For the first time Coventry University will be awarding one postgraduate researcher the title of ‘Postgraduate Researcher of the Year’. One nominee representing each faculty or University Research Centre will compete for the title. There will be a cash prize of £1000 for the overall winner and £100 for each nominee.
Faculties and URCs were asked to select nominees taking the following into consideration:
- Ability to communicate research to the lay and non-specialist research audience;
- Excellent research with impact/potential impact of the research in terms of both application and importance of the research;
- Evidence of local or national publicity or public engagement;
- Evidence of communicating research within the research community e.g. academic conference presentations, publications and/or practice-based equivalents
The nominees will present their research during the Research Hootenanny on Thursday 18 January from 11.00 to 13.00. Our panel of judges will judges will mark the nominees presentations and interview each candidate.
The 2018 nominees and presentations:
Morwenna Mckenzie – Still rivers run deep… and dirty!
Representing the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience
Abstract:
Less than a quarter of rivers in England are considered healthy; this figure has continued to decline since monitoring first began. A primary cause for this is soil erosion, from intensively farmed land, which carries fine sediment particles into rivers. The fine sediment can clog the river bed, block out light, and transport other harmful substances such as heavy metals, phosphates and pesticides. However, quantifying fine sediment in rivers is difficult because rivers are very dynamic systems. This makes it hard for water monitoring bodies to understand the problem in order to prioritise and target management actions. A common approach is to look at the small insects and other small creatures that live in the river to infer the level of pollution present, a process known as biomonitoring.
For the project, I led a laboratory study to document physical damage of fine sediment to insects, a major gap identified in the literature. Three different species were exposed to six different treatments of varying water velocity and fine sediment concentration. High powered microscopy images were used to quantify physical damage on the surface of the insect’s gills. I also undertook a large-scale field work effort at 21 different sites over two seasons to sample fine sediment and river insects, using the data to test and improve existing biomonitoring methods and explore macroinvertebrate response to fine sediment. The results will help show how monitoring of fine sediment pollution can be done in a way that can support national management goals.
Jordon Lazell – Trying your best? Food waste and everyday life
Representing the Faculty of Business and Law
Abstract:
The waste of perfectly good, edible food remains a global problem, and every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is thrown away. Our actions as consumers are responsible for the majority of food wasted in developed countries and the UK is one of the most wasteful countries in Europe when it comes to food. Ultimately efforts to tackle food waste across the supply chain achieve little if the end consumer mismanages and throws away food. Further understanding of the everyday behaviours of individuals and how they relate to the problem of food waste is critical to solving this problem.
Drawing upon previous research that has shown a gap between how individuals account for their behaviour and what they actually do in practice, this PhD thesis took an innovative approach to explore the habits and routines of consumers to show how food waste behaviours are shaped by a range of practices in everyday life. The research approach drew on actual lived experiences to understand how the management and wastage of food varies across different patterns of living. 23 participants completed the study using methods of photo elicitation, semi-structured interviews, food diaries, food mapping and detailing weekly routines. Findings show the way in which households are co-ordinated is an influential factor leading to food wastage as well as a barrier for food waste prevention despite the best efforts of participants. Retailers and food waste campaigns can utilise these findings to better coordinate food in routines and provide more specific guidance to help mitigate food waste.
Jed Jerwood – Less Fear, Better Care – How can end of life care for people with mental illnesses be improved?
Representing the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Abstract:
People with mental illness face one of the biggest health inequalities – an average life expectancy of twenty years less than the general population. Access to hospice and end-of-life care services is limited and end-of-life care experiences are poor. Research which explores the end-of-life needs of this patient group is limited. In an earlier study by the researcher, clinical staff in palliative care services reported a lack of confidence in working with people with complex mental illnesses and mental health care staff reported a lack of understanding of the end-of- life and palliative care services.
There has been no research carried out in UK clinical settings which aims to improve care for this patient group. This study explores the views of patients and their carers to better understand their end of life care needs and expectations through a series of interviews. The key themes from the interviews will inform a series of workshops, using co-design methods to bring together patients, carers and clinical staff to create an educational/information resource to improve care to this patient group through changing attitudes and improving the confidence, knowledge and skills of clinical staff.
The methodology used is innovative because it draws on creative and visual methods to both collect and analyse the data, and in the development of the resource itself. Involving patients and carers, as well as clinical staff, as equal partners in the research process through co-design is an innovative approach to healthcare improvement.
Colin Poole – Seeing White: Race, Trauma and Choreographic Practice
Representing the Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Abstract:
In Western culture, discriminatory attitudes have shifted from the margins to the mainstream: Brexit, Trump, re-emerging white populist nationalism and anti-black/brown immigration. The aim of my PhD research is to develop understanding of race and trauma through choreographic practice. In the UK conversations about race generally involve non-white minorities – often perceived as victims – expressing their grievances to a white audience. These cultural conversations are mirrored in dance and performance research. For people of colour to ask whites if they feel implicated in racial problems is less common, and often met with white rebuttals like, ‘I don’t see colour’, ‘race isn’t an issue’ or ‘what’s this got to do with me!’ Comments such as these provide a snapshot of how race talk can trigger traumatic reactions in white people from anger to muted withdrawal. As a black choreographer, I will direct white collaborators into explorations of their white identity in order to build racially complex performances for mostly white audiences. I will focus on two aspects in the creative process: 1) How racial self-consciousness arises for whites in the presence of a black person; 2) How whites perceive themselves as implicated, or not, in racism.
Kojo Sarfo Gyamfi – Linear discriminant analysis under unequal covariance: An application to flowmeter diagnostic
Representing the Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Computing
Abstract:
A common theme in machine learning is how to correctly classify an object under one of a given number of classes, based on the features of the object; this is termed classification. A typical example is the task of having to classify an incoming email as spam or legitimate, or a breast tumour as benign or cancerous. One of the widely used machine learning techniques (classifiers) for classification is linear discriminant analysis (LDA), due to its simplicity and robustness. At its core, however, LDA assumes that each class has normally distributed data, with an equal covariance among the classes. When these assumptions are met, LDA minimises the Bayes error —the minimum achievable error rate by a classifier whose predictions are based on the true distribution of the data. Nonetheless, in many applications, the assumptions of LDA are not met, and therefore the Bayes error is not minimised. Consequently, the performance of LDA is unsatisfactory in terms of the accuracy of classification. This research seeks to account for heteroscedasticity, i.e., the violation of the equal covariance assumption in LDA, in order to improve the classification accuracy; this is achieved by deriving a novel algorithm from first principles, which minimises the Bayes error iteratively, under the constraint of unequal covariance. The algorithm, referred to as Gaussian linear discriminant (GLD), generally achieves significant improvement in the accuracy of classification over LDA. Hence, GLD results in improved prediction in many classification tasks, including improved filtering of spam emails and improved diagnosis of breast cancer.
Mphatso J Boti Phiri – Leadership of Peace Interventions within the African Union
Representing the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations
Abstract
War is one of the most destructive forms of human behaviour, and its impact on economic and human capital is devastating. Africa has experienced more violent conflicts than any other continent in the last four decades and its socio-economic development has been negatively affected. A plethora of research has shown the increasing role of the United Nations (UN) in mitigating armed conflicts globally. The UN, however, is unable to intervene in every conflict due to structural limitations in terms of staff, political will of UN permanent five members and resources. The intensity of African conflicts has in turn, increased the participation of African countries and sub regional organisations like Southern African Development Community (SADC), in peace interventions under the leadership of the African Union (AU). Despite the increase of AU peace interventions, there is so far little research on its leadership.
The purpose of this study is to investigate AU leadership of peace operations and conflict mediation processes. The research specifically interrogates AU leadership in Somalia peace operations, and joint mediation of Madagascar’s conflict, alongside SADC. The study uses primary data collected through interviews with diplomats, senior staff and military personnel at AU and SADC headquarters.
The study results provide ways of improving leadership and coordination of African peace interventions. The study, therefore, contributes to the AU agenda of alleviating human suffering in conflict areas and creating a stable environment for socio-economic development in Africa. Additionally, the research contributes to theoretical conceptualisation of leadership in African security studies.
Our panel of judges will judges will mark the nominees presentations and interview each candidate.
Chair:
Dr. Rebekah Smith McGloin
Director of Doctoral College & Centre for Research Capability & Development
Rebekah’s role focuses on the development of people and the implementation of systems and structures to support growth in research activity; from postgraduate to professor.
She is a member of the UKCGE Executive Committee and member of the current national expert review panel for the Concordat for Researchers and the strategy advisory panel for researcher skills and careers for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. She also chairs the National Training Group for the Doctoral Training Alliance in Applied Biosciences for Health and is part of the senior team responsible for developing a portfolio of additional national cohort-based doctoral training programmes.
She is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and has been twice short-listed for Times Higher Awards for Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers.
Rebekah has a track record in postgraduate strategy development, and the configuration, set-up and delivery of a portfolio of successful doctoral training programmes, including a BBSRC DTP.
Oliver Moffat
Customer Insight Manager, Baxi UK
Oliver is a new addition to Baxi having joined at the start of 2017. Having previously worked for Unipart Logistics and Jaguar Land Rover tackling a wide variety of roles from starting his work in the Automotive supply chain, working as a Lean consultant across the UK then as Innovation Manager for the Aftermarket sector.
His current role as Customer Insight Manager sees him manage Innovation project teams, Baxi’s online collaboration platform, training and development whilst championing the Innovation Value. Oliver has a passion for helping others learn new skills and create new exciting ideas.
David Willetts
Head of Innovation for Baxi UK
Originally in the R&D department, David started with Baxi in 2003 as an electronics engineer. Before leaving R&D David led the development of the UK’s first Combined Heat and Power boiler, for which Baxi won the Queen’s award for Enterprise in Innovation in 2012.
Working through various technical, manufacturing, project management, and commercial roles David now runs Baxi’s spares business as General Manager for Baxi Genuine Parts.
David has a passion for driving innovation and creativity in organisations and his work on this has led to David becoming Head of Innovation for Baxi UK in addition to his other responsibilities.
When not working at Baxi or researching for his dissertation, David can be found travelling to watch the F1 or Moto GP races.
Dr Faye Taylor
Head of Programmes, University Alliance
Faye is responsible for University Alliance’s collaborative activities in the UK and abroad, building on the Doctoral Training Alliances established in 2015.
Prior to joining University Alliance in 2014, Faye worked on knowledge exchange and researcher development HE policy in the sector and managed a series of programmes bridging university research with public and third sector policy at the educational charity Cumberland Lodge. She has worked on community outreach, widening participation and researcher development throughout her career and volunteers for a charity promoting aspiration and capacity building for underprivileged school girls in London.
Faye has a PhD in History from the University of Nottingham, and has taught courses in European History at King’s College London and Nottingham.
Dr Chris Tuck
Managing Director, GrantCraft
Having completed his Masters in Chemistry Chris was selected to complete a PhD under Sir Martyn Poliakoff at Nottingham University. Having successfully completed his PhD Chris worked in funding and industrial engagement until his selection for a role within GrantCraft. In addition to leading GrantCraft support across a range of UK and European Universities, Chris is also the lead for WRG Europe Ltd (GrantCraft’s legal name) involvement in successfully awarded European projects where the company takes an industrial engagement and outreach role.
GrantCraft, a division of WRG Europe, specialise in writing and supporting European grant applications and tenders as well as providing administrative and management support services for ongoing projects. Over the last 25 years GrantCraft have worked extensively across Europe with a large number of universities, and research institutes as well as industrial firms, ranging from small SME’s to major international companies.
Since the early 1990s GrantCraft have been advising and supporting Universities, companies, and research institutions with their RCUK, EU, and other grant applications and, since 2002, have been retained on a 24/7 basis across multiple institutions. Each institution have not only seen the number of applications substantially increased but, most importantly, the average success rate has risen to better than 1 in 3 against a European generalized average of 1 in 12.
In addition to running training workshops GrantCraft provide advice surgeries with academic staff members from all disciplines and work individually confidentially with each coordinator as projects are structured and prepared in order to optimize the applications from every aspect of the funding body’s perspective.
Lawrie Phipps
Senior Co-design Manager, JISC
Lawrie Phipps is a Senior Codesign Manager at Jisc within the research and development directorate. His current portfolio contains work in student experience, technology enhanced learning, digital leadership and change management. He leads Jisc’s work on Digital Leadership, running the successful Jisc Leaders Programme. His previous work include social media in education, institutional efficiency, and accessibility for disabled students. Lawrie developed the researcher 2.0 programme at the University of Leeds working with PhD students to build their social media identities and also served for several years as a judge for their annual PGR of year competition. Prior to his current role, Lawrie worked as a learning technologist, a telecommunications engineer and served in the Royal Navy. Lawrie is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
The winner will be announced at the Research Hootenanny Dinner on Thursday 18th January 2018.
