Tagged / collaboration

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

This week the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) will be posting daily blogs. In these blogs we will tell you a little about the Unit, what we do, who we are, and how we might be able to help in your research endeavours.

What is BUCRU?  

BUCRU is a new model for supporting and conducting health related research in Dorset. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across the University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It does this by:

  • helping researchers with developing high quality applications for external research funding (including small grants)
  • ongoing involvement in funded research projects
  • a “pay-as-you-go” consultation service for other work

How can BUCRU help?

BUCRU can provide help in the following areas:

  • Study design
  • Quantitative and qualitative research methods
  • Statistics, data management and data analysis
  • Patient and public involvement in research
  • Trial management
  • Ethics, governance and other regulatory issues
  • Linking University and NHS researchers

BUCRU focuses on health research that has relevance to the NHS. The Unit is available to Bournemouth University staff and people working locally in the NHS. There are no general restrictions on topic area or professional background of the researcher. However we do have special interests in areas such as chronic disease and complex interventions (interventions in nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and so on).

How is it funded?  

BUCRU is partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and incorporates the Dorset office of the NIHR Research Design Service (http://www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk). Further funding comes from a variety of research grants and contracts.

Contact us: In the first instance please contact

Louise Ward (administrator):

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit

R505 Royal London House

Christchurch Road

Bournemouth BH1 3LT

BUCRU@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tel: 01202 961939

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru/

OK, I know China isn’t the EU but this is a great nursing opportunity!

 The British Council are hosting a unique meeting to support China-UK nursing collaboration. The Chinese Ministry of Health, Guanghua Nurse Fund (GNF) of China Guanghua Science & Technology Foundation is in the process of establishing arrangements for a specific initiative intended significantly to enhance the education and training of nurses in China.  The objectives of this scheme is to ensure standards that must be met by trainee nurses are equivalent to those that prevail internationally and appropriate to the needs of the Chinese Government’s 12th Five Year Plan as well as to ensure that post-qualification continuing professional development (CPD) standards for those who are currently qualified nurses or who will become so during the period covered by the Plan are appropriate, rigorous and internationally-benchmarked.

As part of the scheme, a pilot involving 20 Chinese universities and 5 pre selected UK universities will be implemented in 2012-13. The selected universities will take trainee nurses in the academic year 2012-13 such that they can gauge, and inform the review of, existing standards. Opportunities will shortly be available to apply for participation in these scheme in 2013.To learn more about the scheme and meet delegates from the 20 Chinese Universities involved, you can apply to attend a meeting to be held in Manchester 20-21st February. Places are extremely limited and on a first come first serve basis. A draft programme will be available towards the middle of January 2012; contact the British Council  if you are interested in attending

Congratulations to our first BU Research Development Fund winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the first round of the new BU Research Development Fund – Small Grants Scheme!

We received 14 applications in total of which only 5 were funded so this is an excellent achievement for all of the BU staff listed below 🙂

Dr Joanne Mayoh, School of Tourism – Jo is an early career researcher and is currently developing her research career through targeted networking, publishing journal papers and presenting at conferences. The funding will support her to present a paper at an international conference in 2012.

 

Dr Richard Shipway, School of Tourism – The School has already established strong links with the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina (USC). The funding will enable Richard to visit USC to further this collaboration with a view to establishing a strategic international partnership between BU and USC. This will have two main benefits: 1) the development of a research network for joint funding and publications; 2) to set up a programme of placements and staff/student exchanges.

Dr Heather Hartwell and Dr Ann Hemingway, School of Tourism and School of Health and Social Care – Through a cross-School collaboration, Heather and Ann will use the funds to develop a theoretical framework for the synergistic alliance of tourism and public health. It is hoped this will lead to published outputs, local and national collaborations, and to support the new Health, Wellbeing and Ageing BU research theme.

 Dr Sarah Bate and Dr Ben Parris, School of Design, Engineering and Computing – Sarah (an early career researcher) and Ben will be using the funds to conduct a psychological experiment to see whether the inhalation of the hormone oxytocin can improve the identification of perpetrators in a video identification parade, after prior exposure to a crime.

 

Dr Lorraine Brown and Prof Barry Richards, School of Tourism and Media School – Lorraine and Barry will work collaboratively across Schools to investigate the impact of media representations on Muslims and of Islam on the lived experiences of international Muslim students. They aim to publishthe results in journal papers and present at international conferences during 2012.

We will be featuring updates on these internally funded projects in future on the blog!

The next round of the Research Development Fund – Small Grants Scheme closes on 28 February 2012. You can find out more about the fund and details of how to submit a proposal here: BU Research Development Fund

For details of all internal funding opportunities visit the BU Internal Funding Opportunities page on the blog.

Share files easily with the new BU Transfer service!

Guidance

As part of the Collaborative Tools for Academics project, we have been looking at ways of enhancing the support available to academics to share information both internally and externally. Feedback from colleagues indicated that the University’s file transfer service was not adequate and required improvement. I am delighted today to launch the new file transfer service – BU Transfer.

BU Transfer will enable you to quickly and easily share large files with colleagues internally and externally via a web browser.

You can access BU Transfer from the Staff Portal, the Research Blog and MyBU via this icon.

We are very interested in your feedback regarding the service. Please could you forward all comments to Amina Uddin.

Best wishes

Matthew

How to find partners for EU Projects

EC projects usually require partners, with the number and geographical location varying for each call. A useful tip to remember when considering your partner options is that a consortium should include a good balance of sectors industry, academia, user groups etc) and that all partners should be well-matched to the activities in the proposal.

You can find partners through your existing contacts, by reviewing previously awarded FP6 and FP7 projects, by searching/ advertising on the UKRO website ,by seeking the assistance of the relevant UK National Contact Point and by attending EU conferences and project evaluations, by scanning the CORDIS website.

The best and most effective way to become involved in FP7 consortia however, is to join European Technology Platforms (ETPs). These are groups of industry-led stakeholder forums who explore Europe’s key challenges. ETPs define the EU Strategic research agenda and then bid for European Commission funds (through FP7 etc) to address these. The biggest players in the field across Europe belong to these groups and obviously as they set the research agenda, they are increduibly successful at winning FP7 funds for research. Joining these groups will not only open you to a plethora of partners but also will allow you to contribute in shaping the research agenda of Europe (which you can then address through funding). Some of the major ETPs are listed below with hyperlinks to their webpages:

Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies
Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe
Embedded Computing Systems
European Biofuels Technology Platform
European Construction Technology Platform
European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council
European Rail Research Advisory Council
European Road Transport Research Advisory Council
European Space Technology Platform
European Steel Technology Platform
European Technology Platform for the Electricity Networks of the Future
European Technology Platform for Wind Energy
European Technology Platform on Smart Systems Integration  
European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources
Farm Animal Breeding and Reproduction Technology Platform
Food for Life
Forest based sector Technology Platform
Future Manufacturing Technologies
Future Textiles and Clothing
Global Animal Health
Industrial Safety ETP
Integral Satcom Initiative
Mobile and Wireless Communications
Nanotechnologies for Medical Applications
Networked and Electronic Media
Networked European Software and Services Initiative
Photonics21
Photovoltaics
Plants for the Future
Robotics
Sustainable Nuclear Technology Platform
Sustainable Chemistry
Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform
Waterborne ETP
Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants

The Collaborative Researcher – Free Places at a Vitae training workshop

Vitae, the organisation which focuses on researcher development is offering up to 40 free places on this 2 day training workshop to help you develop your collaboration skills.  All you need to cover are your travel expenses to Nottingham.  Places will fill up fast so if you’re interested don’t delay!  The dates are 30th Jan – 1st Feb 2012.

This 2 day residential course looks at the building blocks of the collaborative style of research: ­ inclusive communication, cultural awareness, robust planning, negotiation and the ability to work effectively with others.  Whether your collaboration is with another academic in your department, or partners from different subjects, sectors and countries, it helps you to develop winning strategies for connecting and working with others.

What does it involve?

The course is attended by up to 40 researchers from across the country, from different disciplines and career stages.  It is led by a team of experienced facilitators who work with participants throughout the 2 days to support their learning.  They will be from a variety of backgrounds with experience in collaboration, academia and other sectors.

This course takes a ‘learning by doing’ approach. There will be presentations on collaboration theory, but for the most part, you will be actively participating in the sessions and activities. 

This is an intensive 2 day residential course which runs from dinner on the evening of Monday 30th January to 5pm on 1st February 2011

What’s in it for you?

This course offers you the opportunity to: 

  • explore collaboration both in theory and in practice
  • work with a team of experienced facilitators from a range of career backgrounds, who will ensure you get the most out of the 2 days
  • meet researchers from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and career stages
  • develop your understanding of collaboration theory and how to apply it in practice
  • take a few days out from your research both physically and mentally, and have some space in which to consider yourself and your next steps

Eligibility/Entry

This event is open to all UK researchers – subject to availability. Book your place now.

Places on the event are free but participants will need to cover their own travel expenses.  Accommodation and meals are provided.

BU RDF – Small Grants Scheme closing date fast approaching!

Guidance

The first closing date for the BU Research Development Fund – Small Grants Scheme (RDF-SGS) is 31 October 2011.

The scheme is open to all BU academics and will provide selective support to research initiatives considered to be of strategic importance to BU. Funding of up to £2k per award is available and priority will be given to applications involving staff from two or more Schools. 

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF-SGS include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Interview transcription
  • Fieldwork
  • Visiting major libraries, museums, other research institutions, etc.
  • Organisation of an academic conference at BU with external participants
  • Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
  • Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Research consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)

To apply for a Small Grant, please complete the RDF-SGS application form and submit it to Susan Dowdle before 31 October 2011.

For further information on the BU Research Development Fund see our previous blog post (Launch of the BU Research Development Fund). You can also read the Research Development Fund Policy.

Education focused EU programmes offering support for collaboration

 There are 7 main Programmes offering support for collaboration related to Higher Education; all which have calls attached to them. These are:
ALFA:To improve the quality, relevance and accessibility of Higher Education in Latin America and to contribute to the process of regional integration in Latin America, fostering progress towards the creation of a joint Higher Education area in the region and exploiting its synergies with the European Union.
EDULINK:Supports cooperation between HEIs in the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP countries). It represents a harmonised approach to the implementation of EU funded programmes in the ACP countries with a view to improving the effectiveness, management, visibility and impact of ACP-EU cooperation in the field of HE.
Erasmus Mundus: A cooperation and mobility programme that aims to enhance the quality of European Higher Education and to promote dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with HEIs in third countries. It supports joint programmes, partnerships and the promotion of European HE.
EU – US Cooperation in HE (ATLANTIS): To promote understanding between the people of the EU and the USA and to improve the quality of human resource development. ATLANTIS supports innovative projects for cooperation in HE and VET which are designed to develop and implement double or joint transatlantic degrees for students in the EU and US and other forms or cooperation including mobility and policy oriented measures
ICI Education Cooperation: EU cooperation with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Republic of Korea includes bilateral cooperation projects in higher education and vocational training (ICI-ECP).
Lifelong Learning: To reinforce the contribution made by education and training to achieving the Lisbon goal of making the EU the most competitive knowledge based economy, with sustainable economic development, more and better jobs, and greater social cohesion.
Tempus: Supports the modernisation of higher education in the Partner Countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean region, mainly through university cooperation projects. It also aims to promote voluntary convergence of Partner Country higher education systems with EU developments in the field of higher education such as the Lisbon agenda and the Bologna process.

Launch of the BU Research Development Fund

Guidance

It’s a beautiful summer’s day and to celebrate the new academic year the Research Development Unit has some exciting news – the launch of the BU Research Development Fund!

The Research Development Fund (RDF) is open to BU academics and will provide selective support to research initiatives considered to be of strategic importance to BU. There are two strands to the RDF: i) Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per application); and ii) Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per annum, must include two or more Schools). It is envisaged that each year approximately 20 small grants will be awarded and one large collaborative grant.

Awards will only cover direct costs (i.e. overheads and established staff costs will not be reimbursed). Applications need to include a precise breakdown of costs calculated using full economic costing (fEC) methodology – this will be calculated for you by the CRE Operations team.

All decisions on funding will be made by the University R&E Forum (UREF).

An overview of the two schemes is provided below. For further information please read the Research Development Fund Policy.

RDF – Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per award) – There will be three competitions per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadlines:

  • 31 October 2011
  • 28 February 2012
  • 31 May 2012

Priority will be given to applications that involve staff from two or more Schools and/or those from early career researchers.

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Interview transcription
  • Fieldwork
  • Visiting major libraries, museums, other research institutions, etc.
  • Organisation of an academic conference at BU with external participants
  • Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
  • Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Research consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)

To apply for a Small Grant, please complete the RDF-SGS application form.

RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per award) – There will be one competition per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadline:

  • 1 December 2011

The RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme aims to provide funding for the development of large-scale, complex, inter/multi-disciplinary collaborative research activities leading to external funding. Applications must involve academic staff from at least two BU Schools. Priority will be given to applications that meet the following criteria:

  • In line with BU’s emerging Research Themes
  • Include external organizations (particularly SMEs and/or international organizations)
  • In line with the strategic priorities of major funding bodies (such as the UK research councils, European Commission, etc)
  • Clearly beneficial to BU’s submission to REF2014

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Meeting expenses
  • Travel to proposed collaborators
  • Attendance at external networking events with the aim of expanding the network
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)
  • Fees for external proposal support and review

To apply for a Large Collaborative Research Grant, please complete the RDF-LCGS application form.

Visual Cognition at BU?

It depends how you see it process it visually!

On 8th June, several cars arrived in convoy from Southampton University  carrying approximately 25 members of the Centre for Visual Cognition.  Their aim was to meet with their colleagues in the Visual Cognition group in Psychology at Bournemouth University along with other colleagues from DEC, the Media School and HSC who also have an interest in how we process visual information. 

The research poster event was designed to provide an informal forum to ‘talk research’ with a view to forging longer-term research collaborations.  Professor Simon Liversedge, the Head of the Centre for Visual Cognition at Southampton, said, “It is great to have the opportunity to come and visit the research team here and to have the opportunity to discuss our common research interests in such a nice location.” Topics for discussion ranged from visual search in medical research, visual processing in reading, autism, face recognition and much more. 

A big thanks must go to Dr Julie Kirkby who organised the afternoon for us and we hope that this is going to be the first of a number of meetings.

If you missed this meeting and think that you may have interests in common with this group please email Julie and she will add you to our contacts list for when we next meet.

Sine McDougall

AHRC seeking opinions on international collaboration

AHRC logoThe Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are currently carrying out a survey to gather vital information about International collaborations. The survey will allow the AHRC to gain a greater understanding of existing International partnerships, and gain input from the Arts and Humanities’ research community on where further links may need to be developed.

This is your opportunity to inform the AHRC of your experience in International collaboration and feed into the on-going development of the AHRC’s international activities.

This survey is aimed at UK based researchers eligible for AHRC funding, and will take no more than 10 minutes to complete. The deadline for submission is 10th July 2011.

All responses will be greatly appreciated, and will be used to inform the continuing development of the AHRC’s International activities and opportunities.

Please click here to undertake the survey.

Future energy needs and efficiency

Funding opportunities

Depleting non-renewable resources and limited alternative (heat pumps and solar photovoltaic), renewable (tidal, wind, solar) options of energy generation are posing challenging questions. In addition sustained energy supply and security are important factors to consider.

“European Union ministers meeting  in Luxembourg have signalled support for draft European Commission plans for an energy efficiency law impacting directly on utilities” http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/news/news.asp . Among other considerations it is noted that “Reinvigorated efforts are necessary in order to reach the 20% EU energy saving objective by 2020.” This is an optimistic, challenging but achievable target. However these savings could easily be topped up with available options and technologies available to us without painful cuts to energy consumption in our daily lives. This should not necessarily mean that energy inlets are to be reduced or energy flow through these inlets is reduced. As both of these are directly related to life standard and output. For example we will have to choose either have a TV or laptop and/or have a smaller TV at domestic level. Or reduced manufacturing lines in the industry or reduced number of industry.

One third of the available energy is dissipated through frictional heat in mechanical interacting machines for example motors, pumps, compressors, internal combustion engines, steam/tidal/wind turbines and manufacturing tools etc. A significant part of this energy is recoverable. This is achieved through mathematically adjusting the surface profile of the interacting surface through which energy is transferred. This key aspect is part of the science and engineering of friction, wear and lubrication; Tribology.

Colleagues in the Sustainable Design Research Centre have expertise and resources in this key and strategically important area of activity and are also actively engaged in the BU initiative within Green Knowledge Economy. If you are interested in this area or would like to find out more contact Professor Mark Hadfield / Dr Zulfiqar Khan. For details please see the SDRC webpage.

Update on the Collaboration Tools for Academics project

This is an update on the ‘Collaboration Tools for Academics’ project that many of you will have contributed to.  The project is being run by Amina Uddin, Steve Webster, Matthew Bennett, Julie Northam, Alan Fyall, Sarah Hearn and Clive Andrews on behalf of the academic community as a whole.  The project seeks to deliver a set of useful services that have been identified by the academic/research community as the most useful  in supporting collaborative work whether it be for education or research.

A service proposal document produced by the project after several iterations is available on the I drive at “I:\CRKT\Public\Research Blog Docs\CTA Candidate Service Proposals 280411.pdf”.  It shows you the set of candidate services that the academic community suggested and explains how we got there. The final section of the document promises a survey to validate the priorities of these services, this has now been completed – thanks to those of you who took part.  The results of this survey demonstrate where there is most concern and interest in support.

Service   Weighting
Install of non-standard software   392
Moving large files externally   296
Questionnaire software   293
Blogs and Wikis   236
Guidance and advice on cloud options   222

We are currently specifying these services in detail and trying to estimate the amount of work required to deliver them in order to plan their implementation.  The project has come a long way since it started with the focus being on creating a tool to enable academics at BU to collaborate with one another more effectively, perhaps via some form of ‘facebook for academics’.  On careful analysis this requirement can be meet by existing services available within the cloud or already available at BU.  The issue was more around documentation and support for some of these services. 

We also have put a lot of emphasis on the importance of being able to find collaborators at BU – the find a colleague or expert functions.  We see these as vital to unlocking the intellectual capital at BU but they have been picked up via other projects, namely the publication management system and the new content management system for our web site.  By the early autumn the find an expert or colleague functions will be enabled allowing you to search for potential colleagues or information within BU more effectively.  The Research Ontology is critical here – effectively the keywords by which we will classify our expertise and interests – and avid readers of the blog will see that we have been consulting on this recently to get your views.

Get your own business cards!

Last month I attended the GrantCraft: Research Workshop Day that Corrina arranged and which many of you attended. The session, facilitated by Dr Martin Pickard, was a huge success and we will definitely be inviting Martin back to run a similar workshop at BU again.

During the ‘Impact and Benefits’ session the importance of business cards in establishing academic networks was discussed, and I was surprised to note that less than 10% of the audience already have cards.

The Vitae website notes that business cards are essential in establishing academic networks, and that networks enable researchers to:

  • create a professional image
  • exchange information and keep up-to-date with new developments
  • identify potential areas for collaboration
  • establish disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional and cross-sector groups
  • get published

With this is mind the Research Development Unit has funding available to purchase some business cards for academics who need them. If you’d like some business cards then let us know and we’ll see what we can do! Email us at researchunit@bournemouth.ac.uk

Search for a Champion? Or BU Research Themes

Thank you to all those people who responded to the online questionnaire about the BU Research Themes.  There were 273 responses!  On this basis we can reduce the short list of twelve societal themes down to ten as set out in the briefing paper (available from  – I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\Research themes\Paper.docx).  The ten are:

  • Health and wellbeing
  • Recreation and leisure
  • Culture and society or Society & Social Change
  • Environmental change and biodiversity
  • Green economy and sustainability
  • Creative and digital economies
  • Aging
  • Learning and public engagement
  • Entrepreneurship and economic growth
  • Technology and design

We urgently need some champions to ‘flesh-out’ these themes to help scope them and allow us to ‘road test’ them further.  I am looking for as many views as possible for each theme; just fill out the template (available from  – I:\CRKT\Public\Research themes\Form.doc) and e-mail it back to me.  The idea is to then distill these views and produce a scope for each; if there are no champions forthcoming then we may be able to reduce the list further.  I need the templates back by the 27 May if possible; thank you!

Matthew Bennett

PVC (Research, Enterprise & Internationalisation)

(The documents are saved to the I-drive. If you are on-campus then you need to copy and paste the file pathway into an internet browser. If you are unable to access them please contact Julie Northam who will email you the documents).

The Wellbeing across the Lifespan Network

The Wellbeing across the Lifespan Network co-locates with, and builds on the work of CeWQoL (Centre for Wellbeing and Quality of Life). Staff are welcome from across the University to join the Network and develop interests that either build on CeWQoL’s programmes or extends beyond it into new exploratory areas. Currently, 113 staff are registered for this theme, with sub themes such as quality of life, economic wellbeing, technological support and ethics arising from member’s research interests and which enable collaboration (visit here for the full list).

As a result of a successful HEIF bid application, involving staff from 5 Schools and 3 Centres, we have created a new Wellbeing Project Innovation Space in Bournemouth House, Lansdowne Campus as part of the Collaborative Research Space (which all Network members are encouraged to use) and a new enterprise and linked research programme around ‘Wellbeing in the Workplace’. The next meeting of this network will take place in this space on July 13th 11.30-13.30, please come and meet colleagues who have similar interests and explore working together. We usually have good attendance – and provide a structured session and networking opportunities over lunch. For part of this session we will have a presentation by the Centre for Event and Sport Research.

Professor Steven Ersser is the WBLN facilitator, supported by Dr Heather Hartwell, Associate Professor, both of whom have been involved in promoting a cross -University wellbeing research and enterprise agenda. Steve is departing from the University in July and so sends his regards to all those involved in the Network and thanks to all those who have supported this interdisciplinary collaborative initiative. Heather will continue to facilitate the termly sessions and will become the primary point of contact.

For further information on the Network contact Heather by email.