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An Open Research University: Embedding public engagement within the research culture of the OU

Engaging Research

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Monthly Archives: February 2014

Re-imagining the future of citizen-led social innovation

Posted on Friday, 28 February 2014 by ErinmaOchu
Photo of Erinma Ochu

Erinma Ochu, Public Engagement Fellow, Wellcome Trust

Change takes time, persistence, commitment, care, collective action. How does this fit with academic pressures to produce journal publication after journal publication and busy teaching commitments?

If you’re into social and environmental change, there’s a tension, a challenge with coming at change from an academic perspective where your contributions to wider society and the environment might not be valued. For me, the reward, is a feeling – not money, not promotion – but a sense that day-by-day a different world is crafted when our work is shaped by outside influences and we are ourselves open to change.

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Posted in Presentations | Tagged citizen science, public engagement, social innovation

Exoplanets and how to find them

Posted on Thursday, 6 February 2014 by Andrew Norton
Professor Andrew Norton, The Open University

Professor Andrew Norton, The Open University

I’m an astrophysicist and my research is mainly concerned with what may be called the “time domain universe”, or simply: stars whose brightness varies with time.

Stars can have a variable brightness for one of several reasons: they might be intrinsically variable due to pulsations of the star’s atmosphere; they might be in orbit with another object that periodically passes in front of it; or they might suffer some form of catastrophic change that causes flaring or outburst behaviour, for instance.

One way to carry out research in time domain astrophysics is simply to monitor the brightness of all the stars in the sky and see what you find. This is, in effect, what is done by the WASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) project, of which I and others at the Open University are part.

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Posted in Events, Presentations, School-University Engagement | Tagged astronomy, CEPSAR, culture change, Denbigh school, Engaging opportunities, engaging research, engaging with school students, lecture, Public engagement with research, SUPI, Web video

Sweat, mud and leeches

Posted on Wednesday, 5 February 2014 by Clare Warren
Dr Clare Warren, The Open University

Dr Clare Warren, The Open University

A day in the life of a field geologist
Earth Scientists like me study the Earth: how it formed, how it changed over geological time, and how all the different ‘bits’ such as the atmosphere, oceans, soil and rocks interact with each other.

In detail, I’m a geologist – I specifically try to understand the rocks beneath our feet. And in even more detail, I’m a field geologist. Nothing excites me more than the prospect of getting to spend weeks in a tent up a remote mountain somewhere (although preferably not in the rain), collecting rock samples for analysis back in the lab.

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Posted in Events, Presentations, School-University Engagement | Tagged CEPSAR, culture change, Denbigh school, Engaging opportunities, engaging with school students, lecture, Public engagement with research, RCUK, SUPI, Web video

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