Tagged / research

Research in post-Brexit Britain “New Neighbours – Old Friends”

Posted on behalf of Matt Bentley, Deputy Dean – Research & Professional Practice

Now that the shock and post-referendum gloom has faded a little, we face the reality that for Higher Education in the UK, as well as in a host of other areas, things will never be the same again. Theresa May has now made it clear that she and her government will enact Article 50 by March 2017 to trigger Britain’s exit from the EU, which is likely to be complete by 2019. The next three years will be a critical period for research in UK HEIs including BU. In the Faculty of Science and Technology we have achieved some notable recent successes in both EU and RCUK funding across our seven Research Centres, and bidding activity has seen a marked increase over the past two years. We cannot afford to turn our back on our EU collaborators and must hope that the bonds of collaborative research will be stronger than the ties offered by EU funding. The government is attempting to mitigate the impact of loss of EU funding by underwriting existing research commitments and also by offering new funding routes through the Global Challenges Research Fund. It will be important to keep our relationships with our old friends in Europe warm.

At the same time we will find ourselves with new neighbours on the global research stage. BU has made great strides over the past year in fostering global relationships though the Global BU, whilst principally the focus has been on education and mobility, there are fantastic opportunities in research. In a thought provoking article published on the BBC website-pre-Brexit Could the UK be the Atlantic Singapore? Karishma Vaswani, the Asia Business Correspondent highlights how Singapore’s success has depended on building relationships with its neighbours through ASEAN. Britain might find that working with new neighbours will be key to its future success, in research and other areas.

As I prepare to leave BU at the end of this month to take up a new position in Higher Education in Singapore I have mixed feelings. I have loved my time here over the past two years and seen BU make significant steps forwards in all areas of activity, not least in research. Also I am excited about the challenges that for me are ahead. I would be very keen to maintain links with BU after I have left and if I can help foster research links in Singapore I should be very pleased. Please do keep in touch!

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

coins money

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Cancer Research UK

Tobacco advisory group project grants

TAG is looking for project grant applications for policy research and policy advocacy activities in tobacco control. Maximum Award: £20000 – 50000 per year for 1 or 2 years Deadline: 1 December 2016

Academy of Medical Sciences

Springboard – health of the public 20140 grant scheme

The Academy’s ‘Health of the Public in 2040’ initiative aims to identify the main health challenges the UK population will face by 2040 and recognises that, in order to solve many of these issues, a multidisciplinary approach will be required.

Maximum Award: £25000 – £50000 Deadline: 12 December 2016

Medical Research Foundation

Child & young adult mental health

A key aim of this call is to encourage researchers already working in associated areas or on other relevant clinical research to re-prioritise these topics and enable the exploitation of existing resources and cohorts to develop hypotheses exploring the underlying biology and psychology of either of these diverse mental health conditions.

Maximum Award: £300000 Deadline: 31 January 2017

Director-General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology, EU

Pilot project for developing use of new technologies and digital tools in education

The aim of this pilot project is to identify existing digital learning solutions that can support teachers in the classroom and parents at home with pupils having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and/or concentration problems, and to provide good practice examples where technology has been successfully used in daily classroom activities to help pupils with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and concentration problems.

Maximum Award: Unknown, total budget for call is €400000 for 2 years Deadline: 14 November 2016

Directorate-General for Educatio & Culture, EU

European co-operation projects

These support the capacity of the European cultural and creative sectors to operate transnationally and internationally, and to promote the transnational circulation and mobility of cultural and creative works.

Maximum Award: €200000 for small projects and €2 million for large projects Deadline: 23 November 2016

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

New THET project paper published

international, open access, Publishing, Training

thet-needs-assessmentToday saw the latest publication on our BU-led THET in Nepal.  The paper ‘Needs assessment of mental health training for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives: a cross-sectional survey’ was published the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences [1].   This paper reports on a quantitative survey with nearly all Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nawalparasi District in the southern part of Nepal. The findings illustrate the lack of training on mental health issues related to pregnancy and childbirth in this group of health workers. Thus the paper’s conclusions stress the need for dedicated training in this field.logo THET

This is the third publication linked to our mental health and maternity care project. In Nepal mental health is generally a difficult to topic to discuss. THET, a London-based organisation, funded Bournemouth University, and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and Tribhuvan University in Nepal to train maternity workers on issues around mental health.  This latest paper and the previous two papers are all Open Access publications.  The previous two papers raised the issue of women and suicide [2] and outlined the THET project in detail [3].

np-thet-2916-jilly

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., Sharma, G., Pradhan, S., van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B. & the THET team. (2016) Needs assessment of mental health training for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives: a cross-sectional survey, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 2(1): 20-26. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/15793/12738
  2. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Winter, R.C., Fanning, C., Dhungel, A., Marahatta S.B. (2015) Why are so many Nepali women killing themselves? A review of key issues Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 1(4): 43-49. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/12001
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B., Fanning, P., Ireland, J., Simkhada, B., Sherchan, L., Silwal, R.C., Pradhan, S., Maharjan, S.K., Maharjan, R.K. (2015) Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(3): 499-501. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/13607/11007

New paper Dr. Catherine Angell on CPD in Nepal

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Fusion, international, Knowledge Transfer, open access, Publishing, Training, writing

nnaCongratulations to Dr. Catherine Angell (FHSS) who just had her paper ‘Continual Professional Development (CPD): an opportunity to improve the Quality of Nursing Care in Nepal’ accepted in Health Prospect.   The paper is co-authored with BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada  both based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), Dr. Rose Khatri  and Dr. Sean Mackacel-logo-weby (also at LJMU), Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery and Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), and our colleagues in Dr. Sujan Marahatta and Associate Professor Chandra Kala Sharma. Ms. Chandra Kala Sharma is also the president of the Nepal Nursing Association (left in photo).  Health Prospect is an Open Access journal, hence freely available to anybody in Nepal (and elsewhere in the world).

dsc_0124This paper is first of several based on a study aiming to improve CPD in Nepal and it is partly funded by LJMU and partly funded by BU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL).  The CEL-funded part of the project centres on focus group research with representatives of the Ministry of Health & Population, the Ministry of Education, the Nepal Nursing Association and the Nursing Council, and Higher Education providers of Nurse Education (both form Government-run universities and private colleges). The focus group schedule will include starter questions to initiate discussions around the kind of CPD nurses in Nepal need, its format, preferred models, the required quality and quantity, and ways of  checking up (quality control). In addition we will be asking a subgroup of nurses registered in Nepal about midwifery skills as midwifery is not recognised as a separate profession from nursing in Nepal. Hence there will be three focus groups specifically about midwifery CPD: one at MIDSON (the Midwifery Organisation of Nepal), one with nurses providing maternity care in private hospitals and one with nurses doing this in government hospitals.

The research is a natural FUSION project in the field of nursing & midwifery as it links Research in the field of Education to help improve Practice in Nepal.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. (CPD): an opportunity to improve the Quality of Nursing Care in Nepal, Health Prospect (Accepted) 

 

 

Horizon 2020 Funding for virtual factory research at BU

Awarded & submitted bids, international

European Union - Horizon 2020Uber, Amazon, AirBnB, Netflix… The Internet has had many impacts to the economy. Not only to the consumer market, but widely across the service sector. There is a large amount of integration and automation to enable things like instant order confirmations. Work in these aspects of business processes is quite well established in the service sector.
Manufacturing is a key part of the economy. To remain competitive or become even more so, automation that supports innovation is also essential for the manufacturing sector. BU will be leading, under direction of Drs L. Xu and P. de Vrieze, an international consortium on a project receiving €1.2 mln in funding to address these challenges.

Advanced ICT supported manufacturing is currently gaining a lot of traction with initiatives such as Industrie 4.0 in Germany, Factory of the Future in Italy and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult the UK. Part of this development is advanced coordination of manufacturing allowing for increased flexibility and reduced costs. A virtual factory ensures exchange of data between smart machines, systems, software and design within the manufacturing chain. Manufacturing processes become more simple through plug-and-play techniques.

To enable this, the “vF Interoperation suppoRting buSiness innovaTion” (FIRST) project provides new technology to describe manufacturing assets and to compose and integrate existing services into collaborative virtual manufacturing processes. The project will see collaboration between internationally recognised academics and industry in Europe and China. As such the consortium will take advantage of it various backgrounds to address the issue from a variety of perspectives.

The FIRST consortium is a competitive consortium with large know-how and expertise in complex software systems and manufacturing automation. The research base of the academic partners will be used as foundation for innovations to contribute to virtual interoperation of smart manufacturing in the area of Factory of the Future/Manufacturing 2.0 to improve the competiveness of our industrial partners and sustainability of the European manufacturing sector. Within this research programme, 6 industrial researcher will get the opportunity to gather knowledge in academia while 22 academic researchers will absorb knowledge in industry. The consortium will provide new knowledge for GK, an enterprise software vendor and KM, a manufacturing software vendor, inform newer training in the area of big data, cloud computing to both GK and KM, and promote innovation, while the academic partners will translate their research to facilitate better understanding virtual factories.

Postgraduate Short Course Opportunities!

PG research, student research, Training

PhD and MSC students! Are you looking to develop additional laboratory skills or about to undertake your own research work? Then now is your chance to get involved in some upcoming short courses at Liverpool Science Park. By working in a laboratory setting, these courses give you a chance to attain or further practical skills. With a high staffing level, this doesn’t just bring a wealth of experience, this also gives you a chance to discuss, interact and ask questions with researchers working both in academia and within the field. Please see below and follow the links for more information on how to book.

24 September- Discovering Practical Microbiology

30 September- Laboratory Skills 

1 October- Introduction to Mammalian Cell Culture 

3 October- Practical Skills in Drug Discovery 

8 October- Genomics and Bioinformatics

5 November- Skills in Analytical Science 

Accommodation? They’ve got you covered with bed and breakfast available for £32-£47 a night at Hatters Hostel

For more information email BioGrad.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

money and cogs

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

ESRC

New & Emerging Forms of Data – Policy Demonstrator Projects

The ESRC is pleased to invite Expressions of Interest for New and Emerging Forms of Data – Policy Demonstrator Projects under Phase 3 of the Big Data Network.

Maximum Award: £25,,000 Deadline: 14 October 2016

Royal Society of Chemistry

Researcher Mobility Grants

Researcher Mobility Grants support PhD students and early career researchers to undertake short to mid-term scientific visits to overseas or UK organisations.

Maximum Award: £7,500 Deadline: 31 October 2016

NERC

Engaging the UK public with big issues of environmental science

NERC is inviting proposals under this programme for public engagement projects costing up to £20k that must be delivered between January and end of March 2017.

Maximum Award: £220,000 Deadline: 3 November 2016

BBSRC

Brazil partnering awards

Funds can only be used for travel, subsistence and other activities, such as workshops or exchanges. They are not to fund salary costs, consumables, items of equipment or other research costs, nor to link ongoing single collaborative projects

Maximum Award: £50,000 over 4 years Deadline: 17 November 2016

China partnering awards

As above, for China.

Maximum Award: £30,000 over 4 years Deadline: 17 November 2016

European partnering awards

As above, for Europe.

Maximum Award: £20,000 over 12 – 18 months Deadline: 17 November 2016

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

New sociology book by Prof Ann Brooks

Publishing, Women's Academic Network

Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacies, and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity (Hardback) book cover

Congratulations to Prof. Ann Brooks in FHSS on the publication of her latest book Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacies and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity. The book has a Foreword by David Konstan (NYU) and it is published by Routledge. 

 

Human Henge: Historic landscapes & mental health at Stonehenge

Stonehenge in the sunshineCongratulations to colleagues on the recently funded project “Human Henge: Historic landscapes and mental health at Stonehenge”.  This research led by the Restoration Trust. The project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage Trust and Wiltshire County Council and has multiple partners and contributors including Wiltshire County Council, Richmond Fellowship, English Heritage Trust and Bournemouth University. From BU, Prof Tim Darvill (Director Centre of Archaeology, Faculty of Science & Technology) and Dr Vanessa Heaslip (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) are engaged in this project.

The Human Henge research project is a therapeutic sensory experience of Stonehenge for two facilitated groups, each of up to 16 local people with mental health problems, plus carers, support workers, volunteers and staff. Over ten weekly three-hour sessions, one at night, each group walks the landscape, reaching through time to other humans whose traces are illuminated by accompanying pre-historians, curators and artists. Individual experiences cohere in a shared spoken epic which is augmented from session to session. The groups arrive inside the Stone Circle near the winter solstice and spring equinox; collaborating with their chosen artist, they decide what they do there.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

**New** Intention to Bid Forms & Annexures for Quality Approval

Guidance

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The Faculties have requested, through the Deputy Deans of Research & Professional Practice (DDRPPs), that RKEO provide support targeted to achieve their research strategies. To aid in this, it has been agreed that, as part of the internal approvals process for bids involving external funding, the following shall become mandatory:

  1. An Intention to Bid (ITB) form must be lodged with RKEO; and
  2. At the time of lodgement, the PI must cc. his/her Head of Research with the ITB Form.

To implement the DDRPPs’ decision, RKEO has taken the opportunity to produce a more easy-to-use, streamlined ITB form to be used across all Faculties, with an Annexure for Quality Approval (A-QA) that is customised for each Faculty.

The ITB form and A-QAs will shortly be uploaded onto the Staff Intranet for download and use.

The RKE Bid Timeline and RKE Sample Costs documents on the same Staff Intranet page will also shortly be updated for reference.

RKEO’s Funding Development Team is available to provide pre-award support and their contact details can be found on the Research Blog. Should you have any difficulty in accessing the documents on the Staff Intranet, please request them from us and we will send you a copy.

Due to various staff movements and other exigencies of the workplace, the original team of Funding Development Officers which previously comprised 4.2 FTE to support the 4 Faculties is currently comprised of 2.4 FTE. For optimal support of your application and to aid in workload management, it is of particular importance that a completed ITB form and A-QA be lodged with RKEO at the earliest opportunity, ideally 3 weeks before the submission deadline.

Congratulations to Prof. Brooks

Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Ann Brooks 2016Congratulations to FHSS Prof. Ann Brooks on her latest academic article in the July issue of Cultural Politics. The article ‘The Cultural Production of Consumption as Achievement’ is co-authored with Lionel Wee.

Brooks, A. & Wee, L., The Cultural Production of Consumption as Achievement Cultural PoliticsCultural Politics (2016) 12 (2): 217-232

doi 10:10.1215/17432197-3592112

http://culturalpolitics.dukejournals.org/content/current

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information. money and cogs

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, via the Global Challenges Research Fund, invites applications for its call on Tackling global development challenges through engineering and digital technology research. The aim of this activity is to support an internationally leading programme of research, centred around engineering and digital technologies, to tackle the challenges faced by the developing world. Exemplar areas are given under each heading below, but these should not be seen as exclusive. Proposals may also span both headings: 1) Tackling global development challenges through engineering research- Sustainable infrastructure development, Engineering for disaster resilience, Engineering for humanitarian aid; 2) Tackling global development challenges through digital technology research- Access to digital services, Use of data for vital services, Secure and trusted digital infrastructures. The proposed research must be predominantly in EPSRC remit, although interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary proposals are welcomed.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 15/11/16.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council invites applications for its First Grant scheme. The scheme helps new academics apply for research funding at the start of their careers. Applicants must have been appointed to their first academic lecturing appointment, which involves lecturing and administration alongside research, in a UK university within the previous 36 months, or still be in the probation period of their new appointment. They must also have completed their PhD or an equivalent professional qualification within the last 10 years.

Maximum award: £100,000. Closing date: No deadline.

Innovate UK

Innovate UK invites applications for its connected and autonomous vehicles competition 2. Projects must be business led and should provide technical solutions for connected and autonomous vehicle features that provide real-world benefits to users. This includes how these vehicles will work as part of a wider transport system. The commercial benefit should clear in proposals. This competition is in 4 streams: Stream 1 will fund a large-scale challenge to develop and demonstrate a vehicle operating at SAE level 4 automation. It is expected that the fund will support a single project or 2 projects maximum of between £15 million and £30 million each. Projects should last between 18 and 30 months. Streams 2, 3 and 4 will fund feasibility studies and industrial research and development projects on connected and autonomous vehicles. Projects are expected to range in size from total costs of £250,000 to £5 million. Projects should last between 12 and 30 months.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 02/11/16.

Medical Research Council

The Medical Research Council invites applications for its Confidence in Concept scheme. This scheme aims to accelerate the transition from discovery science to the early stages of therapeutic/biomarker development by providing locally-administered, responsive and flexible funding to support preliminary translational work. The award can be used flexibly by the institution to support a number of preliminary-stage translational projects. The projects supported should aim to provide sufficient preliminary data to establish the viability of an approach –– before seeking more substantive funding

Maximum award: £1.2 million. Closing date: 15/11/16.

The Medical Research Council invites applications for its Proximity to Discovery – Industry Engagement Fund. The scheme is designed to provide flexible funding for innovative ways to enable the initial development of academic-industry collaborations. Short term people exchanges between industry and academia are seen as a key way of exchanging skills and knowledge and developing a longer term working relationship. Proximity to Discovery: Industry Engagement Fund can be used for people and knowledge exchange at the very earliest stage of a collaboration and may not necessarily be aligned to a specific project objective. Examples of potential uses include: People exchange that allow for an exchange of skills or knowledge which will enable new collaborative projects to develop; People exchanges between Technology Transfer Offices in Universities and Business Development teams in industry, where the placement will enhance the understanding of each other’s business model and allow them to better support their organisation to develop medical research collaborations with industrial partners; Other creative ways to encourage new collaborations or two-way people exchange to increase the permeability between industry and academia; Projects that would enhance academic understanding of industry or vice versa; Showcases/workshops which enabling Universities to develop relationships with potential industry partners.

Maximum award: £250,000. Closing date: 15/11/16.

Royal Academy of Engineering

The Royal Academy of Engineering, in partnership with the Leverhulme Trust, invites applications for its Senior Research Fellowships. The fellowships allow academics to concentrate on full-time research and be relieved of teaching and administrative responsibilities. The purpose of the Fellowships is to cover the salary costs of a replacement academic who will take over the awardee’s teaching and administration duties for up to one year. A support fund of up to £2,500 is also available to the awardee to cover miscellaneous research costs, such as conference attendance and public engagement activities.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 19/10/16.

Royal Society

The Royal Society invites proposals for its scientific meetings, which offer the opportunity to present an international, two day conference. The call is open to UK based researchers in any field and the discussion throughout the meeting should allow everyone, at any stage of their career, to be involved in the conversation. The award will cover administrative support, a contribution towards speaker, organiser and chair travel expenses and accommodation, logistical support, materials for the meeting, venue, facilities and catering.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 30/9/16.

The Royal Society invites proposals for its Science+ and Fast Track Discussion meetings. These meetings Bring together scientists from around the world to present and discuss new research in all areas of science. Each meeting is organised by leaders in the field, using their expertise to ensure the key topics are covered. The focus on discussion throughout the meeting allows everyone, at any stage of their scientific career, to get involved in the conversation. The programme offers a unique opportunity  to present an international, two-day conference, with the chance for publication in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society following the event.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date:  30/09/16.

Royal Society of Edinburgh

The Royal Society of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, invites applications for the BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships. The aim of this scheme is to increase exploitation of ideas with commercial potential from BBSRC supported research. The Enterprise Fellowships are designed to enable an individual to advance the commercialisation of existing research results or technological developments and are tenable for a period of one year within a UK HE or similar academic institution. The Fellowships enable the holder to concentrate on developing the commercial potential of their research, whilst also receiving formal training in relevant business skills.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 19/11/16.

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health invite applications for their Four-year PhD Studentships. This scheme offers postgraduate students collaborative PhD training at academic laboratories in the UK or Republic of Ireland and at the National Institutes of Health in the USA. Students usually spend half their time at an academic organisation in the UK/Republic of Ireland and the other half of their time at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus at Bethesda (Maryland, USA). Applicants should have a first class degree or 2:1 (or the European Economic Area equivalent), or be in their final year and predicted to get a first class degree or 2:1. Applicants must also be UK or EEA nationals.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 07/11/16.

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline. Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here. If you are thinking of applying, why not add an expression of interest on Research Professional so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.