Tagged / Fusion

School of Tourism’s Adele Ladkin on her FIF Staff Mobility Project: Visiting the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Themis Foundation in Andorra

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

Professor Adele Ladkin has received £5,000 funding from the FIF staff mobility strand to undertake two week long visits to the UNWTO Themis Foundation Headquarters in Andorra.

As part of its Capacity Building Programme, the UNWTO.Themis Foundation provides educational courses and workshops for tourism industry experts.  These are in a range of subjects, for example tourism marketing, adventure tourism and sustainable tourism.  Because of the nature of these courses and the demand for different topics, subject experts from the tourism industry and public sectors are recruited as tutors to deliver the courses.

Adele and Ms Sònia Figueras, the UNWTO.Capacity Programme manager at the UNWTO Themis Foundation are engaged in collaborative work to produce a teaching guide and intensive training course for tutors responsible for delivering tourism capacity building courses and workshops as part of the UNWTO.Capacity Programme.  The Themis Foundation enables UNWTO Member States to devise and implement education, training and capacity building policies, plans and tools that fully harness the employment potential of their tourism sector and effectively enhance its competitiveness and sustainability.  Working with Ms Figueras, Adele will provide input into teaching methodologies commonly used in tourism programmes.

The collaboration has arisen as the School of Tourism is part of the Themis TedQual Network and aims to support activities undertaken in the areas of education, training and tourism capacity building. The impact of the collaboration will be practical through the dissemination and use of the teachers guide and the training course by highly experienced tourism subject experts. The collaboration and pedagogic approach will also be presented at an appropriate tourism educator’s conference. This knowledge exchange opportunity demonstrates the Schools commitment to supporting tourism education initiatives.

Adele will be spending time in Andorra at the headquarters of the Themis Foundation to work directly on the course materials as well as on-line collaborative working. The visits will enable Adele to spend a concentrated period of time working on the project, and will also give her further insight into the activities of the Themis Foundation.  She plans to undertake the first visit later this year – weather permitting as the mountain roads into Andorra are often covered in snow!

Hear about Julia Round’s experience of the ‘Comic Arts Conference’ made possible by a £1200 award from the Fusion Investment Fund

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

I applied to the BU Fusion Fund under the Networking and Staff Mobility strand for travel funding to attend the Comic Arts Conference, held annually in San Diego, CA.  This year marked the 20th anniversary of this extremely important academic conference, which is organised by the Institute for Comics Studies (http://www.instituteforcomicsstudies.org/) as part of Comic-Con International. Like the Comic-Con itself, theCAC has grown in size and stature since its beginnings, and now invites presentations from academics, teachers, professionals, critics and fans and throughout the Comic-Con weekend it attracts a wide audience. 

This year the interdisciplinary programming included presentations from political, transmedial, educational, historical, cultural and ethnographic perspectives, as well as many more. These included panels such as ‘Subaltern Counterculture and the Strengths of the Underdog’ and ‘Teaching with Comics’ as well as crowd-pleasing subjects like the continuation of the ‘Whedonverse’ (discussing the comics of Buffy and Willow, amongst others) and ‘The Dark Knight Rises: Is Batman Broken?’ in which academics Travis Langley and Robin Rosenberg expanded on their recently published monographs.  Friday’s sessions included ‘Images of Nation’, ‘Revolution and Reaction’ (featuring comix creator and historian Trina Roberts who talked about her new comic Lily Renee: Escape Artist) and two afternoon sessions in which scholars such as Arlen Schumer, Mark Evanier, Charles Hatfield and Andrei Molotiu discussed the work of comics legend Jack Kirby from a variety of perspectives.

My aims for attending the conference were to promote the comics scholarship taking place in the UKand (of course!) the research and teaching being done here at BU. My presentation (‘Comics Scholarship in the UK’) discussed my experiences of launching and editing Studies in Comics journal, of joint conference organisation and collaborative activities between various UK comics scholarship initiatives, and reflected on the future possibilities for comics scholarship in the UK and the role of BU and Studies in Comics in enhancing these. 

I was also able to arrange an interview with key transmedia scholar Henry Jenkins and conduct an interview with comics creator Charlie Adlard (artist on The Walking Dead), both of which will soon see publication.  Henry Jenkins’ theories of transmediality form a key part of teaching on BACOM and BAENG units such as Adaptation, Alternate Worlds and Narrative Structures, and so current BU students will benefit directly from this opportunity. Research presented by other conference delegates will also inform future teaching on these courses.   

Attending the CACwas obviously a fantastic networking opportunity and I was honoured to meet pioneers of comics scholarship such as David Kunzle, John Lent, Vicki Green and  Joseph ‘Rusty’ Witek.  These scholars spoke about their forays into comics research back when the field was unrecognised and the term ‘graphic novel’ was yet to hit the public consciousness.  They also offered suggestions for the future of comics scholarship, suggesting that the field should keep its sense of humour and identity and ‘write to express not impress’ (John Lent).  It was particularly gratifying to see these trailblazers receive a standing ovation for all their work towards the creation and development of comics studies as a field in its own right and to meet them in person.  There was also an extra round of applause for John Lent (pictured below), whose International Journal of Comic Art continually seeks to expand the scope of comics studies and has paved the way for the acceptance of journals such the one I edit (Studies in Comics) by academic presses. 

At the other end of the scale, I also met participants in The Power of Comics’ Field Study programme (an initiative whereby undergraduate and postgraduate students earn college credit for conducting research while attending the convention: http://www.powerofcomics.com/fieldstudy), who presented their findings from the past few days.  Their projects included a study of dealer versus consumer attitudes; ‘cross-play’ experiences; aggression in geek culture; the volunteer experience and a comparative study with sporting events, amongst others.  I hope that making contact with future scholars such as these will benefit BU in the future. 

The core benefits I got out of attending theCACwere gaining primary research material through interviewing both a leading international scholar and a leading comics creator; the opportunity to meet both new and established scholars working in my discipline; disseminating my own research and promoting the reputation of BU; and (in due course) the publication of two interviews and a review of the conference in a peer-reviewed academic journal.  I am also in touch with a number of new contacts and we are discussing future research collaborations.  As an international visitor to theCAC, I was struck by how far so many of the attendees had travelled (from all overAmerica, as well as the rest of the world) and feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to attend such a global gathering.

FIF Launch Week – Focus on Co-Creation and Co-Production strand

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

 The popular Co-Creation and Co-Production (CCCP) strand is open to applications.  This strand was most popular of the three open to staff in the July round with 38 applications.

 A total of £246, 102.96 was awarded to successful applicants, to get ahead of the competition please note an important addition to the strand policy:

Successful bids will need to have benefits to the student experience at the core – and be able to demonstrate how this will occur, so hitting the Education point in the BU Fusion triangle is now more important than before.

Applications that do not satisfy how education at BU will be improved will not be looked at favourably by the panel.   To review the full strand developments and how this has affected the policy, you can view the updated FIF CCCP policy sept.

Our successful CCCP applicants have been blogging about their activity on our Research Blog, I hope that you will be successful in securing funds in this round and will join them!  Read their blogs below:

Sarah Bate who has used Fusion Investment funds to develop the Centre for Face Processing Disorders at BU – Watch out for the Centre’s regular updates on the Research Blog, and also check out www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org for more information.

Hossein Hassani is leading an inter-disciplinary project to characterize the socio-economic drivers underpinning change in freshwater host biodiversity that lead to the emergence of immuno-suppressant related human disease.

Don’t forget to take advantage of the intervention programmes running this October and November!

For further details about the fund please see www.bournemouth.ac.uk/FIF

Best of luck!

Adele Ladkin secures Fusion Investment Funding to visit the United Nations World Tourism Organisation in Andorra

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

Professor Adele Ladkin has received funding from the FIF staff mobility strand to undertake two week long visits to the UNWTO Themis Foundation Headquarters in Andorra.

As part of its Capacity Building Programme, the UNWTO.Themis Foundation provides educational courses and workshops for tourism industry experts.  These are in a range of subjects, for example tourism marketing, adventure tourism and sustainable tourism.  Because of the nature of these courses and the demand for different topics, subject experts from the tourism industry and public sectors are recruited as tutors to deliver the courses.

Adele and Ms Sònia Figueras, the UNWTO. Capacity Programme manager at the UNWTO Themis Foundation are engaged in collaborative work to produce a teaching guide and intensive training course for tutors responsible for delivering tourism capacity building courses and workshops as part of the UNWTO. Capacity Programme.  The Themis Foundation enables UNWTO Member States to devise and implement education, training and capacity building policies, plans and tools that fully harness the employment potential of their tourism sector and effectively enhance its competitiveness and sustainability. Working with Ms Figueras, Adele will provide input into teaching methodologies commonly used in tourism programmes.

The collaboration has arisen as the School of Tourism is part of the Themis TedQual Network and aims to support activities undertaken in the areas of education, training and tourism capacity building. The impact of the collaboration will be practical through the dissemination and use of the teachers guide and the training course by highly experienced tourism subject experts. The collaboration and pedagogic approach will also be presented at an appropriate tourism educator’s conference. This knowledge exchange opportunity demonstrates the Schools commitment to supporting tourism education initiatives.

Adele will be spending time in Andorra at the headquarters of the Themis Foundation to work directly on the course materials as well as on-line collaborative working. The visits will enable Adele to spend a concentrated period of time working on the project, and will also give her further insight into the activities of the Themis Foundation.  She plans to undertake the first visit later this year – weather permitting as the mountain roads into Andorra are often covered in snow!

FIF Launch Week – Focus on Staff Mobility and Networking strand

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

The Staff Mobility and Networking (SMN) strand exists to fund £1k-£10k projects enabling networking. In round one the committee funded 13 applications, awards totalling £72,771.33. 

A development for the second round of the strand is the inclusion of an Erasmus Staff Mobility strand which has been added to the scope of the SMN committee. Erasmus Application and Guidance (Word 2010).

The SMN strand of the FIF saw exciting initiatives from staff across BU, staff are starting to share their experiences and hopes for their projects using the Research Blog.  I hope you will be inspired to apply yourself to this strand! 

 

Read blog posts from funded applicants in round one below:

Chris Pullen – In this post Chris explains the background for his project entitled ‘A ‘tool kit’ to address Bullying and Name Calling in School: Teaching Practice and the use of Media in the Classroom’.

Some great research has already taken place looking at LGBT identity issues in school, Chris is looking to extend these ideas, looking at how media is used in the secondary school classroom. Exploring name calling that goes unchallenged within diverse social environments.

Jian Chang – who will establish a strategic partnership between the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) of Bournemouth University and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), and to create opportunities in joint research, enterprise and education endeavours. UESTC has been among the top ranked Chinese universities, and has been the best educational base in China for computer science and electronic engineering. It is located in Chengdu, one of the largest cities in Western China

Dont forget to apply before the 1st December deadline!

Fusion Investment Fund Launch Week – Focus on Study Leave strand

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

 The Study Leave (SL) grants are designed to buy individuals out of one semester/term of teaching and provide support for overseas travel and subsistence or for expenditure associated with distance working within the UK.  Opportunities for paid study leave include undertaking or participating in:

  1. A period(s) of business or industrial secondment.
  2. International staff exchange or periods of overseas research, professional practice or educational activity.
  3. In staff exchange or periods of research, professional practice or educational activity at other Universities or Government research establishments in the UK.
  4. Secondments within different parts of BU, for example within different Schools. 

Study Leave was the most undersubscribed strand of the Fund in round one with 5 applicants taking the £45,661.50 allocated in July.  To give some clarity on what will be funded by the committee please see the FIF Study Leave policy Sept V1

Matthew Bennett writes in his blog piece ‘Jumping Trains’ how Study Leave can help in building networks. Periods of study leave need not be contiguous but can consist of a series of short visits or secondments at one or more institutions. An application for Study Leave may be combined or linked to a bid to the Staff Networking and Mobility Strand where additional travel and subsistence costs are required. Periods of Study Leave are normally between 2 or 6 months, but some flexibility for both shorter and longer periods will be exercised by the committee where there are good reasons for doing so. 

The normal cycle of applications is two per year – June and December – however the Committee recognises that opportunities arise at other times and is prepared to take out of cycle applications at any point during an academic year.

I hope you will see the diversity of possibilities available from this strand – by reading the Dr Lai Xu post on securing the maximum £15,000 funding.  The project  ‘Strengthening Service Computing Research in BU’ is enabling inward mobility into the School of Design, Engineering and Computing.

As part of the intervention programmes in October and November the committee members are all contactable for help, please details on intervention activity here.

Good Luck!!

Fusion Investment Fund – 2012/13 December Round opens today!

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance, R & KE Operations

The Fusion Investment Fund (FIF) is again opening the three strands currently available to staff!

At c. £3m per annum for the first three years the FIF represents the significant investment that BU is making in the development of staff and students, and the embedding of the Fusion philosophy. 

New Fusion Investment Fund online application form and general FAQ’s can be viewed on the FIF website www.bournemouth.ac.uk/FIF   

Also launching today is the Erasmus Staff Mobility scheme which has been merged into the Existing Staff Mobility and Networking strand, please see Erasmus Application and Guidance (Word 2010) 

 Follow the links below to be directed to the new strand policy documents as well as the new Application Form:

 Details of the intervention sessions can be seen here. Apply before the deadline on 1st December!

 If you have any questions about the fund do not hesitate to contact Sam Furr FIF Administrator.

Fusion Investment Fund – Intervention Programmes in October / November 2012

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

Fusion Investment Fund Intervention Sessions

Applications to the December round of Fusion Investment Funding is now open.  To support academics in making applications two series of interventions are now available!

Grant Writing Development here at Talbot! – Book now onto the “Strengthening your FIF Proposal” workshop led by Martin Pickard

Two half day sessions are running on Tuesday 6th November with Martin Pickard from Grantcraft visiting Talbot. To book click here and fill out the booking form, numbers are limited to 12 in each session so do hurry!

Tuesday 6th November 2012, 09:00-12:00 – The Octagon, Talbot Campus

Tuesday 6th November 2012, 13:00-16:00 – The Octagon, Talbot Campus

This session will be led by Martin Pickard from Grantcraft and will provide academics who have drafted their FIF proposals with the opportunity to have their proposals reviewed by Martin and to identify areas that could be strengthened. Max of 12 attendees per session.

The session includes a one hour introductory presentation Martin calls ‘Grantmanship’, followed by a group workshop. Lunch included for both morning and afternoon attendees from 12:00 – 13:00.

Max of 12 attendees per session.

 

Hear it direct from the horse’s mouth! – Individual one-to-one advice from FIF committee members

For the December round of Fusion Investment Funding the committee members from all three strands (open to staff) are available to contact to arrange advice and guidance on completing your applications, from today right up to the 1st December deadline.

Please note the CCCP committee members will be available by phone or email only.

To contact members from one of the panels send an email to a member, names found clicking on the following pages:

Co-Creation and Co-Production strand CCCP

Staff Mobility and Networking strand SMN

Study Leave strand SL

 

Don’t forget to apply by the 1st December deadline!

Popcorn, ice-cream and a film

Dear all,

 We would like to invite you to a joint meeting of the Phenomenology Interest Group and the Leisure and Recreation theme for popcorn, ice-cream and a film.

 Date: Wed 31st October, Time: 2.00pm, Place: PG10

Subject: What it means to live in the world as exemplified by Tao Rospoli’s film Being in the World.  Some challenging ideas presented in a different way.  The film is 77 minutes.  Then there will then be an opportunity for discussion.

Refreshments: Popcorn/ice-cream will be supplied. Please contact Sean Beer (sbeer@bournemouth.ac.uk ) to book a place.

 What is the film about:   We quickly move beyond the Greeks and then beyond Descartes’ mentalist notion (‘I think therefore I am’) of reality to Martin Heidegger’s conception: reality and meaning exist where minds interact with the world. We see humans at work and at play: juggling, doing high-precision Japanese carpentry, flamenco, and cooking gumbo. While we watch them work and struggle to introspect and talk about their art and their craft, we also hear Hubert Dreyfus and his students reflect on Heidegger and his philosophy. Our artisans confess that they cannot explain in rational terms how they do what they do. The being is in the doing. Interviews and action intertwine to make a challenging philosophy clear to the lay viewer.

 

 

 

 

Fusion Investment Fund to award £11,736 to Business School / ApSci project

Funding opportunities, Fusion

Mapping the socioeconomic drivers of human disease emergence: Implications for AIDS and tuberculosis.

The tropical air was charged with hope and despair as the world’s leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro in 1992[1]. Twenty years later, the situation has not changed significantly and key targets for the reduction of biodiversity loss have not been met[1]. With the world’s population expected to grow from 6.8 billion today to 9.1 billion by 2050, how will all these extra mouths be fed at an acceptable cost to the planet? The world’s population more than doubled from 3 billion between 1961 and 2007, yet agricultural output kept pace — and current projections suggest it will continue to do so. However, Colin Chartres, director of the International Water Management Institute, has stated that “agriculture is the biggest user of fresh water, making up 70–90% of the annual water demand for many countries”[2]. The worldwide pattern of river threats offers the most comprehensive explanation so far of why freshwater biodiversity is considered to be in a state of crisis. Estimates suggest that at least 10,000–20,000 freshwater species are extinct or at risk, with loss rates rivalling those of previous transitions between geological epochs like the Pleistocene-to-Holocene.  

Along with the change of freshwater biodiversity expected as a result of environmental change and increased demand on ecosystem services, change in disease risk is also expected. It is forecasted that complex interactions between host type diversity and community of pathogens will be modified along with change of community structures. However, our current understanding of how change in biodiversity affects transmission and emergence of disease has been overlooked.

A group of researchers from different BU departments aim to characterise the socio-economic drivers underpinning change in freshwater host biodiversity that lead to the emergence of immuno-suppressant related human disease.  Specifically they are going to

1-to establish the worldwide distribution of microsporidian parasites and their fish hosts

2-to establish levels of host extinction risk

3-to model the links between freshwater biodiversity threats and a range of socio-economic parameters

4-to develop a set of risk maps of freshwater immuno-suppressant human disease emergence.

5-to relate our risk maps to current global distribution of AIDS and tuberculosis cases.

6- To establish a dynamical stochastic forecasting system based on a learning technique as a predictive epidemiology technique. The technique represents the state-of-the-art in epidemiology, linking socio-economic drivers and emerging infectious diseases.

The project would be conducting mostly based at the Business school but with regular meeting between the three supervisor, including skype meeting for the day to day supervision.

The outcomes of the on-going research will be of great interest to the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Development Programme  and public health NGOs (e.g. Project Hope, Oxfam).

 The FIF has been used to recruit a research assistant for a period of six months to help us with the meta-data collection, modelling and data analysis. This was key in initiating the first phase of the cross school collaboration.

Researchers: Dr Hossein Hassani (Business School), Dr Demetra Andreou (Applied Sciences) and Prof. Rudy Gozlan (Applied Science).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Editorial. Return toRio: Second chance for the planet Nature 486, 19 (07 June 2012) doi:10.1038/486019a

[2] http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101004/full/news.2010.490.html

Anybody been to Prison?

I mean in the capacity of a researcher or simialr? Why… because in a final year option I teach called Scoail Communication I am organising a student visit to Dorset based Prisons (Dorchester and Portland)as part of an assessed project. I have the ‘bones’ of the project idea but wondered if others might be able to share brief thoughts on what might be a fruitful angle(s) to take linking prisons to communication issues around marginality and voicelessness – cheers

Media Education Summit 2012 @ BU.

This week, BU hosted the 5th annual Media Education Summit. Over 60 delegates attended from all over the world, to hear a wide range presentations and to take part in themed conversations about the scholarship of learning and teaching in our field.

Keynote speakers included Caroline Norbury, the new Chief Executive of Creative England. She set the scene for the Summit and challenged all media educators to “get out more”!

Next we had Ian Livingstone – remember the Fighting Fantasy adventure books in the 80s? He started the Games Workshop and is now President of the videogame company, Eidos, home of Lara Croft. Ian talked about his NextGen report and the ICT curriculum in schools, which is now gaining quite a lot of traction.

Paul Lewis from The Guardian shared his thoughts on collaboration and what he called “layered journalism”. He used his own reporting of the riots last year in London and Birmingham as a case study, and showed how he used Twitter both as a source and a means to get close to the unfolding story.

Jon Dovey from the University of the West of England talked about his REACT project, which is a collaboration between UWE, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter Universities. Funded by the AHRC, the project aims to bring together arts and humanities researchers and creative economy companies to work on a series of ‘Sandbox’ initiatives. It’s probably the best example of ‘Fusion’ I have ever seen, and has given us all a lot to think about.

The Media School’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) started the Summit in 2008, as a forum to bring together those in the field of media and creative education. Since then we’ve been to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London and we are planning to hold the 2014 Summit outside the UK.

We filmed the keynotes, and they will start appearing on the website soon, if anyone is interested:

http://www.cemp.ac.uk/summit/2012/

Benefits of research-led learning on the student experience and NSS scores

Guidance

The results of the 2012 National Student Survey are due to be made public shortly and we will be able to see how BU compared to other institutions and the sector average. The NSS data is based on the opinions of final year undergraduates on a number of issues such as how the students rate the universities’ learning resources, quality of personal development support and how intellectually stimulating their courses are.

Traditionally Russell Group universities have had lower response rates but scored more highly (85% satisfaction rate compared to a sector average of 81%). Often these higher scores are attributed to these institutions having a culture of research-led learning where enquiry-based, independent learning in a world-class research environment is at the heart of the student experience. Students report finding research-led learning exciting, and they also help produce graduates who are highly sought-after by employers.

The University of Cambridge’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) enables students to work with academics on live research projects as fully participating members of the project team. UCL is increasing opportunities for undergraduate students to take an active part in research-led learning. There are a number of ways in which undergraduate students can be exposed to research including:

  • Learning about others’ research (research-informed learning)
  • Learning to do research (research skills and methods)
  • Learning in a research mode such as enquiry-based learning

There is a growing body of evidence showing that research-led learning offers significant benefits to the student experience and student development, including:

  • the motivation and development of students as a consequence of exposure to expert subject matter
  • promoting the value of enquiry and deep approaches to learning
  • helping to develop transferable skills through engagement in research tools and processes

Many universities are now taking steps to ensure that all students are taught by research-active academics throughout their studies. There are numerous benefits of being taught of research-active academics including:

  • academics are at the cutting-edge of their field
  • they teach more relevant and up-to-date material
  • they gain enthusiasm for their subject from being research-active
  • they teach from their immediate research experience
  • they offer students a unique experience

Rather than seeing teaching and research as separate activities there are huge benefits to students of combining the two to ensure that teaching and learning are research-led and research-informed. Research-led learning lies at the heart of BU’s concept of Fusion which underpins the BU2018 strategy. If you are already research-active then be creative with your teaching! Encourage students to be involved in your live research projects and use examples from your research findings and experience in your lessons and teaching materials. If you’d like to be research-active then consider joining the University’s Grants Academy which will enable you to develop the skills and knowledge required to embark on a research career.

For more ideas and examples on research-led learning see this report – Research-led learning: the heart of the Russell Group university experience

Fusion Investment Funding/Fund

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

Within the new Fusion Funding prospect here at Bournemouth University, I have just had success for a project examining  teaching practice and the use of media in the classroom.  The specific focus relates bullying, and name calling in school, and how media may be used to educate young learners.  I am very excited about this project, as it extends my foundational research in media representation and sexual diversity, allowing me to consider how teachers might relate issues of minority social identity.  Its very early days, as the project does not officially start until the 1st of October, and to be honest I have never done a blog before, and I (deliberately) have no presence on Facebook, Twitter etc, so the purpose of the blog is to reflect back on my progress for myself, as much as anything else, and if anyone reading this finds some interest, that’s great!

With this in mind, I thought I might share the background for the project.  A few years back in the late 198os, a secondary school teacher friend of mine often told me of instances when he used to play educational dramas about gay and lesbian youth identity issues.  I remember one time, he told me that he had played the television drama ‘The Two of  Us’ (Roger Tongue, 1988), which features a ‘kind of’ teen romance. This was quite daring, as at the time there was the backdrop of Clause 28, and the prohibition of educating school audiences about gay and lesbian identity.  Wind forward, many years later, and referencing an entirely different country, the work of Debra Chasnoff and her production company Groundspark, offered great insight.  Educational documentaries such as ‘Thats a Family’ (2000), and ‘Straighlaced’ (2009) produced by Groundspark offered insight into the diversity of families (adopted, single parent, same sex parents, diverse ethnicity etc) and the problem of stereotyping gender norms for teens.  Also Groundspark produced ‘Lets Get Real’ talking about issues of name calling in school.  At Bournemouth I had discussed the merits of these documentaries to students in the year 2 Media and Diversity option that I held.  I was inspired how students engaged with the subject area, and how they related these issues to their own productions.

More recently, specifically September 2010, I was invited to speak at the Westminster Media Forum.  The conference subject area was LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) representation in mainstream media.  I was thrilled to present a very brief paper to quite a diverse audience, including media professionals, broadcasters, and government representatives. My paper had been related to a need for more diverse representations.   The day after the conference, I read in the Guardian about the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a first year student at Rutgers university in the US.  He had killed himself, as his roommate had secretly filmed Tytler with a same sex partner.  The alleged shame appeared too much to bear for Tyler.  This high profile case made me investigate this further online.  I then discovered the ‘It Gets better Project’, a web site that was produced to offer support for youth contemplating suicide, due to oppression for sexual diversity.  What I did not know was that in the month of September 2010, a number of other gay male youth committed suicide also, stimulating video contribution to the ‘It Gets better Project’. I have done some papers on this area, considering the use of the site, but increasingly I am interested in how name calling is a real issue for young learners, and how words such as ‘gay’, ‘dyke’, ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’, are often unchallenged within diverse social environments.

So this is the very basic background to my research project.  Some great research has already taken place looking at LGBT identity issues in school, such as the No Outsiders Project (funded by the ESRC) a few years back relative to primary schools, but I am looking to extend these ideas, looking at how media is used in the secondary school classroom.

As a precursor to this project, I recently presented a paper at the Screen Conference in Glasgow, considering how children may read representations.  I was particularly interested in how young learners may read irony, which enables youth to make complex judgments about ‘earnest’ or ‘hyper-real’ representations.

So this is my starting point. I’ll add to this blog, as it all progresses.  Thanks again, supporters of this bid.

School of Tourism’s Lorraine Brown on her upcoming Study Leave

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

I am very pleased to be able to to share the first blog post for Fusion Investment Fund Projects.

Our research has shown that posts by our academics sharing their projects are our most widely read posts.  So the coming weeks are set to be packed with stories our successful applicants will share in the lead up to and during their funded projects.  I hope this post will spark your interest in applying for Study Leave and in Dr Brown’s two trips abroad starting in November.    

Dr Lorraine Brown from the School of Tourism has won funding from the Fusion Investment Fund Study leave strand to do research on literary tourism in both Paris and Berlin, She has been invited to visit the prestigious Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University as a visiting researcher in France’s leading tourism research centre (IREST), where she will based to do her primary research and where she will also network with colleagues in IREST’s interdisciplinary research centre.

In Berlin, she will be based in the Geography Department of the world-leading Humboldt University. A qualitative approach will be undertaken, involving observation and interviews over a six-week period at key literary tourist sites in Berlin, one of the top three literary tourism destinations in the world. In line with the Fusion agenda, findings will be published in top tourism journals; they will be disseminated to practitioners; and will inform the syllabus of one of the MSc units that the proposer leads.

At both Universities, Lorraine will explore opportunities for ongoing research collaboration.

If you would like further information on the fund please do get in touch by email with me.

Best wishes,

Sam

Fusion Investment Fund allocates £362k in first round!

Funding opportunities

We were delighted to receive so many applications for each of the strands under the Fusion Investment Fund and want to give a quick update on how many applications were successful in the first round.

All BU staff will know that Fusion is the key concept that underlies Vision & Values 2018; it is our key academic strategy and central to the culture of BU.  The Fusion Investment Fund is comprised of three funding strands which staff can apply to in order to support activities which will drive Fusion within BU. The three strands are:

The first competition under the Fusion Investment Fund was launched in April, with a closing date in July. Each application was reviewed by a panel dedicated to each of the strands (the hyperlinks above detail the panel membership). The three panels approved 13 applications under the Staff Networking & Mobility strand, 4 under Study Leave and 9 under Co-Creation and Co-Production were supported, totalling more than £362, 000.

Staff representing all Schools were successful in this first round of the Fusion Investment Fund and we will shortly be publicising the supported activities around both campuses.

The next round of funding will be available in December, and applications will be taken from October. We are currently revising some of the policy documents, but if you are thinking about applying why not take a look at the existing documentation using the hyperlinks above to get a flavour of what funding you can apply for under Fusion Investment.

 Sam Furr in the Research Development Unit is the administrator for the fund and available for any questions you may have in the meantime.

An update to all applicants to the Fusion Investment Fund!

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Guidance

We received 65 proposals across the three strands which was very encouraging and with the workshops we ran in June being well attended, I am pleased there has been a lot of interest in this new initiative. 

I received 39 applications for Co-Creation and Co-Production Strand (budget £400k), 7 for Study Leave Strand (budget £750k) and 19 for Staff Mobility & Networking Strand (budget £200k).  The committees meet this week to decide which proposals get funding and Matthew Bennett will be in touch to relay these decisions to all our applicants.  Applicants will know the outcome by 30th July.

If you were not successful in this round, I hope you won’t be discouraged from applying again to the fund in December, which is when we will open again applications.  There is an opportunity to receive face to face feedback from a member of the panels, this is helpful in shaping future applications and our committee members are keen to help you secure funding in December.

For any other queries about the fund, contact me Sam Furr.