Tagged / event

Come and meet the Research Development Unit! THIS WEEK!

This Thursday between 11am-1pm we will be commandeering a space in the Atrium and available to talk to all of you lovely people about Research!

If you want to know about the new BU internal research funds (the Open Access Publication Fund and the Research Development Fund), the internal peer review service (RPRS), UK, EU and international funding opportunities, the REF, BU’s new research management system, the changes we’re making to RED, Research Professional, the emerging BU Research Themes, publishing and research outputs, in fact anything at all to do with research then now is your chance!

Drop by and have an informal chat with us. There might even be  a cake in it for you 🙂

Research is cool – come and find out how to get involved!

BU Open Access Publication Fund launch event – 26 October

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceCome and find out all about open access publishing!

To celebrate the launch of BU’s new Open Access Publication Fund we’re holding an open access (OA) publishing event on 26 October between 10am-12:30pm in the EBC (7th floor).

The aim of the event is to dispell some of the myths surrounding OA publishing and alleviate concerns about publishing through this route, whilst discussing the benefits and opportunities of making your work freely available.

The programme is still being finalised but the event will open with a keynote presentation from Dr Alma Swan, and will also feature a talk from Prof Edwin van Teijlingen (HSC) who has published via OA journals and is an OA journal editor. There will also be the opportunity to find out more information about the new BU Open Access Publication Fund, and how you can get involved.

Dr Alma Swan is one of the leading figures in the field of OA publishing. She is the co-founder and director of Key Perspectives Ltd, a consultancy firm specialising in scholarly communication, and holds honorary positions with the University of Southampton and the University of Warwick. Alma is Convenor for Enabling Open Scholarship, the global organisation of universities promoting the principles of open scholarship in the academic community. It is a great honour to welcome her to BU!

The event will take place on Wednesday 26 October; refreshments and lunch will be provided.

To reserve a place at the event please contact Anita Somner by email.

We look forward to seeing you there! 😀

Come and meet the RDU!

On Thursday 8 September between 11am-1pm we will be commandeering a space in the Atrium and available to talk to all of you lovely people about Research!

If you want to know about the new BU internal research funds (the Open Access Publication Fund and the Research Development Fund), the internal peer review service (RPRS), UK, EU and international funding opportunities, the REF, BU’s new research management system, the changes we’re making to RED, Research Professional, the emerging BU Research Themes, publishing and research outputs, in fact anything at all to do with research then now is your chance! Drop by and have an informal chat with us. There might even be  a cake in it for you 🙂

Research is cool – come and find out how to get involved!

Great events to launch the Digital Hub

We had two great events this week both hosted by the Digital Hub at Bournemouth University. The Digital Day on the 19th July took place at Kimmeridge House on Talbot Campus and the Digital Dinner at the Chewton Glen.

Both events were attended by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor John Vinney and by a range of businesses – large and small who had come to hear how Bournemouth University’s Digital Hub could provide them with knowledge and expertise to help them take advantage of the opportunities presented by the creative and digital economy.

There was a wide range of expertise on display – all of which you can find out more about on the Digital Hub website.

Delegates also had the pleasure of hearing an inspirational keynote speaker, Tiffany St James who, among a staggering array of roles, has advised the UK government on its social media and runs a series of workshops for The Guardian on digital media. Tiffany’s slides are available for download on this site. The event trended on Twitter (London) for 30 minutes #BUdigihub – testimony to the interest online and the live Twitter feed at the event.

Investigating academic impact at the London School of Economics: Blogs, Twitter and bumblebees!

Research assessment


The 'Current Thinking in Assessing Impact’ panel discussion during the LSE impact event on 12 June.

As someone who is still getting to grips with exactly how impact might be defined and operationalised for the REF, I went along to the Investigating Academic Impact Conference at LSE on the 12th June looking forward to learning more about precisely how we could create more effective impact case studies for the REF.  The day was opened by Patrick Dunleavy from the Impact of Social Sciences Project at LSE with the challenging statement that we needed to think about impact as a long-term, integral part of our research work and that simply trying to maximise impact for the REF was a short-term strategy.

What followed were sessions on how to use blogging, Wikipedia and Twitter to help enhance your electronic footprint and to engage with the public in new ways.  Following their own advice, all the presentations are now available, along with blogs and tweets, at http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/presentations/.  On the site there is a comprehensive (200-page) handbook detailing exactly how to increase your citations and how to achieve external impacts and, for those with a shorter attention span, there are some short how-to guides.  These include standard information about citation tools (such as ISI Web of Science and Scopus) as well as more esoteric measures of citation impact (such as the G-index and H scores).

There are also simple tips on how to get more widely read:

  • make sure your titles are informative
  • work on cross-disciplinary projects
  • build dissemination plans
  • have a distinctive name (many thanks to my parents on this one!).

The Impact of Social Sciences project at LSE has created a great resource which means that if you didn’t attend the day it doesn’t matter – the information is there for you to browse and look at anyway.

In the unexpected way that often happens at conferences, there are single pieces of information that are particularly memorable.  For this one it was the importance of the bumblebees!  At both the recent BU Research Impact Event and the LSE conference, one particular case study from the REF impact pilot exercise was singled out for particular praise. This was an elegant case study submitted by the University of Stirling on the conservation of bumblebees which was able to show tangible and far-reaching impact (for further details see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/impact/ under Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences).  This is a great concrete example of how good impact case studies might be formulated and from which those still struggling with impact might be able to gain insights.

Perhaps one final message from the day was that, of course, if you wished to have academic impact then the best starting point of all is to have good research to talk about!

Siné McDougall

 

AHRC to hold four broadcast media training events in July and September 2011

Following on from the recent AHRC/Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers pilot scheme and the over-subscribed AHRC Broadcast Media workshops , the AHRC will be running four further broadcast media training events across the UK in July and September 2011.

These events will allow early career researchers in the arts and humanities to benefit from a day of radio/broadcast training.  

Each workshop will be led by at least three production and editorial staff from national broadcasters, including Radio Five.

Each day-long workshop will consist of:

· an introduction to programme-making;

· what you need to do to become the expert that programme producers will value;

· best practice tips based on experiences of academics already successful in broadcast media;

· developing and pitching your programme idea based on your research

· one to one sessions with a broadcaster for those who want detailed feedback on their programme idea.

With each workshop having only forty spaces available we will be allocating those spaces to the first forty people to email applying for a space. The four workshops will take place as follows:

1 – London July 8th

2 – Northumbria University July 11th

3 – London September 16th

4 – Manchester Metropolitan University September 19th

To apply to attend one of these workshops you need to email Jake Gilmore (j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk) and put your preferred venue and date in the subject line e.g. London July 8th.

Prof Rudy Gozlan – ‘A Fish Tale, World Preservation and You’

Last month Rudy Gozlan gave an inaugural lecture as part of BU’s Public Lecture series. He discussed the biggest issue in ecology right now – how we going to accommodate another 3 billion people on this planet in the next 40 years.  Watch Rudy’s lecture (‘A Fish Tale, world preservation and you’) on this subject here:  httpv://youtu.be/kK3IsaZ2FYc

Engaging Academic Social Scientists in Government Policy-Making and Delivery

Guidance

Prof Martin Kretschmer, Professor of Information Jurisprudence and Research Centre Director for CIPPM in the Business School, recently attended a meeting organised by the British Academy and the ESRC on Engaging Academic Social Scientists in Government Policy-Making and Delivery. Here he provides an overview of the issues discussed at the event…

Making research relevant to policy is on the agenda of all Research Councils, as reflected in the Impact measure of REF 2014. The event was co-sponsored by the Government Heads of the Analytical Professions: Government Economic Service, Government Operational Research Service, Government Science & Engineering, Social Science in Government, and the Government Statistical Service. The programme and list of attendees is available here: British Academy event programme and delegate list

Some of the issues raised, and questions asked of the attendees included:

Q1: What do you think government should be doing more of to increase the influence of your research and expertise on government policy making and delivery?

Q2: What do you think the academic social science community should be doing more of to have a direct influence on government policy making and delivery?

Q3: What might encourage you to consider an advisory role to government, for example, as a social scientist on one of the government’s Scientific Advisory Committees?

I assume I was invited because I am just coming to the end of an ESRC Public Sector Fellowship in the UK Intellectual Property Office (within BIS). I also sit on the government’s Copyright Advisory Expert Group, and speak frequently on policy issues, for example last week (1 June) at a Hearing in the European Parliament on The Future of Copyright in the Digital Era. 

Below, I summarise a few points from the meeting that may be useful for the wider BU research community.

Prof Nick Pidgeon (Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Cardiff, and Director of the Understanding Risk Research Group) offered 4 routes to influencing government:

  • Government contract research, including small review contracts.
  • RCUK (or similar) funding in policy relevant area.
  • Advisory Committees.
  • Indirectly, via dissemination through Royal Society, RSA, or similar.

Paul Johnson (Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies): “Don’t expect to change government policy if your evidence points in a different direction.” There are two choices: EITHER Focus on points of detail within the policy direction given by government, OR Set agenda for 5 years hence.

Sir John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific Advisor) stressed the tightrope walk between advice that is a “challenge” and being labelled “unhelpful” (in Sir Humphries language). Academics should risk “challenge” even if it turns out to be “unhelpful”.

Prof Philip Lowe (Professor of Rural Economy, University of Newcastle, and Director of the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme): There is a paradox – How can a government department become a sophisticated consumer of research? Commissioning good research requires being able to know what you don’t know. Hard for civil servants and politicians. Important to build and sustains links over many years.

Prof Helen Roberts (Professor, General Adolescent and Paediatrics Unit, University College London, and non-executive director of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence NICE): Public sector placements are very useful, both for academic and government, but governance of these grants can be cumbersome. [I can confirm that from my own secondment experience. At some point, there were suggestions that detailed delivery contracts would have to be drawn up between ESRC and BU, ESRC and BIS/IPO, BIS/IPO and BU. In the end, I was simply shown the Official Secrets Act, and the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants, and that was it.]

Importance of human dimension: “Most implementation comes though good relationships, not good research.”

Sharon Witherspoon (Deputy Director of the Nuffield Foundation, and in charge of research in social science and social policy): Most policy advisors double in “empirically informed counterfactuals”, and are normally grateful if offered help with: “What would happen if…” But academics can often make the most telling contribution by more radical reflection: “I wouldn’t start from here”. Governments are less likely to be open to that kind of challenge. Select Committees are becoming more independent of government (now have elected chairs). They can be a route to influence.

Paul Doyle (CEO, ESRC): The ESRC is building a database of government policy leads/contacts. Often it is impossible from government websites to identify the civil servants and special advisors dealing with specific policy issues. Government scientists should be encouraged to become members of Learned Societies.

 Key points from the open discussion:

  • Importance to keep independence by constructing portfolio of funders.
  • Economists are a separate breed in government. They have little concept of wider social research.
  • Responding to consultations is often a good first step to engagement.
  • Academics should use less jargon, shorter sentences.
  • Visual representation of research findings matters greatly.
  • Often it is useful to invite policy makers to academic events. They enjoy coming out of the office, and are less partisan/circumspect in a neutral environment.
  • There is an important corrective function for social scientists in assessing the presentation of data.
  • Difficulty in presenting the audit trail required for REF Impact. Government does have no interest in revealing the sources of its ideas, or it may be politically inconvenient to do so.

Investigating Academic Impact event at LSE on 13 June

Research assessment

The LSE Public Policy Group is running a free one day event on evidencing the impact of research.

Date: Monday 13 June 2011 
Time: 10-5pm 
Venue:  New Academic Building, LSE, London

Academics are increasingly being pressed to provide evidence of impact from their research on the world outside academia. And universities will have to provide evidence of impact as part of the new Research Excellence Framework. But there is confusion about the different definitions of impact that exist amongst funding bodies and research councils, and also about methods of measuring impact.

This one day conference will look at a range of issues surrounding the impact of academic work on government, business, communities and public debate. We will discuss what impact is, how impacts happen and innovative ways that academics can communicate their work. Practical sessions will look at how academic work has impact among policymaking and business communities. Also how academic communication can be improved and how individual academics can easily start to asses their own impact.

PANELS:
Research Impact and the REF
Professor Rick Rylance (Chief Executive, Arts and Humanities Research Council)
David Sweeney (Director of Research, Innovation and Skills, HEFCE)
Professor Paul Wiles (Panel Chair, social work and social policy panel, REF impact pilot)

Current Thinking in Assessing Impact
Professor Patrick Dunleavy (Impact of Social Sciences project, London School of Economics)
Professor Alan Hughes (Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge)
Tomas Ulrichsen (Public and Corporate Economic Associates)

Innovative Methods for Impact and Engagement
Professor Stephen Curry (blogger, Imperial College London)
Martyn Lawrence (Senior Publisher, Emerald Insight)
Paul Manners (Director, National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, UWE)
Mike Peel (Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics / Wikimedia UK)

BREAKOUT SESSIONS:
Academic impact on policy-making
Maria O’Beirne (Analysis and Innovation Directorate, Department for Communities and Local Government)
Jill Rutter (Better Policy Making Programme Director, Institute for Government)

Knowledge transfer and the role of research mediators
Nick Pearce (Director, IPPR)
Professor Judy Sebba (University of Sussex)

Academic impacts on industry and business
James John (Director of Strategy, director of strategy, civil government, HP)

A ‘how to’ guide to measuring your own academic impact
Jane Tinkler (Impact of Social Sciences project, London School of Economics)

Improving academic communication
Professor Patrick Dunleavy (Impact of Social Sciences project, London School of Economics)
Chris Gilson (Managing Editor, British Politics and Policy blog, London School of Economics)

This event is free and open to all but pre-registration is required. For more information phone and email the PPG team on 020 7955 6064 or 020 7955 6731 or by email on impactofsocialsciences@lse.ac.uk|. You can find more information on the Investigating Academic Impact website.

BU Research Impact event is a success!

Research assessment

Last Friday BU held an internal Research Impact event to share the success of the excellent research that has been undertaken by BU academics. The focus of the event was on how this research has had an impact outside of academia, for example an impact on society, the economy, quality of life, culture, policy, etc.

REF logoFor the forthcoming REF2014 BU will be required to include a number of research impact case studies as part of the submission. This is a new element to the REF (previously the RAE) and the HE sector has been grappling with the concept of impact for a number of years now.

The event, attended by over 75 BU staff, opened with a presentation from Prof Matthew Bennett (Pro Vice Chancellor – Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) on BU’s future research strategy, planning for the REF, and how to develop and evidence research impact.

Part of the presentation focused on the BU Research Themes which are currently being identified and defined through academic consultation via the Research Blog. This is still in the early stages but Matthew presented the ten draft themes that are emerging. You can comment on the emerging themes here.

There were 35 impact case studies presented in total with most units of assessment (UOAs) presenting three case studies. At the end of each presentation members of the audience critiqued the case study and offered advice as to how the strengthen and maximise the impact claim.

Attendees were encouraged to go to impact case study presentations from different UOAs/Schools to find out about research that is undertaken in different areas of the University. Stronger impact case studies can also be developed with input from different disciplines.

The event was also attended by key staff from Marketing & Communications who will be working with UOA Leaders to develop and enhance impact case studies between now and the REF submission in autumn 2013.

There has been much positive feedback received from attendees and we are considering whether this should now be an annual event, celebrating the success of BU research and its benefit to society.

Many thanks to all the presenters and attendees, and everyone who supported the event and made it such a success! 😀

We are now seeking feedback on the impact case studies presented. These are all available on the I-drive (I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\REF\REF event May 2011\impact case study presentations). Please could you email your feedback to Anita Somner in the Research Development Unit by Friday 3 June. Anita will then anonymise and collate the feedback and share it with the UOA Leaders.

For further information on impact see the impact pages on the HEFCE website or our previous BU Research Blog posts on impact.

The excellent HEFCE REF event at BU!

Research assessment

Developing and Assessing Impact for the REF

Last week BU hosted a HEFCE-supported event for universities in the south of England outlining recent changes in how the quality of research in higher education is assessed.

The event, attended by over 150 delegates from 39 institutions, outlined the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) which includes a new assessment element focusing on research impact.

As Chris Taylor, Deputy REF Manager for HEFCE, explained: “REF will provide accountability for public investment in research and demonstrate its benefits.” He continued:

“Impact is defined as any contribution the research makes outside of academia. It is the higher education sector’s opportunity to shout about what it contributes to society.”

Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby (University of Kent), Professor Roy Harrison (University of Birmingham), Professor James Goodwin (Age UK), Dr Kathryn Monk (Environment Agency Wales) and Dr Mari Williams (RCUK) presented their experiences of assessing impact case studies in the REF pilot exercise. Professor Jim Griffiths (University of Plymouth) presented his experience of identifying and submitting impact case studies to the pilot exercise in the hope that others would learn from his experience.

Prevalent themes emerging from the pilot included the importance of a demonstrable chain of evidence from impact claim through to outcome, high quality research underpinning the impact claim and fostering the crucial relationship between academic and user.

Professor James Goodwin explained how research can change society for people’s benefit, stessing the importance of “converting research into a message that will influence people’s thinking”. He gave the recent removal of the default retirement age as an example of how this can influence policy.

The event closed with a Q&A session with all speakers, giving delegates the chance to obtain further clarity on the REF that will undoubtedly change the future of higher education research.

Matthew Bennett (BU’s PVC for Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) said: “There has been sector-wide concern about how impact will be defined, collated and assessed in the REF, and this event provided excellent advice and guidance for academic staff likely to be submitting to the REF and those leading the submissions.”

The deadline for submitting submissions is November 2013 and the assesment will be made in 2014.

We will be adding further posts to the Research Blog focusing on the good practice shared at the event (such as defining impact, what makes a strong impact case study, etc) over the next few weeks.

Workshop on Information Discovery and Data Analytics Made Easy

DEC are hosting a workshop on Information Discovery and Data Analytics Made Easy facilitated by Prof. Michael R. Berthold, Konstanz University, Germany on 18 May.

TIME: 18th May 2011, 10.00 am – 1.00 pm,

PLACE: PG10, Poole House, Talbot Campus

The purpose of the event is to present methods and tools that can be used in processing large datasets and how to discover knowledge from them. Michael Berthold is a coordinator of the project BISON that is a research project funded by EC under the 7FP. He is also one of the founders of KNIME which is a user-friendly and comprehensive open-source data integration, processing, analysis, and exploration platform. So the goal of the workshop is also to start collaboration with Konstanz University and find out more about EC 7FP projects.

The workshop is open to all BU staff and PhD students as well. It will be of interest to all people who are involved in intelligent data processing. For sure it will be of interest for DEC staff: SMART Technology Research Centre, Creative Technology Research Centre and Software Systems Research Centre. I bielieve also that people from School of Applied Sciences will be interested.

Research areas that it covers include: intelligent data analysis, predictive modelling, complexity science, complex adaptive systems, knowledge discovery from data.

SCHEDULE:
10.00-11.00 – From Pattern Discovery to Discovery Support: Creativity and Heterogeneous Information Networks
11.00-11.30 – coffee break
11.30-12.30 – KNIME. Integrating Data, Tools, and Science
12.30-13.00 – Q&A Session
13.00-14.00 – Lunch

Prof. Michael R. Berthold’s Bio
After receiving his PhD from Karlsruhe University, Germany Michael Berthold spent over seven years in the US, among others at Carnegie Mellon University, Intel Corporation, the University of California at Berkeley and – most recently – as director of an industrial think tank in South San Francisco.
Since August 2003 he holds the Nycomed-Chair for Bioinformatics and Information Mining at Konstanz University, Germany where his research focuses on using machine learning methods for the interactive analysis of large information repositories in the Life Sciences. Most of the research results are made available to the public via the open source data mining platform KNIME.
M. Berthold is Past President of the North American Fuzzy Information  Processing Society, Associate Editor of several journals and the President of the IEEE System, Man, and Cybernetics Society. He has been involved in the organization of various conferences, most notably the IDA-series of symposia on Intelligent Data Analysis and the conference series on Computational Life Science. Together with David Hand he co-edited the successful textbook “Intelligent Data Analysis: An Introduction” which has recently appeared in a completely revised, second edition. He is also co-author of the brand-new “Guide to Intelligent Data Analysis” (Springer Verlag) which appeared in summer 2010.

For more information about workshop or to book a place, please contact: Katarzyna Musial (kmusial@bournemouth.ac.uk)

International Conference on Culinary Arts and Sciences 2011

The International Conference on Culinary Arts and Sciences 2011 was held at BU from 12-14th April. Here Dr Heather Hartwell shares the conference successes…

The very successful International Conference on Culinary Arts and Sciences has just closed and attracted a wide range of international participants from 19 countries. The idea for such a conference was first discussed in late 1993 when the Worshipful Company of Cooks of London established a Centre for Culinary Research at Bournemouth University.  At the time it was felt there was a need for a forum that could bring together culinary artists and scientists who could present their research and generally discuss ideas within multidisciplinary and relaxed surroundings.  These initial thoughts led to the first Conference (ICCAS) which was held at BU in 1996.  It proved to be so successful that further conferences were held at BU in 1998, the University of Cairo, Egypt in 2001, Örebro University, Sweden in 2003, Warsaw Agriculture University, Poland, in 2005 and finally the Norwegian Hotel School, University of Stavanger in 2008.

Since its inception, the conference theme has always been Culinary Arts and Culinary Sciences.  The food and foodservice industries are a large and integral part of most economies but in academia they are invariably treated as separate and distinct disciplines.  These operate in isolation, often blissfully unaware of what each other are doing.  The primary purpose, therefore, has and continues to be to breakdown barriers which might exist and bring talented people together so that each can see, not only what the other is doing, but also to foster a better understanding of some of the issues, problems and concerns they have.  The programme in addition to developing the central thrust of the Conference, that is combining culinary arts and science, also delivered;

Foodservice (Catering and Hospitality)
Topics included: menus, menu planning, food variety and choice, foodservice in society, education, foodservice work and culture.
Food and Cultural Tourism
Topics included: wine and beer tourism and the various interactions between food, drink, culture and identity.
Nutrition, Food Science and Technology
Topics included: foodservice provision particularly with vulnerable groups, wellbeing and food safety.
Food Marketing, Food Habits and Consumer Behaviour
Topics included: eating and drinking habits and the interactions between food, drink and hospitality.

All submissions were subject to peer review by members of the International Scientific Advisory Board and we are grateful for their time and support.

International Scientific Advisory Board:
Prof. John S.A. Edwards, Bournemouth University, UK
Prof. Christina Fjellström, Uppsala University, Sweden
Dr Agnes Giboreau, Institut Paul Bocuse, France
Prof. Barbara Kowrygo, Warsaw Agricultural University, Poland
Prof. Svein Larsen, University of Bergen, Norway, & University of Stavanger, Norwegian School of Hotel Management
Prof. Herbert L. Meiselman, US Military, USA
Prof. Bent Egberg Mikkelsen, Aalborg University, Denmark
Dr Sara S.P. Rodrigues, Oporto University, Portugal
Assoc Prof. Peter Williams, University of Wollongong, Australia

We have always prided ourselves, and others have followed, by being able to publish delegates’ papers to coincide with the start of the conference.  So very often, conference papers never see the light of day until years after the event.  Once again we have published the refereed papers (ISBN 978-1-85899-273-0) and made them available at the time of registration.  Authors of selected papers have also been invited to submit extended versions of their work to Perspectives in Public Health and a special issue highlighting the conference will be published November 2011.

We are extremely grateful to the Worshipful Company of Cooks who have again been the main sponsor of this conference and look forward to 2013 when ICCAS will be held in Portugal and 2015 when it will be held in Auckland, New Zealand.

Conference Secretariat ICCAS 2011:
Dr Heather Hartwell, Assoc Prof
Foodservice and Applied Nutrition Research Group
Bournemouth University
 
Tel: +44 1202 961712
Email: ICCAS2011@bournemouth.ac.uk
Web: www.ICCAS2011.com

Wellbeing and impact

Dr Adrian Dawson, Director of Public Health (Bournemouth and Poole) would like to work with interested academics to translate research into policy, for example a geography masters student has just finished mapping the foodscape around primary schools which has directly impacted on planning policy of fast food outlets near schools. Another area of interest is ‘slow travel’.

He will come to Bournemouth University on Friday May 27th 9.30-10.30 in room PG 142 (Poole House) and would welcome the opportunity to explore with colleagues how the University and Local Authority could form closer research links. Ideally he would like to meet a representative from each School.

If you have any queries about the event, please contact Dr Heather Hartwell.

Writing competitive proposals event (London)

The Training Gateway is offering a ‘Total Proposals’ workshop in London on 15 June 2011.

Course overview:
Success depends on delivering a winning proposal – a strong selling document which the client will want to buy.  The seminar gives institutions not only the practical tools of proposal preparation, such as bidding plans and checklists, but also shows a range of winning techniques and “selling” devices that will positively differentiate your proposal from those of your competitors.

Attendees will:
– Refresh their approaches to the preparation of proposals
– Acquire new presentation techniques
– See how to give proposals a competitive edge
– Learn how to maximise the evaluation scoring of proposals.

This is an excellent opportunity for anyone involved in writing competitive proposals for research and enterprise funding!

Further information, including the booking form, can be found here.

Economic Growth, Business & Higher Education

I am just back from a day in London at a posh briefing event which can be summarised as ‘the lunch not much cop, but the talks were surprisingly good and gave me lots to think about’.  So I thought it was worth sharing some of this while it was fresh in my mind.  David Sweeny (Director of Research, Innovation & Skills, HEFCE) started the day talking about REF and impact amongst other things.  One of the things that interested me was the return on investment from business interaction: £4-7 for every £1 spent which is quite good!  But impact is seen as a way of adding to the value of this investment further and the return on the RAE/REF which has consistently placed the UK ahead of the game.  For example, internationally we produce 5% of all the PhD’s globally, 7.9% of all research publications from just 1% of the World’s population!  Staff at BU play an important part in this.

It was the next talk that really made me sit up.  It was from a guy at Oxford Brookes (Kevin Maynard) talking about their approach to enterprise or to use his jargon ‘Knowledge Exchange’.  He was making the point that what is really crucial is that Knowledge Exchange – enterprise by another name – was not about wealth creation for an institution but about the ‘inflow’ of knowledge to inform it core businesses of research and education.  This is an important concept since he argued that it was central to: (1) employability, (2) course development, (3) ensuring research relevance to business/industry/society, and (4) increasing the breadth and capacity of the academic team and its professional development.  What he didn’t say, but is crucial here, is that it is central to a good student experience and staff motivation around enterprise.  I was really impressed by this since it is about the wider benefits to us as academics in engaging with industry/business rather than about simply generating income.  It is worth saying that they are also ahead of the game on that front too, but it is not the driver or what motivates academics to engage and engage they do.  One other point which also struck a cord was the idea of using CPD provision as a market tester for degree programmes; a dam sight cheaper to run up a couple of CPD courses than a whole degree and see it fail for lack of recruitment!

Paul Mason (Head of Development, Technology Strategy Board) was up next and talked about the re-vamp of their strategy due out later this month, but the bit I liked here was that he was talking about being ‘challenge led’ not ‘product driven’.  You start by finding out what the challenges are and then broker a solution based on the range of products or interventions you have available or can source.  This is basically what I have been talking about around BU  in the context of knowledge brokering as a way forward for us.  It is an important point; instead of working out what products we have to sell – CPD, different flavours of consultancy etc. – we need to first find out what challenges business face and want solving.  This fits with the need to be outward rather than inward facing in our approach in developing our new Research & Enterprise Strategy.  If we are to live the idea of providing a student experience in which employability is written large then links to business, industry and the professions are vital and we will need to up our game in these areas and being seen to provid real business/industry solutions is one way to do this.

There were several other speakers who talked about the importance of innovation and generating economic growth within future allocations of HEIF funding and the importance of promoting our success in applying and exploiting our research.  The importance of engaging with Local Economic Partnerships following the demise of the Regional Development Agency was also a common theme and something for us to reflect on as we develop our regional strategy.

The next speaker to make me sit up after my lunch time disappointment was Neil Bowering (Knowledge Transfer Account Manager, at Glasgow) he was talking about the Easy Access IP scheme which Glasgow have pioneered and received large amounts of fame and glory for.  His job is to exploit the IP in the large EPSRC portfolio at Glasgow.  Basically they give the majority of their IP, over 90%, away for free to any third party who can exploit it, keeping just a very small proportion to develop them selves.  It is a highly streamlined process on the basis that getting IP out and out fast is the key and that there is very rarely much money to be made given the cost of exploiting and developing products/ideas for market.  The real key is to make knowledge useful and work for economic growth and society by freely giving it up rather than developing it slowly/poorly, or trying to negotiate at length a stake in its exploitation.   It is the reputational gain that is the key factor and the ongoing dialogue with companies who take on that IP that counts.  Very streamlined, straight forward with four simple conditions on which the IP is given away. University resources directed were they need to be direct.  A fantastic scheme and model for us to look at; certainly one realistic to the nature and quantity of the IP we generate at BU.

Sir Tim Wilson former VC at Hertfordshire and a big wheel in a range of CBI and Business Engagement committees/reviews made a really nice point about a university education.  It is taken for granted by business/employers that graduates will have the key knowledge and the key technical ability, but what they are looking for more than anything are the intellectual skills that will set a graduate apart in the race for jobs.  The ability to critically think is central.   I am sure that our graduates have this but perhaps we should reflect more on how we develop and promote these vital skills?  This links with something that David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce had to say; graduates need work force training.  He particularly was drawing attention to skills of team work, customer service, communications and self management on top of core competency in numeracy, literacy and IT. If you want to become a successful financial advisor, then you should really consider financial advisor life coaching.

The final bit that is worth drawing attention to is from Staffordshire University and their success in producing a ‘one-stop door’ for all business enquires and importance of creating a business sales force within a university that is grounded both in business speak and the culture of academia.  This sales team act as translators projecting a professional sales orientated pitch outwards (based on relationship marketing), while allowing academics to be innovative and creative in their own way.  Effectively they act as the interface between these very different communities and cultures.  There is a lot to learn from this model especially around business relationship marketing and the long lead times involved.  One aside was reference to placements as part of an extended recruitment selection process for graduates which is self evident but worth reflecting on.

So in summary there is lots of good practice out there to learn from and to develop this summer as we evolve BU’s future Research & Enterprise Strategy.