Tagged / impact

RCUK impact case studies now online

Research news

RCUK logoResearch Councils UK (RCUK) have recently launched a number of best practice case studies online to help inspire you when filling out the Pathways to Impact section of your funding applications.

The Pathways to Impact are designed to encourage you to consider the sorts of activities that may help your research to have an impact. A wide variety of activities have been funded from the Pathways to Impact section, including public engagement, direct collaborations with beneficiaries, events and policy briefings.

The case studies provide personal accounts from RCUK-funded researchers about their approaches and experiences of Pathways to Impact. The case studies also provide guidance and top tips on how you can maximise impact from your research. Tips include avoiding potential pitfalls, such as focusing only on past activities rather than looking ahead to explore the potential impact of the project, and ensuring milestones are included where appropriate along with an explanation of the rationale behind activities.

Further case studies will be added over the coming weeks to build a knowledge bank of experience and best practice that you can draw on.

Increasing publication impact – publishing in journals covered by the main external publication databases

Guidance, Publishing

Publishing in journals covered by the main external publication databases, such as Scopus and the Web of Science, will give your research greater visibility and will ensure that citations received are counted in your citation metrics (for example, in your Scopus H-index). The journals that tend to be covered by these external databases are the ones produced by the big publishing houses – Wiley-Blackwell, Elsevier, Springer, etc. These journals are likely to have larger readerships and greater institutional subscriptions than journals published by smaller publishers, which will increase the potential visibility of your research and therefore the potential citations/downloads.

Increasing publication impact – Using social media, e.g. Twitter, blogs, YouTube, social networking, etc.

Guidance

Twitter – Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as ‘tweets’. Academics are increasingly promoting their research papers via Twitter, which are then picked up by other researchers and practitioners. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Twitter allows you to set up search terms to enable you to monitor what is being talked about in your areas of interest. You can then comment on the relevant conversations. The more you engage, the more people will follow you to listen to your comments and recommendations. As followers come to you, rather than you approaching them, Twitter is an ideal way to reach new audiences.

Research indicates that highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles. Top-cited articles can be predicted from top-tweeted articles, with 93% specificity and 75% sensitivity (Eysenbach, 2011).

There are some excellent guides available on how to use Twitter for research projects, such as:

SAGE’s guidelines for how to use Twitter are available here: http://www.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdfs/twitterguidelines.pdf

BU guidelines on how to use Twitter are available here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2012/01/19/get-tweeting-using-twitter-for-research-projects/

LSE Impact of Social Sciences guidelines on using Twitter are available here: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/

Paul Hughes from our M&C department is currently offering workshops to BU academics on how to get started with Twitter – read more here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2012/05/16/twitter-for-research-academics/

 

Blogs – Academics who blog about their research regularly report positive outcomes, such as networking and collaboration, finding new audiences and opportunities, disseminating research more widely, increasing citations and downloads, and building reputation. Bloggers argue that far from diluting scholarly success (as has been suggested by some academics), online writing can be a serious tool for academic practice. Blogging should be seen as part of a programme of dissemination and collaboration, and is best used alongside traditional academic outlets (such as journals) as a means of amplifying the reach, and potentially the significance and future direction, of the research. Research indicates that blogging about a research paper causes a large increase in the number of abstract views and downloads in the same month (McKenzie and Ozler, 2011).

Rather than setting up a personal blog, BU academics can add posts about their research to the BU Research Blog. The BU Research Blog is visible to a global audience and is searchable by search engines, such as Google. Good post topics could include:

  • Your area of research and papers that you have published – and/or other related papers in your field of research. Link to the full-text article/DOI for maximum impact.
  • Conferences and training events that you’re due to speak at.
  • Your last conference – were there any interesting questions that came up?
  • Your opinions about any recent press coverage of your subject area.
  • You can also ask your colleagues and co-researchers to add posts to the Blog and comment on your own posts to stimulate debate.

 All staff at BU can have access to add their own posts to the Research Blog. Just email me and I will set you up with access.

 

YouTube – Visual content accessed on sites such as YouTube is increasingly popular, particularly with students. The publisher Sage reports seeing an increasing amount of traffic to their journal sites via YouTube as students use video as an initial way of researching a topic. Many publishers are now embracing YouTube, for example the Sage YouTube channel is a collection of videos, primarily by academics, about Sage journal articles. BU has a YouTube channel and M&C are able to film short videos of academics discussing their research. These videos can then be used in multiple places to maximise impact. Watch Alan Fyall’s video below as an example:

httpv://youtu.be/RvR3fFDrTLQ

 

Join academic social networking sites – Academics are increasingly using social networking sites to meet and converse with people who share similar research interests. Examples include: MyNetResearch, Academia and Academici. On these sites you can see what other people are discussing and what issues are pertinent in your field of research. If you have undertaken research in these areas then you can contribute and share your research findings, which in turn should increase the citations/downloads of your work.

Increasing publication impact – open access publishing

Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceResearch indicates that articles published via open access outlets normally achieve higher citation counts and increased downloads. Open access publishing typically has much shorter publication times, often only 2-3 months between submission and publication. This means your research findings can be in the public domain while they are still novel, which makes them more likely to be picked up by colleagues. Research by David et al. (2008) found that open access articles were associated with 89% more full text downloads, 42% more PDF downloads, and 23% more unique visitors than subscription access articles in the first six months after publication.

BU staff have access to a dedicated central budget – the Open Access Publication Fund – to meet open access publishing costs.

Twitter tips for academics

Guidance

We’ve posted a number of times on the Blog about the benefits of using Twitter as an academic (you can read all of our past posts on Twitter here). For example, recent research indicates  that highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles (Eysenbach, 2011[1]).

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Academics are increasingly promoting their research papers via twitter which is then picked up by other researchers and practitioners. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Twitter allows you to set up search terms to enable you to monitor what is being talked about in your areas of interest: You can then comment on the relevant conversations. The more you engage, the more people will follow you to listen to your comments and recommendations. As followers come to you, rather than you approaching them, Twitter is an ideal way to reach new audiences.

BestCollegesOnline.com has recently published an excellent guide on getting started with Twitter as an academic, and improving your use of Twitter to get better results. You can access their excellent guide here: 100 serious Twitter tips for academics. It’s well worth reading!!!!

The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog recently published an article by Melissa Terras, Co-Director of UCL Centre for Digital Humanities and Reader in Electronic Communication in UCL’s Department of Information Studies, who recently took all of her academic research to the web and found this resulted in a huge leap of interest in her work (you can read the full story and see the results here: The Verdict: Is Blogging or Tweeting Really Worth It?). Her conclusion was:  If you want people to find and read your research, build up a digital presence in your discipline, and use it to promote your work when you have something interesting to share. If (social media interaction is often) then (Open access + social media = increased downloads).

Are any of you already using Twitter to promote your research? If so let us know by commenting on this post!

The impact of sustainable tribology

BU research

I authored a paper with colleagues from the General Engineering (Unit of Assessment 15), including Prof. M. Hadfield, Dr. B. Thomas, S. Martinez Noya, and our research sponsors Mr. I. Hensaw (Energetix Group PLC) and Mr. S. Austen (RNLI). The publication is titled “Future Perspectives on Sustainable Tribology” and was submitted to Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Journal. It has recently been accepted (22 Feb 2012) for publication. The article is the result of a two-month support for impact (REF) exercise which took place last summer (June-July 2011) and was sponsored by the Research Development Unit (R&KEO) of Bournemouth University.

The interesting fact about the article is that the particular journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews has an impact factor of 5.367 (last five years) and is 9th out of 2009 Engineering Journals Worldwide (according to 2011 impact factor rankings) while its overall Ranking Worldwide among any Journal Indexed on Scopus is 268 out of 18854 Journals.

I would like to post this success on the Research Blog in order to show that support for impact at least in my case was worthwhile as it triggered my interest to write this “impact” paper with colleagues from Sustainable Design Research Centre (SDRC). The paper highlights the future perspectives of Sustainable Tribology by examining the economic, environmental and social impact of three tribological case studies worldwide. Each case study highlights one aspect of a number of ongoing interlinking research strands developed by the SDRC at Bournemouth University. The importance of Environmental Engineering through Sustainable Tribology solutions in our epoch is emphasized, showing that sustainability can be achieved to a significant extent through effective sustainable and environmental friendly engineering solutions, stimulating sustainable development and providing stability to our world embracing an anthropocentric and viable growth to our societies through effective sustainable solutions (figure 1).

To conclude, I would like to thank all the co-authors for their valuable help and contribution to the specific article while I would also like to express my regards to Prof. Mark Hadfield for the position he offered to me as a research assistant for REF support during that period and for his valuable guidance. I strongly believe it was a really beneficial project for myself as well as for Bournemouth University.

 

 

Praxis Unico Impact Awards 2012

Research news

The Impact Awards, organised by PraxisUnico, recognise and celebrate the success of collaborative working and the process of transferring knowledge and expertise beyond higher education, charities and public sector research establishments for the wider benefit of society and the economy.

2012 Award Categories
Business Impact – Achieved
This award recognises projects that have made an outstanding business impact through successful knowledge transfer, where the impact can be quantified and measured.
Business Impact – Aspiring
This award recognises projects that promise to make an outstanding business impact through successful knowledge transfer, but where the impact may be currently latent or unquantifiable.
Collaborative Impact
This award recognises collaborative projects that leverage the intellectual assets of the research base. Types of projects might include research collaborations or consultancy with business or the public sector and/or knowledge transfer projects involving more than one higher education or research institute.
KT Achiever of the Year
This award recognises an individual, who has not more than five years’ experience in a technology/knowledge transfer role.

Deadline – 30 March 2012

For further information visit the Impact Awards website.

If you’re interested in submitting to the Awards, let me know and we will support you with your application.

The second brilliant external REF event at BU!

Research assessment, Research news

On Wednesday this week BU hosted a REF Team-supported event for universities in the south of England explaining the content of the recently released REF Panel Working Methods and Criteria documentation. This was the second REF event that has been hosted at BU in the past 12 months. The first event was held in May 2011 and you can read about it here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2011/05/25/the-excellent-hefce-ref-event-at-bu/

The event, attended by over 150 delegates from 32 institutions, outlined the similarities between how the four Main Panels will review submissions, as well as focusing on the differences between the panels particularly in how they will define and assess impact in the context of the REF.

Chris Taylor, Deputy REF Manager, spoke about the technical aspects of the REF, e.g. the timetable, element weightings, and institutional REF codes of practice, and then looked at each of the three elements of the REF in depth – impact, outputs and environment.

Prof Stephen Holgate, Chair of Main Panel A, then delivered a very interesting presentation on the similarities between the four Main Panels which have been vastly improved since the sector-wide consultation on the Panel Working Methods documentation last autumn. The Panels have put in a significant amount of work to ensuring their working methods will be as simple, transparent and similar as possible which is excellent news.

After break there were four concurrent sessions, each focusing on one of the Main Panels. Event attendees could choose to attend one session. The session were led by:

  • Main Panel A – Prof Stephen Holgate (Chair of Main Panel A)
  • Main Panel B – Prof Philip Nelson (Chair of the General Engineering sub-panel)
  • Main Panel C – Prof John Scott (Chair of the Sociology sub-panel)
  • Main Panel D – Prof Bruce Brown (Chair of Main Panel D)

After the concurrent sessions, all presenters took part in a Q&A session back in Kimmeridge House.

One of the key messages of the day was that the sub-panels will not make use of journal impact factors, journal ranking lists, or other journal scoring information to inform the review of outputs. Citation data will be provided by the REF Team to sub-panels:

  • Main Panel A: Sub-panels 1-6
  • Main Panel B: Sub-panels 7-11
  • Main Panel C: Sub-panel 18

Research collaboration (e.g. links with other institutions, business and industry, international collaboration, etc) was also highlighted at numerous points throughout the event as being of particular importance in the environment element of the assessment.

Regarding impact, Prof Holgate stressed that the assessment of impact was not necessarily linked to the size of the population affected but to the reach and significance of the impact – for example, a 4* impact case study could be for a drug that cured three people or 3 billion people.

Also interesting was the focus on 4* research being that which is transformative research and that this could be the synthesis of knowledge and the identification of a new way of doing things. A review paper could therefore be assessed as 4* if it meets this definition. Prof Holgate remarked: “we are in an era of transformation. We want game changing outputs to be submitted to the REF”.

The event was closed by Prof Matthew Bennett at 1pm after which point event attendees networked over lunch. Feedback from attendees so far has been very positive!

If you attended the session then we’d love to know what you thought! Let us know by adding a comment to this post.

The slides will be available shortly via the Blog.

Twitter has a lot to offer academics!

Guidance

We’ve previously added posts about the benefits of using Twitter in academia (you can read theme here: Twitter posts). A recent post by Mark Carrigan on the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences Blog outlines what academics can get out of using Twitter and why the academic twittersphere is no different from presenting to an audience.

Mark asked his Twitter followers “why do you find Twitter useful as an academic?”, and responses included:

  • Quick answers to questions on things like … where do I find this tool or that tool ..  (@rjhogue)
  • We discuss concepts (@Annlytical)
  • There are people who are practicing what I’m researching academically and give me a reality check (@Annlytical)
  • Twitter is brilliant for keeping up with things, networking, finding new ideas, people’s blogs and publications (@BenGuilbaud)
  • meeting new people (in all disciplines), academic support, public engagement, increased visibility, filtered news (@Martin_Eve)
  • What Martin said. I think you already saw this but it’s the Prezi I made for grad students http://bit.ly/uK05VM (@qui_oui)
  • Also, I’ve found Twitter useful for augmenting F2F academic conferences, extending the conversations (@JessieNYC)
  • Twitter is incredibly useful 2 me as an academic 4 many reasons, perhaps chiefly curating the ideal academic dept  (@JessieNYC)
  • Twitter’s unique advantage is that very quickly allows me to spread word of my work to non-academic audiences (@elebelfiore)
  • Keeps me up-to-the-minute with news in my field ie; policy issues, and connects me to conferences/other academics (@DonnaBramwell)
  • connects me to other delegates at conferences, allows me to interact with students in lectures, keeps me uptodate (@timpaa)
  • We trade references for research (@annlytical)
  • great source of information & resources wouldn’t have found otherwise (@nicklebygirl)
  • Twitter makes it possible for me to engage with global community even though I now live in Australia & am #altac (@katrinafee)
  • a PhD can be very isolated so I think twitter is a great way to meet people who can help and give advice (@CET47)

Academics all over the world are turning to Twitter to support their research and are finding the service extremely useful. Read Mark’s full story and our previous Twitter posts to find out how to start using Twitter, meeting new people, estblishing / joining networks, promoting your research and increasing its visibility, and keeping ahead of the game.

You can read Mark’s full story here – Support, engagement, visibility and personalised news: Twitter has a lot to offer academics if we look past its image problem

If any of you are already using Twitter to enhance your research and knowledge exchange activities, we’d love you to share your experiences with your colleagues via the Blog!

Towards ‘Impact’ – promoting research online

Guidance

As the spectre of “Impact” looms before us in REF 2014, I’d like to share a case study on developing interest in research in academic and practitioner communities. I don’t claim that it’s best practice but there may be some ideas for others to consider.

Two of my related areas of research in the public relations field are measurement and evaluation of campaign effectiveness and the history of public relations. Over the past two years I have brought them together in historical research into the evolution of public relations measurement and evaluation. This has already resulted in conference papers and a publication in the leading impact factored journal, Public Relations Review.

 My most recent research has been into a controversial measure called Advertising Value Equivalence (AVE). It is widely used but has been effectively banned by leading public relations professional bodies. Next month, I will be presenting a paper on the history of AVE at the International Public Relations Research Conference in theUS. That paper will later be revised and submitted for a leading journal.

 Knowing there is a world-wide interest the debate over AVE, I prepared a short “popular” version of the paper and targeted it at the Research Conversations blog of the US-based Institute for Public Relations, which is well-regarded and widely read.

It appeared on February 15 as ‘So, Where Did AVEs Come From, Anyway?‘ and immediately started an online discussion.

Taking the article’s URL, I then placed it with introductory text on three relevant LinkedIn groups for PR history, media measurement and theUK’s lead professional body. Online discussions have taken place on two of these groups. The URL was also sent out via my two Twitter accounts (@historyofpr and twatson1709). Each has resulted in retweets of the URL, including some by leading social media commentators. There have also been positive comments.

Within just two days, the use of social media has enabled the summarised research to reach potentially interested, relevant audiences around the world. And I have still to present the paper next month. Only time will tell whether “Impact” has been created but social media has help pave the way for knowledge transfer and industry engagement.

 Any feedback on how I could have organised the social media dissemination more efficiently would be welcomed.

Prof Tom Watson, The Media School

SMART Awards – University as Sub-contractor

Funding opportunities

Pre start-ups, start-ups, and small and medium-sized businesses, from all sectors, may apply to the Technology Strategy Board  for three types of grant :

– Proof of market grant

– Proof of concept grant

– Development of prototype grant

While universities may not apply directly, they may act as a sub-contractor to an applicant. Consequently this is a further source of  funding for business/university collaborations.

The purpose of these awards is to assist businesses engage in research & development projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services can emerge. 

 The maximum grants vary between £25k and £250K. The Government will fund up to 60% of the project costs.

 For an overview of the SMART programme click here:

For more detail click here:

 

 

NEW IDEAS FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

BU research

New ideas on how universities can improve knowledge transfer have been proposed following a six months project undertaken by JISC as part of a business and community engagement project.

 The search to find a better model for knowledge transfer stems from one simple practical problem: knowledge transfer is simply too inefficient as a process. The under-exploitation of the intellectual assets arising from universities has been widely reported.

 The new ideas are based on current innovation theory, modern social media tools and current thinking on market behaviour or motivation, to provide a more effective model of Knowledge Transfer; a model that is capable of delivering more with less.

 Recommended is a less proprietorial approach to knowledge transfer, and a new, open, technology-enabled approach which has potentially wide applicability across the sector.

 For more details click here.

The authors highlighted a number structural inefficiencies in current methods of knowledge transfer that manifest themselves in three pinch points that need to be cracked to increase successful knowledge transfer and IP exploitation:

  • · The project selection pinch point
  • · The business development pinch point
  • · The early-stage proof of concept pinch point

Proposed is a new knowledge transfer model based on the feasibility of:

  1. Building a virtual KT organisation that moves beyond the university is more skilled, more scalable and better engaged than physically co-located employees
  2. Funding it on a combination of external and incentivised or intrinsically motivated, resource
  3. Reducing transaction costs via a combination of social media and automation in order to extend the number of opportunities that the university can handle.

For a summary of what is proposed, see presentation on link above. Start the presentation at 26 minutes.

Southern Universities REF event at BU – 22 February 2012 – book your place NOW!

Research assessment

REF logo
BU is hosting a 1/2 day REF event on Wednesday 22 February 2012. All staff are invited to attend.
 
The final panel working methods and criteria documents are due to be published in January 2012. This event will provide an update on the current developments with the REF and the confirmed REF panel documentation, focusing specifically on the assessment of impact within each of the four Main Panels.
 
Each of the REF Main Panels will be represented. If you have any questions about the REF, how research will be assessed and graded, or how impact will be assessed then you should attend this event! 😀
 
The event is open to BU staff and external delegates. There are already 130 delegates registered to attend, representing 32 different universities.

The event is free to attend but booking is essential.

For further information (including the programme) and to register, visit HERE.

Science and Technology Committee – new inquiry – Bridging the “valley of death”: improving the commercialisation of research

Research news

This is a fantastic opportunity to have a say in improving the future commercialisation and application of research and influence policy, and fits in with the thought-leadership strand of BU’s new Vision & Values strategy.

Growth is at the heart of the Government’s economic agenda, and it has made clear the importance of the UK becoming a leader in sectors such as the life sciences and advanced manufacturing. The Government recently published an Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth, setting out how it will work with business and the knowledge base to underpin private sector led growth. In the same week, the Government published its strategy for the life sciences, outlining how the Government will take action to make the UK a world-leading place for life sciences investment.

A key recurring issue that has been raised in the Science and Technology Committee’s previous inquiries is the difficulty of translating research into commercial application, particularly the lack of funding—the so-called “valley of death”. The Committee has therefore agreed to conduct an inquiry into how the Government and other organisations can improve the commercialisation of research.

Terms of Reference – The Committee invites written submissions on the following questions:

1. What are the difficulties of funding the commercialisation of research, and how can they be overcome?

2. Are there specific science and engineering sectors where it is particularly difficult to commercialise research? Are there common difficulties and common solutions across sectors?

3. What, if any, examples are there of UK-based research having to be transferred outside the UK for commercialisation? Why did this occur?

4. What evidence is there that Government and Technology Strategy Board initiatives to date have improved the commercialisation of research?

5. What impact will the Government’s innovation, research and growth strategies have on bridging the valley of death?

6. Should the UK seek to encourage more private equity investment (including venture capital and angel investment) into science and engineering sectors and if so, how can this be achieved?

7. What other types of investment or support should the Government develop?

 

Submitting written evidence – The Committee invites written submissions on these issues by noon on Wednesday 8 February 2012.

Each submission should:

a) be no more than 3,000 words in length;

b) be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible;

c) have numbered paragraphs; and

d) include a declaration of interests.

 

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to scitechcom@parliament.uk and marked “Bridging the “valley of death””. An additional paper copy should be sent in due course (not required by the deadline) to:

The Clerk

Science and Technology Committee

House of Commons

7 Millbank

London SW1P 3JA

 

Please note that:

• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.

• Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.

• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.

• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.

More information on submitting evidence to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/have-your-say/take-part-in-committee-inquiries/witness/

Ground-breaking report published by BU research centre

BU research, Research news

A new report that will serve as a blueprint for effective leadership in social work and social care has just been published by the Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work at BournemouthUniversity.

Entitled ‘Leadership and Management Development for Social Work and Social Care: Creating Leadership Pathways of Progression’, the ground-breaking report is co-authored by Professor Keith Brown, Director of the Centre, and Jane Holroyd MBE on behalf of Learn to Care, the body which represents workforce development managers from all local authorities in England.

Leadership & Management Development for Social Work & Social CareThe report provides the UK’s first framework for establishing an effective Leadership and Management pathway in social work and social care.  It addresses the major concerns and recommendations identified following the Peter Connelly case by the Social Work Reform Board (2009) and the Munro Review of Child Protection Services (2011) in terms of the call for a clear leadership and management strategy for front line social work managers.

This new framework has been developed over the past 18 months and has involved rigorous testing and piloting. A new underpinning theory and approach, Self-Leadership, which critically emphasises the quality of thinking and developing the abilities to manage self as part of improving personal and organisational performance, has been developed by Professor Brown and Jane Holroyd. Holroyd suggests this model is applicable to all professions, whatever their managerial position, as all professionals will be leaders within their own sphere of influence.

The report also highlights the critical role of assessment and evaluation to demonstrate that individuals have reached the required levels of competence and that a return on the investment is evidenced.

Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, has hailed the framework as enormously important for the future of long term care in the UK.

“Reputationally for Bournemouth University, this is an incredibly important breakthrough. What we are currently doing with social work and social care training is teaching without testing and training without measuring the impact,” he said.

“As a state, we are spending millions and millions and not questioning the effectiveness of that spend”.

The Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work at Bournemouth University is at the leading edge of post qualifying social work education in the UK. It works with over one third of all local authorities in England and over 70 major employers, including training social workers within the armed forces.

The Centre’s portfolio of courses are designed to raise standards in social work practice and help those in social work and social care demonstrate their competence to work within complex situations with the most vulnerable in our society.

Of particular note, this leadership framework has been developed to meet the requirements of the NHS Leadership Qualities Framework and it is anticipated that this will be of real value, especially as we see increasing integration between the NHS and Local Authority community services in the coming months.

You can order a copy of the publication by emailing kbrown@bournemouth.ac.uk

RCUK launches the ROS!

Guidance

Last month Anita posted on the blog about the forthcoming RCUK Research Outcomes System (ROS) due to be launched imminently. That time has now come and the system is now live!

As of this week the ROS goes live for grant holders of AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and EPSRC awards. The MRC and STFC are using the e-Val system and at present NERC is currently continuing to use its Research Outputs Database (ROD) until a decision has been reached regarding which collection system to replace it with. This week RCUK will be emailing all PIs of live awards with AHRC, ESRC and EPSRC to launch the ROS.

The ROS is a website that allows users to provide information about research outcomes to four Research Councils – AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and EPSRC. Outcomes are categorised into nine areas:

  • Publications
  • Other Research Outputs
  • Collaboration/Partnership
  • Further Funding
  • Staff Development
  • Dissemination/Communication
  • IP and Exploitation
  • Award/Recognition
  • Impact

The Research Councils will use the information to inform their analysis of research investments.

The ROS will be available at www.rcuk.ac.uk/researchoutcomes and you can log-in using your Je-S account details.

A number of us in the R&KEO have viewed a demonstration of the new system and are able to help / advise as necessary. The system is fairly intuitive and RCUK have produced some good online guidance (recorded demonstrations or written help sheets), but do let me know if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help.

Responsibility for updating the ROS lies with the PI, although Co-Is should also have access to update joint grants. The Research Councils will be undertaking an audit of how the ROS is being used in March 2012 so we will be looking at the system at the end of January 2012 to see the level of engagement and offering help where necessary.

Some key features of the ROS are as follows:

  • Outcomes can be inputted at any time during the lifetime of a grant and beyond, not just at the end as with a final report.
  • Existing data can be uploaded from HEIs own research information systems, therefore minimising the burden of having to re-submit information to the Research Councils. (We are currently investigating how best to do this at BU using the new publications management system BRIAN).
  • A bulk upload option allows multiple outcomes for multiple grant holders to be inputted at the same time, therefore saving time and effort.
  • HEIs will have access to the information submitted by grant holders from their institution to the ROS.
  • Access to ROS can be delegated to any other Je-S registered users, including joint investigators or co-investigators, and research managers.
  • Outcomes can be attributed to funding from more than one Research Council.
  • The ROS takes account of and, where possible, accommodates the reporting requirements of other bodies, for example the UK Funding Councils’ Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data returns.

You can read more about the ROS on the RCUK website here (including a set of excellent FAQs): http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/ResearchOutcomesProject.aspx