Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Dr Samuel Nyman, Department of Medical Science & Public Health, has recently had an article published in The Conversation on the health benefits of Tai Chi. This includes reference to his recently completed NIHR-funded Tai Chi study, The TACIT Trial.
The Conversation article can be found here.
The next Global Café will be on Wednesday 11 March 2020 at the third floor of BU’s Executive Business Centre, It starts at 18.30 with a light Buffet Dinner followed by a series of short talks at 19.00. These short talks will be from a range of four speakers and there will be time to network with other participants. We aim the finish at 21.00.
All welcome, please book your space here!
Dr. Emer Forde
Reminder: British Science Festival 2020 applications closing soon!
Proposal deadline: Monday 17 February at 5pm
Each year, thousands of people come together to celebrate the latest developments in research and engage in open discussion about issues affecting our culture and society. Through a mixture of traditional and creative formats, it focuses on showcasing cutting-edge science and technology.
The Festival will be hosted by Anglia Ruskin University and will be taking place from the 8-12 September in Chelmsford and Essex. All events will be free to attend!
Call for proposals
The open call is an opportunity for anyone to submit an event idea. Festival proposals should be aimed at non-specialist adults (16+) with a broad interest in science. During the week, Festival events will take place in the daytime on the university campus, followed by events throughout the city each evening. To close the Festival, there will be a final celebration over the weekend. The programme is aimed at a range of formats from talks to drop-in activities and creative content that challenges perceptions of what science is and can be.
Proposal deadline: Monday 17 February at 5pm
More information including the application process and FAQs, can be found here.
If you’re thinking about submitting a proposal, please chat with the Festival team before completing the form.
Please contact anna.woolman@britishscienceassociation.org
Alternatively if you would like advice on planning or submitting your application or to discuss ideas, you can contact Adam Morris (Engagement Officer) publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk
Two resources are now available on the NIHR Learn website for researchers –
To access the above resources you will need to have access to the NIHR Learn website. Once you have an account select the tab ‘Health Research Innovations’ and then click on ‘NIHR Endorsed Learning’. Both courses are free and do not require an enrolment key.
Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.
Yesterday CoPMRE welcomed 30 colleagues to our Visiting Faculty bi-annual event showcasing the exciting medical developments at BU from the new Bournemouth Gateway Building to the Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation. The key priorities to support delivery of BU2025 were presented by Dr Clare Wedderburn, Interim Head of Department of Medicine & Public Health presented. Juan Campos-Perez, Clinical Research Co-ordinator, BUCRU spoke about Biobanks which were highlighted in Professor Emma King’s research presentation on immunotherapy. Professor Jeffrey Wale, Lecturer in Law encouraged innovative medical cross faculty collaboration demonstrated by his recent research collaboration with Professor Sam Rowlands, Visiting Professor resulting in four co-authored papers. The main focus of the meeting centred around Visiting Faculty engagement in research and education to help us achieve our aims. The audience reported that they were ‘very excited’ about these new developments at BU and were keen to support this vision.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place next week on Tuesday 10th December at 2:30pm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
We’re continuing our look back at the ESRC Festival of Social Science, you can catch up on our coverage so far on the Research Blog.
Friday night featured two concurrent events. Professor Edwin van Teijlingen visited Poole Hospital to consider ‘How We Think about Pregnancy and Childbirth’, comparing different perspectives on pregnancy – from the social model of pregnancy, which accepts childbirth as a normal event in a woman’s life to the medical model, which portrays childbirth as potentially dangerous to health.
Dr Alison Taylor discussed infant feeding and shared research in the form of video diaries from first-time breastfeeding mothers.
At South Coast Roast café, we explored the idea of ‘Influencers for good’; can social media influencers be more than their media image as drivers of overspending, overconsumption and low self-confidence?
A team of BU academics (Dr Elvira Bolat, Dr Parisa Gilani, Samreen Ashraf & Dr Nasiru Taura) covered every angle, including the trust-relationship between influencers and us, how influencers make us feel and a positive vision for the future, where influencers are an ethical economic force for good.
Guest speaker Sarah Ali Choudhury shared the story of her rise to fame, while talent agent Laura Edwards showed us the other side of the influencer industry.
This series will conclude with Part 5 tomorrow.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place on Tuesday 10th December at 2:3opm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
Academics in FoM have worked for many years in informal collaboration with the Federal University of Santa Catarina’s (UFSC) Food and Nutrition research centre. The most notable collaboration being Veg+ an Institutional Links project jointly funded between the British Council Newton Fund and the Brazilian FAPESC Fund. The aim this project is to address Brazil’s Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) challenges of poor diet and sustainability through innovation in training, research and science. Research has understood the routes to market for small scale family farmers in Brazil strengthening the economic potential of the 5 million ‘family farms’ which employ three quarters of the farm labour force and are responsible for one third of agricultural income. Additionally, consumer research is helping to understand young adults’ consumption of vegetables and the most effective ways that this can be increased.
We are delighted that these institutional links have been formally recognised through a partnership agreement which will support further research development.
The latest issue of RKE News is out now. The purpose of the newsletter is to provide a termly update of internal and external research and knowledge exchange news, successes and opportunities.
This issue focuses on BU2025, the Strategic Investment Areas, Research Funding Panels, some of the many funding opportunities which are available and upcoming events.
I hope this information is helpful and of interest to you. If you would like to send in any stories or ideas for inclusion or if you have any feedback in general, please let me know.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place on Tuesday 10th December at 2:3opm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.
The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England. Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.
Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.
This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.
The session will take place on Tuesday 10th December at 2:3opm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.
To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.
We will have a talk session with the guest lecture, Dr Fuko Nakai (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan) on the 9th December. This session will be held as a Skype meeting at EB602.
*For more details, please email to hoe@brounemouth.ac.uk
Mary Beth Gouthro PhD of the Faculty of Management was invited to join an expert panel for the MICE Leadership Summit 2019 this September at the May Fair Hotel (Edwardian Hotels Group) in London. Now in its second year, the one day Summit was attended by 200 agents working in the event industry and came from UK, South Africa and Israel.
The MICE (Meetings Incentives Conferencing & Exhibitions) Summit consisted of speakers, the panel and workshop content that addressed the opportunities and challenges of the industry go forward, through to 2025. The events sector is worth £39.1 billion to the UK economy in terms of direct spend by event delegates, attendees and organisers (BVEP). Nurturing talent in the workforce as well as issues related to sustainability were key themes covered on the day.
Joining Mary Beth on the panel providing insights to the future proofing for the events sector were Tracy Halliwell MBE, Director of Tourism, Conventions & Major Events for London & Partners; Jamie Vaughan, Head of European Sales for Cvent and Michael Begley, Managing Director of venuedirectory.com. The panel was chaired by Max Fellows, Director of Client Services at MCI Experience. The value and role of degree education in the field of events management was furthermore highlighted. Post-secondary education in the field underpins the economic sustainability of the International Business Events Action Plan published by DCMS alongside of the Tourism Sector Deal in summer 2019.
The next Summit is planned for September 2020 and plans to incorporate a bigger presence of HE education in event management, ie to include BU students & alumni.
Last Friday ResearchGate informed us that ‘Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference’ [1] published by three Bournemouth University (BU) scholars (Prof. Vanora Hundley, Dr. Bibha Sinkhada and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and a BU Visiting Professor (Prof. Padam Simkhada) had reached 2,500 reads. 
This paper is one of a series of articles BU academics have published on several aspects of academic writing and scientific publishing. The range of publications includes issue such as: predatory publishers, authors earning from copyright; finding the best title for your paper, and issues of authorship [2-13]. These are great resources for budding academic writers, especially as nearly are Open Access publications and hence freely available across the world.
Other useful BU resources include the work by Dr. Kip Jones, such as his blogs on Organising & Writing a PhD thesis or his advice on Writing Blogs. Another great BU resource is the online publication by Dr. Miguel Moital, who wrote the e-book Writing Dissertations & Theses: What you should know but no one tells you, where he shares valuable practical information about the process of writing academic work, notably dissertations. The book starts with explaining the six criteria, expressed in the form of 6 ‘C’s, required to produce high quality dissertations: Confined, Corroborated, Critical, Coherent, Concise and Captivating. The e-book then goes on to share a range of ‘tips and tools’ which contribute to fulfilling the 6 Cs. 
Moreover, it is also worth pointing out that there are some great web resources on writing and publishing produced by BU Library staff, for example on plagiarism; academic writing; or how to cite references.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwife
References
The movements of your eyes can reveal a lot about what you’re thinking.
Researchers at Bournemouth University are studying eye movement in order to understand the mental processes behind everyday tasks, such as reading and navigation.
At a packed Cafe Scientifique on Tuesday 3 September, Dr Tim Slattery from the Faculty of Science & Technology here at BU, discussed how eye tracking is already being used and what the future may hold when eye tracking becomes more widespread, even embedded in our personal devices.
Dr Slattery explained how research into eye movement can help us understand mental processes behind everyday tasks, and how movements of your eyes can reveal a lot about what you’re thinking and how you are processing information in the world around you.
The audience were presented with various visual illusions to highlight the fact that our perceptions of the world around us are not 100% accurate. He then described the anatomy of the eye and why we need to move our eyes to better see the objects that capture our attention.
Tim and colleagues gave interactive demonstrations to show what state of the art eye tracking technology is capable of and also discussed how eye tracking is already being used and what the future may hold when eye tracking becomes more widespread, even embedded in our personal devices. In fact, in 2017 Apple purchased SMI (SensoMotoric Instruments) which manufactured eye tracking equipment, and as of this year there is a third party app, Hawkeye which allows users to track their eye movements while looking at newer iphones and the ipad pro. This recent advancement holds both promise for eye tracking research and problems related to personal data protection. The audience was very engaged in a lively debate on these issues.
Follow the link below for access to slides from Dr Tim Slattery’s Cafe Sci talk on Tuesday 3 September:
Eye Tracking as a window to the mind
The next Café Scientifique will take place at Café Boscanova on
Tuesday 1 October from 7:30pm until 9pm (doors open at 6:30pm)
There’s no need to register, make sure you get there early though as seats fill up fast!
Find out more about Café Scientifique and sign up to our mailing list to hear about other research events: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/cafe-sci
If you have any questions please do get in touch
This past week Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) presented several workshops on academic writing and scientific publishing to BU’s partners in Nepal. He presented at Nepal’s oldest and largest university Tribhuvan University (TU) on Wednesday. The Faculty of Education had made the effort to produce a personalised banner for Edwin. Prof. Bhimsen Devkota, who invited him to run this workshop, was his PhD student many years ago at the University of Aberdeen
The next day he visited Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIH
S) which has a Memorandum of Agreement with BU, which was signed by Prof. Tee in early 2018 (see BU Research Blog). At MMIHS the audience that day consisted mostly of Master of Public Health students. Edwin recently celebrated his ten-years of being Visiting Professor at MMIHS.
Yesterday he had the honour of running a workshop at BNMT (Birat Nepal Medical Trust), affiliated with the Britain Nepal Medical Trust which started working in Nepal more than fifty years ago in 1967. The audience at BNMT was smaller and this allowed for loads of fruitful discussions.
These workshops are part of BU capacity building approach for health workers, development workers, health students and researchers in Nepal. Writing with colleagues in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, and various UK universities, including with Visiting Faculty based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and University of Exeter Medical School (UEMS) as well as Visiting Faculty at NHS Poole Foundation Hospital and Hamad General Hospital (Qatar) the BU team as published 12 papers on aspects of academic writing and/or publishing [1-12].
References
Denyse King from the Centre of Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal (CMMPH) recently presented her CILVRS Project at a Parliamentary event. The CILVRS Project is a Virtual Reality Learning Environment (VRLE) to improve healthcare education. Denyse presented this at the Further Education for Leadership symposium on Ed-Tech at Parliament on July 17th 2019. She introduced a VRLE on ‘safeguarding’ to share with delegates there who then experienced the VRLE through immersion with Oculus Quest headsets. 
The response from symposium delegates to the VRLE was overwhelmingly positive and with excellent discussions regarding the possible content of future VRLEs. Denyse has written this VRLE content as part of her role as a lecturer in midwifery. This was subsequently built to her specifications by a company called Daden Ltd. The VRLE are designed to be profession generic and topic specific, which ensures that the majority of healthcare students can use each VRLE. Denyse King is sitting on the far right of the table of experts for the Further Education Trust for Leadership (photo). 
VRLEs offer healthcare students access learning materials in ways which enhance their student experience. Use of VRLE mean Bournemouth University can offer students clinical experiences which cannot otherwise be guaranteed as routine part of their healthcare education. In addition to this, Continuous Practice Development (CPD) is a requirement of the Nursing and Midwifery Council [1-2] and the World Health Organization (WHO) [3] have highlighted that learners globally have limited access to Higher Education. The WHO also state that educators internationally lack skills and necessary equipment as well as a lack of access to practical skills teaching. Therefore, VRLE also have a place in offering realistic clinical experiences for CPD nationally and internationally. One example of the latter would be through Bournemouth University a close working relationships in Nepal: (1) where midwifery students can also benefit; or (2) in the development of CPD in nursing and midwifery in Nepal as recently presented on the BU Research Blog (click here).
The CILVRS Project is another excellent example of the BU FUSION with Research resulting in improvements in Education, which in turn are leading to better Practice.
The response from symposium delegates to the VRLE was overwhelmingly positive and with excellent discussions regarding the possible content of future VRLEs. Denyse is very active in this field. She has created a VRLE for urinalysis training as well as three VRLE related to safeguarding (which are nearly complete) as part of the CILVRS Project. She is developing further VRLEs I: two for perinatal mental health which I am creating in collaboration with University of Newcastle (Australia), Solent NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust. Some of this is being trialled within the BU midwifery programme in the forth coming year 2019/2020, and this exciting work is part of her doctorate research: Towards more holistic clinical practice: exploring the impact of virtual reality learning environments on healthcare education.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
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Conversation article: London Marathon – how visually impaired people run
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe News – December 2023