Tagged / research

REMINDER: RDS Funding Development Briefing on Wednesday 13/03/22

The next RDS Funding Development Briefing will be on Wednesday (13/03/22) at 12 noon.

According to our plan, there will not be a spotlight presentation this week. To add value to the meeting, feel free to join with external funding related questions you may have.

Next Wednesday (20/03/22), we will have MRC Overview for you.

Important note: those academics considering to apply for  ERC Starting Grant 2023 Call, please contact Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums or your Funding Development Officer as early as possible to let us plan together timeline for internal approvals. It may happen that ItB is required late in June before call opening (call opening planned for 12/07/2022, expected application submission deadline on 25/10/2022).

Wishing you all wonderful Easter!

Summit of Health & Population Scientists in Nepal 2022

Today say the start of the Eight National Summit of Health & Population Scientists in Nepal.  Bournemouth University is involved in two presentation.  The first will be one by University of Huddersfield PhD student Tamang Pasang, and her supervisors Prof. Padam Simkhada (FHSS Visiting Faculty), Dr. Bibha Simkhada (former BU Lecturer in Nursing and current FHSS Visiting Faculty) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.  Pasang will be talking about her thesis fieldwork: ‘Impact of Federalisation in Maintaining Quality of Maternal and Neonatal Care in Nepalese Health System’.

The second presentation will focus of the Nepal Federal Health System Project, our major collaborative project examining the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move to a federal government structure in 2015.  This is a joint project led by the University of Sheffield with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, and two institutions in Nepal: Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences MMIHS) and PHASE Nepal.  This interdisciplinary study is funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref.
MR/T023554/1]. 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternity & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

 

Funding development briefings in April and spotlights this year

Funding development briefings will continue in April as usual on Wednesdays at noon.

Spotlight presentation this Wednesday (06/03/22) will be BA Small Grants.

Last week we promised to publish a summary of remaining spotlight presentations scheduled for this academic year, please see details below:

  • 20/04/22 – MRC Overview
  • 04/05/22 – British Academy Mid-career Fellowship and British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Fellowship, Mid-career Fellowships
  • 11/05/22 – RS Industry Fellowships
  • 18/05/22 – British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (BAPDF) and Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (LECF)
  • 01/06/22 – Getting Started with funding application at BU
  • 15/06/22 – Leverhulme Research Project – Outline
  • 29/06/22 – ESRC New investigator (open call)
  • 20/07/22 – AHRC Research Development and Engagement Fellowships workshop (ECR and Standard – open call for both schemes)
  • 27/07/22 – Horizon Europe Work Programmes 2023-24 (Pillar II – Societal Challenges)

Just as a reminder – registration is still open for UKRO series of information webinars for those interested in applying to MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 Call, more details regarding webinars you can find here (UKRO login details required). First webinar (Overview and Eligibility Rules) on 25 April 2022 at 10:00 UK Time.

As usual, looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday.

Elsevier-UK Institutions Agreement

Elsevier and Jisc have established an agreement to enable continued reading access for UK researchers and to enable open access publishing. When publishing in eligible Elsevier journals, authors will be able to choose to publish open access at no additional cost to the author.

This agreement is effective until the end of December 2024.

This agreement supports corresponding authors affiliated with a Jisc participating institution (which BU is), regardless of the department in which they work.

Authors who publish under this agreement can:

  • Publish their peer-reviewed research open access in hybrid journals, at no charge to the author.
  • Publish their peer-reviewed research in fully gold open access journals at a discount on the list price APC.
  • Publish eligible articles in a wide variety of participating Elsevier journals across disciplines.
  • Rely on high-quality peer-review and experienced editorial support.

You can search for whether the intended journal falls under the agreement here.

Eligibility criteria

  • The author must be the submitting corresponding author affiliated with an eligible institution
  • Articles must have an acceptance date between 1.1.2022 and 31.12.2024

Instructions for corresponding authors

  • Once your article has been accepted for publication in a participating journal, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post-acceptance author journey”. Upon selecting your publishing options, your affiliation will be validated by your institution, and you will be informed if the APC will be covered by the agreement.
  • Upon publication, your final published open access article will be made freely available on ScienceDirect, the world’s largest publishing platform.

Other open access publishing options for authors

Authors can continue to choose to publish under the subscription model and self-archive their manuscript (Green Open Access) in line with Elsevier’s sharing policy.


Details of this agreement and others which BU holds with publishers such as Wiley and Springer, can be found here. Any queries, please contact openaccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

Latest BU publication on academic writing

Today the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published our latest paper on academic writing, under the title ‘The Art of the Editorial’. [1]  This editorial highlights the importance of writing and publishing editorials in scientific journal.  Writing editorials seems sometimes to be a dying art.  This is perhaps due to more and more online journals not publishing regular issues, but adding papers online as and when they have been reviewed, revised and accepted. This paper is co-authered by Bournemouth University’s Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen, two of their four co-authors are also BU Visiting Faculty: Prof. Padam Simkhada based at the University of Huddersfield and Dr. Brijesh Sathian based in the Geriatric Medicine Department, Rumailah Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar.  This paper is an Open Access publication.

This paper on the art of writing editorials follows on from a series of papers on a wide-range of aspects of academic writing and publishing by FHSS (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) authors [2-18].  FHSS co-authors on aspects of academic writing include: Dr. Orlanda Harvey [2], Dr. Pramod Regmi [2-3,4,16], Prof. Vanora Hundley [1,3,5,6,12-14], Dr. Nirmal Aryal [3-4], and Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhihari [4,16], Dr. Preeti Mahato [3,16].

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V, Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., Robinson, J., Banerjee, I. (2022) The Art of the Editorial Nepal J Epidemiol12(1): 1135–38.
  2. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, A., Regmi, P.R., Ireland, J., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing Health Prospect 21(1):1-3.
  3. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Hundley, V. with Shreesh, K. (2022) Writing and Publishing Academic Work, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books
  4. van Teijlingen, E.R., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, A., Aryal, N., Panday, S. (2021). Publishing, identifiers & metrics: Playing the numbers game. Health Prospect20(1). https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v20i1.37391
  5. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, BD. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu Univ Med J 11(3): 262-65. http://www.kumj.com.np/issue/43/262-265.pdf
  6. van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, J Advanced Nurs 37(6): 506-11.
  7. Pitchforth, E, Porter M, Teijlingen van E, Keenan Forrest, K. (2005) Writing up & presenting qualitative research in family planning & reproductive health care, Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 31(2): 132-135.
  8. van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, PP, Rizyal A (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? (Guest Editorial) Health Renaissance 10(1): 1-4.
  9. van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada. PP, Simkhada, B, Ireland J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal Epidemiol 2(4): 213-215 http://nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/7093/6388
  10. Hundley, V, van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, P (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11(2):98-101 www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Download/vol-11-2/Page_99_101_Editorial.pdf
  11. Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Hundley V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1):1-5. www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Pp_1_5_Guest_Editorial.pdf
  12. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Epidemiol 4(1): 344-347.
  13. van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.
  14. Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.
  15. Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Roy, B, Banerjee, I. (2016) Grant writing for innovative medical research: Time to rethink. Med Sci 4(3):332-33.
  16. Adhikari, S. D., van Teijlingen, E. R., Regmi, P. R., Mahato, P., Simkhada, B., & Simkhada, P. P. (2020). The Presentation of Academic Self in The Digital Age: The Role of Electronic Databases. International J Soc Sci Management7(1), 38-41. https://doi.org/10.3126/ijssm.v7i1.27405
  17. Pradhan, AK, van Teijlingen, ER. (2017) Predatory publishing: a great concern for authors, Med Sci 5(4): 43.
  18. van Teijlingen, E (2004), Why I can’t get any academic writing done, Medical Sociol News 30(3): 62-63. britsoc.co.uk/media/26334/MSN_Nov_2004.pd

Elsevier-UK Institutions Agreement

Elsevier and Jisc have established an agreement to enable continued reading access for UK researchers and to enable open access publishing. When publishing in eligible Elsevier journals, authors will be able to choose to publish open access at no additional cost to the author.

This agreement is effective until the end of December 2024.

This agreement supports corresponding authors affiliated with a Jisc participating institution (which BU is), regardless of the department in which they work.

Authors who publish under this agreement can:

  • Publish their peer-reviewed research open access in hybrid journals, at no charge to the author.
  • Publish their peer-reviewed research in fully gold open access journals at a discount on the list price APC.
  • Publish eligible articles in a wide variety of participating Elsevier journals across disciplines.
  • Rely on high-quality peer-review and experienced editorial support.

You can search for whether the intended journal falls under the agreement here.

Eligibility criteria

  • The author must be the submitting corresponding author affiliated with an eligible institution
  • Articles must have an acceptance date between 1.1.2022 and 31.12.2024

Instructions for corresponding authors

  • Once your article has been accepted for publication in a participating journal, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post-acceptance author journey”. Upon selecting your publishing options, your affiliation will be validated by your institution, and you will be informed if the APC will be covered by the agreement.
  • Upon publication, your final published open access article will be made freely available on ScienceDirect, the world’s largest publishing platform.

Other open access publishing options for authors

Authors can continue to choose to publish under the subscription model and self-archive their manuscript (Green Open Access) in line with Elsevier’s sharing policy.


Details of this agreement and others which BU holds with publishers such as Wiley and Springer, can be found here. Any queries, please contact openaccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

Social Work Research cited in national newspaper

Congratulations to Dr. Orlanda Harvey who was cited last week in The Daily Telegraph in an article with the underlying question whether Vladimir Putin is experiencing so-called “roid rage” from steroid treatment.  This theory has been suggested by by Western intelligence services.  Orlanda’s PhD study at Bournemouth University focused on men using anabolic androgenic steroids for non-medical use.  She published several academic papers on the topic [1-3].

References:

  1. Harvey, O., Parrish, M., van Teijlingen, E, Trenoweth, S. (2021) Libido as a reason to use non-prescribed Anabolic Androgenic Steroids, Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy (online first). https://doi.org/10.1080/09687637.2021.1882940
  2. Harvey, O., Parrish, M., van Teijlingen, E.Trenoweth, S. (2020) Support for non-prescribed Anabolic Androgenic Steroids users: A qualitative exploration of their needs Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy 27:5, 377-386. doi 10.1080/09687637.2019.1705763
  3. Harvey, O., Keen, S., Parrish, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2019) Support for people who use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids: A Systematic Literature Review into what they want and what they access. BMC Public Health 19: 1024 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7288-x https://rdcu.be/bMFon

BU’s new Read and Publish deal with Cambridge University Press

We have a new Read and Publish deal with Cambridge. By entering the location and institution you will see the publishing agreement as below and also have links to eligible journals.

To be eligible, articles must:

Institutional Learning from Funder Feedback: Research Methods

An insight from Associate Professor – Dr. Ian Jones.

One of the great benefits of acting as a reviewer – whether of funding applications or research papers – is being able to learn what is happening at the ‘cutting edge’ of a field, not only in terms of subject knowledge, but also in terms of methodology. Here, we can learn from both good, and not so good practice. Having recently reviewed a number of applications for the funding scheme associated with my own professional body, It was clear that such a task has clearly had a significant impact upon my own understanding of what makes ‘good’ research, and what makes a ‘good’ application for funding.

Perhaps the key term from the latest round of reviews – to me at least – was that of ‘coherence’, and coherence between various different elements of a proposed methodology. Often within applications there is an understandable focus upon ‘methods’ rather than ‘methodology’. To me, this means a missed opportunity to generate such coherence – and subsequently a missed opportunity to justify the key methodological decisions. As one example we can look at the importance of the ontological and epistemological basis of the work (perhaps more relevant within the social, rather than the natural sciences) which is often overlooked, or only briefly addressed. Often, even a relatively brief acknowledgement of these ideas can help to justify choices in terms of methods, sampling and data analysis. This can be taken further with reference to another – often overlooked – detail, that of the research design. Often, whilst research designs are outlined, their role as a ‘link’ between the epistemology of the study and the data collection and analysis methods is often omitted, where again, it can lead to a real sense of coherence within the methodology. The best bids had not only detail about the broader methodology, but also a real coherence between each element, with a consistent story being told, from the philosophical assumptions of the study, which guided the research design, where each method had a clear link both to the broader epistemological issues, and also the subsequent analysis and interpretation of the data.

Finally, and crucially from a reviewer’s perspective, the idea of coherence between researcher, subject and methodology is essential, often being the first question, a reviewer will be required to address. The research itself is not independent of the researcher, and does the study show coherence in terms of not only researcher-subject coherence (does the researcher have an established record in the area) but also researcher-methodology coherence (what evidence is there that the researcher could undertake this methodology successfully), again focusing not just on methods, but the broader methodology as a whole (for example is there coherence between the choice of research design, and the researcher’s own experiences and attributes (often key, for example, in ethnographic designs).

None of these points are ground breakingly original, but it is interesting to see that there is still great variation in how methodologies are constructed. And assessing such methodologies has proved to be of immense value when think about my own work.

Institutional Learning from Funder feedback

This week, we’ll be running a series of blog posts on Institutional learning from funder feedback. These will include experiences from academics on research methods and research design, advice on embedding impact throughout your application, institutional support available to develop PDRAs on your projects, advice on developing partners.

Friday’s blog looked at the support the Research Facilitators can provide when you want to repurpose your unfunded research application. But what do we do to ensure we also learn and tailor our support? Well, many things but …

Behind the scenes, we have curated a “funder feedback” database which contains the good, the bad and the ugly. We analyse all the feedback every six months. Identifying common themes (good and bad) and areas of improvements are identified, which feeds into the Research and Knowledge Exchange Framework, Research Facilitators one to one support and even weekly blog series!!

If you still haven’t passed on your funder feedback good, bad and the ugly for this academics year, please do send it over to me apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk, as you know all too well feedback from funders are like hens teeth!

Tomorrow, we will be gaining a great insight from Dr Ian Jones on research methods and methodologies.

 

Speaking to a journalist

In late 2021 I was contacted by an Indonesian science journalist, Dyna Rochmyaningsih, who was investigating the ethics around international studies on human population genetics to build expand genomic libraries of people in the Global South.  She highlights that “these international studies, often led by Western scientists, have contributed to a more global understanding of ancient patterns of human migration and evolution. But on some occasions, they’ve also sidestepped local regulatory agencies in the developing world, and ventured into murky research ethics terrain as a result”.   The reason for contacting me was because we had published several papers here at Bournemouth University about the need for applying for ethical approval for research in developing countries [1-3].  I had a long Skype conversation with her about the various perspectives on the matter she was investigating.

Today she emailed me that her piece ‘Opinion: Genomics’ Ethical Gray Areas Are Harming the Developing World. A recent controversy in the Philippines illustrates the pitfalls and pressure points of international genomics research‘ has been published online.  In the email she made a really nice comment: “It was nice talking to you even though you might see that I disagree at some of your points. However, the discussion gave me insights that there is a wide disagreement on what considers ethical research.”  I think that is what science should be all about, disagreements, discussions, disputes, etc. and, at the same time, learning from these disputes and gaining greater insight.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen E.R., Simkhada P.P. (2012)    Ethical approval in developing countries is not optional. Journal of Medical Ethics 38(7):428-30. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100123. Epub 2012 Feb 16.PMID: 22345548 
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2015). Failure to Apply for Ethical Approval for Health Studies in Low-Income Countries. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology5(3), 511–515. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v5i3.13609
  3. Regmi, P. R., Aryal, N., Kurmi, O., Pant, P. R., van Teijlingen, E., & Wasti, S. P. (2017). Informed Consent in Health Research: Challenges and Barriers in Low-and Middle-Income Countries with Specific Reference to NepalDeveloping World Bioethics17(2), 84–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12123

This week’s research process seminar. Self-Reflexivity and co-presence in the affective research space. Tuesday 22nd Feb at 2pm on Zoom

You are warmly invited to this week’s research process seminar. Hosted in FMC but open to anyone interested: staff or research student.

Self-Reflexivity and co-presence in the affective research space by Dr Christopher Pullen (BU).

This session is about ‘immersion’ within research, or at least thinking about research.  It’s about crossing boundaries, if not borders, that divide the self from the research subject. Framing the notion of self reflexivity, I hope to make sense of moments, encounters, and unusual linkages, while crossing time and space.  When we place ourselves within the research frame, remembering different times, visiting different places, and seeing ourselves in counterpoint or in context to the subjects that we research, we attempt to understand, our motives, our commitments, and essentially ourselves.

Tuesday 22 Feb at 2pm on Zoom

https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/9292103478?pwd=UzJnNTNQWDdTNldXdjNWUnlTR1cxUT09

Meeting ID: 929 210 3478

Passcode: rps!4fmc

New Intention to Bid and Bid Enquiry Process

Following the announcement of the new electronic ITB form on 24 January 2022, these are some updates since the launch.

The new ITB form and Enquiry service will provide a better user experience and create a more efficient administrative control process for Research Development and Support (RDS).

 

New ITB form: The new Intention to Bid (ITB) form and the updated Research Costings Request Sheet are both available now in the Policies & Procedures/Research/Pre-award section of the intranet under Research > Pre-award. Please complete the Research Costings Request Sheet and attach it to the e-ITB form for completion. PDF copies of all submissions can be printed or saved but there are limitations to editing a form once it has been submitted.

 

Bid Enquiry Process: If you have more than 4 weeks to the submission deadline and need advice or support regarding a bid, please access the same form link and select ‘Enquiry/Advice on Bidding’. This ensures that the pre-award team will see your Enquiry, rather than emailing a sole officer who may not be available at the time.

 

As a service, RDS is committed to delivering service excellence to enable BU’s academic community to deliver and grow world-leading research for societal benefit. The program of work continues to look at processes to enhance the user experience.

 

Changes include improvements to the pre- and post-award support being offered. Building on the delivery of a new Principal Investigator report which is currently in the final stages of being rolled out, and continuing our collaboration with the Transformation Team.

 

For any queries about the transformation of pre-award services at BU, please contact Jo Garrad or Brian Kaliczynskyj to discuss further.

For any technical issues in relation to the form, please contact Roy Harvey directly.