Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter
We have been busy meeting lots of new PhD researchers this month at their inductions, as well as over 100 members of staff at the Staff Benefits Fair last week. Welcome to those who have just joined the mailing list – it is great to see all the bookings coming in for training workshops. October has also seen the start of the CIUK Cluster Challenge, for which we have two teams of students from BEAR Challenge representing the University – return-1 and TED. Follow #CIUK2024 to keep up to date with their progress!
Included in this month’s BEAR newsletter:
- News from the Advanced Research Computing team including a new senior RSE post
- Upcoming maintenance in December and January
- 2024 IT Needs of Active Research Survey results
- Book now – Interdisciplinary Data Science Digital Research Conversation
- Opportunity to join the BEAR Conference organising committee
- Research Talk (Podcast): Navigating open research as an early career researcher
- Case study on using BlueBEAR to develop a model for airflow in ultra-clean operating theatres
- BEAR drop-in sessions
News from the Advanced Research Computing team including a new senior RSE post
Further to last month’s newsletter, we are pleased to welcome Kiran Phalke and Helen Abbott as our two new Research Software Engineers (RSEs). We currently have a live vacancy for a new Senior Research Software Engineer & Manager – to find out more information and apply, see the vacancy blog post (deadline Thursday 7 November).
This time last year, we had an intern join the Researcher Engagement and Data Group for their Professional Internship for PhD Students placement, as part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership (MIBTP). You can find out how PhD student Kirsty McCready contributed to the team in the blog post building professional skills via an internship.
Upcoming maintenance in December and January
As part of the standard maintenance cycle, as usual there will be an extended shutdown of Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) services around the second week of December to carry out major maintenance. This year there are additional major pieces of work to complete, which mean more downtime than in previous years – for details see our blog post on upcoming maintenance.
2024 IT Needs of Active Research Survey results
We were pleased to see a 54% increase in responses to the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research ‘IT Needs of Active Research Survey 2024’ compared to the previous survey in 2022. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond and to share their views. We include results and proposed actions in our blog post on the survey.
Book now – Interdisciplinary Data Science Digital Research Conversation
On Friday 29 November (between 12.00-2.00pm), Advanced Research Computing (ARC) and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and AI (IIDSAI) present Interdisciplinary Data Science: Strategies for Success – a lunchtime discussion event, which is part of ARC’s Digital Research Conversations series. The event will include lunch and features five UoB researchers from varying disciplines discussing the benefits, challenges and strategies for success in interdisciplinary research. See the agenda and book your free place via the Eventbrite page.
Just a reminder that the pump priming call for funding to support the development of interdisciplinary and high-impact research ideas closes on Friday 1 November – see the funding call webpage for details.
Opportunity to join the BEAR Conference organising committee
We are currently looking for postgraduate researchers and early career researchers from across the University to form an organising committee to deliver the 14th BEAR Conference in spring 2025. The conference provides a showcase for the diverse and interdisciplinary research that is supported by use of our High Performance Computing facility, BlueBEAR, from the social sciences to material science – see a summary of the BEAR Conference 2024.
Membership of the organising committee provides an excellent opportunity to improve skills in areas such as teamwork, leadership and communication, as well as providing networking opportunities across the University. For more information, please see the blog post on joining the Committee and if interested, contact Dietmar Heinke (Chair of the BEAR User Group) – d.g.heinke@bham.ac.uk.
Research Talk (Podcast): Navigating open research as an early career researcher
The podcast episode ‘Research Talk: Navigating Academia’ features a conversation between Amelia Morris and Marcus Munafo, hosted by Emily Wild. In the podcast, they discuss the challenges and opportunities of sharing research openly, particularly for early career researchers, and explore how open research practices are reshaping academia.
Case study on using BlueBEAR to develop a model for airflow in ultra-clean operating theatres
In this month’s featured case study, Andrew Thomas (Birmingham Medical School) a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, explains how a group of researchers have been utilising BlueBEAR to produce a new Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of the type of operating theatre used for joint replacement surgery. The model provides insights into airflow patterns and the impact of different clothing and equipment configurations on maintaining a sterile environment to help prevent infection. Have a read of Andrew’s case study to find out more.
Andrew’s use case of High Performance Computing (HPC) won a HPC Wire Award in 2021. We are currently waiting to hear if any of our four shortlisted research groups have won awards in the 2024 HPC Wire Awards – we should know in mid-November! You can find out more about the use cases in our X post here.
BEAR drop-in sessions
We have virtual drop-in session dates in November – check the drop-in webpage for updates, as well as details on how to join the sessions. Currently scheduled dates are also listed below:
- Via Zoom – Tuesday 5 November, 11.00am-12.00pm
- Via Zoom – Monday 11 November, 10.00-11.00am
- Via Zoom – Thursday 21 November, 1.30-2.30pm
- Via Zoom – Friday 29 November, 10.00-11.00am
Missed last month’s newsletter?
Find September’s newsletter here. Sign up to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox by joining our bear-updates mailing list here (UoB login required), or ask to join via email at bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk