BU Research Blog

The Interdisciplinary Research Week 2016 has thought provoking and inspirational lectures that will of interest to all. These include:

Monday 25 January 2016

Professor Lee Miles

Inaugural public lecture: Entrepreneurial Resilience and Disaster Management: Where Innovation and Integration Meet?

EB708, Executive Business Centre, 18:30 for 19:00 – 20:00

BU’s inaugural lecture series returns in January 2016, with a fascinating glimpse into the world of disaster management, delivered by Professor Lee Miles, Professor of Crisis and Disaster Management. Professor Miles has carried out research into emergency and crisis management for many years and is currently exploring the relationship between innovation and resilience in successful crisis and disaster management. Click here to read more.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Inspirational Speaker: Professor Jane Falkingham, University of Southampton

EB708, Executive Business Centre, 18:00-20:00

Professor Jane Falkingham is Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Dean of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Southampton. Through a career spanning almost 30 years, her research pursues a multi-disciplinary agenda combining social policy and population studies, which span both developed and developing countries. Much of her work has focussed on the social policy implications of population ageing and demographic change, and what this means for the distribution of social and economic welfare.

Click on the links above to book these events.

21 December 2015

Get your cultural fix at the IRW

The Interdisciplinary Research Week (IRW) has a number of cultural highlights for everyone’s tastes. Free popcorn will be available at the films as well as refreshments. The events include:

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Written and Directed by Professor Erik Knudsen

Raven on the Jetty

PG16, Talbot Campus, 16:00-18:00

In the midst of separation, one boy’s silent longing has the power to change everything.

On his ninth birthday, Thomas travels with his mother to visit his estranged father who, since an acrimonious divorce, has abandoned urban living in favour of an isolated rural life in the English Lake District. The bitter separation of his parents is not something Thomas understands, nor does he understand his own dysfunctional behaviour as a silent cry for help. As a digital native city boy, Thomas’s encounter with the natural world, and his gradual understanding of the pivotal connection he provides for his, ultimately, lonely parents, leads to realisation and discovery. There are things his parents don’t know about each other that only he can reveal. Perhaps he has the power and the means to change everything. (Fiction: 88 minutes. 2014).

Following the film there will be a Q & A session with the Director.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Lizzie Sykes

Are You There?

Coyne Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus, 16:00-18:00

In 2014, Lizzie Sykes was awarded an Arts Council-funded residency at Mottisfont, a National Trust property and gardens in Hampshire. Mottisfont is a place where artists have met and worked for hundreds of years.

Are You There? is a film made from inside the Mottisfont residence. It is performed by Louise Tanoto, and is a response to how it feels to be alone in the house and to be inescapably linked to it in a private and intimate way; free from expected codes of physical behaviour that such a formal space normally represents.

Following the film there will be a chance for a Q&A session

Friday 29 January 2016

Emerge music group performance

Allesbrook Theatre, Talbot Campus, 17.30 – 18.30

BU’s Emerge Research Centre has a research music performing group, a creative space where each person develops their own instruments and music based on personal research into sound as well as gesture and technology as part of their creative practice.

The experimental music and sound-art event features a soundtrack of electronic atmospheres, noisescapes, pulses and rhythms, tones and drones. It will include an exploration of hardware-hacked devices, simple electronic instruments, data networks and basic sensors to augment and inform laptop improvisations, immersive fixed-media soundscapes and live visuals.

Performers include:
Anna Troisi, http://www.annatroisi.org/
Antonino Chiaramonte, http://www.antoninochiaramonte.eu/
Rob Canning, http://rob.kiben.net/
Bill Thompson, www.billthompson.org
Ambrose Seddon, http://www.ambroseseddon.com/
Tom Davis, http://www.tdavis.co.uk/

Visuals by Kavi, https://vimeo.com/user324972

Click on the event titles above to book your tickets.

18 December 2015

Join the debate at the IRW

The Interdisciplinary Research Week 2016 will host three lively debates. These include:

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Professor Barry Richards and Dr Sascha-Dominik Bachmann

BU’s Big Issues: Threats in a changing world

EB708, Executive Business Centre, 18:30 – 19:30

Global security is rapidly becoming one of the biggest challenges facing our society. From the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, to continuing unrest in the Middle East, security issues are rarely out of the news. Join some of BU’s leading academics in this area to discover how their work is changing the debate and shaping thinking around the future of global security.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Professor Adrian Newton, Professor Chris Shiel, Associate Professor Jane Murphy, Dr Juliet Wiseman and Dr Dawn Birch

BU’s Big Issues: Protecting the environment: humans vs nature

EB708, Executive Business Centre, 18:30 – 19:30

Protecting the environment and living more sustainable is a laudable aim, and one that many of us support, but how easy is it to change human behaviours and what does it cost? Join us to hear how research being led by BU’s academics is making a difference to our local area, through developing an understanding of how local environments are changing in response to human activities, and how we can all live more sustainably by changing the way we source our food.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Dr Andrew Callaway, Dr Bryce Dyer and Shelley Broomfield

BU’s Big Issues: The use of technology in sports: giving athletes an Olympic advantage

KG03, Talbot Campus, 14:00 – 15:00

With the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics fast approaching, all eyes will soon be turning to the world’s elite athletes and their astonishing sporting achievements. Sporting technology forms a key part of their preparation and can help to make significant improvements in performance. Join us to hear from three of BU’s sports researchers – and competitive athletes in their own right – to learn more about the ways technology can improve athletic performance for both elite athletes and people taking part in sports for fun.

Click on the links above to book your place at the debate.

17 December 2015

Interdisciplinary Research Week 2016 Programme of Events

Business Engagement, Public engagement ssquelch

The second Interdisciplinary Research Week (IRW) is being held from 25th to 29th January 2016. Join us at one or more of these free events to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research, across it’s many disciplines.

This five day event includes a programme of lectures, art based events, film, discussions and healthy debate all designed to stimulate new ideas and examine important societal issues from across the globe.

Events also include funder visits from the Wellcome Trust who will be talking about their most recent collaborative project ‘Hubbub’ and why working across various disciplines, sectors and organisations is important to them as funders; and the British Academy who will share emerging findings from a project they are carrying out on interdisciplinary research. They are looking at how the whole higher education and research systems supports such research in terms of publishing, research funding, academic careers, teaching and beyond.

The IRW events are open to everyone (only one event is for BU academics and researchers only). Do check out the whole programme of events to see what might interest you and publicise the week to your friends and family.

17 May 2015

Interdisciplinary Research Week

15 May 2015

What do Fishbone, Amusement Park and Apigee have in common?

Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, R & KE Operations afeigenbaum

They are all tools for digital storytelling. On Thursday May 14th, the Fusion-funded, inter-faculty BU Datalabs team presented at Interdisciplinary Research Week. Guests from across the University and beyond came to learn about digital storytelling and how visual data stories can better communicate the significance of research findings to policy-makers and the public.

Weathering the rain, the event kicked off with a reflective exercise called ‘Analogue Twitter.’ Participants were asked to write down a story of their research in 140 characters or less. From sports management to midwifery, research stories spanned the disciplines.

To get things going, Senior Lecturer in Digital Storytelling, Dr. Brad Gyori brought his expertise in interactive media, and his experience as the Head Writer of the Emmy award winning show Talk Soup, to introduce the audience to the many storytelling patterns that have emerged with the rise and innovation of digital platforms. Digital storytelling can range from Fishbone narratives that have one main linear narrative with suggested diversions, to the Amusement Park that offers loosely clustered, different perspectives with no central hub, as we see in Highrise: Out of my Window.

Next up, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, a Senior Lecturer from the Faculty of Media and Communications, introduced the audience to the power of storytelling with maps and infographics. Drawing from her own tear gas project and others’ expertise, she explored how visuals can act as ‘infobait’, drive curiosity, and interrupt dominant narratives.

After lunch, BU Datalabs project partner Malachy Browne from the social media journalism outfit reportedly shared insights and strategies for using online tools to do investigative research, share your findings, and dig deeper into social data. From apigee for APIs to mine social media data, to wolframalpha that can return the weather from any date in history, Browne made connections between the tools of his trade and the possibilities for expanding our digital methods in academia.

For more information on the BU Datalabs project, email: afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk If you would like to get involved, we will be hosting a meeting open to all staff and students in early July. Details to follow.

14 May 2015

Human navigation: a cognitive neuroscience approach

Public engagement Emily Cieciura

Dr Angela Gosling & Dr Jan Wiener delivered a highly engaging presentation on Wednesday 13^th May which focused on their novel research.

Dr Jan Wiener opened proceedings by discussing how we are flexible in switching between navigational strategies, in comparison to being reliant on the sun for navigating on a day to day basis as many animals are. The audience then engaged with a 360 degree view of Bournemouth Town centre and asked simple navigational questions such as ‘where is the pier?’ as well as others. Dr Jan described about how navigation is incredibly complex and explained the reasons why and when navigation fails, leading on to how navigation can be supported. Research into Dementia friendly guidelines by PhD Mary O’malley was met with a debate of opinions between various audience members, as they offered various insights into the topic of navigation.

Dr Angela Gosling provided an interactive second half of the presentation. Audience members participated in a navigational test. This involved watching a video of a route which was being walked through in the virtual world, twisting and turning left and right. Once the video had finished, audience members were asked whether the first turn was for example ‘left’. This sparked an enjoyable debate between the audience members which resulted in a highly amusing quote to conclude this blog post from a gentleman in the audience “okay, okay! I will shut up now as I am feeling my wife elbowing me in the ribs.”

13 May 2015

Taking a good long look at genocide victims from space

On Tuesday 12th May, Andy Ford, supported by Emily Norton, introduced us to the Landsat program, which has been running since 1972. The various Landsat satellites have been scanning the earth, providing researchers with images that can be compared to show changes in geographic features, such as glaciers and land use, such as deforestation in Brazil. Using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), these images can be produced with both accuracy and consistency, allowing comparison over time. These images also reveal the extent of natural disasters, including the Boxing Day tsunami and the recent earthquakes in Nepal. It is important that scanning, rather than aerial photography be employed, as this allows for the production of images using wavelengths, such as near infra-red, which the human eye cannot see. These can then be represented in ‘false colour composite images’, revealing much more than photographs alone.

Where, then is the relevance to mass graves? Bringing together the disciplines of environmental science, phenology, archaeology and forensic sciences has allowed the research team to address the issue of mass graves, which can be complex and present geographical challenges. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, there are over 200 excavation sites but over 10,000 persons still missing. Building on research conducted by Emily Norton, it was proposed that mass graves would, when compared with surrounding land, show vegetation growth with a spectral signature. This is where vegetation growth is weaker and the start of the season delayed. Using pilot research, including analysing a burial plot of animals following the UK Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001, these assertions have been shown to be correct. This interdisciplinary technique can, therefore, assist in the location of clandestine mass graves, along with eyewitness testimony, geophysics, soil probes, geospatial techniques and aerial photography. Of these, the on-going analysis of the Landsat images may prove to be the most valuable.

Although covering a highly technical subject, Andy’s presentation was engaging, leaving the audience in awe of the science, whilst demonstrating, clearly, the value of working across disciplinary boundaries.

Inspired? Then go along to one of our other Interdisciplinary Research Week events.

13 May 2015

Interdisciplinary Research Week Lunchbyte Session – 13th May 2015

Publishing Pengpeng

Join us for an Interdisciplinary Research Week Lunchbyte session and learn about effective interdisciplinary research writing.

Date : 13th May 2015 (Wednesday)

Time : 12.00 – 13.00 (presentation); 13:00 – 13:30 (lunch)

Venue : S217, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

In this lunchbyte session, Professor Vanora Hundley and Professor Edwin van Teijlingen from the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences; and Dr. Anne Luce from the Faculty of Media and Communication will be sharing their years of experience in writing about research across disciplines as varied as media, sociology, midwifery, health economics, medicine and public health.

Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research has been slowly growing in importance over the past decades, but has recently become more fashionable since many of the high scoring impact case studies in REF2014 involved a number of disciplines. However, interdisciplinary writing is not always as straightforward as it may seem. In this lunchbyte session, the presenters will draw on many years (in some cases decades) of experience working across disciplines and they will share what works and what has been more challenging.

Come and join us in this session and afterwards, there will be opportunities to have informal discussions with the presenters while having a bite to eat.

To ensure that we place the right catering order, please get in touch with Staff Development to book your place.

Photo – https://sites.google.com/site/uswatunkhairah2412/showcase/domain1/learning-journal

11 May 2015

Fear in childbirth: is the media responsible?

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the tenth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The tenth event of the programme will take place on Friday 15^th May, Professor Vanora Hundley, Dr Ann Luce & Professor Edwin van Teijlingen will discuss if fear is increasingly cited as a reason for rising rates of intervention in childbirth, with women allegedly opting for operative birth to avoid going through labour. Explanatory factors are said to include previous negative birth experiences, but increasingly the way that childbirth is portrayed by the media is suggested to be having a significant effect on women’s perceptions and raising anxiety with regard to the birth process. This lecture reports the findings from interdisciplinary research exploring the impact of the mass media on women’s views of childbirth.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in KG03 from 2.00pm-4.00pm, with refreshments available from 4.00pm. You can book your place by clicking here.

11 May 2015

Building defensible invisible castles

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the ninth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The ninth event of the programme will take place on Friday 15^th May, Dr Shamal Faily will discuss if Software is invisible, and so pervasive that we place our trust in software without caring too much about how warranted that trust is. Unfortunately, designing secure software is hard, and the media is filled with stories about what happens when software fails to meet our [albeit implicit] security and privacy expectations. In this talk, I will describe how adopting disciplinary perspectives beyond computer science can help build software that is both secure and useful.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in KG03 from 12.30pm-1.30pm, with lunch available from 12.00pm. You can book your place by clicking here .

10 May 2015

From ivory tower to silver screen: academics engaging with filmmakers for impact and to reach a wider audience

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the eigth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The eigth event of the programme will take place on Thursday 14^th May, Screening of RUFUS STONE (30 minutes) followed by Q & A with Project Lead, Executive Producer and Author of the film, Dr Kip Jones. Bournemouth University1s Gay and Pleasant Land? project was part of the national New Dynamics of Ageing Programme funded by Research Councils UK. The project investigated ageing and gay life in rural South West England and Wales. Research Team: Dr K. Jones, L-A. Fenge, R. Read & M. Cash

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in Stevenson Lecture Theatre from 2.00pm-3.30pm, with refreshments available from 13.30pm. You can book your place by clicking here.

10 May 2015

Turning numbers into narratives: an introduction to digital storytelling with data

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The seventh event of the programme will take place on Thursday 14^th May, Digital transformations in communications have led to the increasing popularity of data visualisations and the use of maps and other multimedia interactives for representing complex data. Often, these visual data stories can better communicate the significance of research findings to policy-makers and the public. Beyond engendering greater comprehension, this turn to the visual can also tap into our emotions and cultural values. In this Masterclass, we will introduce the audience to the emerging interdisciplinary field of data storytelling research. Drawing on a range of contemporary examples, we will present a variety of techniques and technologies for creating data stories.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in KG01 from 11.00pm 2.00pm, with lunch available from 12.30pm. You can book your place by clicking here.

7 May 2015

Human navigation: a cognitive neuroscience approach

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The sixth event of the programme will take place on Wednesday 13^th May, Dr Angela Gosling & Dr Jan Wiener the ability to navigate within complex and rapidly changing environments is a crucial skill humans possess and one that most of us take for granted. Recent reports suggest that increasing numbers of people have deficits to core navigation abilities; current estimates suggest 6 million people in EU countries, a number expected to rise in coming years. Research currently underway in the Navigation Lab at Bournemouth University is aimed at addressing some of the current issues in human navigation. Our novel research focus makes use of state-of-the art eye-tracking and electrical neuroimaging technology to investigate neural and cognitive functions in virtual navigation environments.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in Barnes Lecture Theatre from 4.00pm-5.30pm, with refreshments available from 5.30pm. You can book your place by clicking here.

7 May 2015

VeggiEat: a voyage of discovery

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The fifth event of the programme will take place on Wednesday 13^th May,Dr Ann Hemingway will be discussing how a continuing challenge is to understand how the intricate range of drivers affect the food intake of teenagers and older people the two groups in society who have the lowest vegetable intake across the lifespan. Research led by BU and being undertaken across Europe is trying to tackle this challenge, the learning from this cross disciplinary work and the intended and actual outcomes of the research so far will be discussed.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in Barnes Lecture Theatre from 2.00pm -3.30pm, with refreshments available from 3.30pm. You can book your place by clicking here.

7 May 2015

Beyond the one dimensional consumer

Join us to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research as part of Interdisciplinary Research Week this May. This is an opportunity to spark new collaborations and ideas among our diverse research community.

This year we have a week long programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and a film, which will showcase the fantastic research which is being undertaken at the university.

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts which will highlight the events you can join throughout the week. The fourth event of the programme will take place on Wednesday 13^th May, Professor Juliet Memery, Dr Jeff Bray, Dr Janice Denegri-Knott & Professor Sine McDougall will be discussing ‘Beyond the one dimensional consumer’

The nature of the marketplace is constantly changing. Exponential growth of the internet and rapid evolution of technology has created new ways of communicating and ‘doing business’. This means that organisations, especially those without their own research capacity, may struggle to keep up as multiple media touch points develop, become ‘on trend’, then rapidly fade. The need to ‘bring science to the market’ has never been more pressing to help understand the modern consumer. This session will highlight how the Consumer Research Group may provide the integrated multi-dimensional approach to consumer research that is required in business today through interactive discussion and illustrative case examples.

This event will take place on Talbot Campus in Barnes Lecture Theatre from 12:30-13:30, with Lunch served at 12 noon. You can book your place by clicking here.

6 May 2015

Taking a good long look at genocide victims from space