BORDER CROSSINGS: Want to turn your research into a documentary film? (Deadline May 23, 2018)

Filmmakers, are you ready for an academic project to inspire your storytelling? Would you like to collaborate with some of the world’s leading scholars? Could your film skills make some brilliant academic research accessible to wider audiences?

Academics, do you have a research story that could be turned into a documentary film project? Would you like to collaborate with a professional filmmaker with an established track record? Do you want to share your research with a wide public audience?

To celebrate our new Creative Documentary by Practice MFA (to be led by Sophie Fiennes, Kim Longinotto and Riete Oord), Open City Documentary Festival are relaunching their Border Crossings initiative with a £5,000 development fund for filmmakers collaborating with academics who have a research story in search of an author. A runner’s up prize of £2,500 will also be awarded.

Taking place as part of UCL’s Festival of Culture, this is an exciting ‘speed-dating’ initiative aiming to build partnerships, to create opportunities for research and knowledge to be translated into insightful and engaging documentary and to allow filmmakers access to table-turning research stories.

The deadline for applications is midnight on 23rd May 2018

There are places for 10 filmmakers and 10 researchers. During the course of the two hour session, researchers and filmmakers will meet to discuss their work and will form teams following this meeting. These teams will be eligible to apply for the £5,000 development fund. All applicants will pitch their projects to a panel of expert judges during Open City Documentary Festival 2018 (4th – 9th September). The award will go to the most exciting and viable project pitched.

FURTHER INFO HERE

To apply for a place at the Border Crossings event on the 7th of June, please fill in the below form

Academics – APPLY

Filmmakers – APPLY

Elsevier Researchers’ Choice Communication Award – nominate your peers by May 17th, 2018!

“Science is not finished until it’s communicated”

Just before Easter Elsevier launched the Researchers’ Choice Communication Award RCCA #RCCA2018. They’d be delighted if you would encourage your faculty departments and your student groups to nominate their outstanding early career researchers and peers via Mendeley, the social network for scientists. There are several ways you can do this:

  • Share this Mendeley blog post on your own channels
  • Circulate or print-out the attached poster and display around campus
  • Leave copies of the flyer in your library or other student study areas

You can also follow Elsevier on TwitterFacebook or LinkedIn for the latest updates and more shareable content.

The winner, chosen by their judging panel, will be announced at the awards ceremony in the presence of UK research leaders and the CEO of Elsevier on 4th October at the Royal Society in London. Chairman of the ceremony is President and Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University and Fulbright Commissioner, Professor Colin Riordan.

Nominating a researcher for the RCCA – How does it work?

  • Nominations open on Wednesday 28th March 2018
  • Post the nomination directly to the dedicated Mendeley group
  • Those new to Mendeley will either need to sign up for a free account or email nominations to ecrawards@kaizo.co.uk
  • You cannot nominate yourself
  • Include the following information as part of the nomination:
    • Name
    • Age
    • Institution
    • Summary of nomination (250 words max)
    • Links to evidence of good work (e.g. research, speeches, blog posts, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) Only content clearly listed as part of the nomination will be used for final review
  • Nominations will be accepted until Thursday 17th May 2018

The winner will be announced at this year’s Awards ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 4th October 2018.

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PERCAT Postdoctoral Excellence Awards 2017 – Public Engagement category

PERCAT are very pleased to announce the first round of the PERCAT Postdoctoral Excellence Awards 2017.  The PEA awards are for outstanding Postdoctoral/Early Career Researchers who have made excellent achievements in the following areas:

  • Public Engagement
  • Academic/Science Citizenship
  • Mentoring
  • Teaching
  • PERCAT Postdoctoral Champion of the Year

You will be able to self-nominate or nominate Postdoctoral/Early Career Researchers from within the College of Medical and Dental Sciences.   PhD students and technical staff will not be eligible to apply.  The deadline for submission of applications is Wednesday 31 May and the winners will be announced and presented with prizes of £200 per award at the forthcoming PERCAT Strategy Day to be held on Wednesday 28 JuneFurther details, along with the nomination form and guidelines will be circulated next week.

ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize (Deadline: Dec 1)

The Celebrating Impact Prize, now in its fifth year, is an annual opportunity to recognise and reward ESRC-funded researchers and ESRC associates. It celebrates outstanding ESRC research and success in interdisciplinary, collaborative working, partnerships, engagement and knowledge exchange activities that have led to significant impact.

Applications for the 2017 Celebrating Impact Prize close at 16.00 on 1 December 2016

Details can be found HERE

Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining: Young Persons Lecture Competition

There is a lecture competition on Thursday 25th February, 2016 where a 15 minute lecture on a materials, mining, minerals, packaging, clay technology or wood science related subject will win you £50, with the heat winner receiving £100, and the final in Brazil with a prize of £1000.  Students from Met & Mat, Chemical Engineering, EESE, Mech Eng, Nuclear Science and Geoscience are eligible.

If anyone would like to get involved, initially please contact Jo Eagles on j.eagles@bham.ac.uk

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Latest public engagement funding, prizes and competitions…

Check the blog for regular updates on public engagment funding, prizes and competitions. Also see our funding pages: https://thinkpe.net/funding/

The Physiological Society Public Engagement Grants

Through the grants we hope to fund activities which:

  • Inspire creative public engagement with physiology
  • Stimulate physiologists to share their stories, passion and expertise in innovative ways with wider audiences, particularly those that are traditionally hard to reach
  • Increase dialogue between researchers and the public, in particular on topics such as the relevance of research to health, medicine and performance.
  • Produce materials and resources which can be used for further public engagement and outreach work.

They are keen to receive project applications which fit under our 2016 theme, ‘Elite Performance’. For more information about the grant scheme, including T&Cs, application guidance and past projects please visit our website (http://bit.ly/Physocpegrants) or email me (outrech@physoc.org). Applications should be submitted by 11.59 pm, Sunday 28 February 2016. Funding decisions will be announced at the end of April.

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STFC PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT FELLOWSHIPS SCHEME – 2016

The 2016 round of the STFC Public Engagement Fellowships scheme is open for applications. The closing date is Thursday 25th February 2016 at 4.00pm

The  Public Engagement Fellowship scheme aims to support the very best people in STFC’s community to undertake extended programmes of the highest-quality, innovative public engagement as a core part of their job role. The Fellowships purchase a proportion of a researcher’s time to enable them to concentrate more on public engagement activities which will have a significant national or regional impact. For details about the scheme please contact the  STFC Public Engagement Team

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2016 Celebrating Impact Prize

  • Open to all ESRC projects – excluding previously winning projects
  • Previously unsuccessful entrants welcome to resubmit
  • Prior winners may also submit new research impacts
  • Streamlined application process
  • £60,000 total prize money available

Now in its fourth year, the Celebrating Impact Prize is an annual opportunity to recognise and reward ESRC-funded researchers who have achieved, or are currently achieving, outstanding economic and societal impacts. It celebrates outstanding ESRC research and success in collaborative working, partnerships, interdisciplinary projects, engagement and knowledge exchange activities that have led to significant impact.

We particularly welcome interdisciplinary projects, those involving the use of big data resources or infrastructure, and impacts from institutions submitting for the first time.

The 2016 Celebrating Impact Prize has six categories, each representing areas covered by the ESRC; with sole winners in each category receiving £10,000 to further support their research or further impact activities. The call for applicants closes Friday 29th January 2016 at 3pm. Interested parties should read the following information, and submit their work for consideration via the ESRC forms on impact prize page

  • Outstanding Impact in Business
  • Outstanding Impact in Public Policy
  • Outstanding Impact in Society
  • Outstanding International Impact
  • Outstanding Early Career Impact
  • Impact Champion

Information on previous Winners, their research, impact case studies, FAQs and the event may be found here. For further information please contact: ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize team, Email: impact@esrc.ac.uk, Telephone: 01793 414697.

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Biochemical Society 

Are you a talented science communicator?

 If so, then enter our 2016 Science Communication Competition. We are looking for original pieces of writing or videos on a topic of relevance to molecular bioscience. Winners receive a cash prize and professional mentoring session. Mentors include Dr Kat Arney, Dr Steve Cross and the Science Media Centre.

Find out more and enter. Deadline 8 April 2016.

Biochemistry.org/ScienceCommunicationCompetition

 

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British Science Association, Bristol and Bath Branch – FILM FESTIVAL

The Bristol and Bath branch of the British Science Association are organising a science film festival and competition to be held during British Science Week.

We’re looking for amateur film makers, including those with little or no experience, to submit short films of up to 10 minutes on a science theme that interests them.  Deadline for submissions is 1st February 2016. Shortlisted entries will be screened in Bristol at the Cube Microplex on 20th March 2016 and there will be prizes for both local and national entries!

For more information about the competition and how to submit a film visit our website www.bristolsciencefilmfestival.info and see the Facebook event.

 

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British Science Festival: Nominate an Award Lecture

Award Lecture nominations are now open. The deadline is Friday 4 March. To propose a nomination, fill out this form.

Awards are available in seven different areas:

  • Margaret Mead – social sciences
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel, supported by Siemens – engineering, technology and industry
  • Charles Lyell – environmental sciences
  • Charles Darwin – agricultural, biological and medical sciences
  • Rosalind Franklin, supported by Siemens – physical sciences and mathematics
  • Daphne Oram – digital innovation
  • Jacob Bronowski – science and the arts

The selected lecturers will receive an all expenses paid trip to the British Science Festival, a £250 honorarium and an invitation to the Festival Dinner. There may also be other opportunities to present the Award Lecture at other science festivals in the UK.

If you submit a nomination, we will be in touch with a decision by April. If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Rosie Waldron.

See the full list of Award Lectures since 1990.

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Royal Society of Chemistry’s Outreach Fund

Deadline Friday 29 January 2016. Currently accepting small grant applications, up to £2000. Through the Outreach Fund, we aim to encourage and support the development of projects that:

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School Science also lists a number of competitions for schools-related activity. Not all of these will be relevant but you can take a look through their list here: http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/competitions

HERMES 2016: Materials Modelling & Science Communication (Deadline 29th Feb)

Dimitra Spathara, PhD student in Met & Mat, EPS is helping organize the summer school HERMES 2016: An entirely student-led project that brings together materials modelling and science communication. If you are interested contact Dimitra directly: dataviz@contacts.bham.ac.uk

World-class academics, such as Prof. Kurt Kremer and Prof. Nicola Spaldin will be given masterclasses at Materials Modelling. More details here

Science Communication Theme (2016) : Data Visualisation

Young researchers will receive training in Data Visualisation through a blend of talks/ workshops and tasks. On previous events the theme was short presentations (2014) and video making (2012).

Prof. Craig Carter is a world-class materials modeller, and for the previous two times HERMES was held, he was one of the academics to give a masterclass. At the following event (2016), he will give training on data visualisation connected to materials modelling by using specific software. Piero Vitelli is coming for the second time to give a talk on delivering presentations and public engagement. Lulu Pinney is invited to train participants on how their data visuals can work in their research storytelling.

Some useful information:

– HERMES 2016 takes place in 27-31 July 2016, Cumberland Lodge. The schedule can be found here

– Short Presentation of HERMES here

Applications have already started and the deadline for early-bird applicants is due to February 29th 2016. More information here.

Some details about the organizing committee, incl. Dimitra here.

Prizes for the Science Communication task are sponsored by PRISM2 based in the School of Metallurgy & Materials.

 

 

 

Storytelling Researcher Video Competition: Winners announced

A massive thank you to every one who submitted a video into our Storytelling Researcher Video Competition. PERC were extremely impressed the quality of the videos submitted, as well as the imaginative techniques and ideas used. Watch all the videos below.

The winners were announced today at our ‘Myth-busting the barriers to public engagement with research’ event on Dec 11th, 2015:
3rd place (£50 each): Punam Mistry and Elizabeth Randall
2nd Place (£100): Nina Vyas

1st Place (£200):  Joe Tickle

Huge congratulations to the winners, a huge amount of effort and attention to detail went into these videos.
FIRST PLACE
SECOND PLACE
THIRD PLACE (2 WINNERS)

 

ALL OTHER VIDEOS:

Thanks to the hard word from all our other entrants too! Even if you didn’t win, we want to emphasize again how much we appreciate your efforts.