A decade ago my family and I arrived from Aberdeen to a rented house in Dorset to start my professorship at BU. Prior to my job interview I had never been to Bournemouth in my life. So it was truly a new start after 25 years in Scotland. For a start most of my academic life In Scotland had been at a very old university with a very old medical school. Aberdeen University’s claim is that it appointed the first Professor in Medicine in the English-speaking word. A fact perhaps slightly less impressive once you realise how small the English-speaking world was in 1497.
I came to Bournemouth to become Professor of Maternal & Perinatal Health Research, a title that proved impossible to remember as the unit I joined had a similar but slightly different name ‘Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health’ (CMMPH).
Just after I started the results of RAE2008 were announced and my papers had contributed to Andersen’s good score in health service research. For REF2014 I was the only BU academic who served on a REF subpanel. Internally I briefly led the UoA 3 submissions until it was as amalgamated with the UoA for sociology/sociology policy. Currently one of my roles is leading BU’s UoA 3 draft submission for REF2021.
In the past ten years at BU I have published four books, seventeen book chapters and over one hundred academic papers. As well as producing many BU Research Blogs and three pieces in The Conversation. Moreover, I have successfully encouraged several extremely good people to apply to posts at BU.
After serving four years on the Southwest NIHR Research for Patient Benefit panel I am currently on the NIHR HTA Clinical Evaluation & Trials Funding Committee (2015-2020). 
Always working in larger research team has brought external research grants from THET, HTA NIHR, and IOM.
Over the years we have grown FHSS’s health and well-being research profile in Nepal, with contributions from, for example, Vanora Hundley, Shanti Shanker, Bibha Simkhada, Lesley Milne, Martin Hind, Jane Murphy, Vanessa Heaslip, Juliet Wood, Catherine Angell, Ian Donaldson, Pramod Regmi, Nirmal Aryal, and various BU Visiting Faculty. Past and present BU PhD students working on thesis projects in Nepal include: Dr. Sheetal Sharma, Dr. Pratik Adhikary, Dr. Jib Acharya, Preeti Mahato, Sulochana Dhakal-Rai and Raksha Thapa. Meanwhile we have also expanded FHSS’s research interest in India through various joint projects.
Edwin van Teijlingen
Professor of Reproductive Health Research
CMMPH