Tagged / BU research

RSA: Getting Started, Securing Funding, and Advancing Your Career

Join the BU Research Staff Association (RSA) for the 2025 Away Day on Thursday 19th June, Talbot Campus 10:00 – 14:30

This in-person event will take place over lunch and is dedicated to providing support, inspiration, and encouraging meaningful connections among research staff across all faculties.

There will be expert advice on getting started and securing funding, along with practical tips from peers who will share case study examples of successful grants and lessons learned. By the end of the session, you’ll have valuable tools to navigate funding opportunities and plan your next steps—whether in academia or beyond. It is also a great opportunity to connect with colleagues and be part of a supportive research community.

Open to all BU ‘research only’ staff, no matter where you are in your research journey.

For further information on this event please contact Pooja Shah shahp@bournemouth.ac.uk or Gladys Yinusa, yinusagg@bournemouth.ac.uk

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

Enterprise and Innovation sessions for BU researchers

PG research

We are pleased to announce that Matt Desmier [Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Manager] will deliver two insightful sessions on Enterprise and Innovation. While these sessions have been specially arranged for the PGR community, all BU researchers are warmly invited to attend.

Communicating with Business and Personal Branding – REGISTER HERE

Tuesday 10 June 9.30-11.30 (Create LT, Fusion Building)

Whether you are planning an academic career, or a career in industry, you will be interacting with businesses and third sector organisations regularly. To do this successfully, it is vitally important to be able to communicate effectively and to build a personal brand. This session will teach you the crucial steps you need to communicate successfully with business: how to understand what their motivations are and align yours with theirs; recognise how you can add value; and know what language to use and when.

Alongside this, it’s vitally important to build credibility and relationships with business, to be visible in the spaces where they are. Predominately this means – but is by no way limited to – having an active presence on LinkedIn. Whilst the algorithm that powers this platform remains a closely guarded secret, this session will show you tried and tested ways to ensure it works in your favour and to create your personal brand.

Developing a Business Idea and Pitching – REGISTER HERE

Wednesday 11 June 9.30-11.30 (Create LT, Fusion Building)

The goal of the most of your interactions with industry will be to get them to do something for you. Whether that’s engage with your research, fund your new product idea, buy some of your consultancy or drop by to speak to your students.  Each ‘ask’ is a pitch and this needs careful crafting to get a positive response. Understanding how and when to pitch is a skill in and of itself. Thankfully it’s not as scary as it sounds. This session will give you the skills you need to pitch successfully.

To enable you to develop a business idea we’ll deliver training based on the two recognised frameworks: the Business Model Canvas and the Innovation Canvas. Both frameworks have been designed to enable individuals and teams to describe their ideas, identify areas that need more development, and understand what value will be delivered and to whom.

 

Best wishes,

The Doctoral College

Supervisory Lunchbite | ESRC South West Doctoral Training Partnership

PG research

ESRC South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP) Information Session

Are you involved in social science research?

Would you like to supervise of PhD student?

Are you interested in collaborating with the other universities, sharing best practice, resources and academic knowledge?

Would you like to find more?

 

We are pleased to announce a ‘lunchbite’ session oriented toward academic colleagues who are interested in future calls for the ESRC South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).

This session is designed to provide more information about the SWDTP, the pathways which Bournemouth University belong to, the timelines for 2026 cohort applications, and aid supervisors with supporting potential applicants.

The SWDTP offers funding for research in eighteen different disciplinary and interdisciplinary pathways, spanning across the social sciences. BU is linked to 3 of those pathways:

To find out more, please join us at the following session:

  • Monday 2 June 2025 | 12-00 – 13:00 | Talbot Campus: Room F306

Register here

Best wishes,

The Doctoral College

EU Project FoodMAPP secondment to Gent University

Awarded & submitted bids, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange

The EU Project FoodMAPP won by BU as coordinator has reached an exciting mid-point, with prototype solutions providing localised food supply transparency entering the stakeholder testing phase.

As a Staff Exchange (MSCA SE) project, the BU team led by Jeff Bray undertake 30 day secondments with our interdisciplinary industry and academic partners across Europe.

Jeff has today returned from a period of secondment to the Department of Agricultural Economics at Gent University (Belgium) to collaborate with Prof Hans De Steur and his research team. The secondment provided a rich opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange and discussion around Food Security Challenges and potential solutions across and beyond Europe. Future proposals, including the next Staff Exchange project, were scoped and progressed to continue successful and productive interdisciplinary research visits in the future.

Two new midwifery papers from CMWH

The latest issue of MIDIRS Midwifery Digest features two papers from CMWH members.

Laura SLaura Stedman reports on the global variance in screening approaches and diagnostic criteria for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). She explores the impact of these differences on policy recommendations and practice. Without a universally accepted screening criterion, the variance in approaches makes accurately calculating the prevalence of GDM difficult. Untreated GDM results in women being more likely to experience pre-eclampsia, caesarean birth or stillbirth, while babies are more likely to be born prematurely, macrosomic or large for gestational age.

Also in this issue, Maryam Malekian, a MRes student in CMWH, has had her scoping review protocol published. Maryam has recently completed the review looking at knowledge and attitudes of nulliparous women regarding breastfeeding. She presented this work at the Maternal, Parental and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN) Conference in April and has submitted the findings for publication.

 

Congratulations to both authors.

References:

Stedman L, Angell C, Hundley VA. Gestational diabetes mellitus: evaluating the implications of applying international research into national policy and practice. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, vol 35, no 2, June 2025, pp 141–147.

Malekian M, Hundley V, Irving M. A scoping review protocol of factors influencing breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, vol 35, no 2, June 2025, pp 179-182.

Policy engagement for impact sessions – last chance to book!

Knowledge Exchange, Training

We have a few places available for our policy engagement training sessions, which are now open to any researchers interested in learning how to get their research in front of decision makers.

DATES & TIMES

Friday 30th May, 9.30am-1pm, F306, Fusion Building, Talbot Campus
Developing Policy Engagement for Impact BOOK HERE

Wednesday 11th June, 9.30am-1pm, online via Zoom
Developing Policy Engagement for Impact (same content) BOOK HERE

KEY DETAILS

Developing Policy Engagement for Impact
Facilitated by BU’s policy consultant Carys Davis, this provides expert advice on navigating the policy landscape to ensure your research reaches and informs decision makers. Topics covered:

  • The purpose of influencing, the role of evidence and what it means for you 
  • Writing elevator pitches and key messages 
  • Principles of communicating with policy and decision makers 
  • Effective policy writing 
  • Understanding the policymaking landscape. 

 

CMWH showcases research at Wessex Health Partnership event

On 19th May 2025 at the Wessex Women and Girls Event at the Southampton Science Park, BU’s Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health  showcased its research and innovation in women’s health.

Professor Vanora Hundley and Dr. Dominique Mylod presented their ongoing development of an Early Labour app as a case study for the Maternity and Infant Health Equity Research Collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University. Professor Carol Clark’s presentation focussed on pelvic floor health and the cost of urinary and faecal incontinence to women’s health and the planet. Dr. Chloe Casey honoured her mother-in-law’s memory with her PechaKucha presentation on using creative methodologies to engage women in recovery from alcohol.

In addition, Dr. Malika Felton and MRes students Susara Blunden and Maryam Malekian displayed posters summarising their research into the impact of exercise on women’s physiology and health, improving diagnositic and treatment pathways for women with endometriosis and exploring the impact of professional knowledge and skills on breastfeeding support respectively.

The event provided a valuable platform for BU researchers to connect with regional partners, contribute to the growing Wessex Women and Girls research network, and play a key role in shaping future initiatives aimed at closing gaps in women’s health. The CMWH’s invovement reinforces BU’s role as a leading voice in this important area of health innovation.

Inaugural research meeting for British Academy grant

international, Publishing, writing

Today we had the introductory meeting of our recently funded ‘British Academy Project on Evidence-Informed Policymaking in Nepal’, the project is coordinated by the University of Huddersfield by Prof. Padam Simkhada, who is also Visiting Professor in Bournemouth University’s (BU) Faculty of Health & Social Sciences.  The co-investigator at BU is Dr. Pramod Regmi (Principal Academic in International Health), with other co-applicants based at the Keele University, Canterbury Christ Church University, the University of Sheffield, the University of Chester, the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), Kathmandu University and the research-based charity Green Tara Nepal.

This one year grant is officially starting next month (1st June).  The plans for this project were laid some time ago, and expressed in our 2022 paper ‘Nepal urgently needs a National Evidence Synthesis Centre‘ [1].   Our funded project will focus on the activities of: (1) formative research; (b)  capacity building including evidence synthesis; (c) the establishment of a National Evidence Synthesis Centre; and (d) the evaluation of sustainability planning.  The British Academy see this award also as providing a developmental opportunity, enabling award holders to build connections within the cohort and critically beyond that as well.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Reference:

  1. Simkhada, P., Dhimal, M., van Teijlingen, E., Gyanwali, P. (2022) Nepal Urgently Needs a National Evidence Synthesis Centre, Journal of Nepal Health Research Council, 20 (3): i-ii.

 

PhD supervision is good for you

BU Challenges, international, Publishing, REF Subjects, student research, writing

Some people in academia (and many outside it) don’t appreciate the importance of PhD supervision .  An academic supervising PhD students is not merely for the educational purposes, or in other words, for the benefits of the postgraduate student.  The value of postgraduate supervision lies in pushing the boundaries of knowledge, about testing new ideas, new approaches or even new methods.

Interestingly, enough it means that PhD supervision for an academic is also about developing their own ideas, expanding one’s CV, and developing one’s career.  Whilst for the university it is also for the wider benefit of research for the wider society.  The latter means that PhD students help improve the REF (Research Excellence Framework) scores for a university, through metrics such as number and proportion of PhD completions, but also through papers based on PhD research co-authored with staff.  It always amazes me how some outsider regard PhD supervision as simply more of the same, i.e. not that different from supervising an undergraduate student.

Looking at my ow CV, some of my best papers have been co-written with PhD students, including my most cited paper on SCOPUS [1]. Moreover, as the graph of my h-index [checked SCOPUS for May 19th 2025] shows four of my top eight highest cited papers were co-authored with postgraduate students [1-4].  Papers that would not have been written without the postgraduate student conducting knowledge-advancing research!

Not surprisingly, three of the four former PhD students who co-authored these highly-cited papers are now in academic positions across the UK (the fourth one has retired).  These four highlighted papers are not just looking good on my CV, they are also highly ranked within their respective journals.  The first paper [1] is the 28th most cited paper in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, an impressive 28th position out of 12,762 articles ever published by this international journal.  Similarly, the paper ‘Women’s autonomy in decision-making for health care: Demographic study in Nepal’ [2] is the 10th most cited paper in Reproductive Health, whilst ‘ To tell or not to tell: Barriers and facilitators in family communication about genetic risk’ [3] is the 20th most article in Clinical Genetics.  Last, but not least, ‘Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care’ [4] is the 17th most cited article (out of 3,910) in the international journal Midwifery.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen E., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. (2008) Factors affecting the utilisation of antenatal care in developing countries: a systematic review of the literature, Journal of Advanced Nursing 61(3): 244-260.
  2. Acharya, D.R., Bell, J., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E, Regmi, P.R. (2010) Women’s autonomy in decision-making for health care: Demographic study in Nepal. Reproductive Health 9(15) reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-7-15.pdf
  3. Forrest, K., Simpson, S., Wilson, B.J., van Teijlingen E, McKee L, Haites, N., Matthews E. (2003) To tell or not to tell: Barriers and facilitators in family communication about genetic risk,Clinical Genetics, 64: 317-26.
  4. MacKenzie Bryers H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.