BU Research Blog

2 October 2024

Share your thoughts for our anonymous survey about online safety for LGBTQ+ young people

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

The LGBTQ+ Digital Lives project at Bournemouth University is exploring the online safety experiences of young people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Could you spare a few minutes to share your thoughts on this important issue?

The content and ideas shared from this survey will contribute to the ‘Our Digital Lives’ art exhibition, which will be on display during the ESRC Festival of Social Science (October – November 2024) with plans to also display during LGBTQ+ History Month (February 2025) and Pride Month (June 2025).

Your participation in this survey is greatly appreciated. Please be assured that all responses will remain completely anonymous with no personal identifiers collected. Your answers will be used solely to support the ‘Our Digital Lives’ art exhibition.

Please submit your responses by Friday 4 October

Share you thoughts here

17 September 2024

Record your public events for the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey

HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

We are putting together the 2023-24 HE-BCI return and could use your help to make sure we include all of BU’s social, community, and cultural events

ESRC Festival of Social Science event in 2023

What is HE-BCI?

The HE-BCI survey is a mandatory annual return that BU makes to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). An important part of this is to capture activity in terms of social, community and cultural events intended for the external community. This data is part of the information used to determine the allocation of Higher Education and Innovation Funding (HEIF) for BU.

What activities can be included?

Please include details of any relevant events that you have been involved in which took place/will take place between 1 August 2023 – 31 July 2024

Events must have been open to the public or intended for an external (non-academic) group and have included an exchange of knowledge. Events may take place in the UK or overseas

Eligible events include:

Public lectures or talks
Performance arts
Exhibitions
Museum education
Festival activity
Events for school/youth group
Events for other external (non-academic) groups
Media engagement

Please head to this SharePoint site to add your events.

The deadline for submitting your events is Friday 15 November.

The SharePoint site provides details about what data is collected, including calculating attendee numbers, staff time, reporting online activities and multiple related events

If you have any questions about the HE-BCI return, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

6 September 2024

Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey – report your public events

HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement Amanda Edwards

We are compiling the 2023-24 return and need your help to ensure we record all BU’s relevant social, community and cultural events

Dr Samuel Hills and Dr Jill Nash taking part in an ESRC Festival of Social Science event in 2023

What is HE-BCI?

The HE-BCI survey is a mandatory annual return that BU makes to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). An important part of this is to capture activity in terms of social, community and cultural events intended for the external community. This data is part of the information used to determine the allocation of Higher Education and Innovation Funding (HEIF) for BU.

What activities can be included?

Please include details of any relevant events that you have been involved in which took place/will take place between 1 August 2023 – 31 July 2024

Events must have been open to the public or intended for an external (non-academic) group and have included an exchange of knowledge. Events may take place in the UK or overseas

Eligible events include:

Public lectures or talks
Performance arts
Exhibitions
Museum education
Festival activity
Events for school/youth group
Events for other external (non-academic) groups
Media engagement

Please head to this SharePoint site to add your events.

The deadline for submitting your events is Friday 15 November.

The SharePoint site provides details about what data is collected, including calculating attendee numbers, staff time, reporting online activities and multiple related events

If you have any questions about the HE-BCI return, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

6 September 2024

Presenting Studies on LLMs Reasoning Capabilities in Sentiment Analysis of Mass-Media texts at NLPSummit-2024

conferences, Knowledge Exchange nrusnachenko

As a part of reseach studies in Natural Langauge Processing (NLP) field, this year I am delighted to present the most recent advances of Generative AI in it at NLPSummit-2024. The 5’th summit represents a free online conference September 24-26, hosted by JohnSnowLabs. The conference is dedicated to showcase the best practices, real-world case studies and challanges in Generative AI for Natural Language Processing.

By joining to my talk you become aware of how Large Language Models (LLMs) could be applied for retrieving implicit information from non-structured texts. Sentiment Analysis represent one of such problems, and as a task aimed at extraction of the hidden opinion of the author towards objects mentioned in text. We start by discovering reasoning capabilities of the most popular Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Mistral, Gemma, Microsoft-Phi, and more) out-of-the-box to show their limitations in retrieving authors opinion from Mass-media texts. To address the existed limitations in models reasoning capabilities 🧠 , we cover Chain-of-Thought technique and explore the way of its proper adaptiation in Sentiment Analysis. It is worth to note that the techniques, to be covered, could be distributed and adapted in the other domains that go beyond Mass-media. Such domains include but are not limited to: medical (adverse drug reaction), literature (fictional chatbot development), conversational (emotion extaction / empathy mapping).

These advances were achieved while at Centre for Applied Creative Technologies CfACTs+ by working on “Marking Medical Image Reports Automatically with Natural Language Processing (NLP-MMI)” project.

The keylinks realted to the event and presentation in particular, are as follows:

📍 Event page: https://www.nlpsummit.org/nlp-summit-2024/
⏰ When: 24-26 September 2024 (Online)
⭐ Project: https://github.com/nicolay-r/Reasoning-for-Sentiment-Analysis-Framework

Dr. Nicolay Rusnachenko
Research Fellow at Centre For Applied Creative Technologies PLUS (CFACT+)
Bournemouth University

5 September 2024

RKEDF: Early Career Researcher Network – Introduction/New to BU

Training jfallows

RKEDF: Early Career Researcher Network – Introduction/New to BU

Weds 2nd Oct 14:00-15:00, Talbot Campus

This session is facilitated by BU Professors and ECRN conveners. It is an open introduction to working, researching and thriving at BU where you will learn about key contacts and services, how to manage the expectations of your role, and share advice on developing your skills as an early career researcher.

It is open to all who identify as being in the early stages of their research career – whether a Postgraduate Researcher, newly-appointed academic, or returning to research.

Book your place here

If you are not already a member of the Early Career Researcher Network (ECRN) but would like to be, or if you have any questions, please contact: RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk.

4 September 2024

Meeting about collaborative research in Nepal

international Edwin van Teijlingen

The University of Huddersfield recently hosted the 2^nd annual meeting for the Global Consortium for Public Health Research (GCPHR), with the theme ‘Research Priority in Nepal’. A lovely write-up of the even just appeared online (click here to read this). Among its invited international delegates were Dr. Pramod Regmi (Centre for Wellbeing & Long-Term Health) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health). GCPHR is led by Prof Padam Simkhada, Professor of Global Health and Associate Dean (International) of the School of Human & Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield as well as Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences at Bournemouth University. This interdisciplinary event was funded by funded by the University of Huddersfield’s PVC International’s International collaborative fund (ICF).

After the event BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi reminded us that: “It is important to meet up in person, especially for larger international and interdisciplinary research projects. There is only so much you can do online in meeting.” There is a great advantage of online meetings by Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, especially when working with countries like Nepal. Not least of course in reducing our global carbon footprint. Of course, such meeting help academics to build and maintain research contacts across the globe, but it is not the same as sitting in the same room with someone and share ideas over coffee.

31 July 2024

Research Priorities for Nepal: Planning meeting

conferences, international, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Last Friday (July 26) members of the GCPHR (Global Consortium for Public Health Research) held their second Annual Meeting at the University of Huddersfield. This year’s theme was “Research Priority for Nepal”. GCPHR is an international network of public health researchers, practitioners, and policymakers; for details click here! In addition to researchers from the University of Huddersfield, there were participants from Bournemouth University, Keele University, York St. John University, the University of Greenwich, Liverpool John Moores University, NHS England, the University of Bradford, the University of Wolverhampton, the University of Aberdeen, The University of Sheffield, Tribhuvan University (Nepal), Technical University of Kaiserslautern (Germany), Kids at School in Nepal UK, Green Tara Nepal, Global Banking School UK, QINET International, among others.

Bournemouth University was represented by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic in the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-Term Health (CWLTH), Mr. Yagya Adhikari, Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS), and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH). Since the audience was very interdisciplinary with both academics and representative from development and research charities there were thought-provoking presentations at the GCPHR meeting resulting in stimulating debates. These will hopefully lead to future collaborations, grant applications and publications.

We thank Prof. Padam Simkhada, Dr. Rajeeb Sah, and many others from the University of Huddersfield for the excellent organisation of the event. Prof. Padam Simkhada is also Bournemouth University Visiting Professor in FHSS.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Dr. Pramod Regmi

12 July 2024

We can assist in promoting your public engagement event or activity

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

At BU we promote and celebrate the work done to engage public audiences with our research.

The Public Engagement with Research team, part of Research Development and Support, can help you reach relevant audiences through a monthly newsletters and social media channels.

To be considered for promotion, your event or activity must meet the following criteria:

Targeted at and open to non-academic audiences
Centered on BU research, either exclusively or as part of a broader programme. Events not involving BU research, such as marketing or recruitment events, will not be accepted
Submitted by the first two weeks of the month prior to the event. For instance, an event in June should be submitted by May 14

Event descriptions may be edited to align with our style guidelines

Share your upcoming public event or activity with us

12 July 2024

Tell us about the social, cultural & community events you’ve been involved in

HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

BU is compiling data for the annual Higher Education–Business & Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey and we’d like to know about the social, cultural and community events that you have been involved in.

What is HE-BCI?

The HE-BCI survey is a mandatory annual return that BU makes to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). An important part of this is to capture activity in terms of social, community and cultural events intended for the external community. This data is part of the information used to determine the allocation of Higher Education and Innovation Funding (HEIF) for BU

What activities can be included?

Please include details of any relevant events that you have been involved in which took place/will take place between 1 August 2023 – 31 July 2024

Events must have been open to the public or intended for an external (non-academic) group and have included an exchange of knowledge. Events may take place in the UK or overseas

Eligible events include:

Public lectures or talks
Performance arts
Exhibitions
Museum education
Festival activity
Events for school/youth group
Events for other external (non-academic) groups
Media engagement

Please head to this SharePoint site to add your events.

The deadline for submitting your events is Friday 15 November

The SharePoint site provides details about what data is collected, including calculating attendee numbers, staff time, reporting online activities and multiple related events

If you have any questions about the HE-BCI return, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

11 July 2024

Everyday Law & Ethics Public Lecture Series -Tattoos: your rights & the law

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

Join our public lecture and debate on Wednesday 24 July, 5:30-7pm to find out about tattoos and the law

As more and more people choose to be tattooed in the UK, how tattoos and the law interact becomes increasingly important.

For tattoo artists, there are growing concerns around tattoo copying, and questions of whether tattoos are protected by copyright law. For tattooed people, there are questions about discrimination and whether employers can choose not to hire you, simply because you are tattooed.

Join our public lecture and debate, led by Bournemouth University legal expert Melanie Stockton-Brown to find out about your tattoos and the law. Discuss your own experiences and potential legal changes.

Find out more

10 July 2024

Everyday Law & Ethics Public Lecture Series: Your rights to the right diagnosis in Dorset

Knowledge Exchange, NHS, Public engagement ballen

Join our public lecture and debate on Wednesday 17 July, 5:30-7pm to find out how to advocate for your rights to medical treatment

People living in Dorset currently face some of the worst levels of contact with health services in the UK, with GP waiting times in the county the second longest in England.

Join our public lecture and debate, led by Bournemouth University legal experts Dr Samuel Walker and Dr Matthew Watkins to explore your legal and ethical rights to timely care and treatment. Discover practical steps you can take to speed up diagnosis and treatment for you and your family, and discuss the recent introduction of ‘Martha’s Rule’, which enables you to seek a second opinion on the NHS.

After the lecture (30 minutes approx.), you will be invited to move into small groups to discuss your own experiences and suggest ways to improve local access and provision to healthcare services

Find out more

1 July 2024

Public Engagement Seed Fund: Applications Closed

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

Thank You for Your Interest!

The application period for the Public Engagement Seed Fund has now closed. Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest and submitted an application.

The Public Engagement Seed Fund was designed to provide small amounts of funding (up to £500) to help researchers develop and incorporate meaningful, two-way engagement with beneficiaries and research users. The aim is to help support a more engaged research culture across BU and accelerate the impact arising from research.

Looking Ahead

For those who were unable to apply this year, we hope to offer the Public Engagement Seed Fund again next year. Please do keep a look out for future announcements and opportunities.

Awarded Projects

We will be sharing updates on the awarded projects in the autumn, highlighting the fantastic work being done to engage and inspire communities.

Thank you once again for your interest and participation.

If you have any questions about the Seed Fund, or if you’re interested in engaging with the public about your research, please contact the Public Engagement with Research Team: publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

20 June 2024

Tell us about the social, cultural & community events you’ve been involved in

HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

BU is compiling data for the annual Higher Education–Business & Community Interaction survey. Please tell us about the social, cultural and community events that you have been involved with.

What is HE-BCI Table 5 and why do we have to complete it?

HE-BCI, the Higher Education Business & Community Interaction survey, collects financial and output data related to knowledge exchange every academic year. This includes details of lectures, exhibitions and other cultural activities, which are provided in Table 5. The data is collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Research England uses elements of the data provided in the HE-BCI survey to inform the allocation of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).

Which activities do I need to report?

Please include all events that:

took place between 1 August 2023 and 31 July 2024
were open to the public
were intended for an external (non-academic) group
included an exchange of knowledge
were held in the UK or overseas.

How to add your data to the form

Go to the page called Table 5 2023-24, linked in the sidebar or from the button at the end of this page.
To add an event to the table, click the +New button. A form will appear on the right-hand side. Please complete all the relevant details, entering text and using the drop-down menus as appropriate. Incomplete entries cannot be included in our submission and so will not be counted.
When you’ve added all required details, click the Save button.
You can also choose to edit in Grid view, which is similar to using Excel.

Further information

The SharePoint site provides details about what data is collected, including how to calculate attendee numbers, staff time, reporting online activities and multiple related events.

If you have any other questions about the HE-BCI return, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.

12 June 2024

Take part in Being Human Festival 2024 and celebrate their 10th anniversary

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

The call for applications for Being Human Festival 2024 has been extended

To enable as many people as possible to participate in this year’s festival, they have extended the deadline for the Festival Event (unfunded) pathway to Thursday 18 July, 5pm

Every year, researchers, staff from universities, and research organisations are invited to take part in this national festival by organising a public engagement event or activity, rooted in humanities research.

Any organisation with a connection to humanities research is eligible to organise a festival event via this pathway, including museums, galleries, archives, libraries, publishers, community organisations and more – but all events must involve an eligible researcher in their planning and delivery.

This year’s festival will take place 7–16 November, with the theme ‘Landmarks’, honouring the their 10^th anniversary. They will be looking back on landmark events in their history, while imagining landmarks they might yet create. Researchers are invited to think about physical or metaphorical landmarks and how they shape our world.

Read more about the theme ‘Landmarks’

Further details on how to apply, and answers to some frequently asked questions, are available here

Alternatively, if you would like advice on developing ideas or submitting an application, please contact the Public Engagement with Research Team: publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

5 June 2024

Postgraduate Research Summer Social – 1 WEEK TO GO

PG research amoyse

1 WEEK TO GO until to The Doctoral College Postgraduate Research Summer Social! Hosted at the delightful Branksome Dene Room, situated in a stunning location that overlooks the beach with amazing views of the sea to Old Harry Rocks.

We’ve booked this unique location for the exclusive use of PGRs and Supervisors for the afternoon to unwind and catch up with your fellow researchers and academics.

The Doctoral College PGR events at Branksome Dene Room are always a huge success so we hope you can make it.

We are pleased to offer a BBQ style lunch menu including sausages and burgers (vegetarian/vegan options available), a salad bar, teas, coffees and mocktails! You are also welcome to bring your own refreshments to enjoy.

Don’t miss out, book your ticket now!

Ticket: £5

If you have any questions, please do get in touch:

Arabella Moyse [Doctoral College Marketing & Events Coordinator] –

DoctoralCollege@bournemouth.ac.uk

Twitter: @BUDocCollege | #BUDoctoralCollege

31 May 2024

BU professor keynote speaker at international conference

international, Public engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

The fourth International Conference on Medical and Health Sciences in September 2024 aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from around the world to discuss the latest advancements, challenges, and innovations in the field of medical and health sciences. Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen co-director of the Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health (CMWH) has been invited as a keynote speaker. He will be addressing the issue of being a interdisciplinary researcher in a larger research team.

10 May 2024

We can help promote your public engagement event or activity

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

At BU we promote and celebrate the work done to engage public audiences with our research.

The Public Engagement with Research team in Research Development and Support can help promote your event to relevant audiences through our monthly newsletters and via our social media channels.

To be considered for inclusion, your event or activity must be;

Focused on BU research, either solely or as part of a wider programme. Events or activities that do not involve BU research, such as marketing or recruitment events, will not be accepted.
Intended for and open to non-academic audiences, either entirely or as a portion of the audience.
Submitted, at the latest, in the first two weeks of the month preceding the event. For example, an event taking place in June should be submitted via the form any time before 14 May.

Event descriptions may be edited for consistency in style with other content.

Share your upcoming public event or activity

If you have any questions, please contact the team publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk

10 May 2024

Funded Public Engagement Opportunity – ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024 -Deadline for Applications Thursday 16 May

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

Funding of up to £1,000 per event is available, and BU’s Public Engagement with Research team offers continuing advice and support on all areas of event development, planning, delivery and evaluation.

The 22nd annual ESRC Festival of Social Science will take place this year Saturday 19 October – Saturday 9 November, with the theme ‘Our Digital Lives’

This national festival offers the chance to create an inspiring event to connect your research in an engaging way with a broad public audience and take your research off campus.

For the second year, BU is partnering with the University of Southampton (UoS) and we are particularly keen to hear from researchers who have already established collaborations with UoS colleagues and may wish to run a joint event. This collaboration enables us to run an extended programme of events, broadening our impact reach and expanding our networks across Dorset and Hampshire.

About the Festival of Social Science

The Festival of Social Science is an annual celebration of research and knowledge about humans and society. It is an opportunity for anyone to explore topics relating to social science – from health and wellbeing to crime, equality, education and identity – through events run by researchers from UK universities. There’s no cost to attend, and most are open to everyone, though some are aimed at specific groups.

What if I’ve never done public engagement before?

Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is the ideal place. You’ll have access to support, advice and training throughout. If you’re unsure, seek out a more experienced colleague to collaborate with.

Explore previous events from BU and examples from around the country
Start brushing up on how to make public engagement work for you. A great place to start is BU’s own video guide to getting started in public engagement with research (Brightspace). You can also browse guidance and case studies from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE)

Can I apply if I’m not a social scientist?

The ESRC says that events must “feature social science (ideally with a social scientist involved in the event)”. If this doesn’t clearly apply to you, consider these options;

Does your research have clear implications for society that could be explored from a social science perspective?
Could you collaborate with a social scientist, combining your resources and creativity to explore the impact of your research? If you’re looking for a collaborator, the Research Blog or BU website are great places to start or contact us for help

What support will I get?

Being part of this festival means a higher level of support and reach than we usually provide.

Before applying, you’ll have access to:

Advice on request from BU’s Public Engagement Team
The ESRC’s Festival Event Leader pack

When your application is successful, you’ll get:

Funding of up to £1,000 managed by RDS
Training provided by the ESRC Festival of Social Science
Continuing advice and support from BU’s public engagement team on all areas of planning, delivering, evaluating your activity
Wide-scale promotion and marketing of your event by BU, UoS and the ESRC

How to Apply

Apply to take part in the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024 by completing the online application form,

Deadline for applications: midnight at the end of Thursday 16 May 2024.

ESRC’s Festival Event Leader pack

Apply here

Should you require any more information, or if you would like to arrange a chat with the Public Engagement Team to discuss your application, please contact: publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Tagged / event

Record your public events for the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey

We are putting together the 2023-24 HE-BCI return and could use your help to make sure we include all of BU’s social, community, and cultural events

Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey – report your public events

We are compiling the 2023-24 return and need your help to ensure we record all BU’s relevant social, community and cultural events

Presenting Studies on LLMs Reasoning Capabilities in Sentiment Analysis of Mass-Media texts at NLPSummit-2024