Tagged / PGRs

BU Santander Scholarships 2011-12 round 2 – apply now!

Funding opportunities

Santander is offering four x £5,000 research and travel grants to BU staff and research students

After the success of the Santander Scholarship competition a couple of months ago, Santander have offered BU staff and research students the opportunity to apply for further scholarships in a second round of funding.

The funds must be used for a specific project to build on or develop links with at least one university from the Santander overseas network. Awards will be announced in January 2012, and funds must be spent before the end of July 2012. Preference will be given to applications received from postgraduate research students and early career researchers.

Funds can only be used to cover direct costs (i.e. not salary costs or overheads).

To apply complete the Santander application form and submit it by email to Susan Dowdle: sdowdle@bournemouth.ac.uk

Successful applicants will be expected to participate in general PR activities about their research. This may involve attending events and promoting the benefits of the funding.

The closing date for applications is Friday 9 December 2011.

Unsuccessful submissions from the last round of the Santander Scholarship funding cannot be resubmitted to this round.

Good luck 🙂

BU Santander Scholarships 2011-12 – apply now!!

PG research

Santander is offering five x £5,000 research and travel grants to BU staff and students

The funds must be used for a specific project to build on or develop links with at least one university from the Santander overseas network. Trips must be taken before February 2012.

Preference will be given to applications received from postgraduate research students and early career researchers.

Funds can only be used to cover direct costs (i.e. not salary costs or overheads).

To apply complete the Santander application form and submit it by email to: researchunit@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications is Friday 16 September 2011.

Good luck 🙂

BU Santander Scholarships 2011-12 – apply now!!

Funding opportunities

Santander is offering five x £5,000 research and travel grants to BU staff and students

The funds must be used for a specific project to build on or develop links with at least one university from the Santander overseas network. Trips must be taken before February 2012.

Preference will be given to applications received from postgraduate research students and early career researchers.

Funds can only be used to cover direct costs (i.e. not salary costs or overheads).

To apply complete the Santander application form and submit it by email to: researchunit@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications is Friday 16 September 2011.

Good luck 🙂

Thoughts on writing recommendations for a research thesis

Guidance, PG research

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen (HSC) examined a PhD candidate last year whose recommendations were only Prof Edwin van Teijlingenvaguely related to the work presented in the thesis. Since then he has examined several PhD theses which had an interesting range of recommendations not directly related to the student’s study findings. Listed below are his ideas about ‘appropriate’ recommendations:

Many postgraduate students make recommendations that are too broad, too generic, or not directly related to the exact topic of their research. These recommendations are not wrong; they are simply not specific / relevant enough. Examiners like to see some more mundane recommendations that come specifically from the thesis / research work.

First, you should not really recommend anything that you have not previously discussed in the Discussion. The rule ‘no new material’ in your Conclusion is also applicable to your ‘Recommendations’.University of Olomouc thesis from 1713 with motif of Ottoman Wars

Secondly, recommendations are not the same as conclusions. Consider recommendations go one step further than conculsions as (a) ‘something’; (b) ‘someone’; and (c) ‘needs to do’.

Furthermore, there may be different levels within your set of Recommendations, with recommendations for (a) academic (i.e. more research is needed into…), (b) for policy-makers (e.g. data protection act needs to change to accommodate…); for (c) practitioners (e.e. managers in local government need to consider the mental well-bing of their staff); or recommendation for (d) training / education (e.g. health promotion officers employed in inner-city Birmingham need to be trained in being culturally sensitive to several large ethnic minority communities to help them fulfil their role better in the community).

We’re interested to know your thoughts on this and to hear your experiences of advising postgraduate students when writing their recommendations. Let us know what you think by adding a comment.