Tagged / engineering

Epidural simulator wins Institution of Engineering and Technology Innovation Award

BU research, Research news

A medical device developed by Bournemouth University (BU) and Poole Hospital to make epidural injections safer and more effective has received a prestigious innovation award.
 
The epidural simulator uses software to predict where a patient’s epidural space will be, and helps doctors electronically measure the loss of pressure that occurs when they reach the space, to prevent errors.
 
The project won the Information Technology category at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Innovation Awards, which received more than 400 entries from over 30 countries.
Dr Venky Dubey, PhD student Neil Vaughan, and awards host and former Apprentice winner Tim Campbell.

L-R: Dr Venky Dubey, PhD student Neil Vaughan, and awards host and former Apprentice winner Tim Campbell.

“We knew that our project is unique as it blends engineering expertise and knowledge of clinicians directly dealing with the problems in their day to day care,” said Dr Venky Dubey, Associate Professor in Research at BU, who is leading the epidural simulator project alongside PhD student Neil Vaughan and Dr Michael Wee and Dr Richard Isaacs from Poole Hospital.
 
“We have done this several times in the past, competing with international institutions of repute like MIT and Harvard, but what is unbelievable this time is that we have won it against giant companies vying for this coveted award.
 
“Honestly, we are shocked to have won this award. It’s like winning a Technological Oscar for our hard work”.  
 
He added: “This clearly shows that there is a technology gap in patient care for epidurals and the associated safety issues. This award recognises our innovative approach that has the potential to reduce patient injury and improve training experience of anaesthetists.”
 
The IET Innovation Awards celebrate the best innovations in science, technology and engineering. The ceremony took place at The Brewery, in London last week.
 
The judging panel for the Information Technology category, in which the epidural simulator was named winner, said: “The standard for the IT Category is always high and this year was no exception. The 2013 winning entry provides an innovative training solution to teach the epidural procedure to medical practitioners.”

Engineering Research Exchanges with China and India – funding available now!

EU

The Royal Academy of Engineering have announced their next round of Research Exchanges with China and India scheme funding. The scheme promotes collaboration between high quality engineering researchers in the UK and China/India and facilitates the expansion of networks of excellence in engineering research between the UK and China/India. It enables academic engineering researchers at Universities to travel to a Chinese or Indian academic Institution, and for China/India-based academic researchers to spend between 3 and 12 months at a UK Institution. Visits should be part of longer-term efforts to build UK-China/India relationships and to advance joint research. Funding of up to £24,000 per annum is provided (or part thereof for shorter visits). The deadline for applications is 12 October 2012.

EPSRC Sandpit: More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency

Funding opportunities

The EPSRC has announced a call for Expressions of Interest for attendance at their Sandpit for ‘More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency’.

The UK is a small nation with limited resources that has a high material dependency. With the ever growing concern of material and resource scarcity we look to the ingenuity of the research base to find long-term sustainable solutions.

The Engineering theme will lead a sandpit in response to the challenges raised by the research community in the Resource Efficiency Scoping Workshop in April 2012 and in line with EPSRC strategy. The primary aim is to invest in ambitious, engineering-led, cross-disciplinary research with the potential for long-term transformation across many and diverse sectors, especially among those that have yet to embrace these concepts.

EPSRC are looking for enthusiastic participants from a wide range of disciplines who will bring their expertise to explore the challenges of:

  • Dematerialisation (eg lightweighting, novel materials functionality, novel materials from waste products, materials security and efficiency);
  • Designing for resource sustainability (eg energy, water and materials efficiency, considerations for engineering processes, whole systems and resource flow modelling);
  • Reuseability at any scale (closed and open loop recycling, remanufacturing, extended product life).

Closing Date: 13.00 on 11 June 2012

Documents to Download:

Resource efficiency sandpit call document

Resource efficiency workshop challenge outcomes

Ideas Factory Sandpit expression of interest form: Return form to sandpit@epsrc.ac.uk

Equal Opportunities Form

A Sandpit for Ideas: The concept of the IDEAS Factory is to organise interactive workshops (sandpits) on particular topics, involving 20-25 participants. The focus for this sandpit is MORE WITH LESS: Engineering solutions for resource efficiency. Anyone eligible to apply for funding from Research Councils UK can apply.

The Sandpit Event: The sandpit will run over five days starting mid-morning on day one and finishing mid-afternoon on day five.

As the sandpit progresses, participants will build up thoughts on how the identified ‘challenges’ may be addressed and develop their innovative ideas and activities into research projects. Projects will contain genuinely novel and speculative investigations that address new approaches to resource efficiency. The sandpit will include inputs from a variety of sources.

Location and Date

The date for this sandpit is 23rd – 27th July 2012. Location to be confirmed.

NIHR CSO Healthcare Science Research Fellowship Programme – Round 3 now launched

Funding opportunities

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in partnership with the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) for the Department of Health has now launched round 3 of the NIHR/CSO Healthcare Science Research Fellowship Competition. The scheme supports the development of healthcare science research capacity and capability building, by providing funding to undertake research for patient benefit.

The Fellowships will support members of the NHS healthcare science workforce who already have some research experience and wish to bridge clinical or service careers and research. 

The two award levels are:

  • Doctoral: funding for individual doctoral level research and to undertake a PhD
  • Post-Doctoral: funding for individual postdoctoral research projects

Fellowships must be undertaken with the support of the relevant NHS line-manager and an appropriate academic partner. The research proposed must be of direct relevance to the NHS with the potential to improve service or clinical outcome. 

Applications are invited from individuals working in England from one of the three main Healthcare Scientist areas:

  • Biology
  • Physiology
  • Physics and Engineering.

Application Packs

An overview of the competition process, eligibility, funding, Review Panel and previous awards can be found on this link: FURTHER INFORMATION

Informal enquiries may be directed to hcs@nihrtcc.org.uk

Closing date 24 Jul 12

Deadline information Deadline: emailed applications due 24 July; postal applications due 31 July 2012.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Fancy working in Brazil?

EU

 Science without Borders is a Brazilian scholarship programme which aims to provide mobility opportunities between Brazil and Europe, for undergraduates, postgraduates, postdoctoral and senior research fellows in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The programme aims to:

  • Increase the presence of Brazilian students, scientists and industry personnel in international institutions of excellence;
  • Attract young investigators and internationally recognised research leaders to Brazil to work with local researchers in joint projects; and
  • Encourage the internationalisation of universities and research centres in Brazil through international partnerships.

There are a number of ways of getting involved:

  1. Host Brazilian undergraduates and postgraduates – with a view to start hosting for the 2012/13 academic year. A bilateral agreement between the UK and Brazil has been signed, Universities UK (UUK) is the UK partner organisation.
  2. Apply for a research grant to work in Brazil:
  3. Young post-doctoral researchers can apply under the ‘Attraction of Talented Youth’ programme for a two to three year long research project in Brazil;
  4. Science leaders can apply under the ‘Special Visiting Researcher’ grants that will fund joint projects with research groups in Brazil and fund work in Brazil for up to three months every year.

 
2012 call deadlines for the ‘Attraction of Talented Youth’ programme and ‘Special Visiting Researcher’ grants are 15 February, 4 June and 1 October.

BU research features in the THE!

PG research

Congratulations to BU PhD student Adil Saeed from DEC’s Sustainable Design Research Centre! Adil’s research featured in the Times Higher Education today – pg 15 of the printed publication as part of the Campus Round-up section.

Adil is pictured at the Tank Museum at Bovington with some additional information on the relationship between BU and the Museum and an outline of Adil’s research.

You can access the online story here: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417729&c=1

We previously ran a story on the blog about Adil’s research and the close links between BU and the Tank Museum which you can read here: Sustainable Methodology of Conserving Large Historic Vehicles in a Museum Environment.

Glasgow crowned green ‘super city’ of the future

Research news

Research commissioned by the HSBC, has found that thanks to its strong research and engineering capabilities, Glasgow will grow into a renewable-energy “super-city” in the coming decade. The report, Future of Business, was published on 2 June. It is based on a survey of some 500 British entrepreneurs and business managers from small and medium-sized companies.

Vice-Chancellor’s Award: Research/Enterprise Project of the Year

BU research

The Design Simulation Research Centre (DSRC) in the School of DEC won the Vice-Chancellor’s award for the best research/enterprise project. The research, led by Prof Siamak Noroozi, Dr Philip Sewell and Bryce Dyer, is detailed below.

Members of the DSRC have used the results of previous research, funded by EPSRC and the medical charity REMEDI, to develop a research collaboration with Chas A Blatchford & Sons Ltd, the UKs leading prosthetics supplier.  This has resulted in the team being awarded an EPSRC CASE Award (£86k) to design and develop a ‘Smart Socket’ to provide lower-limb amputees with increased mobility and improved quality of life.  This collaboration has also led to the development of research to evaluate the performance of prostheses used by athletes in elite sport.

The underlying technology developed has other applications in civil, aerospace and marine engineering resulting in the initiation of two research projects with BAE Systems (PhD matched-funding – £26k and an EPSRC CASE Award – £95k).

IP rights have been negotiated with both companies meaning that a proportion of the income generated form any products developed will come to BU.

The research into the ‘smart socket’ and prosthetics fit has seen widespread public interest as the socket will help soldiers returning to active duty who had been injured in combat.  This has resulted in the following publications in the international press:
– Soldiers could get back to active duty with the help of a ‘smart’ prosthesis” was published in the Guardian, January 2011.
– Ahhh…Comfort! UK Research Takes Next Generation “Smart Limb” to New Level” was published in the International Magazine OandP Edge (Vol. 9, No. 5), May 2010.
– Amputee mobility fix is socket science” was published in the Engineer, February 2010.

The parallel stream of research in the ethical use of sports prostheses saw one of its researchers invited to join the International Paralympic Commitee Sports Equipment Working Group. This advises on legislation of equipment used by athletes at the Paralympic Games. Along with this, invitations in this area resulted in several keynote speeches on the centre’s research at international conferences in both Germany and Spain during 2010.  The team won the research prize at the Paralympics GB National Conference based on this research.

The findings from both projects and the resultant innovations will inform an area which has seen little attention historically.  As a result of this research the team was nominated for ‘Outstanding Engineering Research Team of the Year’ at the Times Higher Education Awards in 2010.

The research into prosthetics fit and the smart socket will potentially transfer into widespread practitioner health practise through Blatchford’s 30 UK prosthetic centres. As a result this will influence how amputees are rehabilitated both from treatment within the NHS but also specialised private clinics such as Headley Court which addresses military personnel both retired or seeking return to service.

The research into the prostheses in sport has resulted in across school collaboration between DEC and the School of Tourism. This relationship investigated novel ways of assessing amputee motion. One of the researchers was invited to join a working group within the International Paralympic Committee which will help inform the sports stakeholders and the wider community ahead of the 2012 London Paralympic Games.

Congratulations to the Design Simulation Research Centre! 😀

links for 2011-04-06

Delicious links

Funding opportunities:

  • ESRC – DFID-ESRC Growth Programme The Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are partnering in a new programme on economic growth in developing countries. The DFID/ESRC Growth Programme will fund world class scientific research on issues relating to inclusive economic growth in Low Income Countries (LICs), with high potential for impact on policy and practice.
    (tags: research funding)
  • EPSRC logoEPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing – EPSRC EPSRC is looking, in a Pilot call, to support a number EPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing who have the potential to be future research leaders in their field in Manufacturing Research, supporting either academics who have recently (within the last three years) moved from industry, or people in industry, currently involved in innovation, looking to move into academia. (tags: research funding earlycareer epsrc)

If you are interested in applying to either of these calls, talk to your R&E officer in CRE Operations.