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Research Active The Newsletter of University of Kent Research Services, Vol 8, Issue 2, Jan 2014
NEW PVC APPOINTED Prof. Philippe De Wilde has been appointed as the new PVC Research & Enterprise from 1 August 2014. Prof De Wilde is currently a Professor in the Intelligent Systems Lab and Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. ‘I am extremely pleased to be joining the University in this, its fiftieth year,’ said De Wilde. ‘Kent has a strong history of research, and I am looking forward to helping the University to develop this further. Whilst it is a tough environment for research at the moment, Kent has huge potential to intensify its research culture, increasing its research income, its impact and its profile on the national and international stage.’ Prof De Wilde has research interests in computational intelligence and cybernetics, using neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolution, and game theory. Before moving to Heriot-Watt, Prof De Wilde worked at Imperial College London for sixteen years. De Wilde is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and a Senior Member of IEEE. He is a Laureate of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine
‘I would like to thank the current PVC, Prof John Baldock, for his excellent, insightful and decisive leadership of research for the past seven years. I am indebted to him for championing research, and for steering the University through both RAE2008 and REF2014. Research at Kent has benefited immeasurably from his tenure. John has set the University on the right track; I look forward to working with Philippe to accelerate our progress along this road.’ Want to know more? Prof De Wilde’s Heriot-Watt webpage is at: bit.ly/NewPVCKent Arts of Belgium, and has held the Vloeberghs Chair at the Free University Brussels, 2010. He has published 49 journal articles, 52 conference papers and book chapters, and four books. The Vice Chancellor, Prof Dame Julia Goodfellow, welcomed Prof De Wilde. ‘This is an exciting appointment at a crucial time for Kent. The outcome of the REF will be known in late 2014, and I believe Philippe has the track record, the skills and the strategic vision to build on this and effect a step change in the research culture at Kent.
INSIDE THIS EDITION Contact Overview of Funding New Awards Leverhulme Visit Research Professional Avoiding Underspend REF2014 Eastern ARC New Starters Ethics & Governance Choice Cuts from the Blog
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ResearchActive is edited by Phil Ward. Contact him for more information or clarification on any of the items in this edition. In addition, 1 for the latest from the world of research funding, go to fundermental.blogspot.com, or Twitter @frootle
contact
There’s been quite a few changes in Research Services recently, so it’s worth taking a moment to look at who’s responsible for your School. The office is split into three teams:
The Funding Development Team: helps staff identify funders and put together applications. If you’re not sure who else to deal with in Research Services, give them a call first. The Contracts Team: helps with the ‘official’ costing of your application, and with negotiating the contract when an award is made. The Accounts Team: helps you manage the finances on your award.
Below are contact details for everyone in Research Services, and a breakdown of who is responsible for which School..
CONTACT DETAILS
RESPONSIBILITIES
Andrew
a.n.massoura@kent.ac.uk
3256
Brian
b.lingley@kent.ac.uk
4427
Carolyn
c.m.barker-47@kent.ac.uk
7957
Clair
c.thrower@kent.ac.uk
Clare
School
Funding Team
Contracts Team
Accounts Team
SAC
Brian
Jane P
Jon
Architecture
Lynne
Ruth
Dominika
7350
Arts
Lynne
Kate
Dominika
c.l.baverstock@kent.ac.uk
6595
Biosciences
Helen/Carolyn
Andrew
Jon
Conny
k.jumel@kent.ac.uk
3067
Computing
Helen/Carolyn
Kate
Jon/Rob
Dominika
d.a.kuicz-macauley@kent.ac.uk
EDA
Helen/Carolyn
Jane B
Jody
4800
English
Lynne
Jane P
Dominika
Helen
h.leech@kent.ac.uk
8850
Economics
Brian
Jane B
Dominika
James
j.manning@kent.ac.uk
4616
History
Lynne
Jane P
Dominika
Jane B
j.benstead@kent.ac.uk
4203
Journalism
Brian
Karen
Dominika
Jane P
j.pango@kent.ac.uk
4624
KBS*
Brian
Ruth
Dominika
KLS*
Brian
Ruth
Jody
Jenny
j.rafferty@kent.ac.uk
3591
Music & Fine Art
Lynne
Karen
Dominika
Jody
j.e.m.turner@kent.ac.uk
3882
SMSAS
Helen/Carolyn
Kate
Dominika
Jon
j.king@kent.ac.uk
7938
Pharmacy
Helen/Carolyn
Karen
Jenny
Karen
k.a.allart@kent.ac.uk
8967
PolIR
Brian
Andrew
Dominika
Kate
k.m.noone@kent.ac.uk
Psychology
Brian
Andrew
Dominika
4132
SECL
Lynne
Andrew
Jenny
Lynne
l.bennett-282@kent.ac.uk
4799
Sports
Helen/Carolyn
Karen
Jenny
Nicole
n.r.palmer@kent.ac.uk
4797
SPS
Helen/Carolyn
Andrew
Rob
Phil
p.ward@kent.ac.uk
7748
SSPSSR*
Brian
Jane B
Rob
Ranjit
r.s.pender@kent.ac.uk
3329
Renata
r.mcdonnell@kent.ac.uk
Rob
CHSS
Brian
Kate
Dominika
PSSRU
Brian
Andrew
Rob
3190
Tizard
Brian
Kate
Rob
r.j.goldsmith@kent.ac.uk
3765
Ruth
r.p.woodger@kent.ac.uk
3789
Sarah
s.h.godfrey@kent.ac.uk
4575
Simon
s.r.kerridge@kent.ac.uk
3229
Sue
s.c.prout@kent.ac.uk
7054
In addition, Clair & Renata have responsibility for the REF (Clair is seconded to HEFCE for 2014); Nicole for ethics and governance; and Ranjit & Clare for the KRIMSON software system across all schools. Conny provides in depth support for all with European applications and grants. Sue provides administrative support, and is PA to Simon. *Karen is responsible for both the contract/costing issues for staff in these schools based at the Medway Campus. 2
An Overview of Research Funding, Sept-Dec 2013 The Sciences made up more than three quarters of last term’s awards. The biggest funder, in terms of value and number, was the European Commission; special mention should be made to Prof Steven Gao (EDA) who got three EC awards, totalling £822,920. Elsewhere there was a strong showing for the AHRC, with five awards, and excellent news from two Research Councils that don’t normally give many grants to Kent: MRC (Dr Jeremy Rossman, Biosicences) and NERC (Drs Roberts, Davies and Struebig).
Humanities 4%
Social Sciences 19%
Sciences 77%
Total Award Value by Faculty
Largest Individual Awards (titles of projects listed overleaf) Humanities: Dr Jan Loop (History) £95,849 from AHRC
BHF 5%
EACEA NIHR Hamlyn 1% Lev 2% Kid 2% 2% RS 4% 4% EC 38%
AHRC 5%
MRC 6%
EPSRC 9%
BBSRC 15%
NERC 7%
Sciences: Prof Adrian Podoleanu (SPS) £654,472 from the EC
Award Value (>2%)
8 7
Award Number (>1award)
6
5 4
Social Sciences: Dr Zoe Davies & Dr Matthew Struebig (SAC) £393,794 from NERC
3 2 1 0
3
FULL LIST OF AWARDS: 1 August—31 December 2013 Below are awards for more than £1000 made last Term. They do not include extensions or supplements. HUMANITIES Arts Dr David Roesner: Guitar Heroes in Music Education? Music-based video games and their potential for musical and perfomative creativity (AHRC, £30,364) SECL Dr James Fowler: Leverhulme Visiting Professor – Professor Brewer (Leverhulme, £22,277) History Dr Juliette Pattinson (right): Masculinities Challenged: Reserved occupations in Britain 1939-45 (AHRC, £22,886) Dr Jan Loop: Encounters with the Orient in Early Modern European Scholarship (EOS) (AHRC, £95,849) Profs Mark Connelly and Ian Beckett (History): Our Place in the First World War (AHRC, £27,131. See panel on page 5) SCIENCES Centre for Molecular Processing Prof Mark Smales: Prediction of Stable and Transient Expression of Recombinant Proteins from CHO Cells Based upon Tran (Medimmune, £28,000); Development of a Minimal Expression Vector for Enhanced Recombinant Protein Expression in Mammalian (Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, £24,000); and Whole Cell MALDIToF MS for the Creation of Recombinant Mammalian Cell Lines (Royal Society, £173,570)
Prof Colin Robinson: PHOTO.COMM (EC, £495,720) Pharmacy Dr Claire Peppiatt-Wildman: Collaboration with Biogen (Biogen Idec Research Ltd, £42,646); and Unravelling the Mechanisms of Non -Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Induced Nephrotoxity (Kidney Research UK, £198,252) Dr Andrea Manfrin: To Evaluate Patients’ Feedback and GPs’ Views on I-MUR Service Provided in Italy (Federazione degli Ordini dei Farmascisti Italiani, £9,000) Biosciences Dr Anastasios Tsaousis: Developing Blastocystis sp as a Model System for Investigating the Metabolic Functions of Microbial Eukaryotes (Biochemical Society, £1,200) Dr Alessia Buscaino: Establishment, Maintenance and Modulation of Heterochromatin Domains (BBSRC, £382,648); and Does the Chromatin Status of MRS DNA Repeats Regulate Candida Albicans Genome Stability? (Royal Society, £14,770) Prof David Brown: CCP4 Grant 2014-19: Question-Driven Crystallographic Data Collection and Advanced Structure Solution (BBSRC, £59,473) Dr Jeremy Rossman (right): Molecular Mechanisms of M2Mediated Influenza Virus Budding and Scission (MRC, £353,625) Prof Martin Warren: Cell Circuitry for Metals: integrative metabolism for cobalt uptake and cobalamin production (BBSRC, £379,746) Dr Mark Wass: Investigating 4
Networks of Human Proteins to Analyse their Functional Relationships and to Functionally Annotate Uncharacteristic Proteins (Royal Society, £15,000) Prof Mike Geeves: Beat-Cardiac Myosin Mutations: Triggers for the Development of Hypertrophic and Dilated Cardiomyopathies (British Heart Foundation, £249,405) Computing Prof David Chadwick: Cloud ABFAB Federation Services in Edu roam (CLASSe) (EC, £44,707) Dr Andy King: (right) Se-Ma-Match: Semantic Malware Matching ( E P S R C , £245,526); and Compositional Security Analysis for Binaries (EPSRC, £228,823). Engineering & Digital Arts Prof Jiangzhou Wang: Wireless InBuilding Distributed Antenna Systems (WI-DAS) (Royal Academy of Engineering, £53,202) Prof Steven Gao: Digital Beam Forming for Low-Cost Multi-Static Space-Borne Synthetic Aperture Radars (DIFFERENT) (EC, £214,645); Gan Powered Ka-Band High-Efficiency Multi-Beam Transceivers for Satellites (GANSAT) (EC, £402,358); and Flexible Micro-
system Technology for Micro- and Millimetre-Wave Antenna Arrays with Intelligent Pixel (EC, £205,917)
Struebig: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Processes in Human Modified Tropical Forests (NERC, £393,794)
Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science Dr Clare Dunning: East Mathematical Physics Seminar (London Mathematical Society, £1,500) Dr Jing Ping Wang (left): Algebraic Methods in Theory of Differential and Difference Equations (London Mathematical Society, £4,130)
Politics & International Relations Dr Paolo Dardanelli: Why Centralization and Decentralization in Federations? A comparative analysis (Leverhulme, £97,079) Dr Tom Casier: EU-Russia Relations: developing a transnational perspective (EC, £66,875) Prof Richard Whitman: Normative Power Europe: EU in Asia/NPPEA (EACEA, £84,261) Dr Luca Mavelli: Addressing the Asylum Crisis: religious contributions to rethinking protection in global politics (Henry Luce Foundation, £15,638) Prof Elena Korosteleva: Global European Workshop (CEELBAS, £2,000)
Physical Sciences Prof Adrian Podoleanu: Ultrawide Bandwith Photonics Devices, Sources and Applications (EC, £654,472) Dr Barry Blight: Enhancing Hydrolytic Stability of Metal-Organic Frameworks Using Double Walls (Royal Society, £15,000); and Luminescent MOFs as Integrity Indicators (FCO, £1,250) Dr Dean Sayle: Nanomaterials for the Capture, Storage and Release of Energy (University of Limpopo, £36,000) SOCIAL SCIENCES Kent Law School Judy Fudge: Migration, Precarious Work and Labour Market Change (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, £63,279) Prof Sally Sheldon: ‘How Can a State Control Swallowing?’: Medical abortion and the law (AHRC, £113,245) Helen Carr: Shared Ownership: crisis moments (Leverhulme, £4,762) Anthropology and Conservation Dr David Roberts: Mind your CBDs (NERC, £1,616) Dr Zoe Davies and Dr Matthew
Psychology Prof Dominic Abrams: Inspiring Mentoring and Engaging Young People (Anne Frank Trust UK, £12,000; and Towards an Interdisciplinary Dialogue in Social Protest Research (Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, £1,500 and British Psychological Society, £2,000) Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith: Lexicon Development in Bilingual Toddler (ESRC, £3,416) Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research Prof Stephen Peckham: Integration and Continuity in Primary Care: polyclinics and alternatives (NIHR, £18,071) Jenny Billings: An Exploration of the Use and Perceptions of Informal Clinical Handover Notes (EKHUNFT, £16,561) Prof Glynis Murphy: Keep Safe: development of a group treatment for children and young people with learning disabilities and harmful sexual behaviour (Paul Hamlyn Foundation, £84,391) 5
CORRIGENDUM In the last edition of Research Active both Prof Simon Coulton and Jenny Billings should have been listed as investigators on the £34,790 NIHR grant, ‘Development of a Risk Model for the Prediction of New or Worsening Acute Kidney Injury’. In addition, the investigators on t he £64,223 NIHR grant , ‘Development of a Care Home Quality Indicator Based on Residents’ Social Care related Quality of Life: formats and interpretations of reported results’, should have been listed as Ann Netten, Jacquetta Holder, Ann-Marie Towers and Lizzie Welch. Apologies for these oversights.
GRANT FOCUS ‘Our Place in the First World War’ Prof Mark Connelly, Prof Ian Beckett and Dr Timothy Bowman have been selected to participate in the BBC's 'World War One at Home' project. The BBC project will tell the story of the First World War through the people whose lives were transformed - in their homes, schools, churches, theatres, streets, factories and so on. The AHRC is funding researchers to work with broadcast journalists in the BBC Regions between September 2013 and January 2014 to source, select and showcase stories related to the First World War. Researchers will advise on the war's impact on the regions and highlight links with broader national and international events and themes. Prof Connelly has been named as the researcher for the South East region, Dr Bowman as the researcher for Northern Ireland and Professor Beckett as one of two researchers for the South of England.
Notes from Leverhulme Visit The new Director of the Leverhulme Trust, Prof Gordon Marshall, visited the University last term. Gordon Marshall is a sociologist by training, and has had a long and illustrious career in senior management within higher education. He taught at Bath, Essex and the LSE, was Chief Executive of the ESRC and VC at Reading. After climbing to these dizzy heights, Marshall is enjoying life at the helm of what he described as a 'small peer review shop off Fleet Street'. The Trust gives out less than half the value of awards of the ESRC (£80m, compared to some £200m), but processes four times as many applications (4,000 pa, compared to the ESRC's 800). Moreover, it does so with just 14 people, compared to the ESRC's 125. With such a small team, 'we can't generate much bureaucracy', said Marshall. 96% of their awards are responsive mode. The exception are the Programme Grants, which offer substantial funding (up to £1.75m) in areas identified by the Trustees. The disciplinary distribution of awards generally follows applications: they get more science applications, so tend to give out more science awards. The divide is roughly as follows: Sciences: 50% Humanities: 30% Social Sciences: 20% However, these figures should be treated with caution: Leverhulme encourages interdisciplinary work, so its sometimes hard to pin down exactly which discipline any project belongs to. The Trust does not 'manage demand', as many of the Research Councils have had to do. 'If your quality is acceptable we fund you,' said Marshall. Whilst the Trustees have the ultimate say on who gets funded, they rely for advice on reviews and on a small group of academic advisors. The Trustees, claimed Marshall, 'were the last group of people in the country who
have respect for the academy'. They recognised the worth of good research, and wanted to fund it. However, it didn't want to be in competition with the Research Councils or, worse still, be the 'funder of last resort' for those who have already tried the Research Councils. Nevertheless, if your work is exciting, ground-breaking and robust, but can't get funding with the Research Councils (perhaps because you're emeritus, or you're seeking studentships, or the project's too risky, or too interdisciplinary), then the Trust would be interested.
Common Failings of Leverhulme Applications An overly detailed review of
the literature. Whilst the Trustees need some context, you should concentrate on the specifics of what you are actually going to do. This leads on to the second failing: Under specified research design; Claims of scholarship. Leverhulme isn't interested in H-Index, REF scores, or any other indication of prestige. They look solely at the potential of the project and your ability to undertake the research; Supposition of a hidden agenda. There is no agenda. Leverhulme just wants to fund the best research, wherever it is found; Incremental work. They don't provide funding for 'empire building', or work that doesn't lead to a step change in understanding. Excite them. Claims of impact. They have no interest in this agenda.
Want to know more? The full text of this article, with relevant links, is available on the blog: bit.ly/LevKent 6
Getting the Most from Research Professional The University subscribes to Research Professional (RP), a webbased database of funding opportunities available to academics and researchers in the UK. You can do a simple keyword search, but you can also do a more advanced search, filtering the data by discipline, award type, amount and funder, amongst others. In addition, we have access to the ‘Funding Insight’ content within RP, which provides background intelligence, such as lists of all recent awards given by the Research Councils, and interviews with Programme Managers, panellists, and grant winners. Other useful articles include: A piece written by Kent Biosciences researchers about how they helped themselves out of ‘the postdoc trap’: bit.ly/postdoctrap An summary and analysis of H o r i z o n 2 0 2 0 : bit.ly/H2020summary A calendar for upcoming scheme deadlines: bit.ly/DeadlineCalendar If you would like help in finding your away around RP, get in touch with you Faculty Funding Officers (see page 2).
Avoiding Underspend In the last year the University has had to return residual ‘underspend’ from some 25 grants. These have ranged from £400 to £25,000, and result from projected costs (particularly travel) not actually arising. Whilst it’s good to err on the side of caution when costing an application, do talk to your Contract and Accounts Team contacts (page 2) as early as possible to ensure that underspend is minimised.
Eastern ARC Update The shape and timeline for the new Eastern ARC initiative (RA, Vol 8, Issue 1) is beginning to emerge. The nine Eastern ARC Fellows will be recruited in the Spring (through a high profile advertising campaign in February), with a starting date of August 2014. The 18 PhD students will be recruited to start the following year. Kent will be leading on the Digital Humanities theme, which will focus on ‘Big Data’ and ‘Digital Heritage’. A website for the Eastern ARC will go live shortly. In the meantime contact Phil Ward for more detail.
The University’s REF submission was deposited with HEFCE on 28 November 2013. In total 624 members of staff were entered, offering some 2090 outputs. Of these, the largest number were journal articles (1533), followed by chapters (228) and authored books (193), but there were fourteen other types of output submitted, including conference papers, websites, patents, exhibitions, datasets and compositions. In addition the University drafted 80 impact case studies.
‘I am immensely grateful for all the hard work that was undertaken by staff across the University to prepare our submission, said the PVC Research, Prof John Baldock. ‘In particular I would like to thank the REF Coordinators for pulling together all the data, drafting the narratives, and ensuring that our submission was of the highest quality.’
WELCOME!
Feminist International Relations; New Institutonalist approaches to change in Security Institutions; Regional Security Dr Christina Kim (SECL): the relationships among pragmatic processes, syntactic and semantic knowledge, and representations of the discourse context and the common ground. Dr Peter Langdon (Tizard): psychological factors associated with criminal offending behaviour by people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities Prof. Donna Lee (PolIR) critical political economy; economic
and trade diplomacy of small states and African states; international trade relations and the World Trade Organisation. Dr Emily Manktelow (History): the history of nineteenth-century colonialism with a particular interest in gender, affect, family, religion and emotion. Dr Phil Slavin (History): latemedieval environmental, economic and social history of the British Isles Dr Freya VaasRhee (Arts. left): cognitive dance and theatre studies, visuo-sonic performance analysis, perceptual studies of performativity, dance dramaturgies, arts/sciences interdisciplinary.
Governance Framework for Health and Social Care and ESRC’s Framework for Research Ethics. Nicole Palmer will be keeping an eye on how these affect Kent.
New SCREC website The Social Care Research Ethics Committee website has been redesigned to be more user-friendly and up to date. SCREC reviews adult social care research studies from researchers based in England in order to protect the dignity, rights, safety and well-being of research participants and facilitate ethical research. It can be accessed at: bit.ly/ NewSCREC
8 academics have joined Kent since September. Join with us in welcoming them to Kent, and take a moment to find out about their research interests.
Prof Kevin Dawe (Music & Fine Art, right): Ethnomusicology; the anthropology of sound and music; musical instruments; ecomusicology and acoustic ecology; music, health and wellbeing. Dr Graeme Forbes (SECL): the metaphysics of time, and contemporary analytic metaphysics Dr Toni Haastrup (PolIR): Human Security Discourses; Gender &
Ethics & Governance Congratulations to Nicole Palmer, Kent’s Research Ethics & Governance Officer, on successfully completing a Masters in Research Ethics at Keele. Below she updates us on recent developments in the area. Policy updates Several key policies will be updated this year, including the Research
The REF panels will now begin the difficult task of assessing submissions, and the results should be known in December 2014.
NHS audit The University has passed an audit on its Sponsorship processes for health and social care. The NHS auditors were impressed with the level of research governance support offered to Kent researchers. 7
CHOICE CUTS FROM THE BLOG For the latest news and rumours from the world of research funding, log on to http://fundermental.blogspot.com/ Molecular Strategies 22 November 2013 The University of Sussex had just launched its Strategy 2013-18. Rather than a boring text document, Sussex have written inspiring words on to the multicoloured planes of a buckminsterfullerene molecule. For the chemically illiterate amongst us (including me), a buckminsterfullerene is of course a C60 carbon molecule. The Sussex Strategy made me think that the rest of us are missing a trick. There are plenty of molecules out there, and we should be harnessing them as metaphors. Here's a list of five possibilities to get you started: Curcurbituril:
a pumpkin shaped molecule. Potential to transform into a beautiful carriage, given the right input. Pterodactyladiene: a molecule shaped like a pterodactyl. Perhaps a little backward looking, but has the ability to dump on people from a great height. Penguinone: shaped like a penguin. Useful for your strategy, as it will help to win over your detractors. I mean who doesn't like penguins? Lampane: shaped like a lampshade. Because your strategy will shine like a beacon, to lead your institution out of the darkness. Oh yes. Etorphine: used as an elephant tranquiliser. Make of that what you will.
Fundermental Top 10 19 December 2013 Open Access, ‘recycling your proposal’ and ‘balancing the conflicting demands of academia’ were among the most viewed posts this year. For a full list go to bit.ly/RFTop10.
In Memoriam 8 November 2013 EPSRC Bingo 18 October 2013
So. Farewell then 1994 Group 'Sort of a bit like the Russell Group. Just a bit smaller and leafier'. Yes, that could have been your catchphrase. But you were sat on by an elephant. We loved you Even if we weren't Entirely sure What you stood for. E J Thribb (apologies to Private Eye)
We’ve all been there. Listening to EPSRC outlining its Strategy it all, well, starts to blend. You get lost amongst the Grand Challenges and the Great Technologies, the Strategic Partnerships and the Sustainable Commitments. Well, help is at hand. Fundermentals has developed a game of bingo (above). First to spot all the words and finish the grid wins. Extra points if you manage to combine words from two or more boxes to create your own vapid strategic priority.
Lookalike Corner Kent Brockman, anchor for Channel 6 weekday news on The Simpsons, is set to be the new President of the European Research Council. I, for one, welcome our new ERC overlord. Any resemblance to the French mathematician Jean-Pierre Bourguignon is purely coincidental. 8
Bourguignon
Brockman