Tagged / training

The Royal Society Pairing Scheme

Training, Uncategorized

This scheme gives policymakers and research scientists an opportunity to experience each other’s worlds.

Every year the scheme shows that 30 research scientists are paired up with UK parliamentarians and civil servants. The article states that you are then put together to learn about each other’s work whilst spending some time together in Westminster and the researchers lab.

The article then goes on to mention that those taking part can gain a better understanding of how research findings can help inform policy making.

“I can now see how important science is for making policies, even those that are not directly associated with science and technology issues.”

Dr Kate Lancaster paired with Anne Snelgrove MP

The pairing scheme takes place once a year, starting of with a ‘Week in Westminster’ where you first meet with who you are paired with. Part of the week includes workshops, speakers and spending two days shadowing your pair.

It is then time for the parliamentarians and civil servants to get an insight into the world of research, visiting labs from there pairs.

“My day at the University’s School of Chemistry was enormously useful, particularly in understanding some of the complex issues which affect the careers of research scientists and the funding of fundamental research”

John Denham MP paired with Dr Martin Bates.

So why should scientists get involved in this scheme?

  • Learn how parliament and government work and how you can feed in to the policy making process
  • Find out how your research can inform policy decisions
  • Build lasting relationships with parliamentarians and civil servants
  • Network with fellow scientists

To read the full article and find out more on who has taken part in previous years or the benefits of parliamentarians and civil servants taking part, please click here, or click here to start your application, the deadline is 24th May.

BRAD – Upcoming Opportunities

Training

Financial Management Workshop Monday 13th April 2014, 13:30-14:30

This workshop will cover several topics ranging from; financial management, income and funding budgeting, financial resourcing and strategic financial planning.
This workshop will be facilitated by Gary Cowen, Research and Knowledge Exchange.

There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

Ethics and Research Governance Monday 13th April 2014, 11:00-12:30

A 20 minute presentation on ethical considerations, policy, and principles. Followed by a Q & A session on your ethical issues or questions related to your research. This workshop will be facilitated by Eva Papadopoulou, Research and Knowledge Exchange

There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

Research Methods Workshops – April 2015

Training

Ethnography
An introduction to the qualitative research approach of ethnography.

The session is on Wednesday 15th April 2015, 10:00-11:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Lorraine Brown. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

 Qualitative Research
This session is an introductory overview of qualitative research, including its background and development, as well as the below:

– The nature and key features of this approach.
– The main differences to quantitative research, the types of research question which could be answered through it, and its main differences   from quantitative enquiry.
– Describe the sources of data, and how they are collected and analysed.
– Qualitative interviewing and participant observation will be included.

The session will involve presentation, discussion and opportunities for participants to share methodological problems.

The session is on Tuesday 14th April 2015, 13:00-16:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Prof. Immy Holloway. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

Mixed Methods
For this particular workshop, although a general introduction to Mixed Methods will be given, to gain maximum benefit, you need to be already thinking around the possibility / suitability of mixed methods for your research or be willing to explore that during the workshop

The session is on Tuesday 14th April 2015, 14:00-15:30 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Carol Bond. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

 

The Principles of Grounded Theory.
This session will introduce the research approach of Grounded Theory. The development of grounded theory as a method and its key features will be explored within the session. The content will be particularly relevant to those who are new to the approach and it will be illustrated with experiences from research practice.

The session is on Friday 17th April 2015, 12:00-13:00 Talbot Campus and will be facilitated by Dr Liz Norton. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

Developing an Effective Search Strategy and Using Researcher Tools Workshop – 13th April 2015

Training

This course is intended to provide an overview of information resources.  The Library offers a range of products and services to support researchers that can save time and help to make information retrieval effective.

  • Use and access BU library resources
  • Begin to develop a systematic search strategy
  • Know about visiting other libraries
  • Know how to make Inter Library Requests
  • Be able to set up citation alerts
  • Use citations smartly
  • Use analytical tools to aid publication and research

The session is on Tues 13th April 2015 14:30 – 16:30 on Talbot campus and will be facilitated by Emma Crowley. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Quality Papers: how to write papers that can be published in your target journals workshop

Training

You enjoy research, but writing papers is either scary or just takes too long. You are under pressure to ‘get published’ in high ranking journals, but daily commitments mean you haven’t got patches of undisturbed hours in your diary.

Quality Papers provides a process that can help you write with greater speed and confidence, at the same time as increasing your chance of getting published in your target journal. The course gives strategies for getting the best from your co-authors and streamlining thinking, writing and editing.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Dr Nicola Cotton holds a First class honours degree in French and German from Wadham College, Oxford and has gained an MA and PhD at UCL. Nicola is a fully qualified teacher and has been lecturing at university level since 1992. She has worked as a research assistant at UCL for the Vice-Provost and also as Editor for Asian Advertising and Marketing Magazine in Hong Kong. In her role as associate trainer Nicola combines her knowledge of research and language to deliver excellent training in writing for publication using the Think-Write approach

The session is on Friday 17th April 2015 08:45 – 16:30 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational Development webpages.

NVivo – Advanced

Training

Day 2

Assumes these decisions have been made and focuses on analysing your data. And whereas day 1 is largely conceptual, day 2 is mainly practical and is quite technical. Most people understand that setting up your database correctly is paramount to getting a return on the time and energy expended in learning the software tool. Given that manual interpretive coding in NVivo is not really any faster than using a manual system as you still have to code line by line, the benefit of using NVivo is in the retrieval and reporting on codes. Day 2 therefore focuses on interrogating (querying in database terminology) and reporting on results so that findings can be supported with high quality outputs or appendices. Also, the ability to support your coding processes with coding tables for example, means that you can also demonstrate rigour in your methodology chapter which helps to establish your credibility as a researcher and make your findings trustworthy and plausible.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Ben Meehan worked in industry for twenty six years. For the past thirteen years he has worked as an independent consultant in support of computer aided qualitative data analysis projects (CAQDAS). He is a QSR approved trainer and consultant. He has worked in all of the major universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work outside of the educational sector includes major global companies such as Intel where he consults in support of their on-going ethnographic research and the Centre for Global Health where he has recently worked in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique (2009) and in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Tanzania with the University of Heidelberg (2010) and Ethiopia for the Ethiopian Public Health Association (2011) and the Population Council, Zambia (2012). Apart from Africa, Ben regularly conducts workshops in Germany, France, UK, Northern Ireland, the US (Maryland, 2011, Yale, 2012) and Australia.

The session is on Tues 16th April 2015 09:00 – 17:00 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

NVivo – Introduction

Training

Day 1

Offers a rounded introduction to NVivo and focuses on the requisite management decisions one should make at the beginning of one’s project such as what is my data?

Should I code audio or transcripts and what are the advantages and limitations of either approach? How does the software work?

Why should I integrate my background information or demographics and what is auto-coding and how might it help to better understand my data and prepare it for the cycles of manual interpretive coding to follow?

How do I integrate my chosen methodological approach in using NVivo and reconcile it with the philosophical underpinnings to apply such methods as Grounded Theory, Discourse Analysis, Content Analysis, Thematic Analysis or Narrative Interpretive Methods as just some examples.

Day 1 has an emphasis on the conceptual although the afternoon session is more rooted in the practical. By the end of day 1, participants should be able to set-up an NVivo database, back it up, import their data, setup a coding structure and code their data to it and set up and integrate their demographics.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Ben Meehan worked in industry for twenty six years. For the past thirteen years he has worked as an independent consultant in support of computer aided qualitative data analysis projects (CAQDAS). He is a QSR approved trainer and consultant. He has worked in all of the major universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work outside of the educational sector includes major global companies such as Intel where he consults in support of their on-going ethnographic research and the Centre for Global Health where he has recently worked in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique (2009) and in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Tanzania with the University of Heidelberg (2010) and Ethiopia for the Ethiopian Public Health Association (2011) and the Population Council, Zambia (2012). Apart from Africa, Ben regularly conducts workshops in Germany, France, UK, Northern Ireland, the US (Maryland, 2011, Yale, 2012) and Australia.

The session is on Tues 14th April 2015 09:00 – 17:00 on Talbot campus. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Developing Professional Researcher Networks Workshop – 15th April 2015

Training

The aim of this workshop is to give for Early Career Researchers or PhD students (particularly final year students) skills to conduct effective professional networking conversations and to use networking as a tool for developing their professional networks.

Networking is recognised by established researchers and Academics as an essential tool for career development and professional advancement.

In contrast, research reveals that many Early Career Researchers feel very uncertain about networking, in respect to both the practical “how to do it” issues and the underlying, often values-based questions “Why it is important ?” and “Should I be doing this?”.

We will address various aspects of networking and develop the appropriate physical and mental skills necessary to improve our skill set in confident networking techniques.

Progress will be made through discussions and group exercises to develop essential skills, build confidence and overcome anxiety or blocks to performance.

As a result of this workshop participants will :

  • Increase their understanding of the professional importance of networking
  • Improve their ability to communicate confidently in networking conversations
  • Understand the importance of body language in effective communication
  • Have tools to deal with stress or anxiety related to networking
  • Have strategies to develop collaborations or increase visibility.

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Dr Margaret Collins has a 20+ year academic career background and uses her experience and subsequent training in theories such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming to deliver advice on how to increase personal effectiveness in these areas.

You sometimes have to invest a little time to free up more later on – the session on Weds 15th April 2015 09:30 – 12:30 on Talbot campus is a worthwhile investment. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

Time Management for Researchers – 15th April 2015

Training

‘I just don’t have time’ This is a phrase I hear most often at work – we all have increasing pressures and often struggle to be as effective as possible in a shorter period of time to ensure we have a healthy work-life balance.

Everybody has just 24 hours in every day. Why do some people seem to achieve much more than others with their allotted time?

During this half day workshop we will identify the major drains on your time or energies and explore different tools to structure your use of time and resources.

Particularly in a research environment it is likely that there will never be enough time to do everything. This workshop will give you the tools to help you to choose the most important things when all things seem important.

We will consider different ways to assess priorities, to deal with timewasters and with deadlines. The course will also allow participants to develop their own work-life balance and to reflect on how they choose to spend their time.

As a result of this workshop participants will have tools to

  • Prioritise what they choose to do
  • Streamline their use of time
  • Define their own work-life balance
  • Understand the difference between important and urgent

We have hired the services of an external facilitator to offer support in this for academic staff as part of the BRAD programme. Dr Margaret Collins has a 20+ year academic career background and uses her experience and subsequent training in theories such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming to deliver advice on how to increase personal effectiveness in these areas.

You sometimes have to invest a little time to free up more later on – the session on Weds 15th April 2015 13:00 – 16:30 on Talbot campus is a worthwhile investment. There are limited spaces so please do ensure you get one by booking on the Organisational and Staff Development webpages.

 

You wouldn’t go skydiving without a parachute!

Training

So, why wouldn’t you asses your training needs before going on training?

Take charge of your career development and increase your employability, by focusing your training efforts where it’s needed. All you need to do is undertake the ’My Academic Development Needs: Self-Assessment’ (MADNSA), it will allow you to see your strengths an any gaps in your skills which you need to address in order to get where you want to be in your career (you can also use Vitae’s version which is more detailed). 

You can read case studies of real academics to see how using the planner based on this assessment has helped transform their careers.

Take some time for yourself and complete the MADNSA and sign up for some facilitated sessions, through the Staff Development webpages and log into myBU  BRAD community to view the online sessions?

Student-midwife-run postnatal clinic: FUSION example

BU research, Fusion, PG research, Publishing, Uncategorized

FHSS staff and students published their latest article ‘Would a student midwife run postnatal clinic make a valuable addition to midwifery education in the UK? — A systematic review’ now out on line in Nurse Education Today 35 : 480-486.   The paper is written by Wendy Marsh, Dana M. Colbourne, Susan Way & Vanora Hundley.

We are pleased to inform you that the final version of your article with full bibliographic details is now available online.  The publishers are providing the following personal article link, which will provide free access to this article, and is valid for 50 days, until April 17, 2015:  http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1QcG5xHa50bEa

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

US Funding Opportunities – videos

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Funding opportunities, Research assessment, Research news, Training

For one month only (expiry: 6th March 2015), we have access to the following ARMA* videos:

ARMA Introduction to US Funding

In this video, Dr Stephen Conway, Senior Assistant Registrar at the University of Oxford, delivers an essential introduction to US funding. Dr Conway covers strategic priorities and the current drivers. He goes on to exemplify a case study from the University of Oxford. Outputs of the project are examined and conclusions are drawn.

ARMA – Applying for US Funding

Speakers: Patricia Hawk – Director of Sponsored Programs, Oregon State University and Vivian Holmes, Director of Sponsored Research Operations, The Broad institute of MIT and Harvard.

Patricia Hawk and Vivian Holmes deliver essential information to support US applications for funding. The process from the initial search, to proposal preparation and specifics such as allowances for salaries, equipment and travel are examined.

ARMA – Managing US Awards

Speakers: Patricia Hawk – Director of Sponsored Programs, Oregon State University and Vivian Holmes, Director of Sponsored Research Operations, The Broad institute of MIT and Harvard.

Patricia and Vivian deliver this essential guide to managing US awards which includes the types of grant, shared responsibilities, management of project costs, performance issues, project reporting, federal payment methods, close-out responsibilities, audit and VAT.

* Associate of Research Managers and Administrators

You can access a short trailer on the ARMA website and an excerpt, giving the top ten tips for US funding opportunities. The latter also discusses why a service such as RKEO is the essential partner in developing and managing your bid, regardless of the funder’s location.

To access these resources, please contact Charmain Lyons (mailto:clyons@bournemouth.ac.uk) and she will send you the code and joining instructions.