Sometimes the most exciting insights come from the most unexpected places. Not from using tried and tested methods to build on existing knowledge, but from having to re-examine not just what we know but how we came to know it. Stepping outside the comfort zone of the laboratory or lecture hall, and engaging in dialogue with seemingly unrelated worlds can be a valuable and inspiring experience, enriching and renewing the work we do.
Thoughts on challenging perceptions...
-
Anthony Kollie
Step Up -
Antonio Benitez
Museum of Science & Industry -
Emily Crompton
Institute of Cultural Affairs -
Erinma Bell
CARISMA -
Ernesto Hernandez
The University of Manchester -
Joanne Fitton
Bury Archive Service -
Dr Kim Linton
The University of Manchester -
Linda Kirstein
University of Edinburgh -
Professor Nancy Rothwell
The University of Manchester -
Ra Page
Comma Press -
Ron Standring
Community Participant -
Sarah Fox
The University of Manchester -
Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer
Choose a participant on the left to hear their individual thoughts on the subject in relation to their Beacon Project
Anthony Kollie
Step Up
I think I felt I had barriers. I felt that I didn’t have that confidence. When I went into the Step Up programme, looked at the training programme, the opportunity, the level of mentoring and support that was provided, I then realised that I had the potential and I had the focus and the support and after the training I then was put on a trial to meet my mentor and I said I would like to work on the ethics committee of the University of Manchester and then I was also given another mentor who was already on the ethics committee and it has helped me to grow in confidence.
Related project
Step Up
Step Up was a bespoke leadership development programme designed to support and mentor leaders from the BAME communities in Ardwick, Hulme, Moss Side, Longsight and Rusholme (Manchester). The programme was developed as a result of a community consultation project commissioned by the Manchester Beacon for Public Engagement and delivered by the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (CEMVO).
This was one of the five projects commissioned by the Manchester Beacon and funded by the North West Development Agency (NWDA) to promote engagement between universities and local communities.
I think that the task, I think that maybe it’s about changing perceptions because sometimes we’ve got the perception that people from the university don’t want to do things, at the University, taking place in communities and I think that is a perception that I had myself and that is changing. Obviously there are people out there at the Universities who want to be involved with the Universities. The only thing they might need is some support, like for example from the Manchester Beacon, about how to reach those communities, so obviously there is an interest there, the only thing they need is a bit of support from us. I think that it has changed especially because it’s not about, ‘What I am interested in science,’ it’s about what all the people, the people who come to the museum, they want to see at the museum. It’s about talking to them, finding out what they are interested in and reflecting those interests at the museum as much as we can.
Related project
Wriggling Rangoli
Rangoli is a traditional Hindu art form which creates beautiful pictures using coloured powder.
This activity began with a joint workshop by researchers (The University of Manchester) and staff from the Development Education Project (DEP) to Inspired Sisters in Longsight.
It initiated discussions on global citizenship and debate around how Science and University research networks in Manchester are addressing the challenge of poverty reduction. This gave them confidence to engage in debate about Science and the wider world.
The activity led to the design for a large Rangoli mural, which reflected what they had learnt during the workshop.
The mural was be recreated during Manchester Science Festival 2010.
Emily Crompton
Institute of Cultural Affairs
I think there can be some difficulties in working with the University. One of the main barriers was simply just being able to email a lot of scientists. A lot of the faculty staff have their emails quite openly on their website but then to actually get them to read the email and to understand that it’s a really good opportunity was quite difficult but I know that part of their research needs is to engage with communities and I know that a lot of people do want to do it so the people that do come forward then were able to talk to their colleagues which I think did help that barrier as well so I kind of overcame that eventually.
Related project
The Scientific Dragons' Den
Young people sat on a panel where a number of scientists pitched their fun idea to the young people for an event they want to do that engages young people in science.
The young people (Dragons) chose the one they want to go with and spent the afternoon action planning the event alongside with scientists.
They ran this event together during the Manchester Science Festival.
Erinma Bell
CARISMA
Yes, because there is a good old adage which says if you want something doing, do it yourself. However that has proved very difficult to be able to do things by ourselves where we’ve realised that we do need to work in partnership with, for example, Greater Manchester Police. We’ve worked in partnership with them for a long while now, for a good what, 6, 7, 8 years. At first it was very difficult because there’s certain stigmas around working with particular groups and agencies and in particular actually Greater Manchester Police but we stuck with it. The same with Greater Manchester Police- they will tell you, I mean especially from the B Division, they would tell you that it’s been very difficult for them at first to actually work with community groups like ourselves, they got a lot of stick for it- people just wouldn’t talk to them.
Related project
Guns Into Goods
Inspired by the Salford scientist James Joule, this workshop demonstrated what happens to various objects when an electric current is passed through them and how they can be transformed into new products.
The audience had a change to see how University of Salford in partnership with CARISMA have created badges inspired by melted down guns to create a Wearpeace brand to address issues around gang related crimes.
Working with product designers, the workshop participants then had a go at designing useful everyday items that can be then cast from the gunmetal.
Ernesto Hernandez
The University of Manchester
As humans we have, sometimes, perceptions that may be right, that maybe wrong, or just a lack of understanding between humans but when we were seated on the table we discovered that we have good points, we all have good points and [if] we try to take advantage of those good points we shall not be frustrated or pessimistic about programs. We have knowledge; we have curiosity.
Related project
Climate Change Testimonies
An alarming number of people disbelieve scientific assertions that climate change is man made, yet in the UK there are local members of refugee communities who have recent experience and observations able to testify personally to such changes and their causes.
This event connected scientists, social scientists and community members in a debate and appraisal of the testimonial data from this project was compiled using video and multimedia and explore their consequences for a future Manchester.
Related project
All My Worldly Possessions
This project translated research from a dry local authority records collection into a real life story that local communities understand and relate to. This has enabled the Archives Service to reach new audiences who would never have engaged before and we now have a product whereby they can continue to promote the story.
Contacts were made in the local community to focus and interpret Gill Mawson’s vast subject knowledge and research into a form that would be accessible to Bury residents. 60 respondents came forward to the public appeal and from this 3 were selected for interview.
A documentary film was commissioned with Gill learning filmmaking and interview techniques. The film was launched in conjunction with a dissemination event with all respondents to the public appeal invited alongside the general public to reminisce.
Over 100 people attended the event, ranging from 3-90 year olds, including two visitors from Guernsey. The film is going to be more widely distributed through Bury lending libraries and online. An article on the project featured in the Council Magazine, distributed to 60,000 households.
Joanne Fitton
Bury Archive Service
There definitely has been a lot of work involved in this project and I think that’s an experience Gill has had as well, that maybe that’s been underestimated how much we’d been involved but I think that can be a burden of lots of public engagement projects and I’m not sure at first we realised how much public response we would get. We thought that we might have few people coming forward to tell their stories but it has gone mad really. It’s been positive but it just goes to show that public engagement work does have knock-on effects.
Related project
All My Worldly Possessions
This project translated research from a dry local authority records collection into a real life story that local communities understand and relate to. This has enabled the Archives Service to reach new audiences who would never have engaged before and we now have a product whereby they can continue to promote the story.
Contacts were made in the local community to focus and interpret Gill Mawson’s vast subject knowledge and research into a form that would be accessible to Bury residents. 60 respondents came forward to the public appeal and from this 3 were selected for interview.
A documentary film was commissioned with Gill learning filmmaking and interview techniques. The film was launched in conjunction with a dissemination event with all respondents to the public appeal invited alongside the general public to reminisce.
Over 100 people attended the event, ranging from 3-90 year olds, including two visitors from Guernsey. The film is going to be more widely distributed through Bury lending libraries and online. An article on the project featured in the Council Magazine, distributed to 60,000 households.
Other participants:
Ron StandringCommunity Participant
Dr Kim Linton
The University of Manchester
We’ve got a huge disadvantage in that what hits the media these days is everything bad about clinical research, whether it’s a clinical trial that’s gone wrong, patients have had unacceptable side effects and have done badly, trials not being reported appropriately, you get this negative tide of publicity that continues to influence the way people think about clinical research so we’ve got an enormous battle ahead of us in terms of how to overcome those attitudes that people have.
Related project
Patient Participation
Patient participation is fundamental to successful clinical and clinial research which in turn leads to improvements in patient care. The PAGER (Public EngAGement and Education for Effective Research) project aimed to inform the public about research in a way that would promote a behavioural change towards taking part in clinical/clinial research, and to empower consumers with the knowledge/skills to access research options whenever treatment is needed.
Informal two-way educational seminars were held at The Christie, the research hub of the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network, and at Pennine Acute, a large Trust serving North Manchester.
We conveyed clear descriptions of what clinical research is, how this improves patient care, how to take part and where to find details about ongoing studies. A role play clinical consultation and the opportunity to speak to members of the research team and patients who have taken part in clinical research were highly rated in the feedback from participants.
The PAGER project involved two ‘outreach’ public engagement educational seminars about clinical research, at North Manchester General Hospital on 11th October 2010 and The Christie on 21st October 2010. Seminars were run by the early career researcher with contributions from various members of the research team including patients.
Linda Kirstein
University of Edinburgh
Well, certainly I’m more open to potential science literature collaborations in the future. It did make me think, I have a student working on the Andes at the moment looking at the interaction between continental margins and subductions and Sarah talks about them in terms of destructive and constructive and normally when I talk to my students its always about the destructive rather than the constructive aspect of it, so it did make me think I would change the way I talked with the first years that I teach about subductions and highlight the fact that they are creating new types of rock. I guess I had left that out previously.
Related project
Science and the Short Story - ECR Award
The general public’s understanding of how science moves forward is too often over-simplified and limited to a small number of very famous breakthroughs. The aim of this project is to widen the general reader’s access to the diversity of different ways in which science has made breakthroughs – through accessible and engaging short fiction.
This project co-ordinated a series of exchanges between two early career researchers – Sarah Fox and Linda Kirstein – and two authors – Kate Clanchy and Sara Maitland – to produce four short stories, exploring pivotal moments of discovery in the fields of science. These stories re-told, in a semi-fictional manner, the circumstances leading up to these discoveries and, through active input from the researcher, explored the influence they exert over present day scientific enquiry.
The collaborative process enabled both sets of practitioners to gain valuable insight into each other’s work, be that insight into scientific thinking, or possible ways of communicating that thinking. It's also hoped that the resulting stories and their public presentation will give lay audiences new ways of interacting with the science involved, and challenge preconceptions within the community about how science works.
Other participants:
Sarah FoxThe University of Manchester Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer Ra Page
Comma Press
Professor Nancy Rothwell
The University of Manchester
Our ethics committees consider all proposals that involve humans in any way whatsoever and of course many of the members from the University have quite an introverted view, they’re thinking about the outcomes of research. Lay members of those committees are particularly valuable in being able to stand back and say, ‘Well hang on a minute, actually I’m not sure that people would want to participate in this,’ or, ‘The concerns you’re raising are not the ones that would be felt by the sufferer of the stroke or their carer,’ so they bring a different perspective and particularly so if they’re someone who’s been a patient themselves or looked after a patient. Sometimes the issues that concern the patients and their carers are not the ones that we think would do.
Related project
Manchester Beacon
The Manchester Beacon combines the complementary strengths of The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Salford with the Museum of Science and Industry and Manchester: Knowledge Capital.
The Manchester Beacon engages staff, students, community groups and local businesses in the design and delivery of activities that use engagement to break down the barriers between universities and local people.
Launched in January 2008, the Manchester Beacon is part of the Beacons for Public Engagement initiative designed to create a culture change across the higher education sector to support, recognise, reward and build capacity for public engagement.
Ra Page
Comma Press
But I wanted, instead of looking forward all the time and looking at future applications of scientific research, I was quite interested in looking back at how each field is developed. I think everybody involved in the process has had some perception or whether challenged. I've tried to look for writers and scientists who have a broad open mind to projects like this. But inevitably everybody brings a certain amount of expectation, and perhaps a little bit of prejudice about the other side, about how a writer works, or how a scientist works, and it's always interesting to see those expectations challenged and subverted. Some of the writers have engaged with the project so much and enjoyed the process of digesting science, that they've actually gone on to write more.
Related project
Science and the Short Story - ECR Award
The general public’s understanding of how science moves forward is too often over-simplified and limited to a small number of very famous breakthroughs. The aim of this project is to widen the general reader’s access to the diversity of different ways in which science has made breakthroughs – through accessible and engaging short fiction.
This project co-ordinated a series of exchanges between two early career researchers – Sarah Fox and Linda Kirstein – and two authors – Kate Clanchy and Sara Maitland – to produce four short stories, exploring pivotal moments of discovery in the fields of science. These stories re-told, in a semi-fictional manner, the circumstances leading up to these discoveries and, through active input from the researcher, explored the influence they exert over present day scientific enquiry.
The collaborative process enabled both sets of practitioners to gain valuable insight into each other’s work, be that insight into scientific thinking, or possible ways of communicating that thinking. It's also hoped that the resulting stories and their public presentation will give lay audiences new ways of interacting with the science involved, and challenge preconceptions within the community about how science works.
Ron Standring
Community Participant
I was a local lad and I was here and my only involvement, really, was indirectly through my grandfather who took some of the Guernsey children under his wing when they came to Danesmoor and because he was getting money from customers to provide them with the presents at Christmas, National Savings certificates when they went back home and parties and so on and treats, that sort of thing. There was quite a lot of it which I didn’t know about until recently- these children who came over and had no contact with their parents. I was surprised at that I’d learnt today, they’re saying they were here for so long and they only had very little contact with their parents [with] messages coming through. Someone’s grandmother had died and they didn’t know until much later afterwards. It’s been an eye-opener really.
Related project
All My Worldly Possessions
This project translated research from a dry local authority records collection into a real life story that local communities understand and relate to. This has enabled the Archives Service to reach new audiences who would never have engaged before and we now have a product whereby they can continue to promote the story.
Contacts were made in the local community to focus and interpret Gill Mawson’s vast subject knowledge and research into a form that would be accessible to Bury residents. 60 respondents came forward to the public appeal and from this 3 were selected for interview.
A documentary film was commissioned with Gill learning filmmaking and interview techniques. The film was launched in conjunction with a dissemination event with all respondents to the public appeal invited alongside the general public to reminisce.
Over 100 people attended the event, ranging from 3-90 year olds, including two visitors from Guernsey. The film is going to be more widely distributed through Bury lending libraries and online. An article on the project featured in the Council Magazine, distributed to 60,000 households.
Other participants:
Joanne FittonBury Archive Service
Sarah Fox
The University of Manchester
I felt that my signs are that this was the kind of thing that people wouldn’t be interested in and well, it’d be hard to put it across, but I mean there are ways and there are ways of making it very accessible and I think that’s changed my opinion.
Related project
Science and the Short Story - ECR Award
The general public’s understanding of how science moves forward is too often over-simplified and limited to a small number of very famous breakthroughs. The aim of this project is to widen the general reader’s access to the diversity of different ways in which science has made breakthroughs – through accessible and engaging short fiction.
This project co-ordinated a series of exchanges between two early career researchers – Sarah Fox and Linda Kirstein – and two authors – Kate Clanchy and Sara Maitland – to produce four short stories, exploring pivotal moments of discovery in the fields of science. These stories re-told, in a semi-fictional manner, the circumstances leading up to these discoveries and, through active input from the researcher, explored the influence they exert over present day scientific enquiry.
The collaborative process enabled both sets of practitioners to gain valuable insight into each other’s work, be that insight into scientific thinking, or possible ways of communicating that thinking. It's also hoped that the resulting stories and their public presentation will give lay audiences new ways of interacting with the science involved, and challenge preconceptions within the community about how science works.
Other participants:
Linda KirsteinUniversity of Edinburgh Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer Ra Page
Comma Press
Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer
I needed a geologist and then found Linda Kerstein and I think she was extremely suspicious about the project to start with. I went up and met her and she’s just really helpful actually then after I’d written the story because it was really quite new material for me, she went through it and made some suggestions and corrections which I think have really improved the story and it was good fun, I enjoyed it and I learnt a lot. It’s about tectonic plates and plate movement. It’s called A Feminist History of Geology and it’s about why I find plate movement so exciting because it’s about things not being fixed, about things actually changing- things can be changed. And in the early days of feminism, when we were mostly coming from the arts side, there was a lot of research into history to show that things hadn’t always been like they are now, that actually it’s much more positive to think we can make new things. So in a sense the movement of the plates is a metaphor for the possibility of moving even the most solid continents if you have patience and perseverance and energy.
Related project
Science and the Short Story - ECR Award
The general public’s understanding of how science moves forward is too often over-simplified and limited to a small number of very famous breakthroughs. The aim of this project is to widen the general reader’s access to the diversity of different ways in which science has made breakthroughs – through accessible and engaging short fiction.
This project co-ordinated a series of exchanges between two early career researchers – Sarah Fox and Linda Kirstein – and two authors – Kate Clanchy and Sara Maitland – to produce four short stories, exploring pivotal moments of discovery in the fields of science. These stories re-told, in a semi-fictional manner, the circumstances leading up to these discoveries and, through active input from the researcher, explored the influence they exert over present day scientific enquiry.
The collaborative process enabled both sets of practitioners to gain valuable insight into each other’s work, be that insight into scientific thinking, or possible ways of communicating that thinking. It's also hoped that the resulting stories and their public presentation will give lay audiences new ways of interacting with the science involved, and challenge preconceptions within the community about how science works.
Creative learning partnerships
Collaborating with unlikely groups can broaden horizons and connect with new audiences. Mixing handicrafts with medicine, youth with experience and fiction with scientific breakthrough, for a glorious fusion of genres, ideas and creative pathways.
Engaging new audiences
Building interest with groups outside our own immediate discipline helps inject life and appetite into the subject area as a whole. Reaching new groups and communities can bring renewed energy and enthusiasm, which will in turn create new avenues of development and growth for the future.
Opportunities and Benefits
Working on new projects not only brings rewards in the short term, but can open up a series of networks and pathways that can lead to new levels of possibility and potential.
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Funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust. About our funders
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