Border crossings in science communication and engagement

Posted on Sunday, 1 May 2016 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Jane Perrone.

I’ve just returned from the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. It was, in almost every sense of the term, a most extraordinary event, organised with courage, solidarity and warm hospitality in the face of a devastating refugee crisis and political unrest.

The spirit of the conference was captured beautifully by the PCST President Brian Trench at the start of the event. “Let’s talk, let’s laugh, let’s listen”, and we did.

If you haven’t seen Brian’s opening address, you can find the text here (Opening Address).

The 15th International PCST Conference, University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand

And if you think this is for you, start saving your [insert name of currency here] and come along to the 15th International PCST Conference in April 2018.

The PCST community will meet again at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand; #hugahobbit

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Appropriating Social Media: Public engagement with science and technology online

Posted on Thursday, 28 April 2016 by Trevor Collins

Trevor Collins, Ken Skeldon, Rick Holliman, Heather Doran and Ann Grand.

Today at the Public Communication of Science and Technology conference we’ll be running a workshop on the use of social media channels to support engaged research. We’ll discuss the challenges and benefits of using social media as part of an engagement strategy, and consider the roles digitally engaged researchers adopt and the motives that drive their activities. Richard Holliman (standing in for Jamie Dorey), Ann Grand, Heather Doran and Ken Skeldon are bringing a set of example scenarios to discuss, along with related case studies that demonstrate how these challenges have been played out in practice. We’re hoping that this session will provide an opportunity to hear about the diverse experiences across the PCST community in order to consider effective practices in a range of contexts.

Resources

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Supporting researchers in public engagement

Posted on Tuesday, 26 April 2016 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Jane Perrone.

On Monday morning I set off at an obscenely early hour for the PCST Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. As ever, this was an opportunity to catch up with old friends, make new ones, and share learning in science communication and engagement.

But why leave home in the middle of the night? My early start was down to an invitation to run a workshop for postgraduate and early career researchers.

Due to unforeseen travel disruptions I didn’t make it on time. I’m therefore writing this post for anyone who missed the session.

The post includes an overview of the workshop I’d planned with links to a set of resources that can be used as a self-reflection activity to assess and evidence your skills and competencies in public engagement.

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Labcasts: Bringing cutting edge science to the classroom

Posted on Tuesday, 1 March 2016 by Vic Pearson

Dr Vic Pearson, The Open University

Dr Vic Pearson led the organisation of a ‘Labcast’, connecting Open University researchers with teachers and students from Denbigh School in Milton Keynes. Vic worked on this project with Dr Simon Sheridan, Dr Trevor Collins, Dr Gareth Davies and Professor Richard Holliman from the Open University; and Jenny Hallam, Helen Brown and Mark Russell from Denbigh School in Milton Keynes.

What is a Labcast?
A ‘Labcast’ is an interactive, live web broadcast that integrates video streaming and instant messaging to enable a conversation between two or more locations.

A short video explaining the concept of a Labcast can be viewed in the short video below.

Access to ‘cutting edge’ research
Initially developed for Open University (OU) undergraduate teaching, the Labcast model offers a number of advantages:

1. Provides access to a working laboratory and researcher.

2. Provides more opportunities for curriculum links than a ‘lab tour’ format;

3. Does not require students to be taken off timetable or transport costs to be found.

4. Has fewer implications for laboratories that are heavily used.

5. Contextualises researchers and their science in an authentic working environment.

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The Last Survivors of Hiroshima, an interdisciplinary PhD

Posted on Monday, 8 February 2016 by Elizabeth Chappell

Elizabeth Chappell and two Japanese female interviewees

Elizabeth Chappell and interviewees

In a recent talk at the British Sociological Association Conference at the British Library in December 2015, I outlined how I developed a research methodology which allows for the voices of survivors of Hiroshima, known as ‘hibakusha’, to be heard, and their subsequent written-up texts to be analysed within the framework of ‘coercion and consent’.

The discussion resulted in an forthcoming article tentatively titled ‘Telling the narratives of Hiroshima’ in the Auto/biography Yearbook for the British Sociological Association for June 2016.

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Engaging schools with research opportunities

Posted on Monday, 1 February 2016 by Helen Brown

Helen Brown, Director of Denbigh Teaching School, Milton Keynes

Through my role in leading Denbigh Teaching School Alliance, I’ve been overseeing the school end of the Engaging Opportunities Project. Through the teaching school, we’ve tried to engage as many schools and students as possible from across Milton Keynes in activities working alongside Open University researchers.

We want to increase knowledge and understanding of a range of research, but also of the researcher’s working experience. We want to create opportunities for young people to be inspired by research so that one day in the future, they may look back and think, “I took part in Activity X or Y with a real researcher and that made me want to….” In education, impact is often measured by results and short-term gains, but for us, the aim of this project is to plant seeds in young peoples’ minds.

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Engaging with neuropharmacology research

Posted on Monday, 4 January 2016 by Ellie Dommett

Dr Ellie Dommett

The Science Matters talk towards the end of last year (2015) was important for me to do for two reasons. Firstly, it was the first ‘TED-style’ talk I’d be asked to. I spend a lot of time giving talks to schools but these are often much longer so I have more time and slides to explain tricky concepts.

This was just a handful of slides to explain neuropharmacology. I had been on a course earlier in the year on presentation skills and have been trying to put this in to practice all year in my undergraduate lectures but this felt like a good opportunity to test out the same skills to a new audience (not in the unpopular 9am lecture slot).

Dr Ellie Dommett, Kings College London and the Open University. Photo: Dr Kate Bradshaw.

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Continuity and change with engaged research

Posted on Thursday, 3 December 2015 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Jane Perrone.

Embedding strategy, celebrating excellence, transforming practice
In July 2013, colleagues and I at the Open University (OU), UK started this blog and called it Engaging Research. As the University’s Champion for Public Engagement with Research at that time it fell to me to write the first post. I named this after the multi-disciplinary project the small team and I were working on, ‘An open research university’.

In that post I posed a ‘tongue in cheek’ question, “If you’re the University’s Champion for Public Engagement with Research can you tell me how many people it takes to change a university’s research culture?” My answer was a play on an old joke, “I don’t know at the moment, but I do know that those involved really have to want to change.” More than two years on from that first blog post, I can give you a more serious answer to the same question.

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Towards a scholarship of engagement

Posted on Wednesday, 11 November 2015 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Jane Perrone.

Ideas about a scholarship of engagement are increasingly generating interest among academics, across the higher education sector, and within stakeholder groups and user communities. New challenges and opportunities are being addressed as academics work with peers, and sometimes also with user communities, to envisage, theorise and instantiate new places, spaces and methods for public engagement.

In so doing, scholars are connecting with the engagement agenda as they work to identify, and increasingly to assess, more effective ways of generating, representing, circulating and debating knowledge in the public sphere.

In exploring this changing culture colleagues and I at the Open University organised an Engaging Research seminar series (for further details, see below). You can view the archived recordings of the 12 seminars in this series at the following location: http://weblab.open.ac.uk/catalyst/per-seminars

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Science communication for development

Posted on Wednesday, 21 October 2015 by Clare Kemp

Clare Kemp, The Open University.

I joined the Open University in October 2015 as a postgraduate researcher. Based in The Institute of Educational Technology my doctoral research is supervised by Richard Holliman, Eileen Scanlon and Patricia Murphy. My aim is to specialize in science communications for development.

To this end, I have been a science communications consultant across Africa and Asia, North America and the UK for many years, developing knowledge, skills and expertise that I’m planning to integrate into my postgraduate research.

Clare Kemp (far left), with a film crew, working with a scientist, extension workers and farmers.

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