Tagged / research

Colleague supervision – and maximising research opportunities

This blog post considers two aspects of research – supervision and publication. The two came together in article of mine recently been published online by the Journal of Further & Higher Education (JFHE) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2011.644774.

In 2008/09, I undertook the PGCert Research Degree Supervision to further develop supervision skills. For the second assignment, I made a study of colleague supervision – the supervision of staff doctoral students by their colleagues and, sometimes, managers. From it, an academic paper was developed and later submitted to JFHE. The article was an opportunity to maximise the outcomes of my study of research supervision and to create insights (possibly “new knowledge”) into a sometimes contentious and little researched area.

The starting point was a claim by Pam Denicolo (2004) that colleague supervision was “a role relationship that has been largely ignored or undervalued by [university] administration” (p. 693) and colleague students and supervisors “felt more vulnerable” than other students/supervisors (p. 706). At the time, I was Deputy Dean (Education) in the Media School and had, at BU and a previous university, observed colleague students often struggling to manage the roles of teacher, researcher, colleague and administrator. So the aim of my qualitative study amongst students and supervisors was to gain greater insight into the colleague students’ research journey and to consider how their working lives could be better structured.

Broadly, the indications from this small-scale study were:

  • The students and supervisors did not feel they were “ignored”, “undervalued” or “vulnerable.” There were some advantages of easy access to supervisors that other PGRs don’t have;
  • More effort is needed on the research training of colleague students. Those coming into doctoral studies from professional backgrounds said that they often learnt “on the hoof”;
  • Some students, in 2009 interviews, feared for their jobs without achievement of a doctoral qualification. Others saw it as an essential part of their development of academic research and professional skills;
  • Although Denicolo posited “vulnerability” as a power imbalance between supervisors and staff, the general attitude was that their supervisor was a “friendly facilitator” and supportive;
  • Confidentiality of performance on doctoral studies was expected by students as part of their relationship with the colleague supervision;
  • The use of group supervision by HSC to support students was seen as very beneficial in aiding cohort progress and reducing the loneliness of the doctoral student’s research journey.

This was a small-scale study (six students and five supervisors) and thus there are limitations of its generalisability, but it indicates that colleague supervision needs to be considered as a special case and not just part of the academic “day job”.

Prof Tom Watson, The Media School

Article:  Watson, T., 2011. Colleague supervision – ‘ignored and undervalued’? The views of students and supervisors in a new university. Journal of Further & Higher Education. DOI: 10.1080/0309877X.2011.644774.

Reference: Denicolo, P., 2004. Doctoral supervision of colleagues: Peeling off the veneer of satisfaction and competence. Studies in Higher Education, 29 (6), 693-707.

Swedes spend tenth of research time applying for funding

How long do you spend writing funding proposals and how does this compare elsewhere in Europe? According to a recent analysis by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education, Swedish researchers spend 10% of their research time applying for funding. Based on data from 2009, lecturers spend 40 per cent of their time on research and of this, 10% is spent applying for external funds, which makes up roughly half of the research funding at Sweden’s universities.

Grant writing – an art or a science?

Guidance

Martin Pickard from GrantCraft came to the university last week to deliver grant writing workshops focusing on applying to the research councils. Martin has an excellent track record of helping universities win funding and provided some top tips on how to prepare a better application.  His main aim was to encourage participants to start thinking of applications as a sales document – how to make an impact with every part of the application and convince the funder to ‘buy’ the research.  Fundamentally your research doesn’t change but it’s how you package it that matters.

One of the things that Martin advised was that when you give your applications to colleagues to review ask them to give you 10 reasons why they wouldn’t fund it.  You may not agree with everything they say but it gives you some constructive feedback and can help you think about whether you have fully defended your project.  The people reviewing your application for the funder may not be as close to the field as you and everyone has had those comments from reviewers where you wonder if they have a clue.  Don’t give your reviewers a chance to think, give them all the answers even if you think it’s obvious.

The other big message from Martin’s sessions was that you need to think about what the overarching problem is that your research is addressing and make that clear from the start.  This is bigger that just the research need that you are addressing and you need to think outside the box!  Once you start to think bigger, about where your research fits within other research, with practitioners and within society, it makes the section on impact much simpler because the message is there throughout your application.

And finally give yourself enough time…to think about it, prepare several drafts and get feedback from colleagues.

Martin is coming back in the new year to deliver a few more sessions. In January he is running a session aimed at staff preparing their first research grant and in February he is running two sessions on EU funding – one particularly looking at the Marie Curie scheme and the other at EU funding in general. If you’re interested in attending these sessions please contact Susan Dowdle from the Research Development Unit.

Exploring research impact

Why do I need to think about the impact of my research?

Given the current economic situation, tighter spending reviews and increasing constraints on public spending, there is more of a need than ever to demonstrate the economic, social and cultural benefits of publicly funded research to wider society. This broad definition of research impact is gradually being adopted and used in a number of ways by various funding bodies that need to be accountable for the money they distribute, such as the Research Councils UK (RCUK), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and some charities and trusts.

Consequently, there is now greater impetus to involve researchers more directly in demonstrating the impact of their research. Researchers therefore need to actively think about how to demonstrate the value of their research and its wider impact, from the application stage through to project completion, dissemination and beyond.

This impact pathway is a fluid process and research impacts can occur at any stage in the research life cycle – often they can stem from unexpected or unintended outcomes as well as from planned activity. The key is to start thinking about potential beneficiaries and pathways to impact during the project planning stage and to continue to monitor the outcomes in an ongoing way. This will help you to make new connections and partnerships beyond the project itself, and to put in place resources and activities that enable you to make the most of opportunities for achieving impact when they arise. Keeping a record of activity related to a project, and gathering evidence to support impacts and outcomes achieved, is recommended to enable you to effectively fulfil any current and future reporting requirements.

What are funders looking for in terms of impact?

Many funding bodies, particularly larger ones such as RCUK, have a section on their funding application form that specifically asks you to consider the potential pathways to impact as appropriate for the nature of the research you’re proposing to conduct. This is to enable funders to support you in undertaking these activities – you’re not being asked to predict the actual outcomes that the research will achieve.

Each funder understands that there is great diversity in the kinds of impact that are possible; they also acknowledge that this diversity is a great strength of the research community in addressing such things as urgent social issues, remaining competitive in global markets and improving quality of life. It is about embracing the ways in which research-related knowledge and skills benefit individuals, organisations and nations.
In thinking about potential impacts, you might find it useful to consider the potential beneficiaries of the research – innovative and creative approaches to engaging beneficiaries and fostering impact are generally strongly encouraged by the funders. For more specific information about completing the impact sections on the RCUK application forms and for an indication of the potential range of impacts that can be generated from research, visit the RCUK impact web-pages.

Furthermore, the RCUK has just launched the Research Outcomes Project, which requires all RCUK grant holders to upload information about the various outcomes that have resulted from each of the RCUK-funded projects they are responsible for, and one of those categories is impact.

What is HEFCE looking for in terms of research impact for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)?

As part of submitting to the REF, HEFCE requires higher education institutions to provide evidence of research impact that has been realised within the assessment period but which stems from research undertaken at that institution within a number of years prior to the assessment period. Therefore, rather than looking forward to the kinds of impact that might stem from a research project, HEFCE is asking for information about impacts that are being, or have already been, achieved within a set timeframe. More information about how HEFCE is approaching impact in the REF is available from the HEFCE REF web-pages.

Research and the role of the university…

Last week the Guardian wrote a story about the role of universities in the 21st century and how the coalition government’s higher education reform is raising questions about the purpose of universities  (‘What are universities for?‘, 10 October 2011). And this got me thinking about why we’re all here, what the role of a university such as BU should be, and where does research fit into all of this…?

The role of a university has been debated since the nineteenth century. In 1852 Cardinal Newman wrote that the sole function of a university was to teach universal knowledge, embodying the idea of ‘the learning university’. Newman believed that knowledge is valuable and important for its own sake and not just for its perceived use to society (this is very different from the current thinking on the importance of research impact, public accountability and the value of research findings to society at large, issues which I imagine Newman would have thought of as irrelevant!). There was not a great deal in Newman’s work about the importance of research in a university, but research was beginning to play the starring role in mainland Europe where Prussian education minister Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote of the concept of ‘the research university’ and eventually set up the Humboldt University of Berlin. After the Napoleonic Wars, von Humboldt’s view was that the research university was a tool for national rebuilding through the prioritisation of graduate research over undergraduate teaching. This model soon became the blueprint for the rest of Europe, the United States and Japan. Arguably the Russell Group universities are today still structured in a similar way to that envisaged by von Humboldt two hundred years ago.

Moving into the twentieth century and we come across American educationalist Abraham Flexner who wrote of ‘the modern university’. In Flexner’s view universities had a responsibility to pursue excellence, with academic staff being able to seamlessly move from the research lab to the classroom and back again. The pursuit of excellence features in many universities strategies, and sounds very similar to the message conveyed by the REF team as part of the REF2014 guidance. The union of research and education also sounds similar to the current structure of many UK universities.

Taking into account the complexity of universities in the twenty first century, however, all of these views are a little too simplistic. Today’s universities have much broader remits and have to be all three ideas of a university – learning, research and modern. The universities minister David Willetts describes universities as institutions that “push forward the frontiers of knowledge” and “transform people’s lives”, significantly contributing to society and the economy. Peter McCaffery notes that universities now regularly encompass four roles:

  • Finishing school (the last stage of general education)
  • Professional school (the training of elite workers)
  • Knowledge factory (the production of science, technology and ideology)
  • Cultural institution (the expression of our individual and collective sense of being)

This is a huge remit for universities to take on, but makes them exciting places to work!

A quick look at the mission statements of a handful of UK universities indicates a common purpose based on the views of all of the aforementioned scholars:

  • “…to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence” (Cambridge)
  • “…to pursue and share knowledge and understanding, both for their own sake and to help individuals and society fulfil their potential” (Bristol)
  • “…to pursue research, learning and teaching of international distinction and impact” (Cardiff)

The creation and sharing of new knowledge and new ideas has become the principal purpose of many modern universities. In Northern and Western Europe and North America the university has become the key producer of knowledge (through research) and the key sharer of knowledge (through teaching).  The University of Bristol’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Eric Thomas claims that universities are the knowledge engines of our society having produced the vast majority of society’s breakthroughs and innovations, such as: the computer, the web, the structure of DNA, Dolly the Sheep, and the fibre optic cable. Where would we be without these breakthroughs, and would they have come about so quickly without university research?

Being part of an environment in which knowledge creation thrives creates a unique and amazing learning experience for students, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. BU’s focus on the fusion of research, education and professional practice enables the creation of this type of environment through the continuous and valuable exchange of knowledge (BU2018).

By engaging with research, academics can ensure their knowledge is cutting edge and relevant, ensure students receive a quality learning experience, and deliver high quality professional practice. If you’re interested in getting more involved with research, talk to the Research Development Unit and we’ll get you started!

Finally… What do you think the role of the twenty first century university is??

BU staff making an impact with their publications

Publishing

I am sure that you would wish to join with me in congratulating both Richard Shipway and Philippa Hudson from the School of Tourism on their papers being in the top 10 most downloaded papers in Perspectives in Public Health.

Together they have achieved 1,337 people who have looked at their work.

Richard’s paper is titled Sustainable legacies for the 2012 Olympic Games and is second in the table and Philippa’s Food safety issues and children’s lunchboxes is fourth in the table.

Well done to them! I was very proud in the meeting with Sage last week.

Dr Heather Hartwell  Honorary Editor

 

New plans for Partnering in Research & Innovation

The EC recently published  Partnering in Research and Innovation which sets out the different types of partnering and aims to progress partnering activities across the EU. The report acknowledges that the existing partnering activities they currently have (such as Public-Private Partnerships) work well as the mutual trust built within them creates excellent research which in turn makes Europe a more attractive global partner in addressing major societal challenges.

More relevant for BU as we tend not to participate in these partnering activities, is that the report acknowledges the need for Horizon 2020 to develop a framework to encourage and support future partnerships and capitalise on these early indications of success. The Active and Healthy Ageing EIP pilot which is designed to ensure that ideas are successfully developed and brought to market in the most coherent way possible is indicative of this.

In order to strike the right balance for Horizon 2020, the EC will soon launch a strategic exercise to determine where and how the partnering approach can be applied most successfully and the types of initiative to which the instruments are best suited. I will keep you informed when further information on this is released.

Tourism Week – ESRC Research on Sport Tourism and International Sports Events

The Sport Tourism Opportunities for Research, Mobility and International Networking Group (STORMING) Initiative awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC) to Dr. Richard Shipway offered seventeen travel and conference bursaries for UK-based early career researchers to each attend one of three international networking events. This grant scheme formed part of the ESRC’s ‘International Training and Networking Opportunities Programme’. The project utilised the bursaries to both increase international mobility and provide networking opportunities for emerging early career researchers with a commitment to supporting and further developing sport tourism research. Bursaries were awarded across eleven higher education institutions. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games also acted as a catalyst for this project, highlighting the impacts of sport events.

The main objective of the STORMING Initiative was to deliver a series of international sport tourism networking events across four continents. These events were aligned with existing conferences in the area of sport, tourism, events, and leisure studies. The first event, in Australia in February 2010, was aligned with the annual CAUTHE (Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education) conference in Hobart, Tasmania; the second event was aligned with the annual NASSM (North American Society for Sport Management) conference in June 2010 in Tampa, Florida, USA; whilst the third event was aligned with the 11th World Leisure Congress and World Games in ChunCheon, Korea in August 2010. A one-day concluding networking event was held at Bournemouth University in November 2010. This final event brought together all seventeen bursary recipients and several international research mentors and provided the opportunity to outline their research findings, and to engage in a wider debate on the future directions of sport tourism research.

In summary, the STORMING Initiative acted as a catalyst for larger research projects within the context of sport and society, the 2012 Games, and internationalisation. The vision for the project was to leave a tangible legacy in the form of seventeen UK based early career researchers with established research profiles in sport tourism and sport event studies, who are now well positioned to benefit from the increasing economic importance of the tourism industry and the enhanced profile of sport as an agent of positive social change in society.

PhD Success in the School of Tourism

PG research

Congratulations are due to Viachaslau Filimonau of the School of Tourism who successfully defended his thesis this September. Dr Filimonau, who was in receipt of a BU studentship, conducted research titled: Reviewing the carbon footprint assessment of tourism: developing and evaluating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to introduce a more holistic approach to existing methodologies.

Dr Filimonau (known to many of us as Slava) not only completed his PhD within three years but was also awarded the PhD with no corrections. The external examiner, Professor Andrew Holden, commented: “This was one of the best thesis I have examined. To have completed a PhD within three years and have two journal articles in print is a significant achievement.” His supervisors (Dr Janet Dickinson, Derek Robbins and Dr Vijay Reddy) are very proud of his achievement.

Tourism Week – The drivers of visitor enjoyment at heritage properties

This research project conducted during 2011 is part of a portfolio of research conducted for the National Trust, the UK’s major conservation charity. The organisation is committed to the aims of widening the appeal of the properties and countryside under its management, as well as providing meaning and inspiration as part of this broad appeal. The measurement of enjoyment, linked to meaning and inspiration is therefore a critical measure in the success criteria of individual properties and the organisation as a whole.

The aim of the research was to identify the ‘drivers’ or causes of enjoyment ratings; various approaches have been used to analyse the causal relationships in the data generated from a survey of 189 pay for entry properties and 11 countryside properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The data used for analysis was collected in 2010 and a survey running in 2011 will be used to further test the current findings.

One approach to analysing the data has used structural equation modelling where causal relations between enjoyment and factor analysed (principal axis factored), independent variables are examined by comparing the results of a series of hypothetical models. Fifteen key drivers  of the two main components of visitor enjoyment at National Trust properties, ‘Service & Relaxation’ and ‘Stimulation & Interest ‘ have been identified. A further 20 operational imperatives have been formulated which provide guidance for property managers to improve visitor enjoyment.

The research methodology draws upon previous research in the fields of psychology and applied statistics, specifically Batson, C.D., Shaw, L.L., Oleson, K.C., (1992) Emotion review of personality and social psychology, Bagozzi, R.P., & Yi, Y., (1988) On the evaluation of structural equation models, Szymanski, D.M. & Henard D.H. (2001) Customer satisfaction: A meta analysis of the empirical evidence and Ajzen, I., (1991) The theory of planned behaviour.

Tourism Week – Tourism and Disaster Management

Professor John Fletcher from the School of Tourism highlights the role of the tourism industry in emergency planning.

Tourism throughout much of the 20th Century following World War II was characterised by strong growth and an ever-reaching spread of countries. However, since the mid-1990s and throughout this first part of the 21st century tourism has been beset by an ever-increasing number of obstacles ranging from health issues, such as SARS, Avian and Swine Flu, natural disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and human-induced crises such as the events of 9/11 in the USA, 7/7 in London and the Bali bombings, not to mention the myriad of events related to the Middle East and pressures created by the current global financial crisis.

It is against this backcloth that the world’s largest export industry is being re-moulded and, to some extent finding its strong growth pattern to be faltering, like many other industries. In an attempt to mitigate the damage that crises bring to the tourism industry it is vital that emergency planning agencies and the tourism industry are closely integrated in their approaches to planning for, responding to and recovering from disasters, this way they can implement technologies such as a community notification system that helps send push notifications about safety alerts, weather updates, and emergency information.

This is perhaps more true for the tourism industry than any other, because the tourists, the consumers, have to travel out of their normal environment in order to enjoy the output of the industry. The Disaster Management wing of the International Centre for Tourism & Hospitality Research is currently helping the UN WTO develop a framework which will facilitate this integration. In addition to reviewing the literature on emergency planning and tourism crises, the team are currently engaging more than 120 Ministries, Airlines, Tourist Authorities, Tour Operators, Hotel Chains and academics in a Delphi Panel Exercise to establish which functions should be undertaken from a integrated platform.  The results of the study will be presented to the UN WTO early next year.

A Boring Train Ride or Research Success & E-Journals

Last week I was sitting on the train, on route to a rather dull meeting in London, and wading through a brief case full of glossy reports and papers that had been accumulating in the in tray for several weeks. Not the sort of reading that usually has the pulse racing or the pages turning. I could at this point make reference to the latest Charles Cumming spy thriller but I will refrain and finish this piece so I can catch a few pages later. Any way in the stack of reading was a report published earlier in the year by the Research Information Network on the use, value and impact of e-journals (www.rin.ac.uk). Apart from a very colourful cover the report did not look that great but in fact was really fantastic, and I mean really fantastic, making an excellent link between investment in e-journals, usage and research bidding success.

As I think I have reported before I have fond memories of the basement stacks of Queen Mary where as an undergraduate I used to spend my days lost in the shelves of geology journals. A few years later I can still remember how as a new academic one would wait for the post every day and the return from review of a cherished manuscripts and the all-important editor’s letter with the verdict; all now things of the past with electronic submission and on-line publishing. The journal names remain the same but I can’t remember the last time I actually set foot in the library in search of a paper yet my weekly reading list grows longer constantly as electronic alerts draw my attention to the productivity of my colleagues. However nostalgic I may feel about paper copy it is a thing of the past as almost all journals these days are provided as e-journals.

As a University we invest substantially each year in maintaining access rights to a huge portfolio of journals and our collective reading habits have changedas access has increased and the sheer volume of material to be read has grown. These changes are all elegantly document in the report by the Research Information Network, but the bit that piqued my interest most was a statistical model which explored the link between investment in e-journals, journal usage (reading) and research success as measured by the number of research bids won. The model clearly demonstrated a link between expenditure, e-journal use and research success and also a positive feedback loop between research success and e-journal usage. Basically the more a university invests in the provision of academic literature for its staff and students the more they read. The more they read the more successful they are which in turn leads to more reading. This is really elegant if rather self-evident but is something that we need to think hard about as a university especially as we bring forward our new research strategy this autumn. E-journals are alreadya priority area for expenditure,but is there value in further investment?  The Research Information Network report suggests that there might be.

Now let’s get serious here, I am not as naive as to believe that we can enhance our research success by simply pouring more money into the library, but BU’s researchers – staff and students – have a right to state of the art tools to do their jobs and we are committed as part our new Vision and Values to providing world class facilities. So further investment in our e-journals portfolio may be very much in order! I would welcome your views? You can find a copy of the report on the Research Information Network here.

Bidding success

Guidance

On Friday last week the RDU organised two bidding workshops with John Wakeford of the Missenden Centre.

John left the groups with some important points to remember when writing funding applications.

Here are John’s top tips for bid writing success……

Top ten rules for readability:

  • think about your audience
  • think how they will read it
  • only use words they will understand
  • plan
  • engaging title and first sentence
  • every word counts
  • avoid -ve words, difficulties, conditionals
  • face problems, but replace with challenges/opportunities
  • short sentences
  • eliminate jargon, and minimise acronyms

 Key features of a good proposal:

  • investigate funders’ current priorities
  • contact CRE Ops, RPRS, identify potential reviewers and book them in
  • read carefully the precise rules for submissions
  • check agreement among your collaborators
  • allow time for multiple drafts

Strategies for success:

  • network, network, network
  • hitch your wagon to a star
  • be in contact with funders
  • why should they want to fund you?
  • ensure you are the world expert
  • guarantee impact
  • clear your diary
  • re-use ideas on different context and try again
  • deliver on title
  • re-read and consider:
  • why should it be funded?
  • how would the world be different if it wasn’t?

If you are thinking about writing a funding proposal please contact Caroline O’Kane and find out about how the RPRS can support your bid.

To find out more about John Wakeford’s sessions please contact Susan Dowdle or Caroline O’Kane.

Sharing your research data?

Would you be prepared to share your data with the wider research community or the general public? 

A report published by the Research Information Network has found that UK data centres, which collect, store and supply research data to academics (such as the National Geoscience Data Centre at the British Geological Survey), have boosted research efficiency and improved a “culture of sharing data”.  However, the report adds that work is needed to encourage researchers to submit more data to the centres.

The Royal Society has an ongoing major policy study that looks at the use of scientific information as it affects scientists and society, “Science As a Public Enterprise”.   In theory raw data should be available for validation and further exploration but issues of quality control, appropriate retention policies, and the utility of storage of vast arrays of ‘raw’ data require urgent attention.  The study is primarily focusing on the exchange of information among scientists and other scientifically literate audiences.  A secondary focus of the study is public engagement with scientific information.

The British Academy response to the project is that all data produced through publicly funded research should be made available, provided confidentiality is protected, so that public policy and debate can be based on the best available evidence.  They suggest that opening up data could also have the advantage of aiding interaction between the arts and sciences.

Changes to research schemes at NERC

Funding opportunities

Yesterday the Natural Environment Research Council announced changes to the Consortium and Small grants responsive mode schemes.

The Small Grants Scheme will close after 2011 with the last application deadline being 1st September 2011.

The Consortium Grants Scheme will be modified to operate via one grant round per year rather than two, and an outline stage assessed by members of the Peer Review College will be introduced. The final closing date for submissions to the Consortium scheme in the current format will be 1 December 2011 (concept notes to be submitted by 1 September 2011).  From 2012 additional resources will be committed to the Consortium Grants scheme.

These changes are part of the NERC Delivery Plan 2011-2015 which includes the following targets for Responsive Mode:

  • reduce demand for research grants,
  • consolidate RM schemes and processes, and balances between them, to deliver NERC strategic needs

The full news item can be viewed here.

The R&E Database (RED) and You!

The new version of RED is up and running and can be accessed by all academic staff.

Academic staff can login to RED to review their record of research and enterprise applications and successful projects.  Staff can view projects on which they are listed as a principle investigator or a co-investigator.  There is a facility to print off the reports which can be useful for appraisals.

Academic managers can use the system to review the activity that is going on within their schools.

The data held on RED is updated by the CRE Operations team based on the information provided by the PI and the contract or award letter from the funder.

Simple guidelines on how to access the system are available here.  You can access RED both on and off campus using your standard university login.

If you have any problems with accessing or using the system please contact Susan Dowdle in the Research Development Unit.