This summer I took part in the Nuffield Research Bursary scheme at the Open University where I participated in a four week project researching the Indian monsoon. My main aim was to see how terrestrial proxies (pollen and charcoal) could be used to understand the evolution of the monsoon from 3.5 million years ago.
Monthly Archives: September 2015
The battle for engaged research
I’ve long admired the work of my colleague Professor Martin Weller. Studies conducted in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET), in particular research exploring the practices of digital scholarship, were central to the development of the Open University’s proposal to RCUK to become one of eight Public Engagement with Research Catalyst universities. Since that earlier work Martin has further explored ideas about openness in higher education, culminating in his latest book, The battle for open: How Openness Won and Why it Doesn’t Feel Like Victory.
We’ve recently completed the work of the OU’s RCUK-funded Public Engagement with Research (PER) Catalyst, An Open Research University, publishing our final report (Holliman, et al. 2015). As such, members of the OU’s PER Catalyst project team and I have spent recent months consolidating the learning from our project with the aim of sharing lessons learned and resources with other universities, including the RCUK Catalyst Seed Funded universities.