Tagged / nutrition

BU establishes Food & Drink Research Group

BU research, Delicious links, Research news

Early September saw the official launch of the recently formed Food & Drink Research Group (at Bournemouth University).  This cross-university research group has current membership from all schools, while formally residing under the ‘Leisure, Recreation & Tourism’ theme (See: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/files/2012/10/BU-Research-Themes-information-060913.pdf).  The Food & Drink Research Group focuses on a wide-range of food and drink issues ranging from consumers’ food choices to local food and drink production and distribution to healthy eating, to name.  Group members have also studied the different meanings people attach to food and eating, for example among students in Dorset and pregnant women in Nepal.

Academics associated with the Food & Drink Research Group are involved with studies focusing on consumers, the hospitality industry, food producers, wholesalers, distributors and the retailing industry. In addition, members have researched food labelling, aspects of nutrition, health promotion and education. The research group aims to act as a hub to all food and drink research activity across the University. In the spirit of Fusion, the group is focusing on student consultancy projects, PhD research, and engagement with industry.

The next meeting of the Food & Drink Research group is scheduled for November 6th at 10.30 in The Retreat at Talbot Campus.

Anybody member of staff interested in joining the group should contact Rhyannan Hurst (email: rhurst@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

Emerald Literati Network : 2012 Awards for Excellence

BU research, Publishing, Research news, Research themes

Image of Dr Heather Hartwell

Bournemouth University’s Associate Professor Dr Heather Hartwell has been chosen as an Outstanding Reviewer at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2012. Each year Emerald names and rewards the Outstanding Reviewers who contribute to the success of the journals.  Each journal’s Editor has nominated the Reviewer they believe has been that title’s most Outstanding Reviewer.

The most Outstanding Reviewers are chosen following consultation amongst the journal’s Editors, who are eminent academics or managers. Dr Hartwell was selected for the very impressive and significant contribution she made as a Reviewer to the British Food Journal throughout 2011.

Launch of the Association for Nutrition’s Workforce Competence Model

Research news

 

As Chair of the Department of Health funded project, ‘Improving Capacity Confidence and Competence across the Workforce in Nutrition,’ I hosted, with others, the launch of the Association for Nutrition’s Workforce Competence Model: at the Royal Society, in London last week.   We should applaud our profession’s capacity to deliver such a high quality, large scale mass participation project, working across professional boundaries, to time and to budget; a project with enormous potential to influence change across the wider health & social care sector.

Nutrition has a critical role to play in tackling inequalities, especially in deprived communities at risk from poor intake and obesity. It is therefore essential that frontline workers operating in the most disadvantaged sectors of society can lead in reducing nutrition-related health inequalities by demonstrating their competence in communicating and delivering appropriate messages. The aim of the workforce model is to encourage high and consistent standards of education and training alongside robust support, recognition and progression mechanisms to ensure that the nutrition workforce is sufficiently developed and skilled to deliver the government’s targets for public health.   It was a proud moment for me.

 

Engaging Undergraduates with Research

BU research, Fusion

BournemouthUniversity’s Associate Professor,Heather Hartwell, took part in a lively online debate on Friday, discussing how to engage undergraduates in research.

Screen grab of online debateHosted by the Guardian Higher Education network, Dr Hartwell joined panellists from the Universities of Leeds,Central Lancashire,East LondonandLincolnamong others, to provide expertise and advice on how to develop undergraduate research programmes and ensure they are successful.

Dr Hartwell explained BU’s ‘fusion’ concept, describing ‘a community where research is part of core business and where both undergraduates and post graduates are engaged in that activity so becomes part of the ‘daily’ business’.

The British Conference for Undergraduate Research was widely considered by panel members to be an excellent initiative. This takes place at theUniversityofWarwickin March, with ten BU students from theSchoolofTourismpresenting posters.

Fellow panellists and participants in the web chat were also impressed by Dr Heather HartwellDr Hartwell’s own experiences engaging undergraduates with research; notably her work with theUSarmy. “We were awarded a contract by theUSarmy to study food and emotions,” she said. “This was with the demographic of their ‘war fighters’, so young adults. During a first year lecture I asked for volunteers to help me, and the sea of hands was amazing. In fact recruiting students to help was beneficial because they were the same age group as the sample.”

But it’s not only the students who benefit from engaging with research. Dr Hartwell commented that sometimes dissertation data is of such high quality that she has been known to use it to form the basis of a short co-authored paper.

Inevitably the issue of peer ‘snobbery’ was raised, questioning the status of published undergraduate research. Dr Hartwell suggested that if ‘published work was blind peer reviewed and therefore the ‘process’ did not know where the work had come from – it was accepted on its merit’.

The full debate can be viewed via the Guardian Higher Education Network.