RIS Active-Research and Innovation Services News

Following the initiative by Dr Eerke Boiten and others in establishing a Big Data research group, he and Prof Andy Fearne are planning a ‘Big Data Away Day’ on Friday 16 January.

The objective of this day is to define a number of specific research areas for unique and ideally interdisciplinary big data research at Kent.

There are three things for you to do if you want to be involved.

•  Reserve the date in your diary.
• Set out your stall on big data research ambitions. Make sure you have more than just your name at www.cyber.kent.ac.uk/bigdata/ – a paragraph, a presentation, or a link to your specific ideas on this (not to generic web presence). What is your interest: using big data techniques, developing them, studying them from a particular perspective? What datasets do you use or aim to use that could also be of interest to others?
• Help us think about the best way to be productive on the day against our objective. (Is the objective quite right?)

For more details and to get involved, contact Dr Boiten directly (e.a.boiten@kent.ac.uk)

9 October 2013

Keynes Seminar Room 12

Professor Charles Forsdick, AHRC Theme Leadership Fellow for ‘Translating Cultures’   and Professor of French at the University of Liverpool will be visiting the University on Thursday 9 October.   As AHRC Theme Leader, Professor Forsdick works closely with senior AHRC programmes staff to develop partnerships within and beyond academia.  This is an ideal opportunity to learn about AHRC plans for the future of the theme and to hear about the research we are doing across the Faculty of Humanities in the area of ‘Translating Cultures’.

His visit will consist of the following:

14.20                                     Tea & Coffee on arrival

14.30 – 15.15                      AHRC Translating Cultures talk by Professor Forsdick (title TBC)

15.15 – 16.00                      A series of brief talks by AHRC Translating Cultures award holders and other award holders working in the area of ‘Translating Cultures’.

All are welcome, and tea and coffee will be provided.

Do let Lynne Bennett (l.bennett-282@kent.ac.uk) know if you would like to attend.

The Research Councils have moved away from requesting final reports on grants in order to collect outcomes information on an ongoing basis using a harmonised collection of research project outcomes using the Researchfish system which has been used by MRC and STFC for a number of years.

All PIs and Co-Is with Research Council funded awards will  receive an email with details of the Research Councils’ move to using Researchfish as our harmonised outcomes collection system. This will explain to grant holders that if they do not have an existing Researchfish account, they will receive an email from Researchfish between 12th and 19th September detailing the actions they need to take.

Once they have registered with the Researchfish system, grant holders will automatically see a list of their Research Council grants, and any migrated data previously submitted under the old Research Outcomes System.  Grant holders will be able to start entering information about the outputs and outcomes of their Research Council funding as soon as they have created their account. They can also add information to Researchfish at any time during the year. There will now be an annual ‘submission period’. This is a period each year where grant holders are asked to formally confirm that the information is accurate and up-to-date, or confirm a nil submission, if no outputs or outcomes have emerged yet from their research. This year the submission period will be 16th October to 13th November 2014.

Further information can be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/researchservices/researchfish/index.html   Sue Prout (S.C.Prout@kent.ac.uk) will also be happy to help with any queries PIs may have on the outcomes collection process.

The Universities of Kent, Greenwich and Canterbury Christ Church will be holding a joint Research Festival on the shared Medway Campus on 10 Sept.

The event kicks off at 14:00, but the main part of the day will be a ‘forum’, with stalls and posters featuring research from all three universities, and the opportunity to talk to those working in similar areas to your own.

All academics, researchers and postdoctoral students are welcome to come. It is free, and refreshments will be provided, but do let Helen Leech know that you plan to attend.

The full programme is as follows and a poster for the event is available here: Medway Research Festival (pdf).

Programme

14:00: Welcome and opening remarks

14:05: Overview of Research at the three Medway universities (Three 10 minute talks)

14:35: Research Forum

The Pilkington Open Space will host posters and stalls from all three universities, and external organisations. All are free to make their own way around the Space, but some may wish to attend specific presentations and demonstrations focussed on the three universities, as follows:

14.35: Free time to look round the Open Space

15:05: Canterbury Christ Church University

15:35: University of Greenwich

16:05: University of Kent

16:35: Closing Remarks

16:45: Drinks reception

18:30: Close

Phil Ward, the Deputy Director of Research Services, will be taking part in a discussion on ‘the problems and prospects for interdisciplinarity’. The session is part of a CHASE Consortium event, hosted by the Open University, in London on 23 September. There will also be an opportunity to hear from Prof Simon Goldhill, Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge, and Prof Andrew Prescott, Professor of Digital Humanities at KCL.

The event is aimed primarily at early career researchers. Do come along if you can; further details are available here.

Dr Jim Ang (EDA) is taking part in a project that is seeking non-academic staff to take part in a study of how modern communication technology affects work-life balance, and how we manage switches across work life boundaries.

The project is a collaboration between Kent, the Open University, Lancaster, and Royal Holloway. They are looking for non-academic staff (any level of seniority) to take part in a video diary/interview study. Staff need to be office-based, working regular hours and speak fluent English / English as their mother tongue.

Taking part will involve:

• Attending a briefing meeting via Skype (the project will post you a camcorder);
• Being asked to record a ‘week in your life’ using the camcorder (focusing on times when you switch between roles: based on previous participants, it is expected that this will take a total of about 15 minutes across each day);
• Having a short debriefing over the telephone;
• Attending a face-to-face interview at your work (or via Skype if this is difficult to arrange) with a member of the research team.  This interview will allow you to discuss the ‘week in your life’ data within the context of your broader work-life balance issues and will be recorded.

The study is part of the Digital Brain Switch project funded by the EPSRC. You can find out more from the project website http://www.scc.lancs.ac.uk/research/projects/DBS/get-involved/

If you are interested in taking part, please email DBS-Project@open.ac.uk and they can let you have further information.