Tagged / COVID-19

COVID-19 and Parliament: opportunities and resources for researchers

BU research, COVID-19, Impact, parliament, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, policy, Research news

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) board has approved four new POSTnotes on:

  • AI and healthcare
  • Developments in vaccine technologies
  • Distance learning
  • Regulating product sustainability

Work on these will be starting in the following months. They are looking for experts to contribute their insights, literature or as external reviewers. For more information on what contributing to a POSTnote entails, click here. And if you’d like to receive updates about POST’s work directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the monthly newsletter here.

Please ensure you notify the policy team and impact officers if you intend to contribute to any of the POSTnotes.

POST also has two new resources to give you all the information you need on engaging effectively with Parliament:

Webpage on researcher engagement with Parliament around COVID-19 and its impacts

If you want to know where the opportunities to engage with policymakers lie, go to: Engaging with Parliament as a researcher around COVID-19 and its impacts. It contains details of the Expert Database, which some of you have signed up to, and up-to-date details of all select committee inquiries relating to COVID-19. If any new opportunities come up, this page is where to find them.

A short guide to producing research to support the work of UK Parliament

Some of you may already be drafting project proposals for research relating to COVID-19 and its impacts. If you want help and guidance on how this can translate to policy impact, POST has also produced this guide. It gives an overview on what Parliament is and does, how it uses research, KE mechanisms, and a page of tips on shaping proposals and what to do when conducting research and disseminating findings.

 

 

RDS advice to academics during Covid-19

BU research, COVID-19, Uncategorized

Just over a month ago, RDS created a static blog page to give advice to academics during Covid-19. This has rapidly grown and so to help you navigate through the information, there is now a main page and then links to the following sections for further information:

  • UK Funder news
  • International Funder (mainly European) news
  • Funding Development Team Guidance to applicants to external funding
  • Project Delivery Team Guidance for Principal Investigators (PIs) of Research and Knowledge Exchange Projects + Ethics Approval
  • Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021
  • Guidance for clinical researchers – amendments to existing projects

Please visit the main Covid-19 page for all your advice needs.

Major Study on 3D Printing and IP Law Led by Prof. Dinusha Mendis Published by the European Commission

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Business Engagement, COVID-19, EU, Featured academics, Fusion themes, humanities, Industry collaboration, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, policy, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research communication, Research news, research staff

A large scale empirical and legal study on the Intellectual Property Implications of the Development of Industrial 3D Printing, funded by the European Commission and led by Professor Dinusha Mendis (FMC, Law and Co-Director CIPPM) has been published.

The report can be accessed here: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/e193a586-7f8c-11ea-aea8-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-124493516

The project was awarded to Professor Mendis in 2018 and together with academic and industry partners from UK (Dr. Julie Robson, Bournemouth University; Prof. Phill Dickens, Added Scientific Ltd), Germany (Prof. Dr. Jan Nordemann, Nordemann LLP; Hans Brorsen) Austria (Dr. Maria del Carmen Calatrava Moreno, Technopolis Group) and Finland (Dr. Rosa Ballardini, University of Lapland) the project was completed in February 2020, with the report being published in April 2020.

Ahead of the completion of the project and publication of the report, a final workshop was hosted in Brussels on 14 October 2019. The presentations from the workshop as well as the panel discussion, can be accessed here.

The project provides an overview of the past and current industrial applications of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing in seven  selected sectors (health, aerospace, automotive, consumer, energy, construction and tooling) whilst identifying potential challenges and opportunities in need of clarification. With the aim of enhancing the competitiveness of the AM sector in Europe, the Study makes policy recommendations in the field of intellectual property for businesses engaged in the AM and 3D printing field, and in the present context, is highly relevant for businesses and consumers working with 3D printers, in the fight against Covid-19.

European Covid-19 Data Platform launched

BU research, COVID-19, Research news

The EC and EU member states have launched a new data-sharing platform ‘European Covid-19 Data Platform‘ to enhance coordination of the COVID-19 research. The aim of the COVID-19 Data Portal is to facilitate data sharing and analysis, and to accelerate coronavirus research. The Platform will consist of two connected components:

  • SARS-CoV-2 Data Hubs, which will organise the flow of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak sequence data and provide comprehensive open data sharing for the European and global research communities;
  • COVID-19 Data Portal, which will bring together and continuously update relevant COVID-19 datasets and tools, will host sequence data sharing and will facilitate access to other SARS-CoV-2 resources.

External guides for managing remote research

BU research, COVID-19, data management, Guidance, Research Ethics, research integrity

Given current Government guidance on the pandemic response, a number of research projects will need to be conducted remotely. Below are a number of external help guides/guidance articles that aim to assist researchers with this new way of working.

The UK Data Service’s guidance on online data collection

Warwick University’s article on using Skype to collect data

Guidance on conducting telephone interviews –
Article one
Article two

The resource ‘Fieldwork during the pandemic’

The UK Research Integrity Office’s ‘Internet-mediated research’ guide

Research should remain within the ethics approval that has been granted – if you need to make any changes as a result of COVID 19 (for example moving from face-to-face to remote interviewing) please email researchethics@bournemouth.ac.uk if a member of staff or your supervisor if a student.

COVID-19 funding and research

BU research, COVID-19, Doctoral College, EPSRC, ESRC, Funding opportunities, innovation, NHS, pre-award

To support the response to COVID-19 the Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) has put together a useful resource page to help researchers. This includes relevant funding calls as well as more general information about the pandemic.

Don’t forget, your local branch of the NIHR RDS is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

The BUCRU/RDS office is currently closed due to Coronavirus.  Staff are still working and able to offer research advice remotely, call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

COVID-19 competition: BU call for Expressions of Interest

BU Challenges, BU research, NHS

On 6 April, BU launched a COVID-19 internal competition, with a call for EoIs. This opportunity is open to all staff. The EoI deadline is at 23.59 on Tuesday, 14 April, and the winners will be announced on Tuesday, 20 April.

There are three modest cash prizes available, sponsored by the National Research Centre for Computer Animation in the Faculty of Media and Communication. Successful ideas will be selected to go forward to a second competition in conjunction with the universities of Southampton and Portsmouth. Building on our close regional relationships with an aligned response to the COVID-19 crisis and attendant calls for relevant research is a priority for all institutions right now. We at BU are committed to joining forces with our neighbours at this time.

BU staff can find more details about the call on the expression of interest form.

RDS advice to academics during COVID-19

BU research

RDS have created a blog page to give up-to-date advice on research activity affected during COVID-19.

Each working day the advice will be updated, which will include official notifications from funders, RDS operations during the quarantine, delays to the REF, ethics, and any other useful information. The date of the latest updates from the funders will be shown against each funder name. This will only show the major funders that BU applies to.

Today’s (6/4) update includes:

  • The deadlines on all UKRI open funding opportunities will be extended to give applicants more time to submit their applications. These extensions will be managed on a case by case basis by the appropriate Council or fund. Follow this link for a list of all open and coming calls with their current deadlines and their extensions: Calls April – May (PDF, 103KB).
  • Research England has published some FAQs about their contingency planning for REF 2021, in light of the impact of the pandemic –https://www.ref.ac.uk/faqs/.
  • The link to UKRO’s slides from their webinar held on 3/4/20 on the topic of ‘COVID-19 and EU Funding update‘.

Please click here for further information.

COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database – update

BU research, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, policy, Research communication, Research news

According to Parliament’s Knowledge Exchange Unit (KEU), more than 3,500 researchers from across the UK have signed up to its  COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database, which includes a number of BU academics across all faculties.  

The KEU reports that it is already making use of the database and, later this week, will be directly contacting experts to ask them to share their insights into the COVID-19 pandemic and its short, medium and long-term impacts. Where possible, the KEU aims to acknowledge researchers’ contributions publicly.

If you haven’t already signed up, it’s not too late, as it is a live database. Follow the link and please email your faculty impact officer to let them know, so we can track BU involvement.

Signing up does not commit you to contributing in any way, it’s simply so that Parliament has your details to hand and can contact you very rapidly; if they contact you and you aren’t able to respond, they will fully understand.

The topic areas where Parliament may need to be able to access research expertise are listed below, and found on the sign up page. If you identify an area that has not been listed, please do feel free to give details on the sign-up form in ‘other’:

Agriculture and farming, Airlines/airports, Arts, Behavioural science, Burial and cremation, Brexit, Business, Charities, Children and families, Civil contingency planning and management, Climate change, Communicating uncertainty, , Consumer protection, Coronavirus, Coroners, Countryside, Courts, Criminal justice, Criminal law, Crisis communications, Critical national infrastructure, Data protection, Death, Defence, Economics, Education – higher and further, Education – schools, Elections, Emergency planning, Emergency services, Employment, Employment law, Energy, Environment, European Union, Financial services, Financial systems and institutions, Foreign policy, Government, Health economics, Health services, Housing, Human rights, Immigration, Immunology / vaccinology, Industry, Infection control, Inflation, Insolvency, International law, IT, Law, Legal aid, Leisure and tourism, Local government, Medicine, National security, Package holidays, Pandemics, Pensions, Police powers, Ports and maritime, Prisons, Public expenditure, Public finance, Public health, Public order, Railways, Registration of deaths, Religion, Social security and tax credits, Social services, Sports, Surveillance , Taxation, Trade, Transport, Unemployment, Virology, Waste, Water, Welfare, Welfare benefits.

RDS advice to academics during COVID-19

BU research

RDS have created a blog page to give up-to-date advice on research activity affected during COVID-19.

Each working day the advice will be updated, which will include official notifications from funders, RDS operations during the quarantine, delays to the REF, ethics, and any other useful information. The date of the latest updates from the funders will be shown against each funder name. This will only show the major funders that BU applies to.

Today’s (1/4) update includes:

  • a dedicated Corona Platform from the European Commission on its Funding & Tenders Portal to make information related to the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on Horizon 2020 grants available in a single place;
  • registration details for a one hour UKRO webinar to be held on 3/4 to give you the latest information in relation to funding;
  •  an update in the clinical guidance to researchers section with regard to Undergraduate and Master’s student research;
  • and an update from the Royal Society, who have also created a dedicated page for applicants and award holders. They have also drawn together a list of their resources, activities and videos that could be used to support home learning in science, technology, engineering and maths whilst schools are closed.

Please click here for further information.

 

Research in the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic – HRA update

BU research, Clinical Governance, data management, Guidance, nhs, NHS, Research communication, Research Ethics, Research news

You may have seen an earlier blog post with regard to a halt on the review and approval of undergraduate and master’s clinical research projects. The HRA have released another update with regard to all other research and the state of play due to COVID-19.

To recognise the significant pressures on the NHS at this time, the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) announced that all new and existing studies supported through its Clinical Research Network would be paused to focus instead on COVID-19 research. You can read the full statement on the NIHR website.

The full HRA statement can be viewed here. If you have any queries mai in Research Development & Support.

Research Development & Support are also updating the following help page regularly for academics and researchers.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Implications in Nepal

international, open access, policy, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing

Our editorial today in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology highlights some of the key issues related to COVID-19 related to a low-income country such as Nepal [1].  There are various Public Health challenges to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in South Asia including Nepal. Learning from the  COVID-19 outbreak in China, there will be slowdown of economic activity with damaged supply chains which impact upon the public health systems in Nepal. Moreover, there is limited coordination among different stakeholders in healthcare management with few policies in place for infection prevention and control, shortage of testing kits and medical supplies (shortages of masks, gloves), and poor reporting are major challenges to be tackled in case of the COVID-19.

All South Asian countries are vulnerable to a mass outbreak with high population density in cities which is challenging to create social distancing, made worse by generally poor hygiene and often low (health) literacy. Additionally, some COVID-19 cases remain asymptomatic; so it is difficult to predict the epidemic outbreak that may introduces further difficulty in diagnosis of newer cases. Finally, healthcare workers across the globe were infected at high rates during the MERS and SARS outbreaks, so Nepal has to initiate health workers’ training including simulation exercises to provide health staff with a clearer picture of the complexities and challenges associated with COVID-19 and containing potential outbreaks.

This editorial has a very different time span between submission and publication than the one highlighted last week on the BU Research Blog (see details here!).  This  COVID-19 editorial took exactly one month between submission and publication, the one mentioned last week took  three-and-a-half years between submission and publication.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

  1. Asim, M., Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Mekkodathil, A., Subramanya, S.H., Simkhada, P. (2020) COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Implications in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 10 (1): 817-820. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/28269