Tagged / Europe

New CMMPH international midwifery publication

international, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Professor Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of her latest international paper ‘How do midwives in Slovenia view their professional status?’ [1]. slovenia midwifery 2015

The paper explores Slovenian midwives’ views of their professional status, linkng this to the participants’ educational background. Most participants did not consider midwifery to be a profession in its ow right. Midwives with secondary education were more likely to consider practical skills to be important than theoretical midwifery knowledge. In general Slovenian midwives did not feel enabled to practise autonomously causing them several ethical dilemmas. All participants with midwifery secondary school education thought that obstetrics jeopardises midwifery scope of practice, but only half of the B.Sc. participants thought this. One-fifth of all participants estimated that midwifery is also threatened by nursing. The respondents reported feeling a lack of control over their professional activity and policy making; however the majority of midwives claimed that they were willing to take on more responsibility for independent practice. The authors conclude that Slovenian midwifery cannot be considered to be a profession yet. It faces several hindrances, due to its historical development.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

Mivšek, P., Pahor, M., Hlebec, V., Hundley, V. (2015) How do midwives in Slovenia view their professional status? Midwifery 31(12):1193-201

Open Access publishing discussion at EU

open access, Publishing

EU Open Access 2015The European Commission held a workshop in October about alternatives to Green and Gold Open Access publishing.  The presentations held at this workshop are freely available online, click here.  Discussions included questions such as: how might these alternatives work, how they have evolved, whether they work well, and what challenges they don’t manage to tackle. This report synthesises the presentations and discussions from the workshop.   For more details see: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/report-workshop-alternative-open-access-publishing-models

Open-Access-logo

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

COST Actions – supporting high-risk, innovative and emerging research themes

Funding opportunities

COST Actions are a flexible, fast, effective and efficient networking instrument for researchers, engineers and scholars to cooperate and coordinate nationally funded research activities. COST Actions allow European researchers to jointly develop their own ideas in any science and technology field. COST Actions are bottom-up  science and technology networks, open to researchers and stakeholders  with a duration of four years. They are active through a range of  networking tools , such as workshops, conferences, training schools, short-term scientific missions (STSMs), and dissemination activities.  COST does not fund research itself.

COST prides in its support for high-risk, innovative and emerging research themes. Importantly, COST does not set any research priorities. cost

Currently on the COST website is a report on Collecting research data to counter femicide worldwide

Femicide across Europe is the first pan-European research network investigating the causes and risk factors of a phenomenon killing thousands of women every year, worldwide.

Femicide refers to the killing of women and girls because of their gender. European researchers studying the  cultural, societal and psychological   causes  and  risks factors  behind femicide set up the network to fight the phenomenon through advocacy and research. One idea is to create a  European Femicide Observatory  gathering and comparing data from each of the 30 countries involved, of which half are Inclusiveness Target Countries . The goal is to come up with  new guidelines  and shape new EU public policies countering killings.

Specialists have been studying quantitative and qualitative data and ways to reduce discrepancies in country records. Such discrepancies are often due to the different definitions of femicide, which is sometimes seen as gender-based violence.

“When our COST Action was first proposed, the term femicide was not widely used. Everyone knew of homicide, but few had given thought to the fact that some women, particularly those involved in intimate relationships, were murdered simply because they were women. Today, two years within the COST Action, ‘femicide’ has become a buzzword, Action Chair Dr Shalva Weil explains.“

Network members have also been advocating for a more straightforward approach to lowering femicide rates in Europe. They have already addressed the Portuguese Parliament and the Parliament of Aragon in Spain. The network also took part in two United Nations sessions in Bangkok (November 2014) and New York (October 2015).

By participating in the network’s training schools and scientific exchanges, young researchers are also given the chance to better understand the phenomenon EU-wide. One outstanding result of the Action’s work is a  comparison of national statistics from 10 European countries .

The Action’s next annual meeting will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in May 2016.

Why not take a look at the COST Action database to see if there is a current Action relating to your research? You can then consider joining an existing Action or submitting your own proposal.

Click on the tag COST Action (below) to see other BU posts on this topic, including  Edwin van Teijlingen’s report on his recent publication and his experience of attending a COST Action Training School.

If you are interested in applying for COST, please contact Emily Cieciura, Research Facilitator: EU & International of you Faculty’s Funding Development Officer.

Reminder – EUADS closing date is 30th November 2015

BU Challenges

If you wish to apply for the next EU Academic Development Scheme (EUADS), your application must be with us by 30th November 2015. The previous blog post text is given again below, just in case you missed that announcement….
euads logo
The EU Academic Development Scheme (EUADS) is a unique scheme developed to kick start your career in EU research; it’s open to all BU academic staff seeking to gain EU funding.  The EUADS will help you build up to submitting a proposal to any of the H2020 schemes by providing unlimited 1-2-1 support from an expert EU bid writer, group mentoring and unlimited assistance with writing your application over a 9 month period.
 
The scheme involves four separate development workshops over nine months starting in January 2016 and ongoing assistance and support in developing EU proposals during that period.   A useful budget of £1K  per participant (with additional funds up to £2,250 in total) is provided to fund activities supporting bid development, such as:
 

• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Pilot research work
• Fieldwork
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
• Preparation of specialist material or data
• Replacement teaching

The workshops will all take place in 2016 on 13th January, 27th April, 20th July and 28th September.  Application forms are available below and must include endorsement from your Faculty Deputy Dean for Research, who should be approached before beginning a submission.  Places are limited and applications may be reviewed internally to decide on the final cohort; please complete the form with enthusiasm and care.

We are seeking individual applications but applicants may collaborate within and across Faculties and pool their individual budgets, where appropriate – please indicate in your application if you would like to be considered as a ‘team’ along with other applicants.

The deadline for applications is Monday, 30th November 2015.  Applications and any questions should be submitted to the RKEO Funding Development Co-ordinator, Dianne Goodman.

EUADS Policy 2016

EUADS-Application-Form_2015

New CMMPH paper published from COST collaboration

open access, Publishing

BMC Health Serv Res
This week saw publication of a new CMMPH paper in BMC Health Services Research.  This methodological paper ‘Assessing the performance of maternity care in Europe: a critical exploration of tools and indicators‘ is a collaboration between several European maternity-care researchers based in Spain (Ramón Escuriet, Fatima Leon-Larios), Belgium (Katrien Beeckman), Northern Ireland (Marlene Sinclair), the UK (Lucy Firth, Edwin van Teijlingen), Switzerland ( Christine Loytved, Ans Luyben) and Portugal (Joanna White).  Dr. Ans Luyben is also Visiting Faculty in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences at Bournemouth University.  The underlying work was supported by the European Union through a COST Action called Childbirth Cultures, Concerns, and Consequences headed by Prof. Soo Downe at the University of Central Lancashire.  COST is seen by the EU as an important tool in building and supporting the European Research Area (ERA).

Cost ActionThis paper critically reviews published tools and indicators currently used to measure maternity care performance within Europe, focusing particularly on whether and how current approaches enable systematic appraisal of processes of minimal (or non-) intervention in support of physiological or “normal birth”.

The authors conclude: “The review identified an emphasis on technical aspects of maternity, particularly intrapartum care in Europe, rather than a consideration of the systematic or comprehensive measurement of care processes contributing to non-intervention and physiological (normal) birth. It was also found that the links between care processes and outcomes related to a normal mode of birth are not being measured.”

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

EU funding call now open!

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

EU heart

EU funding opportunity – are you working with SMEs?
Open call to SMEs and new entrants for industrial experiments Digital Agenda for Europe.  The call is now open (28 October 2015) and the closing date is 3 December 2015.  This call aims to initiate new business and innovation opportunities between SMEs and new entrants, major cyber physical system-platform providers, and competence centres. The maximum European Commission contribution for industrial experiments per applicant is €150,000. The funding rate is 70 per cent. The maximum duration of industrial experiment is 18 months.
For more information: https://www.eurocps.org/innovators-projects/open-calls/

UKRO – latest news

Funding opportunities, Info Days, international, Training

If ever there was a time to make use of BU’s subscription to UKRO, that time is now.

UKRO logoWith the new Work Programmes being released, UKRO have pulled out all the stops to ensure that their subscribers have the latest information. To access subscriber content, please register as a BU member of staff. You will then have access to all the latest EU news and can sign up for email updates direct to your inbox.

As this blog is open to external users who may not be UKRO subscribers, there is only a limited amount that can be placed on this blog.

Highlights include:

  • UKRO has provided a number of introductory articles to the new Horizon 2020 Work Programmes – please register to access these. The Work Programmes themselves are available via the Participant Portal
  • Consolidator Grants: Information and Proposal Writing – 3 November 2015, University of Sheffield and – 6 November 2015, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine*
  • MSCA European Researchers’ Night 2016-2017 call Info Day – Brussels on 10 November 2015*
  • The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), together with the European Commission, is organising the first workshop on eHealth systems security –  Brussels on 30 October 2015.
  • European Commission is organising an Information and Stakeholders’ Day on Smart Wearables workshop – Brussels on 11 December 2015
  • As part of the Societal Challenge 2 Info week, the EIP AGRI is running a workshop on the multi-actor approach under Horizon 2020 on 24 November 2015 in Brussels
  • The Erasmus+ Guide has been released by the European Commission
  • The United States Government and the European Commission –  Fulbright-Schuman Innovation Grants, under the auspices of the Fulbright-Schuman program, have been announced,

*If a link has not not been given to an event page, you will need to register with UKRO to access the booking form / further information.

If you have any queries concerning EU funding opportunities, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO Research Facilitator: EU and International for further assistance.

 

Realise your European ambitions with EUADS

BU Challenges, Training

The EU Academic Development Scheme (EUADS) is a unique scheme developed to kick start your career in EU research; it’s open to all BU academic staff seeking to gain EU funding.  The EUADS will help you build up to submitting a proposal to any of the H2020 schemes by providing unlimited 1-2-1 support from an expert EU bid writer, group mentoring and unlimited assistance with writing your application over a 9 month period.
 
The scheme involves four separate development workshops over nine months starting in January 2016 and ongoing assistance and support in developing EU proposals during that period.   A useful budget of £1K  per participant (with additional funds up to £2,250 in total) is provided to fund activities supporting bid development, such as:
 

• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Pilot research work
• Fieldwork
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
• Preparation of specialist material or data
• Replacement teaching

The workshops will all take place in 2016 on 13th January, 27th April, 20th July and 28th September.  Application forms are available below and must include endorsement from your Faculty Deputy Dean for Research, who should be approached before beginning a submission.  Places are limited and applications may be reviewed internally to decide on the final cohort; please complete the form with enthusiasm and care.

We are seeking individual applications but applicants may collaborate within and across Faculties and pool their individual budgets, where appropriate – please indicate in your application if you would like to be considered as a ‘team’ along with other applicants.

The deadline for applications is Monday, 30th November 2015.  Applications and any questions should be submitted to the Funding Development Co-ordinator, Dianne Goodman, dgoodman@bournemouth.ac.uk

EUADS Policy 2016

EUADS-Application-Form

 

Look our for further posts on EUADS in the coming weeks

 

UKRO Visit on 14/10/15 – Slides available

Funding opportunities

Maribel Glogowski, our UK Research Office (UKRO) contact, spent a whole day at BU on 14/10/15. Her visit was very successful, working with the RKEO Team to ensure that we are up to date with Horizon 2020 and the management processes invovled plus a full afternoon dedicated to updating BU staff on the calls, especially with the publication of the Work Programmes for 15-17 on 13/10/15.

There will be further posts about specific elements of the new Work Programme once their applicability to BU has been assessed.

UKRO logoThe slides from the afternoon available to BU staff. Please contact Dianne Goodman for these to be sent to you. Please note that as the visit is part of our paid subscription to UKRO, these slides whould not be shared outside BU.

If you are considering applying for EU funding please contact Emily Cieciura, Research Facilitator – EU and International, as early as possible so that RKEO can give you the support you need to develop your bid and submit.