Tagged / impact

The excellent HEFCE REF event at BU!

Research assessment, Research news

Developing and Assessing Impact for the REF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unlocking Attitudes to Open Access

Guidance

open access logo, Public Library of Science Emma Crowley and David Ball, Student and Academic Services, discuss open access publishing, and the role of the institutional repository BURO, and launch a short staff survey on open access publishing…

 

  • What do you understand by Open Access? 
  • Do you deposit your research outputs in BURO, BU’s online repository? 
  • Who owns the copyright to your research papers?
  • Would you consider publishing in an Open Access Journal? 

At BU these are exciting times for research and one of the key ways of ensuring that your work has impact is to make it available Open Access.  Most of you will be familiar with BURO, our online research repository, and are hopefully contributing your research outputs on a regular basis as per BU’s Academic Publications Policy.  As a strategic part of your personal research processes it is essential that you retain your own pre-print (pre peer review) and post-print (post peer review) copies of your journal articles as most publishers will allow you to make either of these formats available open access, but not the branded publisher PDF.  You can check copyright permissions in BURO using the Sherpa Romeo tool.    

So, how do we know how impactful our research really is?  The answer to this challenging question, discussed at length at this week’s Developing and Assessing Impact for the REF Conference, is not necessarily here, but clearly research that is being viewed and downloaded by large numbers of global web users has a greater chance of influencing policy and attracting more citations.  Below are the 3 most downloaded full text journal articles in BURO during the last quarter.  You can even see which search terms people are using to find your work. 

Buhalis, D. and Law, R., 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet – The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management, 29 (4), pp. 609-623. 517 Downloads

Edwards, J. and Hartwell, H., 2006. Hospital food service: a comparative analysis of systems and introducing the ‘Steamplicity’ concept. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 19 (6), pp. 421-430. 506 Downloads

van Teijlingen, E. and Hundley, V., 2001. The Importance of Pilot Studies. Social Research Update (35), pp. 1-4. 405 Downloads

In addition to BURO BU recently launched its own Open Access Publication Fund that will support BU academics in publishing their research in Open Access journals, where a fee is required to publish, but everyone can view your article.

We would be very grateful if you could participate in a short survey, the results of which will help inform BU strategy on Open Access and wider developments for Open Access in UK HE.  There is only one page of questions which will take you less than 10 minutes to complete.  The survey will remain open until Monday 30th June.

Please note: if you experience any technical difficulties using the survey please contact Learning Technology

International panel praises quality of UK psychology research

Research news

The ESRC, British Psychological Society (BPS), the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) and the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments (AHPD) agreed in 2009 to work in partnership to benchmark the quality and impact of research in the UK against international standards.
The Panel’s headline finding is that, overall, the quality of UK psychology research is very high, bettered only by psychology research from the USA and in a substantial number of areas, UK psychology research is unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The Panel’s view is corroborated both by the outcome of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and bibliometric analysis.Read more on the ESRC webpage.

Wellbeing and impact

BU research

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

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

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

REF event 19 & 20 May 2011 – REGISTRATION IS OPEN!!

BU research, Research assessment

REF logoBU is hosting a two-day REF event on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 May 2011. All staff are invited to attend.

The event is of interest to BU academic staff and anyone who will be involved in the BU submission to the REF.

There will be three separate sessions:

Session 1
Thursday 19 May 9am-2pm
This session will be open to BU staff and external delegates.
There will be presentations from the REF team at HEFCE, REF impact pilot panel members, and a REF impact pilot institution (University of Plymouth).

Session 2
Thursday 19 May 2pm-5pm
This session is only open to BU staff.
This session will provide BU staff with the opportunity for internal networking, followed by a demonstration of BU’s new publications management system and a presentation on preparing a publication profile for the REF.

Session 3
Friday 20 May 9:45am-4:30pm
This session is only open to BU staff.
The focus of this session is the development of the BU impact case studies. There will be presentations of the impact case studies being developed at the moment.

All sessions will take place in Kimmeridge House and Poole House, Talbot Campus.

You must register separately for each session you will be attending.

See our previous REF Event blog post for further details. The provisional programmes are available on the registration forms (see links above).

ESRC knowledge exchange opportunities

Funding opportunities

ESRC logoThe ESRC has announced that the next Knowledge Exchange call will go live on the 26 April 2011 will will be open until the 14 June 2011.

There will be two schemes – the Follow on Fund scheme and the new Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme which is an amalgamation of all of the previous KE scheme, i.e. placements and KE small grants. The new scheme allows applicants to apply for a number of activities in one proposal, up to £100k, and it is hoped this will encourage applicants to think creatively about KE/impact and the best mechanisms for achieving these. The scheme is intended as a complement to the Pathways to Impact.

The call is aimed at social science researchers at all stages of their career and at organisations in the business, public and civil society sectors, with the intention of encouraging dialogue and collaboration between these groups.

Knowledge Exchange Opportunities Scheme

This is a new flexible scheme that provides funding for knowledge exchange activities at all stages of the research life-cycle and is intended as a complement to Pathways to Impact.

The scheme provides the opportunity to apply for funding for knowledge exchange activities at any stage of the research lifecycle, and is aimed  at maximising the impact of social science research outside  academia.    The scheme replaces the ESRC Placement Fellowships (all sectors) and Knowledge Exchange Small Grants schemes.

The flexibility built into the scheme is intended to encourage applicants to think creatively about knowledge exchange, and applications are welcomed for either a single activity or a combination of activities; be it setting up a network to help inform the development of a  research proposal, arranging an academic placement with a voluntary or business organisation, or developing  tools such as podcasts and videos aimed at communicating the results of research to non-academic audiences. Some examples of knowledge exchange activities can be found below.

The Follow on Fund Scheme

The aim of this scheme is to provide funding for additional knowledge exchange and impact generating activities to follow on from a specific piece of substantial research that is drawing to an end or has recently finished.

This scheme provides the same flexibility as the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme, and applications for either a single activity, or a combination of activities are welcomed. Follow on funding should be thought of as an extension and complement to the Pathways to Impact section of a research grant.  Applicants are encouraged to think creatively about the format of the knowledge exchange, and to involve research users from the earliest stages of developing the proposal.

Further information is available from the ESRC website: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/collaboration/knowledge-exchange/opportunities/index.aspx

If you are interested in applying to one of these schemes, please contact CRE Operations who will happy to support your application.

REF event 19 & 20 May 2011 – SAVE THE DATE!

BU research, Research assessment

REF logoBU will be holding a two day Research Excellence Framework (REF) event on 19 and 20 May to which all staff are invited to attend.

Day 1 (open to BU staff and external delegates)
9am-2pm – this will be an external event supported by HEFCE to which all HEIs in the South of England will be invited. The focus will be on developing and assessing impact for the REF. There will be speakers from HEFCE, an academic from one of the impact pilot institutions (University of Plymouth), and some of the impact pilot panel members. The event is aimed primarily at academics likely to be submitted to the REF and UOA Leaders. It will provide a forum for networking and discussion around preparations for the impact element of the REF.

Day 1 (open to BU staff only)
2pm-5pm – There will be an opportunity for internal networking, a demonstration of the publications management system BU will soon be implementing, and a talk by Prof Matthew Bennett on building a publication profile for the REF.

Day 2 (open to BU staff only)
9am-4:30pm – the focus of Day 2 is the development of the BU impact case studies. The day will open with a presentation by Prof Matthew Bennett on what impact actually is, followed by presentations of the impact case studies being developed at the moment (3 per Unit of Assessment). These will run in 9 concurrent sessions with 4 presentations taking place in parallel during each session. The main aims of Day 2 are to get academics thinking about the impact case studies in a structured way, to identify resource requirements to maximise potential impacts, and the engage staff from M&C with the case studies being developed. In addition this is a great opportunity to showcase the excellent research that is undertaken at BU, to meet colleagues from other Schools, and to stimulate ideas for future research collaborations.

The event is free to attend but booking is essential. Booking will open next week – further details to follow!

REF Highlight Report #8

Research assessment

REF logoThe latest REF Highlight Report is now available from the Research Intranet.

Key points include updates on:

  • progress with the UOA Action Plans
  • the REF two-day event to be held at BU in May (19th/20th)
  • the second mock exercises for UOAs 7 and 26
  • the RASG and RALT meetings held in March

You can access the full document from here: REF Highlight Report #8

RCUK delivery plan published

Research news

RCUK logoLast week Research Councils UK (RCUK) published its new delivery plan. The plan sets out the programme of collective activities for the period 2011-2015, building on the strategic objectives set out in the RCUK Strategic Vision.

The collective work that the Research Councils do as RCUK will cover two broad areas: delivering excellence with impact and enhancing efficiency.

The RCUK programme, detailed in the Delivery Plan, contributes to:

  • Co-ordinating multidisciplinary research to address societal challenges
  • Maximising the impact of the research funded by Research Councils
  • Supporting research in the international context
  • Ensuring a continued pipeline of highly skilled researchers for the sustained health of the research base, and for wider economic and societal benefit
  • Engaging the public with the research.

Collaboration and multidisciplinary research will continue to be supported through the six cross-Council themes:

Research Councils will also work collectively to both improve the efficiency of their own operations and drive enhanced efficiency in the wider research base.

For further information read the full RCUK Delivery Plan. 

RCUK Research Outcomes Project

Research assessment, Research news

In an effort to record the outcomes and impact of research beyond the end of a funded project, Research Councils UK (RCUK) have been developing a system to gather the relevant quantitative and qualitative evidence. The information collated will be an important part of the Research Councils’ strategy development, and will be crucial in demonstrating the benefits of RCUK-funded research to society and the economy.

Currently, the Research Outcomes Project remains on course to go live in summer 2011, although a full roll out may not occur until autumn. Grant holders will be required to provide information on the following output types:

  • Publications
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Exploitation
  • Recognition
  • Staff Development
  • Further Funding
  • Impact

The idea is for the system to allow outcomes to be reported at any point during the funding agreement and beyond, recognising that impacts from research are often realised some time after funding agreements have been completed.

The project team are engaging with users to ensure the system will be easy to use and aligned as far as possible with universities’ own research management information systems. A focus group of research managers provided feedback on the system, which is currently being built, and a pilot exercise is due to take place in August 2011.

BU is currently following the development of the Research Outcomes Project and will be looking at ways to help academics provide the required data in due course. In the meantime, please contact Anita Somner if you have any questions. To raise queries or concerns, or to make suggestions to RCUK, you can use the project email address: researchoutcomes@rcuk.ac.uk .

Journal Impact Factors Explained

Guidance, Research assessment

There is often some confusion around Journal Impact Factors in terms of where they come from, how they’re calculated and what they mean. Hopefully the following will provide a brief explanation.


What are Journal Impact Factors?
Journal Impact Factors are just one of a number of journal analytical measures that form part of an online resource provided by Thomson Reuters on their Web of Knowledge called Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), which covers journals in the sciences, technology and social sciences. JCR provides a facility for the evaluation and comparison of journals across fields within the subject areas covered.

Other publications databases may provide their own tools for bibliometric or citation analysis (such as Elsevier’s Scopus) but Journal Impact Factors are only found on the Web of Knowledge.

A Journal Impact Factor is the average number of times that articles from a particular journal published in the past two years have been cited in the JCR year.

How are Journal Impact Factors calculated?
Journal Impact Factors are calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published by a particular journal in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years. For example, an Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published in that journal up to two years ago have been cited two and a half times. Citing articles may be from the same journal although most citing articles are from different journals.

The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR primarily include original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns.

How are Journal Impact Factors used?
Journal Impact Factors can help in understanding how many citations journals have received over a particular period – it is possible to see trends over time and across subject areas, and they may help when you’re deciding where to publish an academic paper. However, as with all statistics, Journal Impact Factors should be used with caution and should ideally be combined with other metrics depending on how they’re being applied.

Equally, a journal’s Impact Factor is not necessarily a direct indicator of the quality of an individual paper published in that journal. Some published articles never receive any citations, for various reasons, even if they appear in a high impact factored journal.

Journal Impact Factors and the REF
Some of the assessment panels will be provided with citation metrics as part of HEFCE’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) in some subject areas, which will help inform the panel members’ judgements. However, journal impact factors or equivalent journal ranking systems (e.g. the ABS list) will NOT be used at all within the assessment process.

Big Ideas for the Future

Research news

Universities Week 2011 is taking place between 13-19 June.Universities Week 2011 logo

The campaign aims to highlight the essential role of UK universities and their impact on the economy, culture, society, the environment and much more.

As part of Universities Week 2011, RCUK and Universities UK are seeking submissions for Big Ideas for the Future. The project is exploring research currently taking place in universities that is likely to have a major impact on the UK and the world in the future.

All research organisations are invited to submit ideas and suggestions can be from any academic discipline. The only rule is that the research must be happening now or imminently and it must be something that will result in a real impact on people’s lives.

The proposed categories for entries are below, but suggestions for others are welcome:

  • Delivering a healthy future.
  • People and environment: sustainability for the next century and beyond.
  • The creation of recreation; how we’ll use our leisure time in fifty years.
  • The future of humanity and society.
  • Getting around: our planet, and beyond.
  • Capital ideas: the future of commerce and business.

The Research Development Unit will be liaising with Marketing & Communications to submit a selection of the excellent research undertaken at BU to Universities Week. If you would like to nominate your research or a colleague’s research then please contact Julie Northam by Friday 8 April.

A selection of the submissions will appear in a report ‘Big Ideas for the Future’ that will be launched during Universities Week on Thursday 16 June.

A selection of Big Idea impact case studies can be read here.facebook

You can follow Universities Week on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UKUniversities

Dr Ben Thomas and Prof Mark Hadfield – RNLI slipways

BU research

Lifeboat being launched (c) RNLI Nicholas LeachDr Ben Thomas and Prof Mark Hadfield (DEC) have been undertaking some marvellous research with the RNLI. The research was shortlisted for the 2010 Times Higher Education (THE) Award for Outstanding Contribution to Innovation & Technology, and you can read all about what they’ve achieved here on the blog!

Ben Thomas, RNLI researchThe Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is a charitable organisation that provides marine search and rescue cover along the entire coast range of the UK and Ireland. Lifeboat slipway stations are an essential part of the RNLI’s coastal protection; they allow lifeboat stations to be located in areas where there is no natural harbour and for lifeboats to be launched in almost any weather conditions. However, as the size and mass of lifeboats have increased over the years the traditional wood or steel lined slipways have been shown to be insufficient, with problems of friction and wear affecting the reliability of slipway launches. New composite slipway panels have reduced these issues but high friction and wear problems remain, with replacement costs for the expensive composite panels placing strain on the RNLI’s scarce resources.

Traditionally friction is reduced by manually applying grease to the slipway, but this practice has safety implications for the crew and has raised environmental concerns regarding the repeated release of grease into the sea at the base of the slipway.

Analysing the contact conditions between the 15cm wide keel of a 35 tonne lifeboat and the slipway lining presented considerable technical challenges, particularly as the lifeboat approaches speeds of 45kph during launch, and this required the development of a new multi-disciplinary approach using aspects of tribology, finite element analysis, life cycle analysis and real world data collection, with experimental results combined with real slipway experience and computer simulations to develop  a deeper understanding of the nature of the friction and wear problems on the slipway.

The data collected indicated that the reliability of lifeboat slipways could be greatly increased by ensuring the slipway panels were well aligned along the length of the slipway, it also showed that a small change to the panel geometry to incorporate a chamfer significantly reduced wear development and the adverse effects of panel misalignments on launch and recovery friction.

The project showed that it was feasible to substitute the currently used marine grease lubrication with biodegradeable greases, reducing the effects of grease bioaccumulation at the base of the slipway. The research also proposed the use of a novel water lubrication system instead of grease directly applied to the slipway, with the potential to greatly reduce both the operational costs and the environmental impact of slipway launches. These water lubricated systems have subsequently begun to be adopted across the RNLI slipway network.

The research recommendations will be used by the RNLI to improve the lifeboat slipways in the UK and Ireland. This will increase the reliability of slipway launches and recoveries and reduce the risk exposure of the volunteer lifeboat crew. The improvements will also reduce the operating costs of the RNLI.

The changes recommended by the research are already underway, the new slipway lining material has been fitted to the newer slipway stations (e.g. Tenby, Padstow etc.) already and the water lubrication systems are also in place. The recommended slipway lining material and water lubrication systems are being phased in across the remaining UK slipway station network over the next few years, coinciding with the simultaneous rollout of the new Tamar lifeboat to the slipway stations.

The combined effects of Prof Hadfield and Dr Thomas’s research recommendations will allow the RNLI to save up to £200,000 per year in operational costs once these are adopted across the slipway station network. The changes will also increase the reliability of lifeboat slipway launches and recoveries, reducing the risk exposure of the volunteer lifeboat crew who crew each slipway station, and allowing the continued safe operation of the RNLI’s crucial role in preserving life along the coast of the UK and Ireland. The final benefit is showing that the previous lubrication system involving the manual application of grease to the slipway by lifeboat crewmen can be replaced by an automatic water based system, thus reducing the cost and environmental impact of lifeboat slipway launches as well as the risks lifeboat crew members are exposed to on the slipway.

Dr Ben Thomas undertook the research, supervised by Prof Hadfield, as part of a CASE award studentship funded by the EPSRC and the RNLI. In addition, the RNLI commissioned Prof Hadfield and Dr. Thomas to undertake additional research into alternative slipway materials in 2009.

Further details:

RNLI webpage: Lifeboat project ready for awards splash

BBC Cornwall news story: RNLI slipway research

AlphaGailieo webpage: RNLI lifeboat launch benefits from BU research