External engagement

The team will explore whether likelihood ratios can be used to demonstrate whether certain behaviour is more likely to co-occur in linked offences (behavioural consistency) compared to unlinked offences (behavioural coincidence). This will be useful in terms of demonstrating, at a theoretical level, the use of likelihood ratios compared to other approaches to calculating behavioural consistency in linked compared to unlinked offences. The project will involve creating a tool for the Behavioural Investigative Advisers at the National Crime Agency to use as part of their case linkage analysis practice. This study is being conducted with Professor Jessica Woodhams (University of Birmingham), Dr Matthew Tonkin (University of Leicester), Dr Matthew Brett, and Lee Rainbow from the National Crime Agency.

Dr Reece Bush was awarded a research grant by the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling to carry out a longitudinal study on narcissism and online gambling. The research title is: Gambling, Personality and Wellbeing, £3000.

Dr Martin Vasilev was awarded a £9,990 grant from the Experimental Psychology Society on a project entitled "Inhibition of eye-movement control by unexpected sounds". This project will investigate how unexpected sounds in our environment affect the way people move their eyes during complex everyday tasks such as reading and scene viewing. The project is done in collaboration with Dr. Julie Kirkby (BU), Prof. Fabrice Parmentier (University of Balearic Islands, Spain), and Prof. Antje Nuthmann (Kiel University, Germany).

Dr Constantina Panourgia, as a part of her research collaboration with UCLy (Lyon, France), was invited to the International Research Day organised by the Department of Psychology at UCLy on 20th January.

Constantina and her MSc student, Miss Tara Walker, presented their research work on the challenges of implementing inclusive practices in education; they also focussed on the personal resources that educational professionals employ to cope and how these experiences could be utilised for the development of teachers’ training.

This project was conducted in 2019/20 within the Department of Psychology in collaboration with Dr Emily Arden-Close.

Walker, T., Arden-Close, E., & Panourgia, C. (2022). Coping strategies and the challenges of inclusion in education professionals. In: International Research Day, UCLy-Lyon, France, 20 January 2022.

The Cultural Psychology (CUPS) unit recently (in August 2021) won BU’s Excellence in Education in Sustainable Development (EESD) Award. On 14 December 2021, EAUC (The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education, which is the sustainability champion for universities and colleges in the UK) organised an event to showcase BU’s excellence in embedding sustainability into curricula. The unit leader of CUPS, Dr Xun He, delivered a presentation on behalf of the CUPS team, sharing the vision and practice in the unit. The unit CUPS was envisioned and designed by Xun (running from the 2018-2019 academic year), and became awarding-winning and visible at a national level thanks to the excellence of the team, including Dr Ching-Yu Huang (currently at Keele University), Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier, Dr Emma Portch, Prof John McAlaney, Dr Rachel Skinner, Dr Bernhard Angele, Dr Eleonora Vagnoni, Dr Jacqui Taylor, Dr Sarah Hodge, and Dr Chloe Skipper. Without all their great contribution, the unit would not have been possible.

Dr Rachel Moseley is presenting her research on suicide in autistic people at the Australasian Society for Autism Research's 2021 conference

Following on from her talk in the ESRC Festival, 'The Science of Suicide', Dr Rachel Moseley is presenting her research on suicide in autistic people at the Australasian Society for Autism Research's 2021 conference, titled "Mental Wellbeing and Suicide Prevention in Autism". Rachel will also be sitting on a post-conference round-table discussion, consisting of researchers and autistic people with lived experiences. This is aimed to generate a roundtable paper, a report, as well as policy documents that will be used to inform and advocate for improved mental health services for autistic people.

Dr Shanti Shanker helps lead Mental Health Awareness Camp in Chiplun, Maharashtra India

During the Mental Health Awareness day (October 2021) in India – Dr Shanti Shanker and colleagues tailored a camp that addressed some of the core issues the community face.

Shanti said “Chiplun, a city in the Ratnagiri district in the state of Maharashtra. This is the hub for our collaboration and a key to providing more mental health support and well-being in the rural area within the region.

This week during the Mental Health Awareness day in India - we tailored a camp that addressed some of the core issues the community face.

Severe flooding is a key issue in this region, we trained over 70 Mind Buddies (or Manas Mitra - in Hindi) integrated first-aid training and mental health and well-being aspects.

We hope to create support for these people and provide them with more skills training and build the capacity of community volunteers across the region.”

Dr Catherine Talbot spoke on The Ageing Scientist podcast

The podcast is hosted by Dr Clarissa Giebel and discusses everything around ageing and science. Catherine appeared on Season 2 Episode 1 which focuses on inequalities in dementia. Catherine spoke about digital inequalities in dementia and ageing, and shared her latest research into how COVID-19 has affected digital technology usage in dementia.

You can listen to the podcast for free on Spotify.

Dr Xun He and Dr Ellen Seiss just had success with their proposal to the SIA Game-Changing Research Concepts call

This funding call is part of BU’s SIA scheme, which stands for Strategic Investment Area. The purpose of this call was to put forward the concepts for which BU will be known in the years to come. Our proposal is one of three winning concepts, which will be prioritised for strategic development and be tailored institutional support to turn the research idea into a reality. The research concept being proposed is “Multimodal Immersive NEuro-sensing (MINE) for natural neuro-behavioural measurement ”, which aims at developing a pioneering multimodal and immersive system for the measurement of human behaviour and neural activities in realistic and controlled environments. The team is led by Dr Xun He, and comprises Dr Fred Charles (Department of Creative Technology), Dr Ellen Seiss (Department of Psychology), and Dr Emili Balaguer-Ballester (Department of Computing and Informatics). There are nine collaborating team members from Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, BU Clinical Research Unit, Faculty of Media & Communication, Institute of Medical Imaging & Visualisation, and Ageing & Dementia Research Centre. Enthusiastic supports also came from multiple faculties.

Dr Xun He secures new funding

Dr Xun He was successful in getting an Innovate UK Smart Grant as a co-investigator. This project is led by Dr Fred Charles (Department of Creative Technology) on the topic “Believable agent behaviour (BAB) for data-driven real-time VR”. The project will run for 15 months (funding value: £117k).

Dr Catherine Talbot has been voted in as the early-career rep for the BPS Research Board. Catherine will be representing early career researchers on the board in discussions of science, research policy, funding, and the promotion and advancement of psychological science.

Over the last six months, Dr Sarah Hambidge has developed a working relationship with Cheshire Constabulary. As part of this relationship, they have agreed to provide police data to BU Masters students on the MSc Investigative Forensic Psychology course. The data covers all types of policing/criminal activity, but examples include county lines, exploitation of children, domestic violence and rape.

The Master's project findings help police to improve their understanding and inform their working practices. Dr Terri Cole has an established relationship with Dorset Police who provide BU students with similar data for their project unit. Terri and Sarah have nurtured the relationship between both constabularies so they have agreed to share data between forces, which enhances the data received by students and the impact of their project outcomes.

Dr Andy Mayers invited to speak at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists online conference 

Dr Andy Mayers has been invited by the prestigious Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to speak at their online conference on 29 January. He has been asked to focus on fathers’ mental health during Covid-19. This is a major platform as the College is highly respected and influential in developing perinatal support services nationally. 
 
Following Andy’s growing national reputation, he has been asked to help develop the fathers’ mental health support services at Southern Health NHS, to complement their community perinatal mental health provision. Read more about Andy’s work. 

The Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Centre (INRC) at BU did hold its well-attended and perceived opening event on 2 November 2020.

Five years ago, Ben Parris, Jan Wiener and Emili Balaguer-Ballaster founded a heterogeneous research group in neuroscience involving members of multiple departments and faculties. Last year Emili Balaguer-Ballester, Peter Arabaci-Hills, and Ellen Seiss did successfully re-apply for a research centre status for the INRC. Together with Prof Hana Burianova, they form the current research centre steering group.

The INRC showcases our common strength in neuroscience research such as our high-quality research outputs and interdisciplinary research environment which give us opportunities to conduct our well-recognised and innovative research and apply for interdisciplinary grants. Members of this research centre offer a wide range of expertise.

The key aim of this opening event was to bring people together to encourage collaborations at BU and with external stakeholders such as hospitals and companies. During this event, we discussed many of the available research methods and skill sets such as, for example, EEG and physiological measures, brain stimulation techniques and neuroimaging methods (in collaboration with Poole Hos-pital and the Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation), eye-tracking, VR applications, and com-putational modelling.

In addition to neuroscience research, we constantly widen our teaching profile by delivering neuro-science-oriented MSc programmes and units in UG and PG courses across disciplines. We are also offering BSc, MSc, and MRes projects and practically train students in neuroscience methods and research skills.

Find out more about the research centre. 

Please follow us on twitter: @neuroscience_BU

If you would like to contact us because you are interested in our work or because you would like to join our research centre, please email: [email protected].

“Reading the room: How your brain judges the mood of a crowd” - ESRC Festival of Social Science 2020

On 14 November 2020, Dr Xun He, Dr Fred Charles (Department of Creative Technology), and Prof Changhong Liu hosted an online event as part of ESRC Festival of Social Science 2020. Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is one of the main research funding bodies in the UK supporting social science research. This public event series is an annual celebration of the social sciences disseminating findings to the general public. In this event named “reading the room: how your brain judges the mood of a crowd”, Xun, Fred, and Changhong used interesting examples and demonstrations to showcase research on phenomena and brain activities of face perception, and how face perception research is carried out to measure brainwaves in virtual environments. The event was very positively received. With the number of excellent questions coming in from the audience, the event was extended from the planned 2 hours to 3 hours.

Dr Sarah Collard Holds Online Public Engagement Event – ‘Living Well: Epilepsy and Exercise’

Dr Sarah Collard was awarded a £1200 grant from the research impact fund. This was going to be an in-person public engagement event held at BU that discussed her research, personal experience of living with epilepsy and findings from previous research. As a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, it was switched to an online event (July 27th) via Zoom! To present some of the findings, Sarah presented edited videos created from a video she made a couple of years ago for the Festival of Learning of individuals with epilepsy talking about their experiences of exercising with the condition.

The event was titled “Living Well: Epilepsy and Exercise”. Working with the UK charity Epilepsy Action, we were able to promote the event quite widely and had a good uptake of individuals who had epilepsy, was a parent for someone with epilepsy and health professionals signing up for the event. Using the funding Sarah was awarded, a media and communication student was hired from BU to edit the previously created video. This was an original length of around 35 minutes and had 5 participants. The video was edited to create 5 videos between 2-4 minutes each to increase the subsequent impact. There was wonderful praise and discussion throughout the event via the chat as well as post-event via email and survey.

This was a very inclusive event that also had a question and answer time to allow the attendees to ask Sarah and an Epilepsy Action representative questions on the content discussed in the event as well as their own separate needs that had not been addressed by those in a sport and exercise or medical profession. The questions asked as well as enthusiasm of the content of the event have further shown the need to continue research within this area. In particular, educating medical professionals about the benefits of exercising for people with epilepsy as well as discovering what are the best types of physical activity or exercise programmes for people with epilepsy.

Dr Constantina Panourgia leads new project ‘Understanding resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the Covid-19 pandemic’.

The Psychology Department QR supported a longitudinal study on the impact of Covid-19 on mental health in psychology practitioners. The research team, led by Dr Constantina Panourgia and includes Dr Alla Yankouskaya, Miss Agata Wezyk, Miss Zoe Taylor (Bournemouth University), Dr Annita Ventouris (University of West London), and Dr Amanda Comoretto (UCLY, Lyon Catholic University, France), has launched a project, ‘Understanding resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the Covid-19 pandemic’.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put a lot of pressure on societies and led to considerable changes in everyday life and high levels of uncertainty. As this is likely to increase demand for mental health care, the emotional and mental overload in psychologists/counsellors/psychotherapists is predictable but unavoidable. There are urgent needs in developing efficient strategy and policy changes to support the mental health staff and encourage opportunities for efficient coping and personal growth in post-Covid times.

The project aims to estimate the impact of the pandemic on mental health psychology practitioners’ resilience and identify individual and environmental factors critical for the development of resilience in this group of professionals. The aim will be achieved by using a mixed-method approach and the state-of-the-art computational procedures allowing to define an optimal predictive model that will help to estimate the impacts of the pandemic. The project has the potential to identify prospective areas of training and to inform future organisational provisions of support for mental health psychology practitioners.

Prof. Sarah Bate becomes Leverhulme Trust Fellow

Prof. Sarah Bate was awarded a second Fellowship last month; this time from the Leverhulme Trust. Sarah has also recently been made associate editor at the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Gambling Research Evidence at the House of Lords

Dr John McAlaney gave evidence at the House of Lords Select Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry, chaired by Lord Michael Grade. John was invited to speak to the Select Committee in his capacity as a Trustee for the Gordon Moody Association and as a researcher in this field. He spoke about the conflicts and challenges that can come from working in gambling research, and also about the opportunities for prevention and intervention in online gambling that can come from making use of data driven, real time, intelligent strategies. These are possibilities that are currently being explored in research funded by GambleAware at Bournemouth University, led by the gambling research group. A video of the evidence session is available at https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/70d43917-adbd-466f-94f6-8ad44c11a0e1#player-tabs. 

Dr Shanti Shanker and colleagues receive funding for new project!

A project titled, “The key issues in Dementia in South Asia” has been awarded a total of £17,180 (for 2 years) through the GCRF Internal funding (October 2019) for Scheme 1: New GCRF projects. This project is a joint collaboration between the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and Department of Psychology (Faculty of Science and Technology). The Principle Investigator is Dr Bibha-Simkhukda from HSS and Co-PIs include, Dr Michele Board, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Shanti Shanker.

Dr Constantina Panourgia presents her work at UCLY

Dr Constantina Panourgia was invited to present her work at the International Research Week in the Department of Psychology at UCLY in Lyon. Constantina explained why some children are doing better than others when exposed to life adversity and also discussed the effects of poverty on development. Constantina had the opportunity to meet academics from other European Universities and discuss potential partnerships between institutions.

Dr Andy Mayers speaks to Adrian Chiles on BBC Radio 5 Live

Our very own Dr Andy Mayers appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live on December 17^th. Speaking to Adrian Chiles, Andy talked about fathers’ mental health, but especially about the impact of fathers who witness their partner’s birth trauma (and the subsequent support they need). This appearance was one of several that Andy has done for national TV and radio in recent times, including Channel 5 News earlier this year. He has also appeared in international newspapers, including the Washington Post. His work with fathers’ mental health is getting national and international attention. Just one year ago, Andy was part of a group of academics and professionals who persuaded NHS England to screen fathers for their mental health; something that has never happened before. The research that Andy undertook to influence that is now being developed as part of an impact case study for REF2021. Beyond that, Andy is working with several Royal Colleges and national bodies to retrain and educate health professionals on fathers’ mental health (including Royal College of Midwives and Institute of Health Visitors).

You can listen to the BBC 5 Live segment here http://andrewmayers.info/5Live%20Dec%2019%202019.mp3

and access the Chanel 5 News story here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLqtoa7JoYc

A new project for Prof Katherine Appleton - 'Sweet Tooth: Nature or Nurture?'

Prof Katherine Appleton is part of an international team that over the summer was awarded 1.5 million euros by TIFN (a Dutch Funding Agent) and 8 food industry partners for a four-year project entitled 'Sweet Tooth: Nature or Nurture?'. The project will investigate the impact of differing levels of exposure to sweet taste on subsequent sweet taste preferences, perceptions and intakes, plus various biomedical parameters, using a randomised controlled trial, to directly support or challenge current recommendations from the World Health Organisation. The project began on the 1st of September 2019.  

Dr John McAlaney appointed as a SPRITE+ Expert Fellow

 Dr John McAlaney has been appointed as a SPRITE+ Expert Fellow (The Security, Privacy, Identity and Trust Engagement NetworkPlus). This scheme is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council with support from UK Government, and is a new initiative that will bring together experts to address the opportunities and challenges provided by the digital economy. John’s role in this scheme will involve sharing his research and knowledge on the psychological aspects of cybersecurity and use of socio-technical systems.

Department of Psychology receives Athena SWAN award

We are delighted to announce that BU’s Department of Psychology has received the Athena SWAN bronze award, in recognition of their commitment to working towards gender equality in higher education. This was a great team effort of the SAT team which was led by Prof Sine McDougall.

Dr Ellen Seiss (Senior Lecturer), the new Athena SWAN lead for the department, said: “The Department of Psychology has worked hard to improve our policies and practices, striving to offer a supportive and inclusive environment for all staff and students.”

“We are delighted that this work has been recognised via the Athena SWAN bronze award, and are already working hard to ensure the action plan we submitted as part of the application is implemented.”

BU’s Equality and Diversity Adviser Dr James Palfreman-Kay said “I‘m really pleased to see the work the department has undertaken on gender and more broadly on equality and diversity being recognised through the achievement of a departmental Athena SWAN bronze award.”

The award is valid for four years and during this time the department will continue to raise awareness of gender equality within their teams and demonstrate how their action plan is making a positive difference to achieving gender equality. 

BU now has three departmental awards, with the Department of Life & Environmental Sciences achieving their bronze award earlier this year and the Department of Media Production gaining the same last year. In addition to the departmental awards, BU as an institution was also successful in our submission for an Athena SWAN bronze award in May.

BU’s commitment to equality and diversity is an area of focus in BU2025 and you can take a look at the institutional SWAN actions for 2019 on page three of the Athena SWAN newsletter. As part of these actions, we will be supporting all academic departments to make their own submissions for this important award.

One of the objectives within BU2025 is that we are aiming for at least half of all departments to gain a bronze award by 2021 and all departments by 2025. More information about Athena SWAN can be found on the Advance HE website.

Emotions in Eating Disorders Conference

Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier organised a conference on Emotions in eating disorders in collaboration with James Palfreman-Kay (Equality and Diversity Adviser), Bournemouth University Student Union and Dorset Healthcare University Foundation. It was attended by 100 people and speakers attended from all over the country. Students were also given the opportunity to present their work as a poster during the conference. For an example, here is a short interview with Psychology student, Ana Texeira, who provided an excellent summary of her work.

BU academic awarded NIHR Clinical Trials Fellowship

Dr Samuel Nyman has been awarded a NIHR Clinical Trials Fellowship that will begin in January 2019. These fellowships are designed to provide further advanced research methods training in clinical trials. They provide hands-on experience with several trials at different phases of progression and are to be based in a clinical trials unit. Samuel will be based at PRIMENT, the Clinical Trials Unit at UCL with expertise in trials conducted in primary care and to do with mental health, including Samuel’s research area of dementia. This will help Samuel consolidate the experience he has gained so far and training from completing an MSc in Clinical Trials, with further hands-on experience in dementia trials at a leading trials unit.

Funded by Santander Staff Mobility scheme, Dr Bernhard Angele visited Prof Jinmian Yang at Fudan University, Shanghai in June 2018. Prof Yang is one of the leading experts on eye movements during reading in Chinese, and some extremely productive time was spent working on a collaborative eye-tracking study which will be implemented and run shortly. Fudan University is one of the most prestigious and selective universities in China with a more than 100 year-long history. It is continually ranked as one of the top three universities in China (together with Peking University and Tsinghua University) and as one of the top 20 universities in Asia. Further collaborations include preparation for grants during Prof Yang’s visit to BU this summer, and further collaborative work will Prof Xingshan Li from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and Prof Chuanli Zang and Prof Guoli Yan from Tianjin Normal University. During his stay in China, Bernhard also presented a talk (and was a co-author on another talk and a poster) at the 8th China International Conference on Eye Movements (CICEM) in Nanjing. 

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BRANES: Increasing brain awareness from Bournemouth to Kenya

BRANES (Building Awareness and Resilience through Neuropsychological Education in the Society) is a project led by Dr Shanti Shanker and Dr Ben Hicks from Bournemouth University. Its disparate activities are drawn together by the project’s primary ambition to increase public awareness of the neuropsychology of such conditions as stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain injury and dementia. With the objective that knowledge will help build resilience.

The project has undergone much work including running workshops at the Festival of Learning in London and in Bournemouth, providing interactive public awarness in Brain Awarness Week in 2017 and also running further workshops with care home residents under the title "Tag your identity" to help dementia sufferers challenge public perceptions of their identity. BRANES has had tremendous impact and has now managed to reach as far afield as Kenya and India. Shanti and the team have been given the opportunity to work with senior Kenyan prison officers (through the African Prison Project). The team discussed the concepts behind BRANES and discussed how it could be adapted to increase resilience in inmates. You can find more details of the story on The British Psychological Society website.

Promoting Science and exploring collaboration in India: Global Festival of Learning 2018

Dr Shanti Shanker, Lecturer, Dept. of Psychology (part of the GFoL Team), this team included other staff and students from Bournemouth University 

Read below for outcomes of the visit:

1. Engage as an academic – Global festival of Learning

A) Symbiosis, Pune (13th Feb): Dr Shanker lead a interactive lecture/workshop for 3rd year students in psychology. Out of a group of 30, 5 students were keen to consider BU for their M.Sc. and a couple were exploring possible PGR opportunities.

B) I Teach Schools, Pune: is a new initiative to make a difference in Schools within Pune. Dr Shanker connected with the Founder/CEO and is exploring possibility to explore internship opportunities (for summer/year-long placements) for our 2nd and/or 3rd year students (possibly for 2019-20 academic year).

C) Pint of Science & Soap Box Science: As an alumnus for both these public engagement forums, Dr Shanker engaged with students and relevant academics and corporates to explore potential collaborators to launch either of this program in Pune/Mumbai and/or Delhi. This will contribute to some impact case studies of increasing academic presence in the community.

D) Private Education (16th February): Met with the Vice-President – Education, GEMS International School. During the panel discussion – I shared some of the best practices followed in teaching by Psychology and she was very keen to connect. Possibly another avenue to explore collaborations in the near future and also potential summer placement opportunities for Psychology. 

2. India Recruitment: Delhi

As part of Festival of Learning – ½ day on the 15th of February was dedicated to recruiting students at the British Council Delhi. Activities include:

A) Meeting in-person with the Agents, was very helpful. They will be in touch for us to have online sessions (annually) to clear any questions, interact with prospective applicants who want to make an application to BU for Undergraduate courses.

B) Two schools (Delhi) are interested in providing us with the space and students to run a Public Engagement workshop (BRANES: Building Resilience Awareness through Neuropsychology Education in the Society). This would allow us to gain familiarity and peak interest of students and parents considering UK Education. Both of these are private schools.

C) Mr Tom Birtwistle, Director North India, British Council. Dr Shanker met with the Director, who mentioned that currently, Psychology books are the most sought after at the British Council Libraries. So, he is keen to organize few open sessions for Public and/ Schools in Psychology. This will be planned for some time in August/September 2018, when Dr Shanker will be in India. This would allow us to a) increase our awareness within the society; b) showcase our unique selling point – an inbuilt placement within the taught M.Sc. which is a huge advantage over a number of UK University courses in Psychology.

D) Dr Shanker has spoken to few stakeholders, who have mentioned that having few talks in Schools (Std. XII) and providing sessions on interesting facts would be an excellent approach.

3. Building on existing collaborations and co-applying for relevant grant applications. a. Centers for Wellbeing and Research, India:

A) The intention to work with the grass-root levels (i.e. tier 2/3 cities, smaller towns and village) to build more mental health and neuropsychology awareness has been on the agenda for a long time.

B) During this visit, Dr Shanker connected with Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (HSS) and we are writing pilot grant to work on need-based assessment. Following which we plan to submit a proposal for a Welcome trust grant to support pilot research in India (aimed for early/mid 2019).

C) During this visit, we also connected with 3 other medical doctors in India who will be interested to collaborate on this project/initiative.

D) Dr Shanker will be planning a workshop with Prison Officers in Aug-Sep 2018. Having connected with Hariharan Krishnan, a well-known film maker – he was very interested in exploring possible collaboration from public awareness perspective.

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International collaboration and knowledge exchange with partner universities in China

Dr Bernhard Angele just returned in January 2018 from a four-month visit to the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The visit was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' President's Fellowship Initiative (PIFI). During his visit, Bernhard collaborated with Prof Xingshan Li on several studies on eye movements in reading. Martin Vasilev, a PhD student in our department, was also able to visit the Institute of Psychology at CAS during the month of December, where he collaborated with Bernhard Angele and Prof Xingshan Li on a study on auditory background input while reading Chinese. This visit was funded by the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS). During his time in China, Bernhard also visited Tianjin Normal University in Tianjin (together with Martin Vasilev) and Shandong Normal University in Jinan, where he gave talks on recent research projects. Additionally, Bernhard gave workshops on Advanced Statistics using the R Software at the CAS Institute of Psychology and Tianjin Normal University, as well as a workshop on academic publishing at Shandong Normal University, which were very well received.

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