Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
The UUKi International Partnerships team have recently launched a new GCRF funding bulletin which sits alongside the existing Newton Funding bulletin.
If you haven’t already signed up to receive the GCRF funding bulletin, you can do so here: GCRF bulletin sign up.
Please also feel free to share the link to subscribe with your collaborators and partners in GCRF countries of focus too.
UUKi sub-Saharan Africa Policy Network
The next UUKi sub-Saharan Policy Network will take place at Woburn House, London on Wednesday 18 September, 1400 – 1630. The meeting will include a focus upon student recruitment in the region and will also include an update from the HMG cross Whitehall Africa Strategy team. Other speakers will be confirmed over the next couple of weeks. If you haven’t already, please do sign up via Eventbrite. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uuki-sub-saharan-africa-network-tickets-63104694841
Flourishing with Fusion is the theme for this year’s research showcase for Mid-Career Academics.
This event will explore how fusion works in practice, and how engaging with research at BU can enhance your career. It will showcase the exciting work of a number of BU academics, and there will be a panel for Q & A.
POSTPONED from Wednesday 4th September – a new date will be announced shortly. Contact RKEDF for more information.
This past week Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) presented several workshops on academic writing and scientific publishing to BU’s partners in Nepal. He presented at Nepal’s oldest and largest university Tribhuvan University (TU) on Wednesday. The Faculty of Education had made the effort to produce a personalised banner for Edwin. Prof. Bhimsen Devkota, who invited him to run this workshop, was his PhD student many years ago at the University of Aberdeen
The next day he visited Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIH
S) which has a Memorandum of Agreement with BU, which was signed by Prof. Tee in early 2018 (see BU Research Blog). At MMIHS the audience that day consisted mostly of Master of Public Health students. Edwin recently celebrated his ten-years of being Visiting Professor at MMIHS.
Yesterday he had the honour of running a workshop at BNMT (Birat Nepal Medical Trust), affiliated with the Britain Nepal Medical Trust which started working in Nepal more than fifty years ago in 1967. The audience at BNMT was smaller and this allowed for loads of fruitful discussions.
These workshops are part of BU capacity building approach for health workers, development workers, health students and researchers in Nepal. Writing with colleagues in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, and various UK universities, including with Visiting Faculty based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and University of Exeter Medical School (UEMS) as well as Visiting Faculty at NHS Poole Foundation Hospital and Hamad General Hospital (Qatar) the BU team as published 12 papers on aspects of academic writing and/or publishing [1-12].
References
Hardly ever does a research trip go smoothly and completely to plan. Our latest trip to Nepal was no different. It started really with a delay, I had the money for a flight in the spring, but I really could not find the time to leave Bournemouth University for a three-week trip.
The first little hiccup of this summer’s fieldwork trip, during the monsoon, occurred on arrival at Kathmandu Airport on 23 July. I normally bring three bottles of whisky as a present for my PhD former students and fellow researchers in Nepal. These are bought during my stop-over in the Middle East and this always worked well until this year. This time I was stopped on arrival by a very apologetic customs officer who informed me that the rules for bringing alcohol into Nepal had changed since the beginning of this year and that I could only bring in one bottle. I received a lovely certificate for the two bottles I had to leave behind (see photo).
The second little hiccup was that one of the three research dissemination meetings we had hoped to organise in Kathmandu could not take place. Unfortunately, the organisation we had been collaborating with had not managed to finalise the research report on time. We had also hoped to meet up with staff at Social Science Baha. We have submitted the final draft manuscript for our next book to them and wanted to discuss progress, but the director was unfortunately out of the country.
Further little hiccups were more mundane, such as the electricity going off twice (for perhaps five minutes each time) during one of my teaching sessions on Introduction to Qualitative Research. This meant trying to start a slow laptop as back-up, whilst restarting a still warm overhead projector, etc. But the Nepali audience, being used this, took it all in its stride. And I’ll spare you the details of my day of diarrhoea (either weather or food-hygiene related, probably both).
The biggest problem this time was much more unexpected. Two days ago there was a big fire not too far from in Kathmandu (see picture taken from my bed room). A little later after the photo was taken, we got stuck in traffic because several roads were blocked around the burning building on our way to Tribhuvan University. Later I found out that the fire had destroyed the head office of a national internet provider, which is also the provider for the charity Green Tara Nepal, which we are working with. So I have had hardly any internet for a few days which is really difficult for a 21st century academic.
However, this fieldwork trip has been very successful to date. We have co-organised two well attended meetings, one on the introduction of CPD in Nursing led by Dr. Bibha Simkhada (see previous BU blog here) and one Consultation meeting on migration and health research led by Dr. Pramod Regmi, both run in collaboration with BU’s Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada. Moreover, I was invited to speak at an international sociology conference last Sunday here in Kathmandu which I did not even know was going on till two days before. I had to pleasure of meeting our midwifery friends in Nepal as well as a representative of the German Aid Agency GIZ. We managed to have dinner in Kathmandu with loads of colleagues and friends who work with BU in one form or another, including one of my recent co-authors from the University of Tokyo who happened to be in Nepal.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Daniel Hills (FMC PGR) has recently returned from the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School. This year it was held at Tartu University, Estonia between 9th to 16th July.
Taken from the ECREA website, the summer school brings together members of the European research community to this summer school in order to debate contemporary issues in media, communication and cultural studies. The summer school aims to provide a supportive international setting where doctoral students can present their ongoing work, receive feedback on their PhD-projects from international experts and meet students and academics from other countries, establishing valuable contacts for the future.
It is a full on conference including a variety of back-to-back workshops, lectures, group feedback sessions and consultation every day for 8 days, and is extremely intense. To qualify for this conference, I had to supply an initial 500 word abstract of my PhD, and following being successfully shortlisted for the next round, produce an expanded 3,000 word introduction and summary of my research project, as well as a 10 minute presentation summarising my research plans as they were prior to the summer school.
There were 40 delegates selected and I was lucky enough to be one of them. The conference commenced at 09:30 on the 8th with a half day meet and greet so we could all get to know one another and our personal areas of research. This was followed by lunch and then into an afternoon of interactive workshops taking us to 6PM. This was followed by a welcome drinks party where we could discuss our first day over a glass of wine and provided a great opportunity to bond with my new peers. Over the following days, we would cover a further 16 workshops, 5 lectures and most importantly for me, individual feedback sessions. Our large group was broken into 2 groups or 14 and 1 or 13, and over the course of the work were give an hour dedicated to presenting our research (10 minutes) maximum and then to receive a structured feedback from lecturers and peers whom had already read my 3,000 word paper. This delivered invaluable feedback for me and gave me a plethora of new perspectives which I had hitherto not considered.
I gained a great deal of insights, useful techniques and a re-ignition of enthusiasm towards my research throughout the 8 days, and would encourage anybody whom is more than a year into their research to apply for the 2020 version. I graduated with 10 ECTS points on the final day, but more importantly new-found knowledge and a new direction to progress with my PhD, and a whole lot of new friends and peers. I am planning on writing a paper with one of my new friends whom is interested in a similar field to my own. All in all, the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School has been one of the most useful academic experiences of my career to date.
Daniel Hills is a PhD researcher in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, and is focusing his research in advertising planning and practice theory, aiming to complete in 2020.
Yesterday Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health) gave a presentation on ‘Social and Medical Model of Childbirth’ at the International Conference 2019 with the specific title ‘Sociology of Nepal: State Restructuring, Good Governance & People’s Participation’. This international conference was organised by NSA (Nepal Sociological Association) in Kathmandu.
Prof. van Teijlingen outlined the notion of the social-medical model [1-5] and linked it to recent developments in Nepal, including the introduction of midwifery education (i.e. midwifery separately from nursing) something tat has been advocated for a long time [6] and the rising Caesarean Section rate in Nepal, especially in hospitals in the capital [7].
References:
Denyse King from the Centre of Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal (CMMPH) recently presented her CILVRS Project at a Parliamentary event. The CILVRS Project is a Virtual Reality Learning Environment (VRLE) to improve healthcare education. Denyse presented this at the Further Education for Leadership symposium on Ed-Tech at Parliament on July 17th 2019. She introduced a VRLE on ‘safeguarding’ to share with delegates there who then experienced the VRLE through immersion with Oculus Quest headsets. 
The response from symposium delegates to the VRLE was overwhelmingly positive and with excellent discussions regarding the possible content of future VRLEs. Denyse has written this VRLE content as part of her role as a lecturer in midwifery. This was subsequently built to her specifications by a company called Daden Ltd. The VRLE are designed to be profession generic and topic specific, which ensures that the majority of healthcare students can use each VRLE. Denyse King is sitting on the far right of the table of experts for the Further Education Trust for Leadership (photo). 
VRLEs offer healthcare students access learning materials in ways which enhance their student experience. Use of VRLE mean Bournemouth University can offer students clinical experiences which cannot otherwise be guaranteed as routine part of their healthcare education. In addition to this, Continuous Practice Development (CPD) is a requirement of the Nursing and Midwifery Council [1-2] and the World Health Organization (WHO) [3] have highlighted that learners globally have limited access to Higher Education. The WHO also state that educators internationally lack skills and necessary equipment as well as a lack of access to practical skills teaching. Therefore, VRLE also have a place in offering realistic clinical experiences for CPD nationally and internationally. One example of the latter would be through Bournemouth University a close working relationships in Nepal: (1) where midwifery students can also benefit; or (2) in the development of CPD in nursing and midwifery in Nepal as recently presented on the BU Research Blog (click here).
The CILVRS Project is another excellent example of the BU FUSION with Research resulting in improvements in Education, which in turn are leading to better Practice.
The response from symposium delegates to the VRLE was overwhelmingly positive and with excellent discussions regarding the possible content of future VRLEs. Denyse is very active in this field. She has created a VRLE for urinalysis training as well as three VRLE related to safeguarding (which are nearly complete) as part of the CILVRS Project. She is developing further VRLEs I: two for perinatal mental health which I am creating in collaboration with University of Newcastle (Australia), Solent NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust. Some of this is being trialled within the BU midwifery programme in the forth coming year 2019/2020, and this exciting work is part of her doctorate research: Towards more holistic clinical practice: exploring the impact of virtual reality learning environments on healthcare education.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Are you currently in the process of designing, setting up or planning your research study, and would like to extend your project into the NHS?
Yes? Then you may want to take advantage of this training opportunity.
Oliver Hopper (Research & Development Coordinator, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital) and Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor, RDS) will be running a training session on how to use, and complete your own application within the IRAS system.
IRAS (Integrated Research Application System) is the system used to gain approvals from the NHS Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Authority, before rolling out your study to NHS Trusts. To support this, the session will include the background to research ethics and the approvals required for NHS research.
The session will also be interactive, and so as participants, you will have the opportunity to go through the form itself and complete the sections, with guidance on what the reviewers are expecting to see in your answers, and tips on how to best use the system.
The training will take place in Studland House – Lansdowne Campus, room 103 Tuesday 20th August at 09:30am – 12:30pm.
Get in touch with Research Ethics if you would like to register your interest and book a place.
Involving the public in your study is important, especially at the research design stage, this is known as ‘Public Involvement’ or ‘Patient & Public Involvement’ (PPI). This involvement can greatly improve the quality of your study design and documentation.
To better support researchers with this process (in particular for the purposes of clinical research), there is now a dedicated space for guidance, resources and wider reading, on the Clinical Governance blog space.
You can find the page here – as always if there are any specific queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
Are you currently undertaking research within the NHS, and your Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training is due to expire? Or has it expired recently?
GCP certification lasts for two years, so if your training is due to expire, has expired, or you want to validate your learning, then take advantage of the upcoming refresher half day session, taking place at Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester on Wednesday 14th August, 9am – 12:30pm.
Spaces are still remaining, so if you’d like to enrol, get in touch with Research Ethics.
This month’s fieldtrip to Nepal has a rather confusing element, namely the two separate organisations the BU team is working with have the same abbreviation. Not only that, each organisation/abbreviation is equally well known in its own field. Dr. Bibha Simkhada, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS’s Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada are here in Kathmandu to work with IOM (Institute of Medicine) Maharajgunj Nursing Campus. It is the pioneer school of nursing in the country and part of Nepal’s oldest university, Tribhuvan University. This collaboration involves studying issues around CPD (Continuous Professional Development) in Nursing in Nepal, and also includes BU’s Dr. Ian Donaldson and Dr. Catherine Angell.
The second research meeting next week or early August in Kathmandu is between BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Padam Simkhada and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen on the issue of health and migration with IOM (International Organisation of Migration). IOM, as a United Nations’ agency, is the leading international organization for migration. This health of migrants’ project also involves BU’s Dr. Nirmal Aryal and Dr. Preeti Mahato.
Sometimes it is all a little bit confusing. Perhaps as well that we don’t have a collaborator from the IOM (Isle of Man).
Today saw the publication of a new paper from an international research team from the UK, Japan and Nepal. Our research article ‘Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal’ has been published in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE [1].
The paper reminds us that natural disasters often disrupt health systems affecting the whole population, but especially vulnerable people such as pregnant women, new mothers and their babies. Despite the global progress in maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programmes over the years, emergency responses after a disaster are often poor. Post-disaster health promotion could play an important role in improving MNCH outcomes. However, evidence remains limited on the effect of post disaster health promotion activities in low-income countries such as Nepal.
The paper reports on an post-disaster intervention study aimed at women in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake. In total, 364 mothers were recruited in the pre-intervention group and 377 in the post-intervention group. The post-intervention group was more likely to have knowledge of at least three danger signs in pregnancy (AOR [Adjusted Odds Ratio] = 2.96, P<0.001), at least three danger signs in childbirth (AOR = 3.8, P<0.001), and at least five danger signs in newborns (AOR = 1.56, P<0.001) compared to the pre-intervention group. The mothers in the post-intervention group were also more likely to ever attend ANC (AOR = 7.18, P<0.001), attend a minimum of four ANC sessions (AOR = 5.09, P<0.001), and have institutional deliveries (AOR = 2.56, P<0.001).
Religious minority groups were less likely to have knowledge of all danger signs compared to the majority Hindu group. Mothers from poorer households were also less likely to attend four ANC sessions. Mothers with higher education were more likely to have knowledge of all the danger signs. Mothers whose husbands had achieved higher education were also more likely to have knowledge of danger signs and have institutional deliveries. The paper concludes that the health promotion intervention helped the disaster-affected mothers in improving the knowledge and behaviours related to MNCH. However, the authors also comment that vulnerable populations need more support to benefit from such intervention.
Reference:
Dhital R, Silwal RC, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Jimba M (2019) Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0220191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220191
STEM for Britain, hosted by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, is a poster competition for early-career researchers, and will take place in the Houses of Parliament on Monday 9th March 2020.
Applications for posters will open on Monday 23rd September 2019 to early career research scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians to exhibit posters in one of the following five areas:
Prizes will be awarded for the posters presented in each discipline which best communicate high level science, engineering or mathematics to a lay audience.
BU is inviting expressions of interest from those who would like to apply by Thursday 12th September. Please email Lisa Andrews, RDS Research Facilitator with two sentences on what your poster would cover. Applicants will be shortlisted on Monday 16th September. Those chosen to apply, will be supported to do so ahead of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee’s external deadline of 2nd December.
Full details of the competition and exhibition, including the application form will be made available on www.stemforbritain.org.uk from 23rd September.
You will hopefully have seen numerous blog posts regarding the Health Research Authority’s (HRA) commitment to research transparency. This was prompted in response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report last year on clinical trials transparency, which showed that nearly half of clinical trials fail to publish their results. In their report, the committee made a number of recommendations to the Health Research Authority in order to rectify the situation.
The HRA have recently launched a consultation on their new draft strategy for research transparency – #MakeItPublic. You can find out more about the campaign here on their website where there are also pages outlining their plans and visions for this area of improvement.
If you would like to have your say and be a part of the consultation, BU has an internal survey you can complete. The survey will close on Friday 16th August and replies will be combined to create an institutional response.
Following the government’s industrial strategy grand challenge on Ageing Society, this year’s conference will be exploring the theme of frailty. The key areas will be:
Keynote Speakers
Professor Martin Vernon, National Director for Older People, NHS England
Professor Mark Hawley, Professor of Health Services Research (ScHARR), Director Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Care (CATCH), University of Sheffield
Event Information
Sixteenth Annual Symposium, Frailty: Enhancing Lives, Wednesday 9 October, Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre (EBC), Lansdowne, Bournemouth.
Register now for your free place
Audrey Dixon
CoPMRE Manager
Are you currently in the process of designing, setting up or planning your research study, and would like to extend your project into the NHS?
Yes? Then you may want to take advantage of this training opportunity.
Oliver Hopper (Research & Development Coordinator, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital) and Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor, RDS) will be running a training session on how to use, and complete your own application within the IRAS system.
IRAS (Integrated Research Application System) is the system used to gain approvals from the NHS Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Authority, before rolling out your study to NHS Trusts. To support this, the session will include the background to research ethics and the approvals required for NHS research.
The session will also be interactive, and so as participants, you will have the opportunity to go through the form itself and complete the sections, with guidance on what the reviewers are expecting to see in your answers, and tips on how to best use the system.
The training will take place in Studland House – Lansdowne Campus, room 103 Tuesday 20th August at 09:30am – 12:30pm.
Get in touch with Research Ethics if you would like to register your interest and book a place.
Are you currently undertaking research within the NHS, and your Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training is due to expire? Or has it expired recently?
GCP certification lasts for two years, so if your training is due to expire, has expired, or you want to validate your learning, then take advantage of the upcoming refresher half day session, taking place at Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester on Wednesday 14th August, 9am – 12:30pm.
Spaces are still remaining, so if you’d like to enrol, get in touch with Research Ethics.
BU staff can login below:
Take part in the 2025 ESRC Festival of Social Science: Application Deadline Extended to Friday 23 May 2025
SERVED research project: Supporting Evidence-based Research for Veterans Experiencing Dementia
Alzheimer’s Awareness Week – join us in BGB on Tuesday 20th May
Nanocoatings to Bionanocomposites: Sustainable Solutions
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published