MOOCs, MOOCs and more MOOCs…
by Lisa Harris via WSI | WSI
There are a number of FutureLearn MOOCs about to start which may be of interest to students, staff, alumni… For students coming up to dissertations and/or preparing for the workplace: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/data-to-insight (University of Auckland, starts 6/10 ) This course is a hands-on introduction to statistical data analysis that emphasises fundamental concepts and practical skills. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/writing-applications (University of Sheffield, starts 6/10) This free …
Thunderclap – the results!
by Alex Hovden via WSI | WSI
On 11th July (over 2 months ago – where has the time gone!) I blogged about our plan to set up a Thunderclap to help us promote the Digital Marketing and Web Science MOOCs. We set the completion date/time for Monday 8th September at 3:30pm. As long as we got at least 100 supporters by that date then our Thunderclap …
Professor Guy Poppy – Final blog as Director of Interdisciplinary Research
by Guy Poppy
Guy Poppy was born in the East Midlands of the UK into a non-scientific family. He was the first member of his family to attend university, and he studied Biology at Imperial College (BSc 1987). His DPhil at Oxford (1990) introduced him to interdisciplinary research, an approach which has really influenced his subsequent career. He started his first lab at Rothamsted Research where he worked alongside inspiring colleagues such as John Pickett. Missing university life, he left Rothamsted for the University of Southampton in 2001. His research interests have spanned chemical ecology, multitrophic interactions, genetic manipulation (GM) risk assessment, and most recently Global Food Security and how to achieve Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture. Guy has served as Head of Biological Sciences at Southampton and Director of the University’s Interdisciplinary Research Strategy which has resulted in cross-university groups and institutes tackling some of the world’s grand challenges. He is currently on a part-time secondment as the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Food Standards Agency (a non-ministerial UK Government Department). His current research interests include leading an international interdisciplinary consortium using an ecosystems services framework for food and nutritional security in Malawi, Colombia, and Peru.
What influenced your path into plant biology?
In fact I went to university to study Zoology, but switched to Biology to take some plant courses. My DPhil at the Zoology Department of Oxford University was on insect pheromones. It was only during my first postdoc at Rothamsted with John Pickett that plant chemistry came to the fore, and the fascinating diversity and importance of plant secondary metabolites grabbed my attention. This led me to working on the environmental risks of GM plants, given my interdisciplinary training, and then a gradual shift towards food security – which is clearly a very plant-focussed research area and now dominates my research. Thus, despite being a late convert, I am now a strong advocate that plant biology should be part of every biologists’ education.
What would you be if you were not a plant biologist?
As a child I was fanatical about two things – natural history and sport. Thus, I dreamt of being the next David Attenborough travelling the world seeing fascinating things or of being a famous sportsmen competing on the international stage. However, my footballing and athletic career (I represented the County of Sussex and was offered a football trial with Crystal palace) took a back-seat and I became a scientist. Interestingly, this has allowed me to travel the world and compete on the international stage, although perhaps not being a household name. My recent research in the Amazon and Africa even allows me to develop ways to conserve biodiversity and improve human well-being – so I am satisfied with how it turned out.
Are there any issues in scientific funding you feel strongly about?
During my career I have combined a mechanistic approach with a more adaptive/ultimate approach to understanding biological systems. I believe this has worked well, as has the interdisciplinary approach which has involved me collaborating with social scientists, physical scientists, and health scientists. Such broader thinking and interdisciplinary approaches are heralded as the only way to really advance our knowledge, although it can be a challenge to raise funding for such research. There are specific calls for interdisciplinary programmes, but many funders struggle to assess these projects. Scoring the parts is commonplace, where each discipline needs to be world-leading – but surely it is the sum of the parts that matters, and using maths which is not cutting-edge to advance biological understanding of a system will not detract from world-class interdisciplinary research being undertaken. Addressing food security requires systems thinking and an interdisciplinary approach. There is no point developing a new crop plant without targeting the needs of an African farmer or considering how it could change the dynamics of the community in an undesirable way – the new crop plant could really improve the livelihoods of people, and social science embedded in the programme can help to make this happen. Food security requires interdisciplinary teams addressing the system, and the funders need to play their part to achieve this goal.
In hindsight, what in your research career has given you the most pleasure?
It can be hard to think of specific research outputs that have given me most pleasure because all research brings pleasure to me and my group. I am proud of being ahead of the curve in interdisciplinary thinking and in my research of tracking bee foraging using radar, adopting a systems approach to GM plant risk-assessment and, most recently, using the ecosystem services framework to deliver food and nutritional security – these have all been well received by my scientific peers and, importantly, are having a wide impact outside academia. As someone from a non-academic family, this is important to me. I have had the pleasure of training almost 30 PhD students, and also many postdocs and undergraduates experiencing research for the first time. I think this brings the most pleasure of all because these are the next generation of scientists. These people will contribute to areas similar to my own as well as contributing to completely unrelated issues. I feel that I have in some small way helped to shape their careers and outputs to society; I receive great pleasure from that and feel privileged to be working in a university.
What big questions interest you in the long term?
I have recently undertaken a part-time secondment from my university to be the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for the Food Standards Agency in the UK. The role of a CSA in UK Government is to offer independent scientific advice of the highest quality and to ensure that evidence is at the heart of decision-making relating to that department. In the case of food safety and food standards, science is essential for ensuring that we have access to a sustainable supply of authentic, safe, and nutritious food. The food system is increasingly complex, and food security is a wicked problem and part of the ‘perfect storm’ described by Sir John Beddington when he was the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser. I am interested in addressing food security, which means that all the pillars required (access, availability, utilisation, and stability/resilience) are considered and addressed. Too often, scientists focus only on one small part of the system, resulting in little progress and time wasted arguing about relative importance. I see the challenge as taking the systems approach, making sure one knows which levers to pull and how best to ensure food security across the world today and tomorrow.
What are the future challenges in plant science?
I was fortunate to be an author on a paper which tried to identify the top 100 questions in plant science. Thus, I have a head-start on this one and recommend that you read this paper [1]. As someone who has tended towards more applied research, my challenges will focus on what I see as the greatest challenge of all – sustainably feeding the world. Thus, we need to really push for sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture and ensure that it is more than a concept or philosophy. Much of our fundamental science needs to underpin how to achieve SI, and thus it is possible to undertake cutting-edge fundamental research which can have a wider impact in a reasonable timeframe. Funding plant science remains a challenge across the world because we need to recruit the best minds and best labs to address the food security nexus – food, water, and energy for an increasing population, changing demographics, and resilience to climate change. Finally, we need to attract young people into plant sciences – convincing young scientists that addressing hunger is as big a challenge and personal reward as addressing dementia or cancer.
Web Science Summer School 2014
by Alex Hovden via WSI | WSI
Next week sees the University of Southampton Web Science Institute play host to the inaugural Web Science Summer School. It aims to provide comprehensive education and networking opportunities to the next generation of Web Scientists. Official participant registration is closed, but staff and students of the University can still informally attend the keynote speeches for free. Keynote 1 – Professor …
SMMI – EPSRC Summer Bursaries 2014
by Rosie Hoare
Rosie Hoare – ‘Decision-making in Complex, Multi-scale Displays’
I have just completed my second year on the Psychology BSc program. During my second year I worked with my supervisor on a number of eye-tracking experiments through the Psychology department’s Voluntary Research Assistant scheme (VRA). I learnt a great about visual search and attention research during lectures and through the VRA scheme. I found the subject fascinating and I was thrilled when I received the IDR Vacation Bursary and the opportunity to do research over summer.
This summer I am working on a visual search experiment where participants can zoom in and out to search for objects in a complex, cluttered display. I am examining how searching in displays of the type is influenced by target prevalence. Target prevalence refers to how often a target is presented to participants in a visual search, and it has been found that if a target item appears less often, then participants are more likely to miss that item when searching. This is an important factor to consider in complex, real-world displays such as those in the operation rooms of ships, where indicators of danger may be rare and difficult to detect.
Looking to the future, for my third year research project, I am hoping to examine behaviour in an eye tracking task, though I am not quite sure in which specific area, but I am confident that my summer of research in the psychology department will give me some ideas. I have already gained valuable skills in carrying out a literature review and collecting data, and these are skills that will be vital in my next year’s studies and research project. I am also exploring potential routes that will enable me to engage in postgraduate study.
Thunderclap – the social media flashmob!
by Alex Hovden via WSI | WSI
As part of my summer internship here at the WSI I am promoting Web Science in all shapes and forms. Part of that involves promoting our MOOC (Web Science) and I am also helping to promote Dr Lisa Harris’ brand new MOOC in Digital Marketing. I have been investigating the concept of a Thunderclap. A Thunderclap is… if you can …
MOOCs – where next?
by Lisa Harris via WSI | WSI
In a recent post we discussed the background to our MOOC work which has evolved from the Digital Economy Research Group’s emphasis on bringing inter-disciplinary research into education. This has been specifically progressed through curriculum innovation modules and a number of collaborative projects working with students as partners. As the first running of the Portus MOOC comes to an end …
Emergency Data Retention Laws
by Alex Hovden via WSI | WSI
This morning there was breaking news that the Government would be introducing an emergency bill to give powers to police and intelligence authorities that would enable them to continue to access phone and internet records. To the layman, anything involving “emergency” or “data” or “laws” (or a combination) can be alarming. What are they looking for? Are they spying? What …
Complexity USRG – EPSRC Summer Bursaries 2014
by June Lovitt
June Lovitt – ‘Designing structured consortia for novel devices’
I have just completed my second year of Chemistry at the University of Southampton and will continue into my third year of a four-year Master of Chemistry programme after the summer. For my internship I am focusing on the area of complex systems, synthetic biology. My internship project is in collaboration with Professor George Attard. The field of research for this project is 3D microarchitecture.
This internship is focusing on developing 3D thixotropic gels and whether these can be exploited as a 3D growth matrix for bacteria. Thixotropic gels are attractive for the development of novel tissue-like devices as they flow freely when subject to sheer forces and set into rigid gels when not flowing. Gels with different compositions can also be fused together easily forming layers of different bacteria cultures. I have also been investigating the compositions needed for the medium to form a 3D thixotropic gel as well as culturing bacteria and designing minimal media for each. My next stage is to culture the bacteria in the minimal media and to investigate if this forms a gel.
The long term result of this project if it is successful is that the complex tissue like materials can be developed comprising of different species of bacteria organised on/interacting through 3D microarchitecture.
In my third year project I hope to continue with chemical biology. By developing basic skills from culturing bacteria to developing gels and growth mediums and furthering my understanding of histoarchitecture, this will be very beneficial to my further studies within this field. I have also developed a good range of transferable analytical skills to other areas of practical chemistry.
This project is concerned with achieving preliminary results to support a funding bid to EPSRC and might represent the 1st step in developing a new technology.
Open Access
by Alex Hovden via WSI | WSI
So here I am… sat here in Bay 7, Level 3 of building 32. It’s a fairly warm Wednesday afternoon and unfortunately i’m wearing a black t-shirt (black absorbs heat). I’m trawling through the feed of tweets, when I come across one from @OA_Button… Join thousands of researchers in demanding #OpenAccess to research. Use the Open Access Button today: http://t.co/fsl203AgpZ …