Category: Birmingham Museums

Exciting public engagement opportunities with Thinktank Science Museum & inaugural Lapworth Lates

Posted by on in Birmingham Museums, Upcoming opportunities

We’re thrilled to be launching two exciting new public engagement opportunities for University of Birmingham staff and students:

FOR ACADEMIC STAFF WORKING IN STEM:

YOUR RESEARCH EXHIBITED AT THINKTANK SCIENCE MUSEUM’S ‘FUTURES GALLERY’?

The University is offering one researcher/research group a rare and exciting opportunity to work alongside curators and design team at Birmingham Thinktank Science Museum to bring to life their research as part of an inspiring and innovative long-running exhibit within the museum’s Futures Gallery, to be installed in early 2019.

We are now seeking expressions of interest from University of Birmingham academics who would like to make greater public impact through providing audiences access to contemporary science, whilst also gaining meaningful experience in museum-researcher collaboration and the cultural sector.

Full details of the call and how to apply HERE (Deadline for EoI: Friday 13th April, 2018)

Eligibility: This scheme is open to academic research-active staff in the College of Medical & Dental Sciences, College of Engineering & Physical Sciences and College of Life and Environmental Sciences. The callout is not open to postgraduate students.

 

FOR MASTERS/PHD STUDENTS

LAPWORTH LATES – PGRs needed!

The public engagement team are looking for a small interdisciplinary team of research students (masters or PhD) to co-design, organise and run a new public evening event involving academics and artists in the Lapworth Museum. You will be responsible for programming and budgeting for activities (with our support!) to help bring the museum and its exhibits alive for the public at our inaugural Lapworth Lates event.

The event will run on Thursday 19th July 2018. In addition to committing to design and organisation activities, you will also need to be available for around 4 planning/operations meetings between April and the event date.

In order to register your interest, please email the team at engage@contacts.bham.ac.uk by April 13th to tell us why you want to be involved and what you will bring to the team (200 words max). No subject specific knowledge required, students from all Colleges welcome to apply.

[This Lapworth event is being supported with Alumni Impact Funding – thank you to our alumni and we hope to see you there on 19th July!]

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BY THE WAY

Academics: In the coming weeks we will also be looking for researchers who would like to carry out public engagement activities at the Lapworth Lates event. If you would like to be involved let us know: engage@contacts.bham.ac.uk

 

Designated Collections MUPI Match event (June 14)

Posted by on in Birmingham Museums, Funding, networking events, Upcoming opportunities

MUPI Match Designated Collections, Arts Council England Offices, Birmingham, 14 June (10am-4.30pm)

Are you:

  • A postgraduate, postdoctoral or established researcher, keen to explore the rich possibilities for working with collections that are a vital part of England’s artistic and cultural heritage;
  • An academic whose students would like to research designated collections?

If so, this MUPI National Sandpit could be just what you are looking for! The event is interactive and free to take part in. Bring your ideas, your energy, and your expertise and prepare to be challenged and inspired.

Register for this event

A key element of the Arts Council England Designated Collection scheme is that the collections meet the Research Value criteria – so that the collection is, or has the potential to be, an essential research collection; and the collections makes a major contribution to the public understanding of the subject. One of the major challenges faced by museums developing academic partnerships is networking with academics, and having sufficient resources to plan effective and mutually beneficial projects.

 The ACE funded MUPI project aims to address this by bringing together museums and academics in a series of focused and facilitated networking events; which will help academics explore the research potential of designated collections, meet potential museum partners, and have the opportunity to apply for seed funding grants to help develop project ideas. The MUPI Match event on Wednesday 14 June is dedicated to museums with Designated Collections.

To find out more about the Designated Collections scheme, click here.

There are many benefits to museums and universities working together, from improving audience understanding to developing more effective collections knowledge or interpretation; from inspiring museum audiences with cutting edge research to developing new exhibits and exhibitions; the opportunities are endless; and networking within and between the sectors can help museums and academics realise the research potential of these nationally important collections.

However, finding a partner and having the resources to explore how you might work together can be challenging. This MUPI National Sandpit draws upon a tried and tested methodology, which brings people together to develop new partnerships. Each session involves museum staff, volunteers, and academics working together to find mutually beneficial ideas that they would like to develop together. This event focuses on unlocking the research potential of designated collections.

 A small grants fund of £6000 available; the MUPI Match event includes an opportunity for teams formed at the event to bid for funding (of between £500-£1500) from the MUPI Match fund. This ‘thinking funding’  will enable people to do desk research; have conversations; travel and attend site visits/meetings; test ideas; and work together to plan their potential project. This thinking funding provides a critical part of the process, helping people to work out if and how to work together and refine their ideas. Teams will be supported to develop their partnership, and find effective ways to fund their project in the future.

Please note that booking is essential. You can apply for a place using the registration link above.

MUPI Match events are delivered through the Museum University Partnership Initiative, funded by Arts Council England’s Museum Resilience Fund and developed in partnership with the Share Academy project and Paddy McNulty Associates.

The Poetry of the Periodic Table – Thinktank, Birmingham, 9 November

Posted by on in Birmingham Museums, Collaboration, Thinktank1 Comment

What happens when you bring together a chemist researcher and a poet who has written pieces of work inspired by the periodic table?

Find out at The Poetry of the Periodic Table!

Little Atoms presents the second of our Two Cultures In Conversation evenings. Join award-winning poet Isobel Dixon and Dr Zoe Schnepp of the University of Birmingham to explore the elementary, from Arsenic to Zirconium. Birmingham’s Thinktank provide’s the perfect location for a night where we use poetry and science to examine the stuff that makes up our world.

Local poetry publisher the Emma Press will create specially commissioned illustration and poetry to mark what will be a truly unusual evening.

REGISTER FREE VIA EVENTBRITE

 

 

Flatpack Film Festival – neuroscience-based events at Cafe Neuro THIS WEEKEND!

Posted by on in Birmingham Museums, Thinktank

If you like your cinema, and your neurosciences – you’re in for a double whammy of delights! With a Welcome Trust grant, the people organizing the successful Flatpack Film Festival (the triple F of Brum) and Emil Troescu (College of MDS) have put together a weekend of interesting neuroscience-based events within the Cafe Neuro this weekend, from Fri 21st to Sun 23rd March 2014.

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The Planet in Our Hands: Responding to climate change

Posted by on in Birmingham Museums, Thinktank1 Comment

thinktank_at_millennium_pointWed 26th February, 7.00pm for a 7.30pm start, Thinktank Theatre, Level 2, Millennium Point, Curzon St

Sir Mark Walport is the new Chief Science Adviser to the UK Government. He has a background in immunology and now turns his attentions to the most pressing issue we face as a global society: our climate. In this series of talks across the UK he discusses with public audiences what the science tells us, and asks what should we, as a developed nation, do in response?

Read More “The Planet in Our Hands: Responding to climate change”