Tagged / qr

The ACORN Fund Round 4 Results

To support BU’s Early Career Researchers with the most promising talent, the ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) Round 4 was announced in November 2021. This time, two options for ECRs were available – to apply for Standard Grant up to £5,000 or Large Grant up to £10,00; each applicant was allowed to only submit one proposal for Round 4. Before the closing date, 14 eligible applications were received.

After application evaluation and careful consideration at the panel meeting in early January, the ACORN panel suggested the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) to fund 10 proposed projects according to their final ranking – two Large Grants and eight Standard Grants. All winners have returned signed Award Notification letters and we are glad to announce the results.

Large Grants have been awarded to:

PI Samuel Rennie (FST), project tittle ‘Ancient Migrations through the “Mesoamerican Corridor”

PI Melanie Stockton-Brown (FMC), project tittle ‘Copy Tatts: Copyright within Tattooing Culture’

Standard Grants have been awarded to:

PI Liam Wignall (FST), project tittle ‘An international study of pup play communities’

PI Reece Bush (FST), project tittle ‘Personality and gambling: An eye-tracking study on attention to responsible gambling messages and promotional content on webpages’

PI Matthew Armstrong (HSS), project tittle’The effectiveness of a physical activity behavioural modification intervention to promote activities of daily living in those with long term symptoms of COVID-19′

PI Sarah Collard (FST), project tittle ‘Physical activity levels of people with Epilepsy in the UK’

PI Samuel Hills (HSS), project tittle ‘Weather conditions and UK drownings: Progressing data reporting and targeted water safety policy’

PI Guljira Manimont (BUBS), project tittle ‘Exploring the role of FoodPorn in culinary precinct attractiveness: a case of Dorset, UK’

PI Mallika Tamvada (FMC), project tittle ‘Challenges under the Mandatory Form of Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalised World – Can Collaborative CSR be a way forward for addressing the most compelling societal problems?’

PI Kate Terkanian (FMC), project tittle ‘Bournemouth and Beales: Department Stores, Community, and the Decline of the High Street’

Congratulations to all winners!

These awards support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and are made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation for 2021/22 financial year.

We believe, our ECRs will be able to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects and successfully apply for external funding in the future.

On behalf of the ACORN panel, let me wish the best luck with implementation of your projects.

ACORN Round 4 Is Closing Soon

Funding opportunities

Dear ECRs,

this is a reminder that ACORN Round 4 is closing on 10 December 2021 at 5pm.

As advertised earlier, this round slightly differs from previous rounds. Two options for ECRs are available – Standard Grants up to £5,000 that can be delivered before the end of July 2022 and Large Grants up to £10,00 for projects to be completed within 12 months.

Each applicant is allowed to only submit one proposal for Round 4 and should use one of the supplied templates accordingly. The closing date is Friday, 10th December 2021 (5pm); to be considered eligible, all applications must be submitted to the email account acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk before the deadline.

For more details, refer to full text of advertisement.

The ACORN Fund Round 4 is Now Open for Applications!

Funding opportunities

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers Round 4 is now open for applications.

This round slightly differs from previous rounds. Two options for ECRs are available – Standard Grants up to £5,000 that can be delivered before the end of July 2022 and Large Grants up to £10,00 for projects to be completed within 12 months. For more details, refer to the ACORN Fund Policy Autumn 2021 document.

Each applicant is allowed to only submit one proposal for Round 4 and should use one of the supplied templates accordingly. The closing date is Friday, 10th December 2021 (5pm); to be considered eligible, all applications must be submitted to the email account acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk before the deadline.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £5,000 each and up to two awards, of up to £10,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These awards support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and are made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation for 2021/22 financial year.

For eligibility, you must be able to comply with the following:

  • Applicant must have completed their PhD;
  • Applicant must have a post at BU (established or fixed term) for the full duration of the award and the post-award commitments or longer;
  • To be considered an early career researcher (ECR), applicant should have held a 0.2 or above research contract for no more than six years in total, excluding periods where the applicant was involved in non-research employment or not at work (e.g. caring responsibilities);
  • ACORN award holders cannot hold more than one BU internal award concurrently.

Note that open access publication costs are not eligible, but these can be requested from the BU Open Access Publication Fund (OAPF). Any planned travel expenses are subject to COVID restrictions and, generally, are not recommended.

Following links, you can find ACORN Large Grant and Standard Grant application forms. In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Internal Funding Sample Costs. As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

Applications require support from faculty and mentor, so please start your application early and obtain all approvals as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off before submitting the application.

For those interested to find out more, we will be running a workshop led by the ACORN Panel Chair Prof Jan Wiener on Tuesday 23th November 2021 from 2pm to 4pm. Workshop will take place in a face-to-face setting, please come to F106 (Fusion Building) with your questions.

Please address any further queries to RDS via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

Putting the ACORN Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC):

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. Research Impact Funding Panel
  3. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  4. ACORN Funding Panel
  5. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  6. Charity Support Funding Panel
  7. SIA Funding panel

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, please refer to:

  • Principle 5, which sets of the context for such funding panels;
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9, which recognise the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH);
  • Outcomes 4 and 5, where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience.

Update from Research England on recurrent RKE grant funding

We have been waiting for news from Research England about the recurrent RKE grants for this year, confirmation of which has been delayed whilst UKRI waited for BEIS to confirm their budget. There was some initial news yesterday, which is summarised below. Institutional allocations will be published next month but overall there’s an increase in funding available, so hopefully we’ll secure more funding than last year 🤞

Research England letter sent to all VCs today: https://re.ukri.org/sector-guidance/publications/circular-letter-funding-for-2021-22/

  • Applies to 2021/22 academic year grants (e.g. QR & HEIF) and 2021/22 financial year grants (such as research capital funding).
  • Institutional allocations will be published in October 2021.
  • Overall funding increase of 3.5%.
  • Overall budget lines for block grant funding will remain the same (e.g. same amount in the overall QR pot this year compared to last year), although this may vary at institution level.
  • There will be QR SPF available in 2021/22 – note it is now renamed as QR Policy Support Fund. The funding aim is to invest in new interdisciplinary programmes and to help solve pressing public policy challenges.
  • HEIF funding parameters remain the same but the year-on-year increase has decreased to +10% (from +15%).
  • There is £132M of additional funds that will be allocated to strengthen the capacity and capability of institutions to work in partnership with others to deliver post-Covid societal and economic benefits. They will also allow providers to commence work on post-Covid considerations around research culture and the research system. Paragraph 19 outlines these additional single year grants. Note these must be spent between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. It looks like these will be allocated to institutions (i.e. no competition).
  • Last month, Research England published a guide on how they fund universities. It explains the formulae used, for example, for QR and HEIF. Definitely worth a read: RE-06082021-RE-How-we-fund-HEPs-FINAL.pdf (ukri.org).

 

BEIS advice to UKRI re: priorities and budget allocations: https://re.ukri.org/documents/2021/guidance-from-beis-for-research-england-financial-year-2021-22/.

  • This is useful and informative as it sets out what Government expects from UKRI and therefore universities.

 

If you have any questions, send me an email at jnortham@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The ACORN Fund Additional Round is Closing Soon

Funding opportunities

As advertised earlier, the ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is open for applications  for projects that can be delivered before the end of July 2021. This round differs from previous rounds due to the short turnaround time, smaller budget and limited activities eligible for funding.

The  closing date is Tuesday, 4th May 2021 (5pm) and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk. Please use only this email address for submitting your applications.

On BU OneDrive, you can find out more by reading the updated ACORN Fund Policy (the guidance document) and apply using the Application Form for this round. In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Internal Funding Sample Costs. As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £3,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects.

The ACORN Fund Additional Round is Now Open for Applications!

Funding opportunities

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is now open for applications  for projects that can be delivered before the end of July 2021. This round differs from previous rounds due to the short turnaround time, smaller budget and limited activities eligible for funding.

The  closing date is Tuesday, 4th May 2021 (5pm) and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £3,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These awards support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and are made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation for 2021 financial year.

For eligibility, you must be able to comply the following:

  • All applicants must have completed their PhD
  • All applicants must have a post at BU (established or fixed term) for the full duration of the award and the post-award commitments or longer
  • To be considered an early career researcher (ECR) applicants should have held a 0.2 or above research contract for no more than six years in total, excluding periods where the applicant was involved in non-research employment or not at work (e.g. caring responsibilities)
  • ACORN award holders cannot hold more than one BU internal award concurrently
  • Note that funds cannot be used to cover open access fees and travel

On BU OneDrive, you can find out more by reading the updated ACORN Fund Policy and apply using the Application Form for this round. In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Internal Funding Sample Costs. As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

The closing date for applications is 4th May 2021. As these require faculty support, please start your application and obtain faculty approval as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off and for submitting the application to the email provided in this post.

Please address any queries to Theresa MacManus at RDS via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

——

Putting the ACORN Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).

There are eight funding panels:

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. GCRF Funding Panel
  3. Research Impact Funding Panel
  4. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  5. ACORN Funding Panel
  6. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  7. Charity Support Funding Panel
  8. SIA Funding panel

Please see separate announcements regarding each initiative.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, please refer to:

  • Principle 5 – which sets of the context for such funding panels;
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9 – which recognises the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH);
  • Outcomes 4 and 5 – where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience.

The ACORN Fund is now open for applications!

Funding opportunities

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is now open for applications.

This  closing date is Wednesday, 30th October 2019 and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £5,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These award support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and is made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation.

There is a strong link to BU’s ECR Network and the forthcoming  ECR Showcase event. In this way, those who do not benefit directly from the ACORN Fund scheme by receiving funding, will benefit indirectly though interaction with those ECRs who receive support via the scheme.

For eligibility, you must be able to comply with these:

  • All applicants must have completed their PhD
  • All applicants must have a post at BU (established or fixed term) for the full duration of the award and the post-award commitments or longer
  • All applicants should have held a 0.2 or above research contract from no more than six years in total, excluding periods where the applicant was involved in non-research employment or not at work (e.g. caring responsibilities)
  • ACORN award holders cannot hold more than one award concurrently

Within the Research > Pre-award area on the staff intranet, you can find out more by reading the updated ACORN Fund Policy and apply using the Application Form for this round. In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Internal Funding Sample Costs . As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

The closing date for applications is 30th October 2019. As these require faculty support, please start your application and obtain faculty approval as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off and for submitting the application to the email below.

Help and Support: There will be a one hour information session on 25th September 2019 and a two hour pre-application workshop on 21st October 2019. You must reserve your place by emailing acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk and specify which sessions you wish to attend. You are welcome to attend both but places are limited.

Please address any queries to Emily Cieciura, Research Development & Support lead for this scheme, via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

Putting the ACORN Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).

There are eight funding panels:

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. GCRF Funding Panel
  3. Research Impact Funding Panel
  4. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  5. ACORN Funding Panel
  6. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  7. Charity Support Funding Panel
  8. SIA Funding panel

Please see separate announcements regarding each initiative.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, please refer to:

  • Principle 5 – which sets of the context for such funding panels
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9 – which recognises the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH)
  • Outcomes 4 and 5 – where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience

ACORN Fund 2019 – update

Funding opportunities

In response to queries, the ACORN Fund application form and policy have both been updated to provide greater clarity, especially regarding eligibility. See the launch blog post for details. Please replace any previous downloads with the revised versions (Research>Pre-award)

Thank you to those who raised these queries for your help in making the scheme clearer for all.

The ACORN Fund is now open for applications!

Funding opportunities

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is now open for applications.

This year’s closing date is Thursday, 18th April 2019 and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £5,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These award support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and is made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation.

There is a strong link to BU’s ECR Network and the forthcoming 2019 ECR Showcase event. In this way, those who do not benefit directly from the ACORN Fund scheme by receiving funding, will benefit indirectly though interaction with those ECRs who receive support via the scheme.

For eligibility, an ECR in this case is defined as someone who started their research career on or after 1 August 2014. This is the point at which they held a contract of employment of 0.2 FTE or greater, which included a primary employment function of undertaking ‘research’ or ‘teaching and research’, with any HE or other organisation, whether in the UK or overseas. 

Within the Research > Pre-award area on the staff intranet, you can find out more by reading the ACORN Fund Policy (2019) and apply using the Application Form for this round (2019). In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Sample Costs . As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

The closing date for applications is 18th April 2018. As these require faculty support, please start your application and obtain faculty approval as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off and for submitting the application to the email below.

Please address any queries to Emily Cieciura, Research Development & Support lead for this scheme, via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

Putting the ACORN Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).

There are eight funding panels:

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. GCRF Funding Panel
  3. Research Impact Funding Panel
  4. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  5. ACORN Funding Panel
  6. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  7. Charity Support Funding Panel
  8. SIA Funding panel

Please see further announcements regarding each initiative over the coming weeks.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, please refer to:

  • Principle 5 – which sets of the context for such funding panels
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9 – which recognises the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH)
  • Outcomes 4 and 5 – where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience

The HE Green Paper and research – what does it tell us?

green paperNot much. The primary focus is on teaching excellence and social mobility, however, it does reiterate and propose the following about research:

  • Government is committed to the Haldane Principle, and therefore peer review and decisions on funding made by researchers.

 

Dual support system:

  • Government is committed to the retention of the dual support system (allocation of research funding via block grants (currently via the REF) and competitive calls (currently via Research Councils)
  • It is proposed to abolish HEFCE. HEFCE’s current remit in terms of research includes policy development and management of the REF and the allocation of research block grant funding.
  • The Paper provides some options for replacing HEFCE and delivering the dual support system in future:
    • Via separate bodies (as per now, i.e. a replacement for HEFCE’s research function and the Research Councils)
    • Via one overarching body (i.e. one super research body that controls both parts of the dual support system)
  • Neither of these are perfect. With option 1, one could argue that this would cause significant disruption in the sector and achieve no benefits to the current arrangement. With option 2, having one super research body calls into question how the integrity, transparency and fairness of dual support could be maintained?

 

Research Councils:

  • Sir Paul Nurse led a review of the Research Councils in 2015 and this is due to report soon. The Green Paper states that this will be critical in informing the final decisions made about research funding in future.
  • The Triennial Review of the Research Councils 2014 noted a number of efficiencies that could be made to the work process of the councils and the Green Paper proposes that these are addressed.
  • Government wants to ensure that discipline specific leaders remain a key part of the landscape.

 

Research Excellence Framework (REF):

  • The next REF will be held by 2021.
  • The review process itself will be reviewed with the aim of retaining the strengths of the current system (such as peer review), build on the successes (such as impact), and challenge the cost and bureaucracy associated with running such an exercise.
  • There is likely to be a greater emphasis on metrics.
  • There is the suggestion of running two types of REF exercise – a full peer review exercise periodically (e.g. every 6-8 years) with a mini REF held between full exercises (every 3-4 years) for which the focus would very much be on metrics.

 

You can read the full document here: Fulfilling our potential: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice

The Green paper is open for consultation with the sector until 15 January 2016.

Using QR Codes in Higher Education workshop – Tuesday 31 January

David Hopkins and Milena Bobeva in The Business School will be running a workshop on experiences and good practice in the use of QR codes within higher education on Tuesday 31 January.

QR Codes, the 2D bar codes, are becoming the new norm for businesses to reach their customers and provide a fast user-friendly way to access relevant content online through the use of mobile technology.

The workshop is suitable for both people who are new to the QR-concept and those who have substantial experience and would like to build a network to extend the use of QR Codes in education through collaboration in joint projects.

David and Milena will be joined by other QR experts such as Andy Ramsden, of the University Campus Suffolk, to discuss the challenges and good practice in using the codes effectively. 

Find out more online on the workshop webpage and reserve your free ticket here.