Latest news and views

PER Team recently heard about a new project being developed by Research Physicist, Matt Ward, and went to chat with him about it. Matt has been musing on the peculiar issue of early career researcher ‘invisibility’; that is the phenomenon by which the public have a tendency to only see science as either a school subject or a professor’s job, and very little in-between. It’s not a new issue and has previously been highlighted  by others, such as Sense About Science with their Voice of Young Science network. However, the public exposure to and understanding of early research remains limited. One key reason behind this probably comes from within; researchers tend only to put the most experienced member of the group forward and for a number of reasons often shy away from pushing (or allowing) younger researchers into the limelight. So Matt is launching a new blog to host interviews with younger researchers, to bring the human stories of research to the public and help bridge the gap in public understanding of research. But he needs your help. Read for more details and for your chance to land a spot as an interviewee…

“My name is Matt Ward and I am a research scientist in Radiation Oncology at the QEH. I have recently started a blog which aims to communicate cutting-edge scientific research to the public, with the noted difference that my `interviews’ are all with early-career academics (senior academics get enough attention as it is!). The blog is yet to go live, but I have already been receiving lots of input from various research teams around the UK, and it has captured the interest of science correspondents at the BBC.

“The blog is an initiative to break down the barriers between the celebrated academics (Professor Josephine Bloggs, MSci MSc PhD MD FMedSci FInstOfPostNominalLetters…) and the ambitious kid on the street. In my Athena Swan ambassador work, I discovered that it’s well-known that a lack of self-belief (particularly in young women) is a deciding factor in many students not entering University level education in the sciences, and again not continuing on into research. I believe that, by highlighting the process in-between early academia and emeritus professor – the work being done by us – we can show that it is in fact normal people doing this work, normal people who just happen to be very passionate about a particular subject.

“For those who are interested in submitting something please get in touch. The questions are straight-forward and the style is colloquial and chatty; I am more interested to find out why you are so interested and passionate about your work than to be an expert in the matter after reading it (though if you can write on two-sides of A4 and get a lay person to completely understand what your research is about, then kudos!).

“So, if you are a scientist passionate about your work and you are able to spare 10-15 minutes to write about why, then I would love to hear from you!”

Interested researchers should contact Matt at Matthew.Ward2@uhb.nhs.uk

Matt will also be part of a free event of talks and Q&A with researchers working on the future of cancer treatments that is being held in the ThinkTank museum on 29th September. The event is called Front-line: The Future of Cancer Told by the Next Generation of Scientists where Matt will discuss his work on medical physics, joined by Agata Stodolna (organoid technologies) and Oliver Pickles (immunotherapy). Register free here. 

Image Credit: Matthew Ward and Cancer Research UK.

As part of the NERC-funded ENCOMPASS public engagement project led by geologist Dr Carl Stevenson, project partner Citizens UK will be offering researchers interested in community engagement the opportunity to take part in a training day focused on learning about the concepts, principles and practice of community organising, with a focus on listening campaigns.

Date: Tuesday 18^th Sept, 2018

Time: 09.30-16.30

Location: Education Room, Lapworth Museum on campus (tbc)

If you are interested in securing a space please contact encompass@contacts.bham.ac.uk

On 3^rd July the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) held a day-long event at ImpactHub in Digbeth to explore the potential for partnerships between local community groups and Midlands-based researchers. Public Engagement Officer, Leah Fitzsimmons, and several University of Birmingham academics went along to find out more.

The event, which was open to applications from any interested academics and community groups was part of a scheme called the Community and Universities Partnership Initiative, or CUPI. The idea for CUPI came from two previous NCCPE initiatives; the Schools and Museums and Universities Partnership Initiatives (or SUPI and MUPI, respectively). The format for all three schemes has been to convene a range of researchers and potential partners in a neutral venue in order to develop skills and ways of working, before exploring the potential for new partnerships to arise between attendees. Each initiative consists of several of these matchmaking events held around the country and CUPI meet-ups were also held in Bristol, Manchester and London. The icing on the cake of this format is small grants were available to support budding collaborations formed through the event.

It’s easy to understand why it might be impactful for communities and researchers to come together to collaboratively identify areas of local need and importance and then work together to find evidence-based methods to effect a direct improvement in the lives, wellbeing and/or economics of an area or community. However, these types of projects are not always straight-forward. Whilst we know that community collaboration can enormously enhance research and make valuable differences to society alike, these different groups often have very different methods of working, different timescales and different aims. Community groups often feel that there is a massive power imbalance between them and that they get lost in the academic infrastructure. Additionally, community groups rarely have a clear idea of the importance of or role they can play in academic publishing, which can further alienate groups from one another. However, we also heard a lot of positive experiences and once the participants had been encouraged to open up about their needs and expectations, their motivations and their timescales, the conversation flowed and some really exciting quickly ideas began to take shape.

The final session of the day saw the attendees challenged to create 3 minute Dragon’s Den-style funding pitches for ‘Thinking Fund’ grants of up to £1,000 in small groups consisting of at least one academic and one community partner. It turns out that there’s nothing like to potential promise of funding to focus the mind, and from the bustle and excited exchange of ideas emerged nine brilliant proposals, of which University of Birmingham academics contributed to two. From helping social enterprises and churches with evaluation methods, to exploring the cultural and economic heritage of rail; I was impressed and pleasantly surprised by the creative and innovative projects that for formed over just a few short hours. Of the nine proposals pitched, up to seven will be funded, with outcomes to be announced by the NCCPE in mid-July. Those successful applicants will then have four months to explore their idea before having the opportunity to apply for a further £5,000 of seed-corn funding to begin to get the project off the ground and we really hope to see some of our UoB research helping to make a difference locally through this scheme.

And if you couldn’t make it on the day, there’s also good news – community partnerships can come from anywhere, at any time and the Public Engagement Team can provide support and help identify potential funding schemes to resource them. From the CUPI event itself, several community organisations expressed a wish to ‘call out’ to our academics so please look out for opportunities which we will be sending out through Twitter, our Team newsletter as well as school and College communications. We would also love to develop methods for communities to let us know of their needs on an ongoing basis so please do let us know your thoughts or ideas on this.

Our PGCARMs course is coming to an end for our students and following the great response last year we’re opening up their end-of-year presentations to interested observer’s again!

Are you a researcher looking for inspiration, curious to see how others go about public engagement or simply curious to see what we’ve been up to – come along!

This is your chance to support our students, gather ideas and we’ll even include lunch – what more incentive do you need? Register to ensure your place HERE.

Any questions, get in touch with the UoB PER Team at engage@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

The Royal Society of Biology Outreach and Engagement Awards will be closing for applications at the end of the month!

The Awards aim is to reward outreach work carried out by researchers who inform, enthuse and engage with different audiences. The Awards are open to scientists working in any sector of UK biosciences, from universities, institutes or industry.

There are two award categories each with a cash prize: New Researcher (£750) and Established Researcher (£1500).

Applications close on 29th June. For more information and to apply, please visit the Society’s website HERE.