Archive for July 22, 2016

University of Salford academics are helping develop state of the art smart clothing enabling athletes to monitor their performance without the need for bulky gadgets.

Researchers from our sports science department in the School of Health Sciences have been awarded £165k from Innovate UK to work with Manchester-based company Smartlife, which specialises in smart garment technology – clothing that can measure signals such as heart rate, movement and muscle activity.

The company has created textile sensors and tiny electronics which can be integrated into sports clothing.

These discreet and comfortable sensors continuously record data which can be transmitted in real time to a Bluetooth receiving device such as a smart phone, providing feedback on how the athlete is performing during training sessions.

Researchers Dr Steve Preece and Dr Steve Atkins will now carry out work to develop the technology further by helping understand how to combine heart rate and acceleration data to build up an accurate picture of how an athlete’s body is using energy.

Eventually, the research can be used to improve the accuracy of the data which will let users of these garments know how much energy they are using in a training session or throughout the course of a day.

They will also carry out research to develop the capability of measuring electromyography (EMG) signals, which are produced when muscles contract.

Measuring EMG signals, especially during walking, running and cycling, can help an athlete or trainer understand muscle coordination and evaluate movement performance.

The researchers say as well as providing a benefit to elite ath

Dr Claire Mercer and Dr Lucy Walton in the Directorate of Radiography at the University of Salford have both recently been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Research Scholarship; this one-year scheme offers focussed support to promising early career researchers joining the University. Both researchers are using their scholarships to progress research into breast research within the University of Salford’s developing research portfolio.

Research and innovation may play an even greater role in supporting industry post Brexit, a leading professor has told the Construction Summit North.

Launching the Centre for Built Environment, Sustainability and Transformation (BEST) at Emirates Old Trafford, Professor Mohammed Arif told 300 industry delegates that the need for research and information was “potentially more fertile” because of the uncertainty over the EU exit.

And the Centre Director invited delegates from the architecture, housing and construction sectors to engage with researchers who were “experienced and industry focused”.

Construction Summit North, organised by the Greater Manchester Chambers of Commerce,  is the largest event of its kind outside London and sponsored by the University of Salford, which chaired a series of sessions.

The main event was the launch of BEST by Professor Arif who spoke of the School of the Built Environment’s long track-record in applied research.

“Our objective is to work with you in collaboration to solve your problems and help prepare you for some of the issues coming your way,” he said.

Professor Arif, an expert in off-site construction and technology, introduced three sub-directors and their areas:

• The Built Environment Informatics Group – BIM, integrated design, GIS and visualisation led by Professor Jason Underwood
• The Management of Construction and Property Group – led by

In the first of a series of blogs about our research on urban poverty in Uganda, Sophie King talks about the project’s inclusive research process and methodology:

In January 2016,  a group of us came together to begin a process of co-producing knowledge on how governments can better support the improvement of living standards in Uganda’s informal settlements.  Specifically, we are looking at the ways in which national and local government, usually in partnership with transnational actors, have gone about the delivery of water and sanitation projects in two divisions of Kampala and in two secondary towns. In the secondary towns, we are considering the outcomes achieved through the Transforming Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda (TSUPU) programme.

In an attempt to combine expertise in research methodology, urban planning, and social movement practice, our research partnership brings together a Western female academic, a Ugandan male academic, a team of NGO professionals from ACTogether Uganda, and leaders from the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (NSDFU). Building on existing ESID research in India, our overarching research question has been:‘What shapes state vision, commitment, and capacity to reduce urban poverty in Ugandan towns and cities?’

Through a co-productive process, we hope to produce a richer understanding of ESID’s core research questions than a more extractive research strategy might have generated. In a sometimes
clumsy, necessarily adaptive, and occasionally systematic way, we are trying to move forward in a research team that reflects the composition of our overall partnership. Mistakes … we’ve
made a few. But we’re also excited and energised at the power of research to be transformative when it works this way. It is not easy, and with so many constraints on getting these kinds of projects financed and off the ground, we are lucky to have this opportunity.

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University of Salford’s Impact Coordinator – Chris Hewson discusses why we need to talk about research impact:

Over the last eighteen months, much has been written and said about impact, and how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can effectively, and efficiently, place themselves on a secure footing in preparation for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF). Nonetheless, it could be argued that the fevered animation generated by REF2014 has led to a prolonged and ongoing hangover. For most academics and administrators the experience of co-producing impact case studies was a forensic and thought-provoking, albeit ‘seat of the pants’ and largely extemporised experience. The refrain consistently repeated in strategy offices across the land goes something like this: ‘…there is absolutely no chance we’re going to execute our REF impact strategy in such an unsystematic and post-hoc fashion come 2020.’

But we are, aren’t we? As Julie Bayley and Casper Hitchens note, “the burden of effort and pressure to ‘find impact’ led to impact fatigue and a tarnished view of the concept” [i]. Their remedies are sound, and were arrived at independently by a number HEIs of in the aftermath of 18th December 2014; the need for greater planning and (ongoing) data collection, the institutional normalisation of impact, the co-ordination of both internal and external engagement processes, and so forth. The authors playfully mimic the language of HEFCE, noting the dawning of “an opportunity to significantly and demonstrably… change how we achieve impact.”

A few weeks ago I clambered out of bed at 4.30am to attend the Coventry University Impact Summit. Once again, concerns around impact corroboration, shared goals, and the misalignment of scholarly and institutional drivers, were front and centre. True, HEI’s are caught in a holding pattern thanks to the hastily convened Tags: impact, REF, Research Excellence, research impact, university of salford
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