy dialogue. Feminists are often presented as humourless (perhaps by those who do not wish to have their interests challenged?).  In direct response to that charge, and to the question recently raised at a WAN committee meeting – is it possible to be a feminist and enjoy burlesque? Nadia Kamil provides us with a resounding  humorous and serious ‘yes’.

 

Finding research funding using Research Professional Workshop – training TODAY!

Training

Research Professional is the world’s largest database of funding opportunities. This hands-on session, in a computer lab, will talk you through how to customise your account, to get only the most relevant funding opportunities delivered to you weekly. This includes refinement by award type (fellowship, large grant, travel grant), country of sponsor, start date, etc.

This is the only tool you need for finding funding and once you have customised your account – you need never hunt for funding again.

Book NOW for training on Monday 10th March 2014, 1-2pm, P233, Second Floor, Poole House, Talbot Campus. Facilitated by Emily Cieciura, RKE Support Officer, R&KEO

To secure a place, email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

Thinking about applying for one of the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls under Horizon 2020? Book now for training!

Training

Remember the Marie Curie calls under FP7? Well, they are new and improved under Horizon 2020 and have been renamed and revised…

Dr Martin Pickard, the trainer says: “The new Marie Skłodowska Curie schemes within Horizon 2020 have considerable relaxed rules enabling even greater opportunities for participation; from individual research fellowships to medium term collaboration exchange. Presenting Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie as a whole, the workshop also focuses on the opportunities for individual fellowships to highlight these opportunities and presents how to approach them to ensure a maximum chance of success (typically better than 1 in 3)”.

To learn more about the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls, please book NOW via staff development:

If you are already developing a Marie Skłodowska Curie proposal and would like a one-to-one Dr Martin Pickard after one of the information sessions, please contact Dianne Goodman.

Thinking about other EU schemes? To learn more about Horizon 2020 as a whole, please book NOW via staff development:

And don’t forget that BRAD offers a range of additional training opportunities which are very helpful to developing proposals for EU funding. These include:

Why not come along to all the available training sessions and boost your chances of being successfully funded by the European Union?

– See more at: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=28698&preview=true#sthash.6Y6XdPHK.dpuf

Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR) Refreshes Its Web Presence

Research themes

The Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR), a long-standing resource for research practice and postgraduate learning at BU, has recently undergone a ‘refit’ of its web pages.  Content from the old site has been moved over to the new platform for Bournemouth University groups and centres. The new format now makes it possible to link with work taking place in other Schools and research sites. In addition, Impact, Public Engagement and Postgraduate Research links feature on every page.

CQR is held in high esteem globally for its innovative work and commitment to qualitative research. The refreshed web pages provide an international ‘shop window’ for CQR, School of Health & Social Care and BU more generally in regards to cutting-edge qualitative work. CQR has always engaged across Schools at BU and welcomes new opportunities for collaborate efforts.

The new CQR pages include information, resources and links organised around the following areas of research:

In addition, areas such as Biographic Narrative Interpretive Research, Cut-up Technique and Appreciative Inquiry are covered. A new page outlining the ‘Gay and Pleasant Land? Project and Rufus Stone’ has been added. The recently organised, cross-Schools ARTS in RESEARCH (AiR) collaboration is also featured.

The new web pages include new information and resources, links to further information and even videos for viewing pleasure! Last but not least, a photo has been added as a ‘Featured Image’ highlighting the essence of each page.

Have a look around this interesting site!

ENABLE: Reflections on a Fieldtrip

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

A room with a view

We arrived fairly late in the evening. The roads were dark and seemed more windy and enclosed than during the daytime, and yet the bus driver, somewhat perversely, insisted on overtaking at speed on occluded bends whenever he possibly could!

The barrier to the ‘resort’ was shut when we arrived but our interpreter told the guard that we were indeed going to the Tasik Chini Resort – the only place one can go after passing through the gate. After deliberation, he let us proceed.

The receptionist indicated that tonight we had two rooms rather than the one room we had booked, having asked for two extra beds in the room for the children. One room had a twin bed and a mattress, and the other a single bed, but she said she would sort it all tomorrow. We paid in full after debating three or four times what the actual price was for the stay; a kind of mental gymnastics that pulls the mathematical body into contorted shapes only vaguely resembling the original anatomy from whence it came.

The rooms: interesting that the room with the twin beds and a ‘mattress’ was exactly that; no sheets or blankets just the mattress. The other room, however, looked more promising at first sight. There were in fact two beds there not one. OK, so the toilet ballcock was gone and water was constantly overflowing from the cistern onto the bathroom floor, but TWO beds!

So, we divided the children, given they didn’t want to sleep without an adult, sprayed the rooms with insecticide and prepared for the night. It was then that I (Jonathan) looked at the two beds and saw that whilst one was fine, the second was covered by dead, dying and some struggling ants and assorted insects; and the toilet was still dripping, resonant off the hollow dampness of Derbyshire’s Blue John mines! That bed couldn’t be slept in as I then preceded to spray it.

So, back to plan A with me (Sara) and one of the girls in the bed and one on the mattress. But, just a minute, there’s a mattress but no covers or pillow. No that’s not going to work so three in a bed it is, with some topping and tailing, and me back to the bed in the other room keeping the insects at bay and drowning the noise of the leaking cistern by air conditioning that’s making everything too cold and dry.

Fieldwork is, of course, meant to be a little uncomfortable and sometimes evocative of van Gennep’s ‘rite of passage’, a gaining of one’s socio-anthropological spurs! However, we are staying at what purports to be the premier resort for Tasik Chini. This is important because, until 2004 – (and here I (Jonathan) had to stop writing for a while to scratch that itch that turned out to be a troop of ants seeking solace in my bed) – in 2004 eco- and ethno-tourism (although somewhat contested) was seen as an important means of securing the economy of the area. It seems now, a decade on, that this resort finds anyone staying a rather irritating yet bizarre intrusion into a life that happily runs purposelessly for itself, except for weekend weddings, or as a place for the army cadets to stay and practice manoeuvres through the night. (Manoeuvres punctuated by eerie whistles, commands and shouts!) And, rather perversely, it seems that staff cannot get a single order right, no matter how small or precisely articulated it is: kopi ice O kosong (black iced coffee, without sugar) usually has milk and sugar in it; roti bakar (toast), if it comes at all, takes longer (much longer) than nasi goreng (fried rice)!

It also seems to evoke, more seriously, something that mimics the tragedy happening to the lake in bio-environmental terms and, from a human perspective, to the Orang Asli people living around the lake. It is an intrusion into the ill-thought plans of others or an encumbrance to manage that imposes rather than seeks dialogue!

And still the dripping cistern spits! (Should have consulted ‘Tripadvisor’ first http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/Hotel_Review-g298291-d2213723-Reviews-Lake_Chini_Resort-Pahang.html!)

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Funding Success Stories: Sport Academic Group Strengthens Dutch-German-British Collaboration

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, Fusion, PG research, Publishing

Dr Tim Breitbarth (Sport Academic Group) has been successful with his recent bid for Fusion/EU funding for teaching exchange visits to partner institutions in Groningen, The Netherlands, and Cologne.

At German Sport University Cologne Tim – who is also Programme Leader MSc Sport Management and Coordinator Internationalisation Sport at BU – will teach at their high-profile Masters in Sport Management over four days. The Masters attracts about 200 applications per year from within and outside Germany, but only 30 students are allowed into the course. The visit to Sport’s Erasmus partner institution Hanzehogeschool Groningen will include tutoring of international groups of students who participate in a multi-day management game.

Besides teaching commitments, the trips will help to move along joint research and publication projects with his European colleagues, such as editing the Special Issue on sport and social responsibility of Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society. In addition, they have been cooperating on conference and workshop organization and will once again co-lead a track at this year’s European Association for Sport Management conference.

Also, Tim and his BU colleagues were successful in securing internal funding for the first time in order to take the Sport Management and Sport Management Golf final year cohorts to a four-day intense international student management game in Cologne in late March, which he co-organises.

Hence, collaboration with, arguably, the world’s largest and renown sport university, has been in full swing with also two BU students on study exchange in Germany in semester 2 and PhD student Emma Mosley receiving training at their specialised Institute for Sport Psychology thanks to a Santander award.

Neuroscience@BU seminars next week, Wednesday the 12th and Friday the 14th

Research themes

Dear colleagues,
Next week we will have two thematic research seminars in neuroscience organized by Dr Julie Kirby and me.

-The first of the seminars of this series will take place next Wednesday the 12th of March, 15:00, P302 LT. The invited speaker is Dr Dimitris Pinotsis, http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=DPINO08.
Dr Pintosis obtained his PhD in September 2006 from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) of the University of Cambridge. After an EPRSC Research Fellowship and lectureship in Reading University he moved to UCL where he is working at the Welcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging ; having secured funding from EPSRC and the Wellcome Trust.
Dr Pinotsis has a strong track record and a number of landmark publications in imaging neuroscience modelling; he is also the author of the most advanced versions of the state-of the art models for neuroimaging data, the dynamic causal models. I am familiar with Dimitris work and I very strongly encourage the attendance to researchers both in machine learning and in cognitive psychology.
The title of his exciting talk is “Electrophysiological Data and the Biophysical Modelling of Local Cortical Circuits”. “Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) is a general framework that allows for a formal (Bayesian) analysis of the properties of neuronal populations, based upon realistic biophysical models. In the past few years, a wide variety of such models has been implemented in the DCM framework. In this talk, I will first review some of these recent advances and then focus on models that allow one to infer spatial parameters of cortical infrastructures generating electrophysiological signals (like the extent of lateral connections and the intrinsic conduction speed of signal propagation on the cortex). I will try to highlight the links between different models and address how the experimental hypothesis or question asked might inform the choice of an appropriate model”.

-The second seminar of this series will take place on Friday the 14th of March, at 14:00 in K101. Our guest is Prof. Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives, http://www.sanchez-vives.org/

Maria V. Victoria Sánchez-Vives, M.D., PhD in Neurosciences has been ICREA Research Professor at the IDIBAPS (Institut d’Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer) in Barcelona since 2008, where she is the head of the Systems Neuroscience group. She is currently co-director of the Event Lab (Experimental Virtual Envir onments in Neuroscience and Technology).
After obtaining her PhD at the University of Alicante in Spain, MVSV was postdoctoral fellow/research associate at Rockefeller University (1993-1994) and Yale University (1995-2000). She next established her own laboratory at the Neuroscience Institute of Alicante (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) while being Associate Professor of Physiology. Her independent research has been supported by national and international agencies. She has been funded by Human Frontier Science Program and has been partner in six European Projects. She is currently coordinator of the FET EU project CORTICONIC.
Her main interests include how neuronal and synaptic properties as well as connectivity determine the emergent activity generated by neuronal networks. The integration of the cortical information giving rise to bodily representation and the combination of brain-computer interfaces and virtual reality for understanding these processes is another research line of her group.
She is currently Chief Editor of Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience.
For information see www.sanchez-vives.org
Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives is a renowned neuroscientist which has published a number of highly influential papers in journals like e.g. Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS or Journal of Neuroscience. I strongly encourage not missing the opportunity to attend to this seminar and to discuss perhaps potential synergies.
The title of her talk will be “Emergent oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex”.
“Understanding complex systems like brain networks is a challenge. Cortical networks can perform computations of remarkable complexity, accounting for a large variety of behaviours and cognitive states. At the same time, the same networks can engage in stereotypical patterns of spatio-temporal activation, such as the ones that can be observed during sleep, anaesthesia and in cortical slice. Collective phenomena emerging from activity reverberation in cortical circuits at different spatio-temporal scales results in a rich variety of dynamical states. Slow (around or below 1 Hz) and fast (15-100 Hz) rhythms are spontaneously generated by the cortical network and propagate or synchronize populations across the cortex. This is the case even in isolated pieces of the cortical network, or in vitro maintained cortical slices, where both slow and fast oscillations are also spontaneously generated. The similarity between some of these patterns both in vivo and in vitro suggests that they are somehow a default activity from the cortical network. We understand that these emergent patterns provide information on the structure, dynamics and function of the underlying cortical network and their alterations in neurological diseases reveal the circuits dysfunction”.

If you would like to talk to the guests kindly let me know.
Best wishes, Emili

Emili Balaguer-Ballester, PhD
Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg

Wondering if you could access any of the €70b EU fund for research, but not sure where to start? Sign up NOW for training!

Training

As many readers of this blog will already know, 2014 has seen the start of a new era of EU funding through Horizon 2020, which totals a whopping €70.2 billion. BU has had some great success in receiving EU funding in recent years, so to learn more about how you could access this funding, sign up now for training.

Dr Martin Pickard, the trainer says: “The new Marie Skłodowska Curie schemes within Horizon 2020 have considerably relaxed rules enabling even greater opportunities for participation; from individual research fellowships to medium term collaboration exchange. Presenting Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie as a whole, the workshop also focuses on the opportunities for individual fellowships to highlight these opportunities and presents how to approach them to ensure a maximum chance of success (typically better than 1 in 3)”.

To learn more about the Marie Skłodowska Curie calls, please book NOW via staff development:

If you are already developing a Marie Skłodowska Curie proposal and would like a one-to-one Dr Martin Pickard after one of the information sessions, please contact Dianne Goodman.

If you want to learn more about Horizon 2020 as a whole, then come along to our our session on Horizon 2020 – The New Opportunities and How to Attack Them. Our trainer says: The new Horizon 2020 programme, which will fund over €10 Billion of research each year, has started.  Although, on the face of it, H2020 is similar to the previous Framework 7 programme there are, in fact, numerous significant and important differences. Understanding these differences will enable many increased opportunities and flexibility of approach to funding your research.  There are thus many opportunities. This preparatory workshop introduces H2020, in the context of its remit structure and highlights these exciting new opportunities to discuss the differences in approach and strategy required to present a competitive bid and ensure success.

To learn more, please book NOW via staff development:

And don’t forget that BRAD offers a range of additional training opportunities which are very helpful to developing proposals for EU funding. These include:

Why not come along to all the available training sessions and boost your chances of being successfully funded by the European Union?

ResearchGate Reviewed

Guidance, Publishing

Picture by bschwehn

Recently a number of researchers have been asking about ResearchGate and how it relates to BRIAN.  In November, Jill Evans from the University of Exeter posted a Review of ResearchGate on their blog, this was a comprehensive review which I would recommend reading. However, here are some of the pros, cons and recommendations tailored to BU.

ResearchGate is a networking site for researchers, particularly those engaged in broadly scientific research.

Pros

ResearchGate is free to join and currently has about 3 million users mainly in the sciences.  It offers the following benefits to researchers:

  • Sharing publications
  • Connecting with colleagues
  • Seeking new collaborations
  • Obtaining statistics and metrics on use of uploaded publications
  • Asking questions of researchers around the world that have the same set of interests
  • Job seeking or recruitment

ResearchGate incorporates many elements of familiar social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn such as creating profiles, liking and following researchers and their publications, ability to comment or send feedback and the ability to share news items and updates easily and quickly.

ResearchGate links researchers around selected topics and specialisations – these can be chosen or edited at any time by members.  Members can track and follow the research publications of others in their field.

Members can upload copies of papers (either pre- or post-review) and the associated raw data.  All will be searchable.  Non-peer-reviewed material can be added only through manual file upload.

Researchers are encouraged not only to upload successful results but also those results from failed projects or experiments – the latter are stored in a separate but searchable area.

ResearchGate finds publications for members from a number of major databases, for example, PubMed, arXiv, IEEE, RePEC and CiteSeer enabling automatic creation of a publications list.  Lists can also be created or added to manually or importing from a reference management database such as EndNote.  It also appears to trawl University web sites and repositories so that if you have papers in the Bournemouths repository, BURO, it is very easy to create profiles and publication lists.  Members will be asked to accept or decline publications (as is the case with BRIAN, for example).

Members are automatically subscribed to a co-author’s feed, so that they can see work from and connect with their co-authors’ co-authors.

ResearchGate offers the ability to search and filter on a variety of topics: author, institution, journal, publication, and so on.

Members can request a copy of a paper from the author if it is not freely available.

Full text publications uploaded to ResearchGate are indexed by Google.

ResearchGate contains useful information about journals, such as impact factors, metrics and some details of open access policy – in this respect it is useful for bringing information together into one place.

Cons

ResearchGate claims to have 3 million users but it is not clear how many of these are active accounts that are maintained and updated regularly.

A quick look of Bournemouth members shows that many profiles contain only a small number of publications and many appear not to have been updated for some time.

Some members have complained about unwanted email spamming.  To avoid receiving several emails a day, unwanted updates or followers, be sure to manage your Notifications and Privacy settings both of which can be accessed through Account Settings.

Many of the publications that are available through ResearchGate are actually uploaded illegally in terms of publisher open access policy.

Putting a copy of your paper on ResearchGate will not mean that you are compliant with funder policy.  On the contrary, you may be in breach of publisher policy.  You will still need to upload a copy of your paper to BURO via BRIAN if you are funded by any of the UK Research Councils, Leverhulme, NIHR and Horizon 2020.

Recommendations

The more effort you put into maintaining and regularly updating your profile, the more you will get out of ResearchGate.

ResearchGate is not a replacement for depositing a copy of your research in BURO.  It is recommended that you deposit the legal copy of your paper in BURO via BRIAN and then link to that on networking sites such as ResearchGate.

It is worth noting that when you upload your paper to BURO the Editors (BURO@bournemouth.ac.uk) will check for you that it is a legal copy and will be in touch if there is any reason why the item cannot be hosted in BURO.

The extent to which ResearchGate will be useful to individual researchers depends on the researcher’s aims.  If the aim is to promote work then ResearchGate alone will probably not suffice.  Consider using ResearchGate in conjunction with other sites such as Academia.edu, Mendeley, Google Scholar or figshare.  Activity and membership varies from one site to another and from one discipline to another, so researchers will need to investigate for themselves in order to evaluate potential value.

If you do use a variety of sites, this is where the advantage of having your paper in a single, freely available place, i.e., BURO, will come into play as you can simply link to the paper and know that anyone anywhere can get secure, long-term and free access.  There will be no need to undertake multiple publication upload.  Please note that all BURO repository content is indexed by Google and Google Scholar and typically appears at or near the top of search results.

The University of Utrecht has produced a very useful guide to increasing the visibility and impact of research and the use of metrics to track impact.  Although written for Utrecht researchers, there is a great deal of generic advice that can be applied to any discipline.