Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
The Innovation Common Room offers researchers the opportunity to connect, exchange ideas, and provide mentorship in a casual environment over coffee.
Academics are welcome to invite their Post-Graduate Students
Please contact Wendelin Morrison, BU Knowledge Exchange Manager, if you would like more information: wmorrison@bournemouth.ac.uk
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
ESRC Festival of Social Science event 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.
Last year we recorded 200+ events and a total of 18.5m attendees (which includes media appearances) for the 2022-23 return. We want to ensure we can do as well, if not better for this year!
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:
Please head to this SharePoint site to add your events.
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
We are excited to announce the RKEDF Early Career Researcher Network 2024-25 training programme. Please note, these sessions are open to ECRs, PGRs and MCAs. Maybe you’ve had a break from research and want to hone your skills – all are welcome!
The ECR network meets monthly, with a great line-up of events and networking opportunities. Many of the sessions will have a theme, a discussion on a popular topic, followed by more general Q&A and networking. Some sessions are drop-in surgeries where you can pop in for a chat with other Early Career Researchers, or to discuss concerns if you need a bit of guidance. Follow up support is also available if needed. There is a mix of online and in person sessions. You can find details about the content of each session and book your place by clicking the event title or visit the RKEDF SharePoint. All sessions with * are also open to PGRs. Please note, you can only currently book onto sessions until December. Bookings for later sessions will open in December.
| Workshop theme | Date | Time |
F2F/online |
| Introduction/New to BU?* Everything you wanted to know about being an ECR (but were afraid to ask) | 02/10/2024 | 14:00 – 15:00 | F2F |
| Academic Publishing* Where to start, gaining experience and what to avoid | 30/10/2024 | 13:00 – 14:00 | F2F |
| Ethics – Clinical research governance* | 04/11/2024 | 14:00 – 15:00 | online |
| Ethics – Values, standards & BU process * | 04/11/24 | 12.00 – 13:00 | online |
| REF for ECRs* A Beginner’s Guide | 20/11/2024 | 13:00 – 15:00 | F2F |
| Surgery: ECR drop in session | 04/12/2024 | 13:00 – 14:00 | online |
| Demonstrating research impact* | 03/02/2025 | 14:00 – 16:00 | F2F |
| Work/life balance for ECRs and PGRs* | 12/02/2025 | 13:00-14:00 | F2F |
| Imposter Syndrome* | 19/03/2025 | 13:00 – 14:00 | F2F |
| Surgery and/or Pay Prog & Promo | TBC | TBC | TBC |
| Ethics – Clinical research governance* | 19/05/2025 | 11:00 – 12:00 | online |
| Ethics – Values, standards & BU process * | 19/05/2025 | 12:00 – 13:00 | online |
| Professional Practice for ECRs* (reviewing, external examining, joining associations, doing KE, PE follow up, impact) | 21/05/2025 | 13:00 – 14:00 | TBC |
| Workshop tied to the Research Conference/ Public Engagement and Impact* (Including NGT scheme) | TBC | TBC | F2F |
If you have any questions, please contact the RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk
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:
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
The Doctoral College is hosting the 16th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference in November and the call for abstracts is now open.
The conference is a great opportunity to showcase and promote your research, whether you have just started, or you are approaching the end of your journey at BU.
Attending the conference offers a fantastic chance to engage and network with the postgraduate research community and find out more about the exciting and fascinating research that is happening across BU.
Postgraduate researchers (PGRs) are invited to submit their abstracts to present their research via oral or poster presentation:
Application Form and Guidance.
Closing date for submissions: Monday 21 October 09:00.
Registration to attend will open in November. The event will be open to all BU members and external participants.
Date of conference: Wednesday 27 November (all day)
Location: Fusion Building, Talbot Campus
View posters from last year’s Postgraduate Research Conference.
For any queries, please email pgconference@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Join us for the end of project celebration event for the NIHR funded Trans Aware Cancer Care (TACC) project. Wednesday September 25th 10.45-1.30pm Mast Studios Southampton
This will be an opportunity to see the BU PIER community researcher model in action. Hear how the community researchers captured such deep and rich insights -what worked well, the many lessons learnt, and how the project will inform service developments to reduce health inequalities for the trans+ community.
For more details about the event and to book a place is here is the link:
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:
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
Don’t miss out on your chance to book onto our upcoming 3C event!
We hope you have had a restful summer. To welcome you back to the new academic year, the Doctoral College are inviting all PGRs, Supervisors and RDP facilitators to this 3C event!
For this special welcome back 3C event, we are swapping out the usual cake for cheeseburgers! Reconnect with your PGR community whilst enjoying a cheeseburger in the Talbot Campus courtyard, opposite Weymouth House.
Let’s foster collaboration, support and networking!
The University of Huddersfield recently hosted the 2nd 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.
Today BMJ Global Health posted a blog (read it here!) about our recently publish paper ‘Socio-economic experiences of female community health volunteers matter: insights from Nepal’ which appeared last month in the Open Access journal PLOS Global Public Health [1]. In Nepal, about 50,000 Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) are a vital human resource for both government and non-government agencies delivering primary healthcare at community level. Their contribution to maternal and child health is recognised globally. Being an active volunteer brought some interesting issues for the FCHCs. For example, the social experience of working in one’s own village was not the same for all. While community recognition of volunteers’ work was seen as a motivator, most volunteers thought they were not given due respect by fellow community members. Too often community members mistook volunteers as paid health workers often due to their involvement in medicine distribution, a rare bi-annual activity. 
Our recent paper in BMJ Global Health was highlighted in an earlier BU Research Blog (to read this click here!). This latest paper is the third one based on Dr. Sarita Panday’s PhD research conducted at the University of Sheffield [2-3]. It is the fourth Bournemouth University paper on FCHVs with last weeks publication in the Journal of Manmohan memorial Institute of Health Sciences [4]
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
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:
Event descriptions may be edited to align with our style guidelines
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:
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
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.
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
Have you heard the news!!!!!!
We are excited to share some great RKEDF training opportunities coming up in July 2024!
Click on the titles to find further details and book your place!!!!
AHRC & ESRC: How to write an application in the new format for the Funding Service
Thursday, July 4, 11:00 – 13:00 – Online
The session will cover the requirements for the new UKRI application format. We will discuss the application structure focusing on AHRC and ESRC and the sections and how to complete them. The session will be framed with more general information on the various Research Councils that comprise UKRI and best practice in writing applications for external research funding.
Principal Investigation – Post Award for RKE
Wednesday, July 10, 14:00 – 15:00 – Online
This session is aimed at any researcher who is, who plans to be, a Principal Investigator for an externally funded research or knowledge exchange project.
New Generation Thinkers 2025 – AHRC/BBC Radio 4
Thursday, July 11, 11:00 – 13:30 – F112 – Fusion Building – Talbot Campus
This is our annual new generation thinkers’ workshop, where we look at the call, requirements, eligibility and having a panel chair and member’s point of view. For early career researchers and PGRs who want to share their research with the public.
Call information: Develop your media skills with the New Generation Thinkers scheme. The scheme is a partnership between the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the BBC.
Building a Policy Influencing Strategy
Friday, July 12, 9:30 – 16:30 and Thursday, July 18, 9:00 – 16:00 – Zoom
A one-day online workshop for up to eight researchers, delivered via Zoom and facilitated by public affairs and policy consultant Carys Davis, from The Other Place.
The session will enable participants to:
RKEDF: ECRN: Where do you begin with Research funding?
Friday 12th July – 10:00-12:00 – Online
The workshop is aimed at researchers from across BU at either postdoctoral or early career stage. It will focus on funders including (but not limited to) the AHRC, UKRI, British Academy, Welcome Trust, and NIHR.
Are you an Early Career Researcher interested in applying for research funding but unsure where to start? In this BU ERC Network special session, professional bid writing consultant Sally Baggott (PhD) offers her insights in the contemporary funding landscape for ECRs,
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Please assist us in avoiding any waste of resources; make sure you can attend or cancel your booking prior to the session.
For more training opportunities, please visit the ‘SharePoint site’ here.
For any further information, please contact: RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk
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
Dr. Nirmal Aryal, who is a part-time researcher in the Department of Nursing Sciences, is in Malaysia this week to prepare further migrant-health research collaborations and plans. His trip is part of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) seed-corn funding for Early Career Researchers. In Malaysia Nirmal has conducted several PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement) events with migrant workers and stakeholders, including current Nepalese migrant workers. Nirmal is working closely with Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (both based in FHSS) in the field of the health and well-being of Nepalse migrant workers.
Today Nirmal also met with the Ambassador of Nepal in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) who expressed a great interest in our work.
Nirmal is on a double mission as building links in Malaysia is also important for our latest funded project ‘ENSURE‘. ENSURE is a project led by La Isla Network in the United States of America. La Isla Network, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (based in the U.S.), the Nepal Development Society and Bournemouth University are leading the first-ever international effort to research and address trafficking among Nepalese labour migrants. The work is funded by a $4 million cooperative agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, International Programs.
BU staff can login below:
Help highlight BU’s Impact – Share your involvement in Community and Cultural Events
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MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
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European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published