Author Archives: Dawn Hibbert
Integrating Traditional Water Harvesting Systems into Modern Water Solutions
History, successes, challenges and needs
PRESENTATION followed by DISCUSSION
By Wells for India, Country Director
Om Prakash Sharma
Thursday 5th October 2017
16.00 – 18.00 Room MB8
Om Prakash Sharma, will talk about
- Traditional water harvesting solutions in the dryland regions of India: long-term sustainable solutions, and their recent history.
- The reasons for the decline of small-scale, community-managed water regeneration solutions.
- Success stories from rural parts of Rajasthan on the revival of traditional solutions and integrating them with modern water solutions along with future challenges and needs.
- Issues of sustainability, governance and equity of water, including community ownership.
- Solutions for the future in a climate-challenged world with a growing and urbanizing population.
Wells for India (www.wellsforindia.org) is a UK-based, not-for-profit organisation and, through 45 Indian NGO partners, is promoting sustainable water management in Rajasthan and Gujarat states of India. Wells for India works with some of the poorest and marginalized rural communities in the drylands of India, where water is the key to enabling people to improve their lives, prospects and the environment that supports them. Om Prakash Sharma is a Civil Engineer, and has been working as Country Director for Wells for India for the last 18 years. His work over 28 years around water issues of drylands entails in blending traditional water management wisdom with modern technologies.
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
Published with Emerald?
Emerald Publishing have updated their open access policy, and now allow all accepted manuscripts to be made freely available through your institutional repository (NECTAR), without any embargo period. This applies to articles that have been previously published, and those which are yet to be published.
The Research Support Team will be identifying as many of our Emerald Publications as possible that currently have embargo periods set, and removing these. If we have missed your publication, please email Nectar@northampton.ac.uk and we will make the necessary changes as soon as possible.
More information:
http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/openaccess/oa_policies.htm
Wiley’s Data Sharing Policies
The majority of Wiley’s journals enforce one of the following standardized data sharing policies:
Encourages Data Sharing
Expects Data Sharing
Mandates Data Sharing
An excel spreadsheet of all Wiley’s journals and their associated policy on data sharing can be found under the pinned items in the Yammer Research Support Group.
A light hearted reminder… Research Data Management is important!
Manging the data that you collect and use when researching is extremely important, not just for your own benefit, but for others who cold benefit from the research that you have done.
This clip may be light hearted… but makes some very good points..
We use DMP online at the University of Northampton to create Data Management Plans that will meet the requirements of funders and the University. Logon using your university login details.
If you have any questions regarding Research Data Management please email openaccess@northampton.ac.uk
External PhD Student… Need Resources?
Not based at Northampton and been frustrated that you can’t access that book that you so desparately need to complete your studies?
Go to https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access and fill in the online form using the drop down options.
- to state the type of student you are (e.g. PhD full-time, PhD part-time)
- where you’re a student (i.e. University of Northampton)
- it will then ask you to select an institution local to you where they’d like to access resources (it only lists those institutions in the scheme)
- a window then pops up with an “apply for access” button
- click it, fill in the rest of the information and the university at the other end will processes your application and allow you to borrow resources from their library.
A large number of Universities are part of this scheme.
In regards to inter library loans, the British Library will send journal articles anywhere, because they can send them via email via secure electronic delivery. Unfortunately, British Library inter library loan books have to be collected from the University of Northampton.
PhD Transfer Seminar – Rethinking the Robinsonade…
Dear all,
You are all cordially invited to attend Bochra Benaissa’s PhD Transfer Seminar at 2.15pm on Wednesday 4 October in room MY120 (Maidwell Building, Avenue Campus)
Please see Bochra’s synopsis:
Rethinking the Robinsonade: Self and Environment in Twentieth-Century Desert Island Narratives
Bochra Benaissa
My research explores the ways in which modern Robinsonades can be read in the light of an alternative approach to island narratives, bringing to light ways in which the earliest Robinsonades seek to marginalize the specificity of environment and geography, whilst the modern ones depend upon them as the dominant themes. Although it might seem that all desert island stories are similar since they all address the question of an autonomous human nature, the first two chapters of this study show how the self can more productively be viewed through a study of the protagonist’s interaction with other creatures existing on the island. It also explores the relation that the protagonist builds with his or her surroundings and how in the more recent Robinsonades, this suggests a new ecological understanding of the self.
The objective of the introductory chapter is to situate the research in the context of the genre’s development since the early eighteenth century, demonstrating how the values which it embodies have changed historically. The second chapter then focuses upon texts from the twentieth-century Robinsonades and their preoccupation with transformations of the self in relation to non-human animals. Using an eco-critical approach informed by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, particularly their notion of ‘becoming animal’, it examines literary constructions of man and the environment and explores how twentieth-century desert island narratives are often used to understand and critique man’s dominance over nature.
REF 2021 Consultation: Summary of Responses
Today the four UK funding bodies published a summary of the responses to the ‘Consultation on the second Research Excellence Framework (REF)’. This document summarises our analysis of the 388 formal responses we received, which informed our initial decisions which are set out in a separate document (REF 2017/01). The consultation, published in December 2016, set out proposals for implementing the recommendations of Lord Stern’s review of the REF: ‘Building on success and learning from experience’.
Summary of consultation responses: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/year/2017/ref201702/
Open Access Week – 23rd to 29th October 2017
The theme for this year’s 10th International Open Access Week is “Open in order to…”
There are many benefits to open access, including greater visibility of research, increases in citations, and ensuring far greater access to research. HEFCE’s open access policy for REF2021 has seen the greatest shift in practice in terms of open access within the UK, and there are few of you who will not have been asked about uploading your accepted manuscripts to NECTAR! Whilst we realise this can sometimes be an arduous task for some, it is necessary. Rather than presenting to you once again the benefits of open access, we’d like to hear from you!
We are holding a competition for the best examples of where open access has benefited your research, if open access has made a difference to your work or research then we’d love to hear from you! All that’s required is a few minutes of your time, a short paragraph will suffice… though please don’t be limited by this!
The best judged entry will rewarded with a lovely bottle of champagne… and will featured on the staff intranet research page! All entries will also go into a draw for a further bottle of champagne! If champagne is not to your liking, then a £20 amazon voucher will be awarded instead!
Dawn Hibbert, Head of Research Support will also be presenting a seminar on Research Data Management – Making your data count – maximising impact (All this research… All this Data… Use it.. Preserve it… Make a Difference.. Make an Impact! – warning – this presentation uses images from the genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda that may be upsetting).
Key Dates:
Deadline for applications for “How Open Access has benefited your Research” 5 pm Monday 23rd of October
Seminar – Research Data Management :
Avenue Campus – 27th October 11 am – 12 pm – Avenue Boardroom
Park Campus – 24th October 11am – 12 pm – Venue to be confirmed
UON Graduate School Blog 