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OU
Research Highlights
WELCOME
Within a few years we will possess the technology
to secure all our mobile communications, be able
to predict infectious disease outbreaks, and learn
what a comet and its tail are made of.
These are just a few areas of research at The Open
University (OU) that contribute to our knowledge and our
quality of life. We have a wide-reaching and vibrant
research and enterprise portfolio, competing with the best
in the world.
The Open University is ranked in the top third of UK
higher education institutions for the quality of its research,
as determined by the last national Research Assessment
Exercise in 2008. Half of our research was assessed as
either world-leading or internationally excellent.
The University’s links with business and industry are well
documented in these pages, and we are proud of the
increasing number of institutions approaching us to join
collaborative projects. Whilst we are often best known
for our teaching, it is our high quality research that
underpins this.
Alan Bassindale
Pro Vice Chancellor, Research and Enterprise
CONTENTS
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Education
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Environment
18
Health
24
Science
32
Society
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Untitled
About
OU
research
EDUCATION
OU research in education and technology connects innovation and expertise in
learning and teaching to change the face of education. This is at the heart of the
University’s mission to be a world leader in the design, content and delivery of
supported open and distance learning through the innovative use of technology.
Bringing fieldwork into the lab
School children often say learning science is boring as it has all been done
before, but using novel touch technologies to connect field and laboratory
students the ‘Out There and In Here’ project proved existing British Geological
Survey maps were incorrect.
One of the benefits of mobile
technologies is to combine ‘digital’
(e.g. data, photos) with ‘field’
experiences in novel ways that are
contextualised by people’s current
activities. However, cost, mobility
disabilities and time constraints often
exclude students from engaging
in such peripatetic experiences.
The ‘Out There and In Here’ (OTIH)
project explores the use of mobile
and tabletop technologies to support
collaborative learning.
The project team led by Anne Adams
of the OU’s Institute of Educational
Technology (IET) is working to show
how OTIH develops interconnected
user-friendly touch systems in tables,
iPads and phones that can seamlessly
connect and support co-discovery for
students who might be up a mountain
or in a museum with those inside a
laboratory or in their home.
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A key moment in the findings came
when students in the field realised,
while discussing information from the
laboratory, that the British Geological
Survey map was ‘wrong’ and their
research had proved it.
The research will benefit:
•P
ractitioners, in developing approaches to teaching and learning
•S
tudents, with more engaging and effective methods for learning
• Technology and learning designers, developing appropriate systems for student situations.
The project team includes the OU’s
Faculty of Science and Knowledge
Media Institute, Microsoft Research
(Cambridge) and OOKL software.
The research is funded with
£185,000 from the EPSRC-led
Digital Economies programme.
www.open.ac.uk/otih
Giving children the power to be scientists
Children who are taught how to think and act like scientists develop a clearer
understanding of the subject.
A collaborative research project by
the OU and The University of
Nottingham has shown that school
children who took the lead in
investigating science topics of interest
to them gained an understanding of
good scientific practice.
The study showed that this method of
‘personal inquiry’ could be used to help
children develop the skills needed to
weigh up misinformation in the media,
understand the impact of science and
technology on everyday life and make
better personal decisions on issues
including diet, health and their own
effect on the environment.
The three-year ‘Personal Inquiry’
project involved providing pupils aged
11 to 14 at a school in Nottingham and
another in Milton Keynes with a new
computer toolkit named nQuire. Running
on both desktop PCs and handheld
notebook-style devices, the software
is a high-tech twist on the traditional
lesson plan – guiding the pupils
through devising and planning scientific
experiments, collecting and analysing
data and discussing the results.
The flexible nature of the toolkit meant
that children could become ‘science
investigators’, starting an enquiry in the
classroom, collecting data in the
playground, a local nature reserve or
even at home, and then sharing and
analysing their findings back in class.
The project has been supported by
ScienceScope and funded with
£1.2 million from the ESRC and the
EPSRC Technology Enhanced
Learning Research Programme. The
nQuire software is now available to
teachers and schools as an Open
Source application, available for free
download at www.nquire.org.uk.
www.pi-project.ac.uk
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EDUCATION
Open evidence for open learning
Free and open is appealing – but
where is the evidence that we can
all learn by sharing?
Education is changing, but how and
why? With $3 million funding from The
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
OLnet researches the impact and
evidence, plus the use and value, of
Open Educational Resources worldwide.
OLnet is looking across the globe and
addressing the challenges from drop-out
in the US to a lack of teachers in Africa.
OLnet has three main strands:
• Research looking at how people learn,
how teachers can design for openness,
and the way different contexts can all
work with open solutions
• Fellowships bringing in fresh expertise
from across the globe, so that
researchers develop appreciation of
new solutions
• Building new infrastructure that
supports ‘collective intelligence’ to help
researchers reason with evidence in a
way that lets everyone join in.
OLnet is led by Patrick McAndrew
of the OU’s Institute of Educational
Technology, in collaboration with
Carnegie Mellon University and other
universities worldwide.
http://olnet.org
Networking for teachers and learners
‘Cloudworks’ is a place to share, find
and discuss learning and teaching
ideas and experiences.
Cloudworks has been developed by
Prof Gráinne Conole and colleagues in
the Institute of Educational Technology.
It is being used as part of a £400,000
JISC-funded project with Brunel,
Cambridge, London South Bank
and Reading universities.
The site’s use centres around
conferences and workshops, virtual
reading circles, virtual desk research,
teaching and learning resources, open
expert elicitations and learning design.
Cloudworks is helping teachers to
change their practices and adopt more
innovative approaches that make
effective use of new technologies.
http://cloudworks.ac.uk
Engaging students, inspiring schools
EnquiryBlogger will inspire young
learners who want their education to be
more relevant to their lives and interests.
Research by Rebecca Ferguson and
Simon Buckingham Shum of the OU’s
Knowledge Media Institute is focusing on
how improving enquiry skills can engage
and challenge children at school.
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EnquiryBlogger supports children to
work, collaborate and reflect on enquirybased studies that help them to harness
their own interests and enthusiasm
in order to develop their skills and
knowledge. A nine-step approach
provides a clear way of moving a
personal enthusiasm into a detailed and
valid enquiry that can be assessed by
teachers and applied by pupils.
The project is funded by the Paul
Hamlyn Foundation’s Learning Futures
programme – a national initiative to
foster, evaluate and share secondary
school innovation.
www.open.ac.uk/enquiry-blogger
iSpot helps people learn about nature
Learn what you’ve spotted in the
park with iSpot’s community of
friendly experts and learners.
to contribute to real science, and in
2010 won the New Media category in
the Panda Awards – the wildlife and
environment equivalent of the Oscars.
iSpot is a website open to anyone
interested in wildlife and the
environment. Users can upload
pictures and share observations from
their local areas, join discussion groups
and forums, and learn from others willing
to impart their expertise and knowledge
on the site.
Headed by Prof Jonathan Silvertown
(Faculty of Science), iSpot consists
of six related projects and feeds into
the OU module Neighbourhood nature.
It was developed with £2 million
funding from the Open Air Laboratories
project, via the Big Lottery Fund,
and has recently attracted £100,000
JISC funding.
iSpot has pulled together expertise
in ‘citizen science’, getting the public
www.iSpot.org.uk
World’s largest resource for the history of
reading in Britain
With over 30,000 entries, the UK
Reading Experience Database
(RED) offers fascinating
information about British readers.
Led by the OU’s Prof Bob Owens, UK
RED gathers the recorded evidences
of reading in Britain (including British
subjects abroad and visitors to Britain)
during the period 1450 to 1945.
RED provides an unparalleled wealth
of information about readers through
British history, and has recently been
relaunched to include more countries.
It is open access and committed to the
social construction of knowledge, with
members of the public encouraged to
contribute data to the project.
www.open.ac.uk/red
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EDUCATION
Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA)
Research directly addresses
Millennium Development Goal 2,
to provide every child with good
quality basic schooling by 2015.
Sub-Saharan Africa is in urgent need
of new and better-qualified teachers.
The TESSA International Consortium
is developing new forms of teacher
education to support systemic
improvements in the quality of classroom
interactions in 12 African countries.
TESSA brings together a range of
African and international partners to
investigate how, and in what form,
resources and structures can be
put in place to provide high quality
professional development opportunities
for teachers on a large scale.
This research and development project
is investigating a number of questions
around teacher learning, including
exploring how Open Educational
Resources can best support improved
professional learning in a range of forms
and locations.
The project is led by Freda Wolfenden
of the OU’s Faculty of Education and
Language Studies. Since TESSA’s
launch in 2005 it has attracted £3.9
million in funding, and in 2009 was
awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize
for Higher and Further Education.
www.tessafrica.net
Assisting chronically ill children’s education
Technology that’s helping sick
children with their science lessons.
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Denise Whitelock of the OU’s Institute
of Educational Technology and Prof
Roser Pinto of the Universitat Autonoma
de Barcelona are helping chronically
ill children, through the use of new
technology, to keep up with their science
curriculum when they are in hospital or
at home and cannot attend school.
The teaching helps them to understand
their illness and to follow their treatment
and dietary recommendations.
The project ‘Technology Enhanced
Activities for Learning Science for
Children in Hospital’ (TeaCH) has built a
software tool, Nefreduca, which is used
with Spanish children hospitalised with
chronic kidney problems.
The next phase of the research is to
build a roadmap for technology use in
teaching science to children with chronic
illnesses, as agreed by experts in
medicine, education and technology.
http://crecim.uab.cat/projectes/
roadmapTEACH
Unique focus on young lives
Childhood poverty, learning and
life transitions.
Since 2005, Martin Woodhead,
Professor of Childhood Studies at the
OU, has been a member of the senior
research team of the international
programme ‘Young Lives’, with
responsibilities for child-focused and
educational research components.
Young Lives is following the changing
lives of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India,
Peru and Vietnam over 15 years.
Two cohorts of children are being
followed up in each country with three
major survey rounds already
completed and a further two planned.
The study monitors ‘changing
childhoods’ in the early 21st century and
involves strong engagement with policy
makers and planners concerned with
children’s rights, education and
child protection, both in the study
countries and internationally.
It is a collaborative research project
based at the University of Oxford
with multiple international research
partners, and £16 million funding
from the UK Department for
International Development.
www.younglives.org.uk
Are children’s specific difficulties really specific?
Many children are diagnosed with
specific language impairment (SLI),
but their difficulties may be more
general than previously thought.
Professor of Education David Messer
(Faculty of Education and Language
Studies) is working with colleagues from
London South Bank University
on a £280,000 ESRC-funded project
looking at executive functioning in
children with SLI.
For a long time it has been thought that
children with SLI only have difficulties
with language, while their other abilities
are as expected for their age, in the
same way that children with dyslexia
have a specific difficulty with reading.
These children with SLI make up around
5 to 10% of the school population and
are at risk of low achievement and
psycho-social problems in adolescence.
The research indicates that the
difficulties of children with SLI extend
to other areas of higher level thinking,
with implications for diagnosis and
theory. It also highlights a significant
range of activities that are affected, with
important implications for intervention.
www.open.ac.uk/efesrc
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ENVIRONMENT
Solutions to today’s complex environmental issues require new, integrated
approaches that take into account social and economic factors. OU researchers
inform and influence the attitudes and behaviours of the general public, industry
and policy makers, as well as drawing on scientific disciplines.
What to do with our unsorted waste?
OU research assesses the performance and environmental impact of
mechanical and biological treatment of household waste.
As a means of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, the UK is required by the EU
to reduce landfilling of biodegradable
waste. To date, the UK has focused on
encouraging households to sort waste
for recycling or composting, leaving
any unsorted household or commercial
waste to be landfilled untreated.
However, recycling and biological
treatment of the unsorted waste can
now be carried out in new Mechanical
and Biological Treatment (MBT) plants.
MBT plants are new to the UK, and
their performance needs to be assessed
under UK regulatory and operating
conditions. OU research led by Jim
Frederickson (Faculty of Mathematics,
Computing and Technology) will assess
the performance and environmental
impacts of one of the largest and most
advanced MBT plants. The work is in
collaboration with AmeyCespa, which
runs the plant and is providing £400,000
in research funding. The OU previously
assisted the Environment Agency to
develop its testing and monitoring
requirements for MBT plants.
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Findings suggest that this type of
MBT plant is capable of automatically
separating components of unsorted
household wastes, such as metals,
glass and plastics, as well as
biodegradable material, for biological
treatment. Biodegradable material
can be effectively composted under
controlled conditions, significantly
reducing the methane generated when
it is landfilled. This composting should
also enhance the properties of the
treated waste, making it suitable for a
range of alternative applications such as
restoring land and generating electricity.
Understanding more about adding value
to the treated outputs is a key aspect of
the research.
The research findings will assist the
waste management industry and
branches of Government to understand
more about the operation of MBT plants,
and how to optimise their performance
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This will assist Government policy and
investment decisions.
www.ameycespa.com
Low carbon living
Understanding how electric vehicles can work in people’s lives
and overcoming scepticism.
The need for substantial improvement
in the environmental performance of
all transport systems remains, and with
energy security and costs being added
to climate change concerns, action is
needed sooner rather than later.
Considerable attention has been paid
to the technical issues associated with
the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs)
and low carbon domestic technologies,
but there is a growing realisation
that addressing issues of perception,
meaning and identity, as well as
institutional and financial barriers, are
just as important for successful uptake.
OU research, led by Prof Stephen
Potter, is contributing to the
£5 million EV project in the Milton
Keynes (MK) Low Carbon Living
programme. Researchers in the
Faculty of Mathematics, Computing
and Technology and the OU Business
School are working with MK Economy
and Learning Partnership, MK Council,
Homes and Communities Agency
and other institutions to provide a
research basis for informing the public
engagement and social marketing
strategies. Expertise in innovation
diffusion processes, sustainability
transition models and social marketing
means that user understandings, hopes,
concerns and barriers for EV adoption
are being identified.
Activities include running public and
business-focused user workshops,
supporting the development of the EV
Experience Centre and assisting in the
development of an interactive website to
improve public understanding of how an
EV can fit in with the user’s lifestyle.
This research will help MK deliver an
early uptake of low carbon electric
vehicles and marks the start of a
long-term partnership to support the
20 year+ ambition of the Low Carbon
Living programme to make MK an
exemplary low carbon community that
other parts of the UK can follow.
The University is in this for the long
haul to low carbon living.
www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/
mklowcarbonliving
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ENVIRONMENT
Food or fuel: what’s the solution for society?
A new project led by the OU brings
together seven European institutes
to tackle big challenges of global
sustainability.
Is it better to grow biofuels or food? To
grow food where it’s needed or where it
grows quickest? These are really hard
questions that demand a new level of
integrated analysis. Neil Edwards of
the Faculty of Science is leading the
multi-million pound project ‘Enhancing
Robustness and Model Integration for
the Assessment of Global Environmental
Change’ (ERMITAGE), which is
addressing these questions.
Climate change will have huge impacts
on the environment and the economy,
but the computer models used to assess
the future of the economy and the
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environment are complex and can’t talk
to each other. ERMITAGE aims to solve
this problem by achieving a new level of
integration of disparate computer models.
Related research has already shown the
radical difference in land area required if
food is grown as locally as possible or as
efficiently as possible.
A huge amount of knowledge in this area
is trapped inside specialised domains, in
the computer models, publications and
minds of various experts. ERMITAGE
aims to put this information into a
common language so that the people
who need to use it (policy makers and
strategists in affected industries, for
example) can make informed decisions
for society and the planet.
www.open.ac.uk/ermitage
The second most important greenhouse gas
MethaneNet brings together worldleading scientists to generate ideas
and solutions.
Much controversy surrounds the
explanation for changes over the
last decade in the concentration of
atmospheric methane. Evidence
implicates methane in past dramatic
changes in climate. Understanding the
future threat requires scientists from
many disciplines (e.g. microbiologists,
geologists, atmospheric chemists,
ecologists, computer modellers,
biogeochemists, marine scientists and
meteorologists), and other stakeholders,
to collaborate effectively.
MethaneNet is also providing the
infrastructure for fruitful collaboration
via new media. The interactive website
MethaneNet.org actively solicits
contributions (via blogs, videos,
comments and discussion groups)
and the popular @MethaneNet twitter
feed allows rapid communication of all
methane-related matters.
www.MethaneNet.org
www.Twitter.com/MethaneNet
The MethaneNet project is led by Vincent
Gauci (Faculty of Science) and is funded
by NERC. It offers unique opportunities
for communication between disciplines
united by the urgent need to understand
the threat methane could pose to
climate stability.
A series of meetings and workshops
will bring together specialists who may
not ordinarily collaborate, providing
opportunities to discuss ideas, identify
knowledge gaps and establish priorities.
MethaneNet will provide research
funding bodies (e.g. NERC) with
better information on which to base
funding decisions. While policy makers,
responsible for making difficult decisions
about mitigating greenhouse gas
emissions (e.g. policies for agriculture,
waste management and energy
industries), will be better informed.
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ENVIRONMENT
Acoustical greening of cities
Exploiting transport corridors,
building surfaces, street furniture,
open areas and parks to reduce
noise in urban areas.
Noise pollution is a major environmental
problem within the EU, and the
associated health impacts are well
documented. The goal of the
€3.9 million EC-funded project, Hosanna
(Holistic and Sustainable Abatement
of Noise by Optimised Combinations
of Natural and Artificial Means), is to
contribute knowledge and know-how for
obtaining large-scale and cost-effective
noise abatement in urban and rural
areas in a sustainable manner.
Sustainable cities need sustainable
methods of noise control. The ‘Ground
treatments’ strand of Hosanna is led
by the OU’s Prof Keith Attenborough,
and investigates methods based on
deploying trees, shrubs, roof gardens,
vegetated facades, low barriers using
stones, rough or cultivated ground and
crops instead of purpose-built noise
fences and road surfaces.
This research will lead to simplified
methodologies so that the planning,
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consulting and engineering communities
can choose and incorporate these
innovative solutions. In addition, new
methods for assessing perceived noise
environment and noise annoyance will
be developed. The results will inform
city planners and engineers, and models
for noise-mapping software will help
them define the most appropriate
‘action plans’ as required by the EU
Directive on Noise.
Noise reduction via natural means
has a positive correlation with
air pollution, biodiversity, microclimate,
water handling, energy efficiency and
climate change. The costs of having
green areas and surfaces in urban
and rural environments are well
established and accepted. Optimising
the noise abatement potential of green
areas and surfaces will therefore
reduce the harmful effects of noise and
provide highly cost-effective solutions
for sustainable urban development.
Participating businesses, such as
Müller-BBM and Canevaflor, are
poised to exploit particular outputs
commercially.
www.greener-cities.eu
Boosting world food production
Using sound to test soil fertility.
Scientists have recognised that the
growth of wheat is hampered during
water shortages because of an increase
in soil strength, and millions of pounds
a year can be lost through decreased
yields. In addition, wheat productivity
will need to increase to meet a predicted
50% rise in food demand by 2030.
To ensure global food security and
reliable production, new methods of soil
strength testing are required, since the
existing penetrometer method is
invasive and laborious. OU Prof Keith
Attenborough is leading a £680,000
ESPRC-funded project to develop a
new way to measure soil strength. The
project is investigating a non-invasive
acoustic-seismic method through
laboratory and field measurements.
Sound at several frequencies is
played near the ground surface and
measurements are made of the sound
pressure near the ground using
microphones, and of soil particle
movements using a laser doppler
velocimeter (LDV).
The reflection of sound at the soil
surface is influenced by air permeability,
and soil particle velocity is influenced
by sound speeds and near-surface soil
layering. The sound speeds in soils
are influenced by the forces between
particles which in turn depend on water
content and soil structure. Near-surface
layering may be caused by cultivation
or by changes in moisture. Hence, the
interaction of sound with soils provides
information relevant to root growth.
The proposed technique will provide the
basis for the development of automated
data acquisition and processing in the
field. This is likely to require a cheaper
and more robust version of the LDV.
The potential for wider exploitation of
this application along with others such
as buried object detection should ensure
future commercial adoption. Project
collaborators include Rothamsted
Research, Syngenta Sensors Centre
and Delta-T Devices.
http://acoustics.open.ac.uk
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ENVIRONMENT
Struggles over water in the Andes
The growing mining industry in
the Andes, and subsequent
increasing demand for water, is
transforming indigenous people’s
lives, livelihoods and landscapes.
Governments in the Andes are
promoting mining due to the revenue it
generates. A £228,000 ESRC-funded
research project, led by Jessica
Budds (Faculty of Social Sciences),
investigates the implications of the
growing demand for water resources by
the mining industry in Andean countries.
The aim is to understand how the
changing distribution and governance of
water influences lives, livelihoods and
the region’s traditional landscapes.
As well as examining the impacts of
mining on the quality and quantity of
water, the research also focuses on the
ways in which access to, and use of,
water is organised. Hence the research
is also concerned with the strategies
that mining companies use to acquire
water, such as buying land, building
hydraulic infrastructure and lobbying
decision makers, as well as how local
people defend their water rights.
The research points to the changes
that indigenous people are attributing to
the mines, such as shrinking wetlands
that provide fodder for their livestock,
reduced water flows to their irrigation
canals, pressure to sell their land and
contamination from mining processes.
The research will provide a fuller
understanding of the dynamics and
implications of water use for mining, and
is aimed at policy makers, civil society
organisations and academics, as well as
the communities affected by mining.
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It will inform debates around the
extent to which extractive industries
contribute to poverty alleviation;
the tension between the preservation
of indigenous groups and the use of
their land and resources; the extraction
of resources for economic development;
and the sustainable management of
natural resources in low- and
middle-income countries.
www.open.ac.uk/andean-water
Inhuman nature
Rethinking the social life of humans
in the context of earth processes.
Powerful events in recent years, such
as the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane
Katrina, and outbreaks of wildfire and
floods, remind us just how volatile our
earth can be.
Inhuman Nature: Sociable Life on a
Dynamic Planet, is a new publication
by Nigel Clark of the OU’s OpenSpace
Research Centre. The book began as
a plea for the social sciences to take
environmental issues to heart. Gradually
it became a call for social thought to
engage more deeply with the dynamics
of the earth itself – an appeal not to
allow the problem of our own impact on
nature to overshadow the question of
what nature can do of its own accord.
While attentive to the current
environmental predicament, Inhuman
Nature locates the issue of humaninduced change in the broader context
of dwelling on a planet which is more
turbulent and unpredictable than most of
us had previously imagined.
Recognising that human lives are
inherently vulnerable, the book suggests
there is a vast reservoir of experience
– inscribed in communities, bodies,
landscapes, stories and objects – to do
with making it through the variability of
earth processes. As well as conversing
with the earth and life sciences, the
book taps into recent themes in social
theory and philosophy about the agency
of more-than-human things, and about
care, responsiveness and hospitality.
http://books.google.co.uk
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HEALTH
The OU aims to transform lives through excellent biomedical, health and social
care research. The medical aspects of health and wellbeing are often inseparable
from the type of support provided to individuals and their own views and
experiences. A multidisciplinary approach coupled with public outreach ensures
holistic solutions.
Developing early warning of epidemics
Despite the advances of modern medicine, populations are still at risk from
epidemic diseases – as recent outbreaks of swine flu and SARS have shown.
Concern about mass infections has been heightened in the wake of 9/11 by
fears of germ-warfare-style ‘bioterrorism’ attacks.
Key to saving lives is to detect rises in
infectious diseases as early as possible,
so that measures can be put in place to
contain their spread. A team in the OU’s
Faculty of Mathematics, Computing
and Technology is developing an
enhanced automated outbreak detection
system that will be faster and more
comprehensive than current methods.
As a result of the proliferation of
computerised databases, the amount
of data available is too great to be
processed effectively by hand. The
outbreak detection systems currently
in use in the UK, and in several other
European countries, were developed in
the 1990s. They need to be evaluated
and updated in the light of the new data.
The new automated system is based
on statistical methods and will enable
all the available information to be
evaluated in near real time. The system
will be capable of surveying thousands
of different infections which potentially
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pose a threat. It will work well across a
very wide range of infection types with
different trends and seasonal patterns,
and will be able to cope with ‘noisy’ data.
Researchers plan to have some of these
enhancements in place for the 2012
London Olympics and the 2014 Glasgow
Commonwealth Games.
The research team is led by OU Prof
Paddy Farrington, in collaboration
with the Health Protection Agency and
Strathclyde University. It is supported
by £621,000 of funding from the
Medical Research Council.
www.open.ac.uk/medical-stats
Modelling and overcoming the biological interfaces
that prevent nerve regeneration
Spinal cord injuries directly affect around two million people worldwide.
They are severely debilitating, sometimes resulting in permanent paralysis.
A high proportion of spinal injuries occur in young people and may lead
to many years of dependency, meaning that their economic impact is
also considerable.
Researchers from the University’s
Faculty of Science have developed a
new way to study the damage caused
to the nervous system by spinal injuries,
and to test potential therapies. They are
using 3D laboratory cultures of central
nervous system cells, which provide a
more life-like model of how cells behave
than conventional 2D cell cultures.
The team, led by James Phillips, is
using the 3D culture system to grow
astrocytes, the predominant cells
involved in blocking repair after spinal
cord damage. They are examining the
response of astrocytes to damage and
repair, and screening potential stem cell
therapies that are being developed to
treat spinal cord injury.
They are also working on a more
advanced 3D-interface model, and are
developing tissue-engineered grafts
for implantation into sites of spinal cord
injury to promote nerve regeneration.
As well as offering a more realistic
model of what happens in the body, the
3D cell culture technique may provide
an alternative to the use of animals in
some experiments. The team is now
working with an industrial partner to
develop viable production technology for
an advanced central nervous system cell
culture system suitable for widespread
use in research and development.
The research has been supported
with £200,000 of funding from The
Wellcome Trust. It is being carried
out in collaboration with Queen Mary
University of London and University
College London.
www.open.ac.uk/tissue-eng
19
HEALTH
Finding the balance between leadership and
governance in health services
The UK’s Health and Social Care
Bill 2011 places clinical leadership
at the heart of National Health
Service (NHS) reforms. New
research reveals how this can be
brought about in practice.
As the NHS seeks to do more with
less (it faces cost reductions of up
to £20 billion in the next four to five
years), leadership is required to drive
service redesigns to deliver quality and
productivity improvements, whilst also
ensuring accountability and governance.
Research led by Prof John Storey (OU
Business School) on ‘Comparative
governance arrangements and
comparative performance’, is now
being followed (in collaboration with
Richard Holti) with a new project entitled
‘Possibilities and pitfalls for clinical
leadership in improving service quality,
innovation and productivity’.
The two research strands, funded
by the National Institute for Health
Research for £349,000 and
£150,000, respectively, are central
20
to current NHS reforms and debates
about these reforms.
Research includes:
• Interviews with senior NHS officials at
national, regional and local levels
• A national postal survey of all trust
board directors throughout England
• Two specific service areas, sexual
health and dementia services,
selected jointly with the NHS to
represent services where potential
exists for radical improvements
if leadership can be applied
across primary and secondary
sector boundaries.
The idea of clinical leadership is
a key component of the coalition
government’s proposed redesign of
the NHS. GPs, for example, are to
lead on the commissioning of virtually
all health services. Likewise, service
redesign through clinical leadership
with an emphasis on the Quality,
Innovation, Productivity and Prevention
programme is the central narrative of
the Department of Health.
www.open.ac.uk/nhs-governance
‘Invented here’ versus ‘not invented here’
Does being developed by NHS
staff, in an NHS context, make
it more or less likely that a
healthcare technology will be
adopted successfully?
Successful adoption of technology is
very important to the UK’s NHS. Clive
Savory and Prof Joyce Fortune of the
University’s Faculty of Mathematics,
Computing and Technology are
conducting research asking whether a
technology developed by NHS staff, in
an NHS context, is more or less likely
to be adopted successfully than one
developed commercially. The research
is funded by £237,000 from the National
Institute for Health Research: Service
Delivery and Organisation Programme.
For the NHS, this research will
provide insights into the enablers of
and barriers to successful adoption
of technologies, and a clearer
understanding of the relative adoption
performance between NHS-developed
and commercially developed
technologies. It will also inform the
design of technologies.
http://nant.open.ac.uk
Close to 40 NHS-developed
technologies have been investigated,
and interviews have been conducted
with developers, adopters and, where
relevant, the industrial partners
who manufacture and/or market the
technologies. This has allowed the
research team to group them into
archetypes such as ‘import and modify’
and ‘crisis response’.
Helping the NHS keep cool
As the climate warms up, OU
research looks at how to make
buildings resilient to heat waves.
Claudia Eckert, of the OU’s Department
of Design, Development, Environment
and Materials, is working with
colleagues from Cambridge, Leeds
and Loughborough universities on a
£900,000 EPSRC-funded research
project looking at how to make NHS
buildings more resilient to heat waves.
Predictions are for a warmer and hotter
climate over the next few decades.
Many people are hospitalised during
heat waves – and hospitals need to
provide safe havens for these people
to recover in. Air conditioning is not the
answer, because it takes four times as
much energy as heating and the NHS
needs to cut its emissions drastically
rather than increase them.
Starting from an assessment of
current actual temperatures, the
team is assessing the possibilities
and implications of different types
of buildings.
www.robusthospitals.org.uk
21
HEALTH
At the heart of the home: transitions in kitchen living
How well does kitchen design serve
our needs as we grow older?
The kitchen is a centre for all kinds of
activities – such as domestic chores,
social gatherings, creative cooking,
recycling waste and feeding pets.
The Transitions in Kitchen Living
project is building up a picture of the
experiences of older kitchen users,
which will be used to improve guidance
on kitchen design.
The study is led by Prof Sheila Peace
of the OU’s Faculty of Health and Social
Care, in collaboration with researchers
at Loughborough University. The project
is supported by a £300,000 ESRC grant.
www.open.ac.uk/ageing
OU researchers have been talking to
women and men between the ages of
61 and 91 years, living in ‘ordinary’ and
‘supportive’ housing, about kitchens
they have known, and the good and bad
points about their current kitchen.
The project team will use the information
to develop a guide that considers
how kitchens can meet users’ needs
throughout their lifetimes. It will be
aimed at older people, occupational
therapists, kitchen designers, architects,
builders and policy makers.
How do young people make sense of death?
Childhood and death are topics
that are rarely brought together,
yet mortality and bereavement are
common in young lives.
OU research seeks to open up this
often overlooked issue, and provide
a strong voice for children’s views.
Building on her work from the ‘Impact
of Bereavement and Loss on Young
People’ project, Jane Ribbens McCarthy
from the Faculty of Social Sciences is
planning to commence work on a related
project called ‘Death and Young People’.
22
Recent research activities question how
we can understand the contested terrain
between ‘normal’ family troubles and
troubled and troubling families. So far
‘Family Troubles? Exploring Changes
and Challenges in the Family Lives
of Children and Young People’ has
resulted in a two-day conference with a
host of key speakers from universities
around the world.
www.open.ac.uk/transitions
Fertility, birth and work
Becoming a mother brings sudden
and profound changes to many
areas of women’s lives.
The Dynamics of Motherhood study
followed women from late pregnancy
until two years after the birth of their
child, to explore how becoming a mother
changed their identities and how the
arrival of a new generation changed
family dynamics.
The study identified a ‘motherhood
shock’ experience, with women
unprepared for many of the issues they
encountered. It has produced a number
of concrete policy recommendations
to improve women’s experiences of
motherhood. These include: improved
information on the rights of pregnant
workers and maternity rights; more
workplace-based childcare; spaces
for new mothers to mix and meet;
consistency of midwife care; and support
or specialist antenatal and education
services for young mothers.
The study is led by Prof Rachel
Thomson and Mary Jane Kehily of the
OU’s Faculty of Health and Social Care,
and funded by a £208,000 ESRC grant.
www.open.ac.uk/motherhood
Link between autism and IT-rich regions
Research has for the first time
shown that autism diagnoses are
more common in an IT-rich region.
support the suggestion that people
who work in hi-tech engineering and
computing industries may be more likely
to have a child with autism.
Differences in the prevalence of autism
were recorded for school-aged children
in three regions in the Netherlands. The
region with the highest school-reported
prevalence, Eindhoven, is rich in IT, with
30% of jobs in technology or ICT. The
other two regions are of similar size and
socio-economic class, but have fewer
jobs in IT and technology, and seem to
have lower rates of autism. The results
Rosa Hoekstra (Faculty of Science)
and colleagues at the University
of Cambridge are conducting this
research, which is funded by the Medical
Research Council. The researchers
hope to follow up their initial findings
with an extensive screening study.
www.open.ac.uk/autism
23
SCIENCE
The OU is a leading international centre of academic excellence in science
and technology. Research is both ‘blue-sky’ and applied, finding solutions to
specific scientific and technological problems. The OU is known for transferring
technological expertise in one area to provide solutions in other areas.
Unravelling the origins of life
New insights into our solar system, the possible origins of life on Earth and
whether life may exist on planets around other stars.
The Europlanet network is Europe’s
largest integration project for the
planetary science community. It is using
the mass of data collected by past and
present space missions – it combines
space exploration, ground-based
observations, laboratory experiments
and numerical modelling and provides
access to laboratory and field facilities,
advanced modelling, simulation and
data analysis resources, as well as
data produced by space missions and
ground-based telescopes.
It was set up with €6 million funding
from the EU Framework VII
Programme. The OU is one of the
major coordinators, responsible for all
research facility access.
Experiments are currently taking place
at the OU to mimic the atmosphere
on Saturn’s moon Titan, measured for
the first time by the Cassini-Huygens
mission. These experiments may
provide clues to the early atmosphere
of Earth, which gave birth to life.
www.europlanet-eu.org
Chemical reactions in space that could be the precursors of life.
Space appears to be a lifeless void,
but new research is revealing that even
in this cold and empty environment,
chemical reactions can occur which
could be the precursors of life.
Laboratory experiments by the LASSIE
(Laboratory Astrochemical Surface
Science in Europe) Initial Training
Network have shown it is possible to
synthesise complex molecules by the
interaction between cosmic radiation
and interstellar dust. As this process
is part of star and planet formation,
24
it means the chemical ingredients
necessary for the development of life
are common across the universe.
LASSIE brings together Europe’s
13 leading surface and solid state
astrochemistry research groups,
supported by a partnership of six high
technology partners. The OU project
team is led by Prof Nigel Mason of the
Department of Physical Sciences.
www.u-cergy.fr/LERMA-LAMAP/
LASSIE
Studying comets to find out more about Earth’s origins
Ptolemy: miniaturised instrumentation for Rosetta.
Our Earth was formed from the build-up
of smaller chunks of material billions of
years ago. Comets are pieces of debris
left over from that era, and studying
them reveals more about Earth’s origins.
ESA’s Rosetta space mission was
launched in 2004, headed for a comet
called 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Onboard is Ptolemy, an instrument
built by the OU’s Department of
Physical Sciences (DPS).
Ptolemy will study the volatile
components of the body of the comet.
It was originally developed for laboratory
use and, as size and weight limits are
crucial on space missions, DPS shrank
the instrument down from the size of a
car to the size of a shoe-box.
The project is led by Prof Ian Wright of
DPS, in collaboration with the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory.
www.open.ac.uk/rosetta
New insights into the death of a planet
OU research has for the first time identified a star swallowing a planet.
Astronomers had known this was a
theoretical possibility when a planet and
a star get too close, but it had never
been seen before.
The doomed planet, WASP-12b,
was discovered in 2008 by the UK
SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for
Planets) consortium. The OU is one of
seven main institutions that make up
SuperWASP, a world-leading consortium
for detecting planets which lie outside
our own solar system.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope,
a team led by Carole Haswell (DPS)
studied WASP-12b, which has the
highest known surface temperature of
any planet in our entire galaxy. They
discovered that huge clouds of the
planet’s material are being captured by
its parent star, which they believe could
destroy the planet entirely within ten
million years.
www.superwasp.org/news.htm
25
SCIENCE
Searching for life on Mars
The OU has a leading role in the
UK’s involvement in the next
mission to Mars.
ExoMars is a series of missions to Mars
scheduled for launch in 2016 and 2018.
Its principle objectives are to search
for signs of past or present life on Mars
and to investigate trace gases such as
methane in the atmosphere, to better
understand the evolution and habitability
of Mars. The Department of Physical
Sciences has a major involvement in
four areas:
• The UVIS spectrometer, led by Manish
Patel, will be part of the NOMAD
instrument on the 2016 ExoMars Trace
Gas Orbiter, which will look for gases
related to life in the atmosphere of
Mars. UVIS will use sunlight to look
for traces of ozone in the Martian
atmosphere and to study Martian dust
and clouds. Ozone is important as it
blocks ultraviolet radiation harmful
to life.
26
• The 2016 Orbiter will also land a
small base station on the surface of
Mars, which will conduct short-term
observations of the Martian surface
environment. Manish Patel will be
involved in interpreting observations
of sunlight and dust suspended in
the atmosphere.
• The Entry and Descent Landing
System will ensure the safety of the
base station during entry and descent
as well as providing an opportunity to
investigate the Martian atmosphere.
Stephen Lewis is jointly leading this
element with a group from Italy.
•S
tephen Lewis is also involved in
developing the ExoMars Climate
Sounder, an infrared radiometer that
will provide daily global measurements
of temperature, pressure, dust, water
vapour and ices.
www.open.ac.uk/exomars
A virtual microscope for extra-terrestrial rocks
‘Space Eyeful’ engages the public
with planetary science.
Space Eyeful provides a website where
the general public can study space rock
samples which hold the key to the origin
of our Solar System.
and Peter Whalley (Knowledge Media
Institute). The natural history museums
in London and Vienna are also
collaborating. Space Eyeful is funded by
a €10,000 grant from Europlanet.
www.open.ac.uk/microscope
The project team is creating a simple
online database of interactive
high-resolution microscope images
from a variety of extra-terrestrial
rocks (including rocks from the Moon
and Mars), accompanied by a short
descriptive text.
While the key target audience is
11 to 18 year-olds and their parents and
teachers, Space Eyeful is open to all,
and provides access to rare museum
specimens formerly only accessible
to researchers.
The OU project team is led by Mahesh
Anand and Victoria Pearson with Andrew
Tindle, all from the Faculty of Science,
Image source: NASA
27
SCIENCE
Protecting our nuclear submariners
Expertise honed in exploring outer
space is being turned to protecting
the health and safety of crews on
board nuclear submarines, a vital
part of our national defences.
A team from the University’s Department
of Physical Sciences (DPS) is
developing a prototype air-monitoring
system, for evaluation by BAE Systems
as a potential alternative to the existing
technology. The Distributed Atmospheric
Monitoring System is intended to
continuously monitor submariners’
atmospheric environment and alert them
to any anomalies in the gases present.
The team is building on its experience
of developing small, robust instruments
for analysing gases in space, which
have been carried on board missions
including the Beagle 2 mission to Mars
and the Rosetta space mission which
will land on a comet in 2014.
28
In many ways a journey into the depths
is more challenging. Nuclear submarines
are the most complex vehicles ever
devised, patrolling the most hostile
environment on earth 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, and operating in some
of the remotest places known.
The team is led by Geraint Morgan, and
funded by BAE Systems, with original
funding from the MoD’s Technology
Development Programme.
The project is an example of DPS’s
work in the field of technology transfer
from space missions, which capitalises
upon its unique portfolio of expertise.
DPS currently has over 50 agreements
with government departments and
agencies, academic institutions,
not-for-profit organisations and
commercial companies.
www.open.ac.uk/dps-enterprise
Imaging the Earth from space
A space camera developed at the
OU’s e2v Centre for Electronic
Imaging (CEI), will be aboard
the first of a new generation
of micro-satellites.
The CEI is a collaboration between the
OU and UK industry, to conduct worldleading research and development into
detector technology for space science.
The OU’s partner in this venture is e2v,
a leading developer and manufacturer
of specialised components and
sub-systems for the medical, aerospace
and defence industries. It is a world
leader in the design and supply of
image sensors to organisations such as
NASA (e.g. for upgrading the Hubble
Space Telescope).
The C3D instrument was largely
developed at the OU, by e2v-sponsored
PhD students, in line with CEI’s mission
to provide research training at postgraduate and post-doctoral levels.
CEI is led by Prof Andrew Holland
from the OU’s Faculty of Science. It
was launched with around £1 million
of funding from e2v, and receives
funding from other sources including
the Science and Technologies Facilities
Council, ESA, the UK Space Agency
and industry.
www.open.ac.uk/cei
The main focus of the CEI’s work is the
development of imaging sensors for
space applications, and it has particular
expertise in X-ray spectroscopy and the
study of the effects of radiation damage.
Its other key activities are to train
new PhD researchers and to promote
knowledge exchange with industry.
Its Compact CMOS (complementary
metal oxide semiconductor) Camera
Demonstrator (C3D), a compact Earthimaging camera, will form part of the
payload of the UKube-1 satellite, due
to launch in early 2012. Ukube-1 is the
first UK CubeSat, a new generation
of satellites. The Image Demonstrator
is designed to perform a variety of
imaging tasks using CMOS technology
to capture light and convert it into digital
signals. As well as taking images of
the Earth, it will test the effect of space
radiation on such instruments.
29
SCIENCE
Beneath the surface of Iceland’s volcanoes
Gravity measurements of magma
indicate possible precursors to a
new eruption in Iceland.
caldera, and instead reveals deflation.
This is probably because magma is
draining away – the question is where
is it going?
The hazards of volcanic activity in
Iceland range from lava flows to ash
explosions, with after-effects ranging
from local devastation to international
economic chaos and health impacts.
Ash and acidic haze can have
far-reaching negative consequences –
as was the case with recent air travel
disruption resulting from a relatively
small eruption at Eyjafjallajökull.
While Askja has been sinking, two
regions to the north and south, also
in the proximity of active volcanoes,
have been rising. These big ‘central’
volcanoes all have north–south trending
fissure swarms associated with them,
and it is possible that magma is
travelling underground along these
fissures between the volcanoes. Deep
earthquakes in a region to the north of
Askja also indicate magma moving north
from Askja towards Krafla volcano.
In addition to the need for improved
modelling systems to predict the path
of erupted ash, it is clear that a detailed
understanding of the shallow crustal
structure and processes is required to
identify future eruption sites and the
likely duration of activity.
The centre of the largest caldera at
Askja volcano in central Iceland has
been sinking over the last 40 years.
Prof Hazel Rymer, the University’s
Dean of Science, is using micro-gravity
techniques to measure ground
deformation to provide clues as to
what is happening below the surface.
The research shows no evidence for
deep magma accumulation beneath the
30
Monitoring micro-gravity changes will
quantify any mass changes beneath
the surface, and continuous gravity
measurements at a few key locations
will give the rate of magma movement.
These methods will reveal how much
magma is moving, where to and at what
rate – and show whether magma leaving
the Askja system is accumulating
beneath Krafla. If this is the case, it will
provide valuable insights about where
and when a future eruption at Krafla may
occur – information essential for hazard
warning and mitigation.
www.open.ac.uk/askja
Research for safety-critical applications
Aerospace and nuclear
power are industries where
the structural integrity of
materials and components is
of prime importance.
Professors Mike Fitzpatrick and
John Bouchard of the OU’s Materials
Engineering Group are leading research
into the structural integrity of safetycritical applications in the aerospace
and nuclear industries. Work on the
characterisation of material properties
and internal stresses helps to ensure
safety of the designs.
Working with the nuclear industry, their
research assesses the residual stresses
and integrity of welded joints, in order
to improve the performance of metallic
materials in nuclear power applications.
Initial work on residual stresses in
welded structures led to collaborative
work with Airbus looking at integral
structures for aerospace through a
programme assessing novel bonded
crack retarders. This was in order to
improve damage tolerance and hence
increase the life span of such structural
assemblies. This concept is currently
being taken through to the design stage.
The research has resulted in the
development and application of
advanced experimental techniques –
such as neutron diffraction for residual
stress measurement, and the new worldleading contour method for residual
stress analysis (with research funded by
Rolls-Royce and EMDA). Novel software
packages for experimental design and
simulation, which are licensed at leading
experimental facilities around the world,
have also been developed.
www.open.ac.uk/structural-integrity
31
SOCIETY
OU researchers work within an interdisciplinary framework to analyse cultural
phenomena and their conceptual underpinnings, as well as their aesthetic and
social value. A particular strength is the use of digital resources and methods for
both research and public engagement in the arts and humanities.
After the financial crisis
A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
The financial crisis has dramatically
changed the economic environment,
perceptions of it and the policy making
priorities. While short-term objectives
are crucial in stabilising the economy
in this phase of turmoil, the Finance,
Innovation and Growth (FINNOV)
research collaboration focuses on the
long-term consequences of different
financing innovations for the distribution
of income and employment generation.
A research partnership between
seven leading European institutions,
FINNOV is aimed at understanding
the relationship between changing
financial markets, innovation dynamics
and economic performance. The
project studies how these relationships
influence economic growth as it is
experienced by individuals, businesses
and the wider economy. The project is
coordinated by the OU and led by
Prof Mariana Mazzucato in the Faculty
of Social Sciences.
The long-term economic performance
of Europe depends not only on its
ability to generate new knowledge and
inventions, but crucially on translating
invention into innovation and innovation
into economic growth. Business
experimentation is central to these
processes, and fostering this ability
must be a central plank of industrial
policy in an enlarged EU.
The FINNOV team’s work has
led to it contributing to a number
of high-profile European Commission
(EC) meetings and workshops, and
the EC has cited FINNOV as one of
the most important projects related to
growth and jobs. The research findings
will assist policy makers and European
industry to understand the sources,
implications and management of
positive and negative changes in
financial markets. The project is
funded with a €1.49 million grant
from the EC.
www.finnov-fp7.eu
32
Emotional about money
Investigating how traders and investors can learn to manage their emotions
and make better financial decisions.
The recent economic crisis has
demonstrated the consequences of
poor financial decision making among
professional traders and private
investors. Human decision making
always involves emotion – brain studies
show that without emotions we become
incapable of making good decisions, yet
emotions also underlie a great deal of
poor decision making.
Research led by Prof Mark FentonO’Creevy of the OU Business School
places management of emotion at the
heart of learning to make sound financial
decisions. The research project aims to
help traders and investors work with their
emotions more effectively by producing
learning approaches that employ
physiological sensors and game-based
technologies to analyse behavioural
patterns and to support the learning
process. Wearable sensor equipment
helps build a picture of a person’s
emotional state during both game-play
and financial decision making, and
automated event logging generates
behavioural profile data.
The research is part of a multi-million
pound project xDelia. The OU is
collaborating with Bristol University and
institutions in Spain, Germany, Sweden,
the Netherlands and Denmark.
www.xdelia.org
SME performance, problems and prospects
Most businesses are small. They are a vital factor in economic, social and
environmental terms, and tracking key trends is a continuing challenge.
Edited by the OU’s Richard Blundel
and Emeritus Prof Colin Gray, with
support from ACCA and Barclays
Business, The Quarterly Survey of
Small Business in Britain (QSSB)
monitors the performance of small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Each report represents the views and
experiences of more than 900 owners
and managers, examining problems,
prospects and emerging issues
such as cloud computing, mobile
communications and carbon audits.
During its 26-year lifespan, the QSSB’s
findings have been used by government
departments, corporations, academic
researchers and practitioners, as well
as stimulating follow-on research.
www.open.ac.uk/quarterly-survey
33
SOCIETY
Linked data in practice
Working with learners, researchers and
practitioners at the OU, the JISC-funded
LUCERO project (Linking University
Content for Education and Research
Online) uses linked data techniques to
expose and connect previously separate
educational and research outputs.
As part of the project, the team has
worked with the University’s art
historians to investigate researchers’
linked data requirements. The aim is
to document the business process
changes needed to achieve successful
approaches to exposing content as
linked data, on an institutional scale.
JISC Programme Manager, David
Flanders commented: “This new
centralised data-watering pump is
the first launched of its kind in UK
universities and should be celebrated”.
The project is led by Mathieu d’Aquin
of the Knowledge Media Institute in
collaboration with the Faculty of Arts
and Library Services.
http://lucero-project.info
Opening up the ivory towers: digital humanities at the OU
Innovative use of digital
technologies offers the potential
for everyone to enjoy arts research.
We are all well aware that digital
technologies are changing the ways
in which the majority of us, including
researchers, work. The OU’s Faculty
of Arts is keen to experiment with and
question the role of digital technologies
as a way of enhancing its research, and
developing, delivering and disseminating
it through innovative engagement such
as e-knowledge tools.
Researchers in the faculty are
collaborating with institutions such
as the British Library, the Tate, King’s
College London, the University of
34
Oxford, and University College London,
to help identify the benefits and possible
disadvantages of utilising digital means.
The benefits of digital arts content being
widely and easily accessible to society
are huge, and similar benefits, including
efficient and effective working, are
acknowledged for collaboration between
academics and relevant institutions.
The faculty has run international
conferences to explore key strategic
issues in the practice of digital
humanities, as well as workshops to
help academics make the most of social
media such as Twitter and Academia.edu
(the ‘Facebook for academics’).
www.open.ac.uk/digital-humanities
The ancient world’s superhighway
Enabling users to discover more
about places of the ancient world
and do fascinating things with what
they find out.
The Google Ancient Places (GAP)
project aims to make rare texts easily
accessible and to experiment with
ways of visualising geographical
locations referenced in literature using
Google Earth. The Pelagios project
complements GAP by enabling users to
bring together other kinds of information
– not just texts, but also images,
databases and other resources that
reference ancient places – and provide a
richer and deeper ‘user’ experience. By
adding geospatial data to classical texts,
new insights are revealed, making data
otherwise hidden in the texts explicit and
real at a new level of understanding.
Elton Barker of the OU’s Faculty of Arts
leads the research and is working with
the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute, the
universities of Southampton, Cologne,
New York, Edinburgh and California, as
well as Tufts University, King’s College
London, and the Austrian Institute of
Technology. The GAP project is funded
with a Google Digital Humanities Award
and Pelagios with a JISC grant.
Both projects have a dedicated
blog (http://googleancientplaces.
wordpress.com and http://pelagiosproject.blogspot.com).
Cross fertilisation between art curators
and researchers
The Open Arts Archive is a major
collaborative website linking many
art institutions.
This website and archive provides open
access to a wealth of artistic, cultural
and educational resources provided by
the OU and currently 20 collaborating
partners. It is managed and hosted by
the OU’s Art History Department and
chaired by Prof Gill Perry.
The archive is an example of the
University’s use of web technology to
improve access to, and knowledge of,
art, art practice, art history, exhibitions
and outreach programmes across
the country, benefiting a broad public
audience as well as practitioners
and students.
Multimedia resources include seminars,
study days, artist interviews, curators’
talks, research and exhibition archives
produced in collaboration with a network
of museums and galleries.
http://openartsarchive.org
35
SOCIETY
Future Internet
The internet not only drives the
economy, but underpins many areas
in society. For example, the number of
users of Facebook is greater than the
population of every country on the
planet, with the exception of India
and China.
Prof John Domingue of the OU’s
Knowledge Media Institute is on the
Steering Committee for the Future
Internet Initiative. This activity will define
a new internet that meets the economic
and societal needs of Europe. This is
a €1 billion EU initiative, which sees
collaboration between more than
150 EU projects.
www.future-internet.eu
Including older people in the technology revolution
Millions are being spent across the
EU and in the UK on trying to get
technologically excluded people
online, and on devices to support
independence in later life. Much of
this is wasted because of
non-use or a lack of interest by
older people.
Research on ‘Older people and
technological inclusion’, led by
Caroline Holland of the Faculty of
Health and Social Care, is looking at
ways of understanding older people’s
relationships with technologies to
discover better methods of inclusion.
Work with groups of older people shows
that in the right circumstances they are
just as likely as younger people to take
an interest in more social and playful
uses of technology, and enjoy them.
36
Over a series of four ESRC-funded
seminars the researchers are taking a
critical look at current evidence about
older people’s alleged fear of technology
or inability to ‘get it’, but also at claims
about how technology can be expected
to improve their quality of life.
The intention is to establish a network,
bringing together people who are
interested in moving this agenda on –
older people, academics, practitioners,
policy makers and commercial
companies – to encourage better
commercial applications from a deeper
understanding of what older people
want and value.
www.open.ac.uk/tech-inclusion
What will watching TV be like in the future?
Prof John Domingue of the OU’s
Knowledge Media Institute is working
on an innovative project, NoTube, to
demonstrate how semantic web
technologies can be used as a
tool to connect TV content and the
web through Linked Open Data as
part of the wider trend of TV and
web convergence.
The ultimate goal of the NoTube
project is to develop a flexible
end-to-end technical architecture for
the personalised creation, distribution
and consumption of TV content,
reaching wider audiences and providing
smarter, more appropriate and
personalised content recommendations.
With NoTube, the digital entertainment
is no longer a single-TV-viewer activity
– it is a community-based experience.
The project is developing a set of
technical web-based tools and services
which will be made available for others
to re-use and build upon.
www.notube.tv
Engaging the socially disadvantaged with technology
The digital revolution has provided
many benefits and opportunities,
but what is the impact on the
disadvantaged minority who are
at risk of social exclusion as an
increasing number of government
and public services migrate online?
EGOV4U will place relevant technology
into the hands, homes and communities
of the socially disadvantaged and
deploy a European award-winning
model developed by Milton Keynes
Council that includes contributions
by academics from the OU Business
School and the Faculty of Mathematics,
Computing and Technology.
EGOV4U, Inclusive eGovernment,
is an EC-funded project with the core
objective to develop and deploy a model
of citizen-centric government and public
services that is capable of accelerating
the level and rate of engagement with
digital technologies among some of
the EC’s most socially disadvantaged
citizens. Central to the strategy will be
the closer integration of service delivery
networks of organisations (such as
third sector, NGOs, social or community
enterprises) who can act locally with or
for excluded citizens.
The OU’s research, led by Ivan
Horrocks, seeks to understand and
evaluate the effectiveness of the
projects and innovations introduced
by city partners including, among
others, Dublin, Milton Keynes, Rijeka
and Reykjavik.
www.open.ac.uk/egov4u
37
SOCIETY
Pervasive privacy
As technology increasingly
surrounds us in our daily lives,
the threats to our privacy have
become pervasive too. Research
is helping users regain control of
the personal information that is
rightfully theirs.
The PRiMMA (Privacy Rights
Management in Mobile Applications)
research project examines how
individual users of mobile technology
(such as smartphones) manage their
privacy in their personal, professional
and social lives. Researchers conducted
major empirical studies to understand
the human factors that determine users’
privacy requirements, and are now
developing new privacy-aware ways for
users to interact with technology.
Bashar Nuseibeh, OU Professor of
Computing, with colleagues at the
OU, Imperial College London and the
University of Bath, attracted over
£1.2 million in funding for PRiMMA.
People are not adept at recalling
privacy-sensitive moments, such as
changing Facebook status, changing
sharing settings and so on. The
researchers used simple but groundbreaking ways to help people recall
these moments weeks after they
occurred using personal memory
phrases during interviews. Building on
these studies, they have developed new
ways to interact with mobile technology,
using sound, text and vibrations to
receive information, as well as physical
gestures to communicate information.
PRiMMA won the Golden Mouse
Award for Best Research Video at the
2010 International Conference on
Human-Computer Interaction.
http://primma.open.ac.uk
Surveillance and global capital
Whether we like it or not,
surveillance is embedded in our
society. How does this affect the
workings of the government and
private sector?
Kirstie Ball, Reader in Surveillance
and Organisation in the OU Business
School, is continuing her surveillance
society based research with a project
‘The New Transparency: Surveillance
and Social Sorting’. This research looks
at the role technology companies play in
promoting surveillance internationally –
working with colleagues at the Canadian
universities of Queen’s, Alberta
and Victoria.
38
A project workshop at the OU brought
together academics from across the
US, Australia, Canada and Europe, and
included a keynote speech from the
UK’s Deputy Information Commissioner,
Jonathan Bamford.
The research is expected to reveal
an emergent picture of how the
spread of surveillance in society is
deeply embedded in the activities and
movements of global capital. The project
is funded by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council, Canada.
www.open.ac.uk/new-transparency
Who is a European?
Creative and inventive claims to EU
citizenship mean marginalised and
deprived people are creating new
European identities.
ENACT (Enacting European Citizenship)
focused on how European citizenship
is performed by the actions of citizens
as well as non-citizens (third country
nationals, refugees, illegal aliens,
member states). By investigating
those who have been marginalised or
excluded, ENACT revealed an activist
side of European citizenship.
Led by the OU’s Professor of
Citizenship, Engin Isin, ENACT brought
together researchers from five EU
member states (the UK, Belgium,
Hungary, Latvia and the Netherlands)
and one candidate country (Turkey)
to explore in depth how European
citizenship is claimed, disputed, built
and enacted. The three-year project
attracted €1.2 million in funding.
The main strands of the project included
research on the actions of the Roma
(Italy, Germany), Kurds (Turkey),
sex workers (Italy, Belgium), women
(Belgium, Turkey, Italy), gay youth
(Latvia), refugees (Germany, UK, Italy)
and other marginalised, excluded and
deprived people. A key finding of ENACT
research was that claims to European
citizenship and rights are enacted in a
range of unexpected and unconventional
ways, as well as through the courts.
This is an ineradicable part of the
development of European citizenship.
European citizenship is a relatively new
notion for belonging. It complements
nationality but provides broader rights
such as mobility across Europe. It is
coveted because more people want
to exercise these broader rights and
freedoms. It is also contested because
member states see it as a threat to their
sovereignty and nationality.
http://enacting-citizenship.eu
39
Who We Work With
Here are just
some of the
organisations
we work with...
Industry:
Government and policy:
Research institutions:
AMPAC
BAE Systems
British Energy
Devlin Tracat
e2v technologies
Microsoft
Rolls-Royce
SAP
SINDRI Group
BBC
Dept. of Health
DFID
Environment Agency
Higher Education Academy
Milton Keynes Council
NHS
Transport for London
UK Space Agency
CNRS, France
Imperial College
University College London
University of Cambridge
University of East Anglia
University of Edinburgh
University of Manchester
University of Oxford
University of Sterling
UK/EU:
British Academy
DEFRA
European Space Agency
European Union
National Inst. of Health Research
Research Councils UK
Royal Academy of Engineering
The Leverhulme Trust
The Royal Society
International:
Canadian Inst. of Health Research
Carnegie Mellon University
MIT
NASA
S.African Inst. for Distance Ed.
The Gates Foundation
The William & Flora
Hewlett Foundation
UNESCO
UNITAID
40
Research dissemination
OU research benefits many
sectors. Effective communication
of our research findings to the
general public, end users and
the academic community is a
priority. Traditional means – such
as journals, books, conferences,
newspapers, radio and TV – are
vitally important. We are also
actively embracing more
inventive means to share our
research outputs…
Open Research Online (ORO)
The OU’s ORO service is a searchable
repository of more than 18,500 OU
research publications. It is ranked the
third best higher education repository in
the UK by the Registry of Open Access
Repositories. Since its launch in 2006,
it has been visited by over 1.6 million
people from more than 200 countries.
http://oro.open.ac.uk
Research portal
The research portal contains
up-to-date coverage of OU research
activities and related information
on knowledge transfer and
enterprise activities.
OU linked data
The OU’s linked data initiative provides
a structured, open and queryable
platform for various University
resources, including publications,
people and places. The OU is the first
university in the world to expose its data
as linked data in this way.
http://data.open.ac.uk
Platform
Platform represents the OU community
online, uniting students, alumni and
academics with informal and engaging
content – news, videos, podcasts, blogs,
forums, groups and polls.
www.open.ac.uk/platform
YouTube
The most popular video-based social
networking site in the world, YouTube
offers another route to ensure
that outputs of OU research are
disseminated. The material is targeted
to a general audience and the wider
research community.
www.youtube.com/ouresearch
www.open.ac.uk/research
iTunes U
The OU continues to lead the way on
iTunes U with over 37 million downloads
from 370 collections as well as over
360 eBooks. The channel showcases
a diverse offering of audiovisual assets
representing the broad spectrum of OU
research along with course material
across the curriculum.
www.open.ac.uk/itunes
1
201
41
OU MILTON KEYNES CAMPUS
The OU has its headquarters at Walton
Hall in Milton Keynes, UK. Around 1,200
full-time academics are based at the
Milton Keynes campus, along with some
350 of our 1,200 full-time and part-time
postgraduate research students.
The University has invested significantly
in its infrastructure for research,
increasing laboratory space at Milton
Keynes by nearly 50% in the last eight
years. Our newest facility is the Jennie
Lee Building, which houses dedicated
laboratories for ‘pervasive computing’
and deployment of ambient and
ubiquitous technologies.
We also have new laboratories for
design, music, ecosystems and
geobiology, and atomic, molecular and
plasma research. Other laboratories for
biomedical, cognitive psychological and
environmental research have all been
modernised recently.
OU AFFILIATED RESEARCH CENTRES
The OU has a number of Affiliated
Research Centres (ARCs), both in the
UK and overseas, which register their
students for OU research degrees.
ARCs may be educational, industrial,
commercial, professional or research
establishments and include worldrenowned organisations such as the
Architectural Association School of
Architecture, British Antarctic Survey,
and Wellcome Trust tropical medicine
research programmes in Kenya,
Thailand and Vietnam.
42
“Over the years our OU PhD Programme
and our relationship with the University
have seen a constant improvement
in our own training skills that has
proven to be of further benefit to our
PhD students.”
Roberto Buccione, Coordinator, PhD
Programme, Consorzio Mario Negri Sud
Research Institute, Italy.
WHY DO OU RESEARCHERS LOVE THEIR JOBS?
OU research helps us
understand why the world is the
way it is, and offers solutions for
a brighter, more stable future.
As well as being inspiring,
revelatory and ground-breaking,
research is open to anyone with
an enquiring mind.
…when ‘big ideas’ connect
with the making of social and
cultural realities.
There is a very personal element
to doing research: research
changes the researcher.
At the OU, you have access
to global knowledge, latest
technology, cross-cultural
diversity, high quality feedback
and a web of open access
resources.
I enjoy the creative and social
aspects of generating research
ideas and running a research
laboratory.
OU research enriches lives
in so many ways. If my own
research makes even a small
difference to only one other
person, it is worth the effort.
It is through our knowledge
creation and dissemination that
we are able to push boundaries
about what is known.
It’s a chance to get out and
talk to people and explore how
applicable published theories are
to the real world.
I love those moments of
recognition, when I suddenly feel
I understand someone who lived
many centuries ago.
That my research is applied
and of value to those working
in health and social care brings
great satisfaction.
It’s worth it, fighting and waiting
for that insight which one of
my students calls ‘the woo-hoo
moment’!
The OU has taught me about
working together. Thank you
colleagues and students
for challenging me about
everything I think.
I feel extremely privileged
to work at the OU – its
commitment to supporting
and advancing research is
exemplary.
How cool, to be given time and
resources to follow your deep
curiosity and find out stuff that
nobody has before.
What motivates me is being able
to highlight issues and scenarios
that governments, international
NGOs and policy makers would
rather keep hidden.
Research takes me into my
happy place. It increases my
knowledge and understanding,
and feeds into my teaching.
I find it inspiring to add to a body
of knowledge from which others
can develop new ideas and
practices.
I love doing research because it
makes me a better teacher!
To read literary texts and to know
how they have been read is to
have a conversation with some
of the most fascinating minds of
all time.
43
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
www.open.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1908 654411
Fax: +44 (0)1908 655477
E-mail: Research-School-Head@open.ac.uk
Produced by the Research School and Communications. © The Open University 2011
The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (number RC 000391),
an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (number SC 038302).
Some of the images used in this brochure were sourced from thinkstockphotos.com
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