

Reference:
- Regmi, P., Poobalan, A., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) PhD supervision in Public Health, Health Prospect: Journal of Public Health 20(1):1-4. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/32735/28111
Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
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Please see below for a further update from the HRA on Master’s and undergraduate research. Any queries or concerns please email Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor.
Update on student research – new eligibility criteria from 1 September 2021
The HRA and the devolved administrations, supported by the Wessex Institute at the University of Southampton, have reviewed their approach to study approval for student research.
The review aimed to ensure students have the best learning experience of health and social care research, and to reduce the time that the HRA, DAs and NHS Research Ethics Committees (RECs) spend advising on and reviewing student applications.
In March 2020 we paused student research approvals to create capacity for urgent COVID-19 research. Now, from 1 September 2021, we are introducing new eligibility criteria for standalone student research.
New critera
The new criteria mean that some Master’s level students will be able to apply for ethics review and HRA/HCRW Approval or devolved administration equivalent. Standalone research at undergraduate level that requires ethics review and/or HRA/HCRW Approval (or devolved administration equivalent) cannot take place. Arrangements for doctoral research remain unchanged.
Full details are in table one – permitted student research table. We’ve also made it clear when students are able to take the role of Chief Investigator, see table two – which type of students may act as Chief Investigator?
Alternative ways of learning about health and social care research
It is possible for students to learn about health and social care research without completing standalone projects. Looking at other ways to build skills and experience better reflects modern research and emphasises team science. View the video of our event ‘Exploring good practice in Student Research’ to hear from course leaders about how successful these alternative approaches have been (registration is required to view) or read our website for further information and ideas: https://www.hra.nhs.uk/student-research/.
Queries
If you have any queries about the eligibility criteria, please contact queries@hra.nhs.uk.
Congratulations to Prof. Vanora Hundley who co-authored an important commentary ‘WHO next generation partograph: revolutionary steps towards individualised labour care’ in the international journal BJOG [1]. The authors comment on the partograph which is widely used across the globe as part of the assessment of labour progress. It was recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the early 1990s as a routine tool for displaying the progress of labour. Despite its global acceptance, utilization and correct completion rates as low as 31% and 3% respectively, have been reported.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
Reference:
Hofmeyr, GJ, Bernitz S, Bonet M, Bucagu M, Dao B, Downe S, Galadanci H, Homer CSE, Hundley V, et al. (2021) WHO next generation partograph: revolutionary steps towards individualised labour care (Commentary), BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, First published: 8 March 2021
Thursday 18 March at 4pm
Understanding coastal change: impact and implications global to local scales with Dr Sally Brown, Bournemouth University
Coastal zones are under multiple threats of natural and anthropogenic change. The impact of these threats are anticipated to worsen with climate change and the effects of sea-level rise. In this presentation, Sally will highlight different elements of her research, including how physical processes and socio-economic change vary throughout time, and demonstrate methods and solutions to adapt to these changes. Examples will be taken from global, regional and local scales from areas that Sally has worked on around the world.
Sally is a coastal and climate change adaptation scientist. She joined BU in 2018, and as all but six weeks of her time at BU has been part-time or working from home, she is keen to integrate more and work with others in research at BU. Find out more about Sally’s research.
Share this event on Twitter: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/imset-seminar-understanding-coastal-change-tickets-140996671841?ref=estw
The curious start of an academic collaboration
Two days ago a group of academic from Bournemouth University (BU) submitted a bid for a research grant to the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) to help prevent the drowning of toddlers in Bangladesh. The proposed research is a collaboration with the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution), and an other UK university, the University of the West of England (UWE) and a research organisation called CIPRB (Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh). Nothing particularly out of the ordinary there. BU academics submit collaborative bid for research grants all the time, with colleagues at other universities, with large charities (like the RNLI), and with research institutes across the globe. What I find intriguing is the round-about way this particular collaboration came about within BU.
The NIHR called for research proposals in reply to its Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme. The RNLI approached CIPRB, an expert in accident prevention from UWE and BU experts in health economics and human-centred design to discuss putting in an intention to bid. The RNLI has a history of working with both CIPRB in Bangladesh on drowning prevention and with BU in various design project (including improved ball bearings for launching lifeboats). The team decided that it needed a sociologist to help study the social and cultural barriers to the introduction of interventions to prevent drowning in very young toddlers (12-14 months). My name was mentioned by our UWE colleague whom I know from her work in Nepal. For example, she and I had spoken at the same trauma conference in Nepal and the lead researcher on her most recent project is one of my former students.
Thus, I was introduced to my BU colleagues in different departments (and faculties) by an outsider from a university miles away. I think it is also interesting that after twelve years at BU I am introduced to fellow researchers at the RNLI, especially since I only need to step out of my house and walk less than five minutes to see the RNLI headquarters in Poole.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
As part of the RKEDF Academics and Researchers can book onto the following sessions, either as a one-to-one meeting or a bespoke team session:
Please contact Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor if you are interested in any of these sessions.
The first round for applications closes on Wednesday 17 March.
Bournemouth University has a small amount of funding available to facilitate and enhance research and development collaboration with external partners.
The purpose of the funding is to:
There is flexibility in the way that the fund can be used, provided that a strong case can be made, and the assessment criteria are met. Funding could be used in various ways, for example for consumables, staff, and for travel/events/meetings, where restrictions allow.
All funding will need to be spent by 31 July 2021.
Eligibility/What we can fund
The HEIF Small Fund is open to all researchers across Bournemouth University, including those who are already working with industry partners and those who would like to build up new networks. In particular, the panel would welcome the following types of applications:
Due to the nature of this fund, we particularly welcome applications;
In line with BU2025, we will positively encourage applications from under-represented groups.
Application process
To apply, please read the guidance and complete the application form
Applications must be submitted to heif@bournemouth.ac.uk
Applications will be reviewed by the HEIF Funding Panel (see Panel Information below), with recommendations submitted to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) monthly. Once a decision has been made, this will be communicated to applicants. We aim to confirm the outcomes within two to three weeks of the closing date for that month.
The closing dates for each monthly assessment are as follows:
BU’s Funding Panels and Research Principles
The following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).
There are eight funding panels:
These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles
The following BU2025 Principles are most relevant to the HEIF Panel:
If you have any questions please email heif@bournemouth.ac.uk
Today FHSS Prof. Jonathan Parker published an article (online first) on structural discrimination and abuse associated with COVID-19 in care homes in The Journal of Adult Protection [1]. Whilst Dr. Preeti Mahato, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada had a COVID-19 paper published in the Journal of Midwifery Association of Nepal (JMAN) in late-January 2021 [2], although an electronic copy only reached their email inbox today.
As one of the products from the HEIF6 Project, our team has developed a wide collection of digital assets to represent human anatomy. The understanding of human anatomy is vital to the delivery of healthcare. For medical students, this necessary awareness of anatomy and 3D spatial orientation is traditionally learned through cadaveric dissection. This is expensive and has practical as well as ethical constraints to available teaching time. The digital models can be used as assets for interdisciplinary research between the fields of Arts, Science and Healthcare. We welcome ideas from the BU community for proposals of novel use cases, research, grant applications and availability as teaching tools or base models for complex animation techniques.
Learn more about the available assets and how to collaborate with the Neuravatar team by contacting Dr Xiaosong Yang (xyang@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Dr. Rupert Page (Rupert.Page@poole.nhs.uk).
The NIHR published a Framework on 21 May 2020 – when the NHS started to restore routine clinical services – to support the restarting of research paused due to COVID-19. Developed in partnership with multiple stakeholders and the devolved nations, the Framework provides a flexible structure for local decision-making.
You can read the latest and final update here.
Knowledge Exchange in Action
To follow on from my blog post earlier this week – here are some further examples of knowledge exchange in action; of particular projects that have been funded by HEIF.
These projects and initiatives demonstrate the breadth of knowledge exchange activities that take place across BU.
HEIF has recently invested in these new projects:
If this knowledge exchange work sounds appealing, read on….
Small fund
If these projects have enthused you for knowledge exchange work, perhaps they’ve sparked some ideas, reminded you of a potential project you could be involved with or have just highlighted some best practice that you want in on – here’s how HEIF can help.
The HEIF Panel have this week released a small fund for BU staff to apply for. You can apply for a maximum of £5,000 for knowledge exchange activities that will take place prior to 31 July 2021. This could be to get a knowledge exchange project off the ground, perhaps with some market research for an example, or to help complete a knowledge exchange project. Further information can be found in this blog post.
Today our chapter: Birth Systems across the World: Variations in maternity policy and services across countries was published in the renowned series of books: FIGO Continuous Textbook of Women’s Medicine [1]. This chapter was co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) with Prof. Sirpa Wrede and Doctoral Researcher from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and Dr. from the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). The chapter includes a set of recommendations for future practice.
Volume 1 is edited by Prof. Jane Sandall from King’s College London. Earlier this year Prof. Sandall was appointed as the first-ever head of midwifery research for England and one of her key focuses will be around ending racial health inequalities in maternity care.
Everything published on The Global Library of Women’s Medicine is available to everyone everywhere for free and there is no requirement to register in order to view it.
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IRAS, the Integrated Research Application System, is changing.
The Health Research Authority wants to hear from people who’ve used the system about how it should look in the future.
A short anonymous survey https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/5B5X95H is available until 24th February 2021.
IMSET is delighted to invite you to the second of our 2021 seminar series on long-term human ecodynamics, to be given by Dr. Ryan Rabett (Queen’s University Belfast) on:
“Human adaptation & coastal evolution in northern Vietnam: an overview of outcomes & spin-outs”
Thursday February 18th 16:00 – 17:00
Dr Rabett is a senior lecturer in human palaeoecology and his research interests include early human adaptation and dispersal, as well as biodiversity and conservation. He currently leads research projects in several parts of the world, including Southeast Asia.
IMSET is the BU Institute for Modelling Socio-Environmental Transitions.
Find out more and book your place:
Congratulations to Professor Jonathan Parker on his latest publication ‘By Dint of History: Ways in which social work is (re)defined by historical and social events‘. This interesting paper is co-authored with Magnus Frampton from the Universität Vechta in Germany and published in the international journal Social Work & Society.
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On Wednesday, 24 February 2021, BU’s Research, Support & Development Office will be hosting our very first, pilot Virtual STEAMlab (Science/Tech/Engineering/Arts/Maths lab) event under the aegis of the strategic investment area (SIA) of Animation, Simulation & Visualisation (ASV). It will also be the first of a series of 2-hour long virtual ASV STEAMlabs to be held in the course of 2021.
This first STEAMlab will introduce and address four core priority areas for the strategic development of ASV cross-faculty, multi-disciplinary collaborations across BU in conjunction with external partners. These 4 areas are:
Virtual Production
Digital Health
Environment in Crisis
Virtual Heritage
This first STEAMlab will focus on these ASV themes in break-out rooms to target specific funding opportunities.
The ideas generated at this event may also be used to help select colleagues for Scramble events at short notice.
Booking onto this event
To take part in this exciting opportunity, all participants should complete the ASV Virtual STEAMLab Application Form V2 and return this to Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen at nbliebchen@bournemouth.ac.uk by Friday, 5 February 2021.
By applying, you agree to attend for the full duration of the event on 24 February 2021, 1 – 3 pm. Places are strictly limited and you will be contacted to confirm your “virtual space” by 12 February 2021.
If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen.
The Brief
We’re seeking to come up with highly innovative and urgently required research which is ambitious in scope and will require a high level of expertise, commitment and funding. The research must address challenges in the above-mentioned areas, and seek to deploy BU’s considerable ASV expertise and assets.
In short, we anticipate the development of innovative, ground-breaking and ambitious projects which have the capacity to attract significant, high value funding from the public and private sectors.
Who should attend?
We welcome those who wish to contribute to having a positive impact through addressing these challenges, but in particular, we are specifically targeting the following:
We will also be inviting relevant external attendees, such as digital technology companies, to contribute on the day.
Some Answers to your FAQs:
Do I need to do anything in advance?
No, you do not. During the STEAMLab, you’ll be guided through a process which results in the development of research ideas. The process facilitates creativity, potentially leading to grand, innovative and interdisciplinary research ideas. These ideas will be explored with other attendees, and further developed based on the feedback received.
What is the immediate objective?
The objective by the end of the STEAMlab is to have scoped some leading and grand ideas around which a working group or cluster can be formed to take forward towards the development of a large grant application.
What do I need to do afterwards?
Your project idea may be “oven-ready”, but it is more likely than not that, given the level of pioneering innovation sought, you/your group’s project idea/s will require some time to crystallise fully, and for the optimum partners to be found for the bidding consortium, and bringing to fruition a fully-fledged grant application. To this end, it is envisaged that you and your potential collaborators will be committed to meeting on a regular basis, with a firm timetable. Substantial administrative support will be available from both RDS as a whole and the ASV Research Facilitator, Dr Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen, to advance your project development and manage working groups.
What if my topic area is very specialised, within fields such as medical diagnostics or environmental science?
Your contribution will be very welcome! One of the main benefits of a STEAMlab event is to bring together individuals with a range of backgrounds and specialisms who are able to see things just that bit differently to one another.
The EU-funded Reconciliation Network of civil society organisations of the Western Balkans, known as RECOM, in conjunction with the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, on 21st and 22nd of December 2020, organised and ran the 13th Forum for Transitional Justice online. In three panels, the invited academic experts and practitioners discussed the state of the process of dealing with the past in the post-Yugoslav space. They assessed and explored the state of transitional justice, memorialization and missing persons in the wider region.
Giulia Levi is a doctoral candidate at Bournemouth University and member of the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices: Marginalisation and Societal Integration at BU. Based on her practice experience with civil society initiatives working towards peace building in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2005, she is currently completing a comparative, VC-funded PhD project called ‘Bridging societal divisions in post-Brexit referendum UK, learning from Bosnia’. This article was originally published on the website of the AHRC project Changing the Story that investigates how the arts, heritage and human rights education can support youth-centred approaches to civil society building in post-conflict settings across the world.
What about the survivors? The importance of a victim-centred approach to transitional justice in the Western Balkans – Reflections on a conference
Since the end of the Yugoslav succession wars of the 1990s, people living in the former Yugoslav countries have been dealing with the consequences of wartime violence and the societal divisions this caused. The path of transitional justice has proven difficult and discontinuous, yet it has had a real impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. Survivors’ families and associations, who invested the most emotional labour in the process, however, have often felt left out of the official transitional justice processes and, today, often find themselves disappointed, disillusioned, and exhausted. It is generally held that a lack of sufficiently addressing the needs and grievances of survivors of massive human rights violations inhibits chances for lasting peace and reconciliation between the previously warring parties. Open questions include whether there can be a universal approach to dealing with the past and with survivors’ needs or whether, rather, Transitional Justice can and should be tailored to every individual’s needs. However, would the latter even be realistic, given the challenging complexities at stake? Furthermore, would any kind of justice delivery sufficiently satisfy those who have suffered so much because of the war; or what justice needs, or even other needs, have to be addressed for peace building to have a genuine chance? One commentator at the conference suggested that, in order to build the future of the post-Yugoslav countries, it might be better to focus on the respective societies as a whole rather than on individual grievances. The discussions during the conference revolved around these types of complex questions. Most of the experts and practitioners present highlighted, through insights from their personal research or based on first-hand experience, the importance of taking individual survivors’ needs into account while understanding these as being interconnected with the situation in their wider, respective societies.
Contrary to other countries like South Africa or Rwanda, which established truth commissions to deal with the crimes of the past, the region of former Yugoslavia has relied mainly on retributive justice. This model consists of a top-down approach, punishing perpetrators through trials. Despite the important role played by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in establishing a record of what happened during the war, scholars and practitioners have long pointed to the limitations of formal tribunals as tools of delivering reconciliation. As noted during the conference, retributive justice has often been blamed for “overpromising and underdelivering”, while promoting normative discourses that can contrast with the lived realities of people. High sounding principles of ‘peace’, ‘justice’ and ‘reconciliation’, despite seemingly universal, might carry specific meanings for people on the ground. Policies that promote their implementation have often resulted in unintended consequences such as further dividing ethnic communities and being detrimental to, rather than supportive of, survivors’ causes[1].
The formation of the Regional Commission (RECOM) constituted an attempt to propose an alternative approach to dealing with the past. In 2005, three human rights organizations based in Belgrade, Sarajevo and Zagreb and opposed to the top-down approach of foreign organizations and domestic political institutions, promoted a platform with the aim of involving survivors’ organizations more actively in shaping efforts towards truth finding and dealing with the past. At the same time, due to the regional nature of the Yugoslav wars, the RECOM founders believed that the formal participation of all the national governments in the region was a prerequisite for establishing the facts of the war and for preventing a manipulation of the 1990s conflicts for political gains. Today, RECOM includes over 2,000 organizations and individuals of the wider Western Balkan region, representing an unprecedented effort towards inclusiveness and local ownership. From 2007 to 2011, RECOM carried out 127 consultations throughout the seven former Yugoslav countries, which involved civil society organizations to discuss the establishment of a Regional Commission aimed at ascertaining the facts about the war crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. Despite this, the reluctance of almost all involved national governments to participate, formally and continuously, in this initiative, and the unwillingness of EU member states to play a stronger role in the process, have proven obstacles that prevented RECOM to fully achieving its aims.
All national governments in the wider region still display a lack of political will to engage in collaborative efforts of building a shared vision of the past. Instead, the narratives of the past, as these are constructed, expressed and performed across the region, especially during public commemorative events, continue to be of an exclusionary, ethno-nationalist character. The conference speakers reflected on the contemporary ‘memory industry’ in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo. They found that political leaders still politicise survivors’ experiences, often attributing value to them only if they can support the respective political rhetoric. For example, Lejla Gačanica addressed the case of the town of Srebrenica, where the Bosnian Serb political leaders still refuse to acknowledge the extent of the crime committed in July 1995 against the Bosnian Muslim population. This case exemplified the ways in which manipulation and outright denial of established facts of war still heavily impact on the everyday life of ordinary citizens who suffered from these. Vjollca Krasniqi for Kosovo and Sabina Čehajić-Clancy for Bosnia emphasised the role of civil society organizations in fighting denial and breaking homogeneous narratives of the past by nurturing the public space for diverse experiences and storytelling. The collection and presentation of personal stories, with their uniqueness, for example through arts or media events, can help to change the ways in which the ‘Other’ is imagined.
Srebrenica. Credit: Giulia Levi, 2018.
If finding space for individual narratives to emerge can help defy solidified versions of the past, the search for missing persons is a fundamental step in giving dignity to individual survivors rather than treating them just as numbers in political struggles. Manfred Nowak, Expert Member of the UN Working Group on Involuntary or Enforced Disappearances during the war, reminded the audience that, still today, “the persistence of missing persons represents one of the main obstacles for people to come together and trust each other”. The uncertainty about somebody’s loved ones’ whereabouts and the circumstances of the death of each individual effectively undermines relations between communities and makes sustainable peace most difficult to achieve. Nataša Kandić, director of the Humanitarian Law Centre, advocated for the issue of missing persons to be treated not just as a humanitarian, but a political issue. This is because any progress in this work strongly depends on the political will of the involved nation-states to lead by example and share information on the location of mass graves and individual gravesites. At the same time, she insisted that “it is extremely important to look at each individual victim and find all the names, not numbers, but names. We have to publish the data on the disappearances and just by doing that we can cast light on what happened, and we can hope that citizens who have information will feel confident to come forward”. Listening to individual stories, whether of former victims, perpetrators or witnesses of war crimes is thus paramount to establishing the truth.
If compared with other contexts where mass disappearances took place like Iraq, Argentina or Sri Lanka, the massive work done in former Yugoslavia by the International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP) in locating mass graves and identifying remains, represents a success story. Nevertheless, 10,170 persons are still missing across the region. The speakers underlined how state authorities have done too little in the last years to move the work required forward. With time passing and the soil gradually mutating, it is increasingly difficult to locate the remaining burial sites, leaving surviving families’ questions about the circumstances in which their loved ones died forever unanswered.
Lake Perucac, border between Bosnia and Serbia and site of exhumation of victims’ remains from the Bosnian and the Kosovo wars. Credit: Giulia Levi.
The issue of missing persons, in particular, shows how the fate of every single individual burdens not only the survivors’ families, but entire societies. Focusing attention on the nexus between survivors’ needs and societal problems could help counterbalance the appeal that nationalism exerts on people, who feel disappointed and abandoned, as Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers demonstrated for her ethnographic Kosovar case studies. She argued that disenfranchised people might look for a sense of security in solidified narratives, which can result in further ethnic segregation and, where discontent persists, be passed on across the generations. Far from being just a concern of the post-Yugoslav area, nationalist ideologies work as messianistic narratives for those who are on the losing end, a ‘shield’ that is thought to protect against perceived external threats. Therefore, as Slađana Lazić elaborated, transitional justice should take a more ‘transformative’ turn, widening its scope, beyond criminal justice, to socio-economic injustices. Such focus would allow “find[ing] a different policy entry point to link, [for example,] wartime rape and children born out of rape and the present-day problem of femicide and gender-based violence”. Empirical research insights such as these supported the conference’s main finding that sustainable change can only arise from taking the needs of individual survivors into account while, at the same time, addressing structural inequalities that are important for the whole society.
The panelists and moderators of the discussions at the Forum were UN experts Manfred Nowak, Thomas Osorio and Ivan Jovanović; EC expert David Hudson; academics Sabina Čehajić, Vjollca Krasniqi, Slađana Lazić, Lejla Gačanica, Sven Milekić, Jelena Đureinović, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Lea David; as well as former Head of the Commission on Detainees and Missing Persons of the Republic of Croatia, Ivan Grujić; and RECOM Reconciliation Network members Žarko Puhovski, Tea Gorjanc Prelević and Nataša Kandić. The conference over two days was divided into three panel discussions: 1) Review of Transitional Justice – Opportunities; 2) Remembrance Policies and Victim Commemoration; and 3) The Issue of Missing Persons – The Priority of Regional Cooperation.
[1] Dragović-Soso, Gordy, 2010; Subotić, 2015; Baker, Obradović-Wochnik, 2016; Hughes, Kostovicova 2019.
Congratulations to Social Work Lecturer Dr. Orlanda Harvey on the acceptance of a paper by the journal Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy. This latest academic paper ‘Libido as a motivator for starting and restarting non-prescribed anabolic androgenic steroid use among men: a mixed-methods study’ [1] is based on her Ph.D. research. Previous papers associated with her thesis covered aspects of non-prescribed anabolic androgenic steroid use [2-3] as well as her wider Ph.D. journey [4].
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