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.
Thoughts on creative learning partnerships...
-
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 -
Gerold Baier
The University of Manchester -
James Smith
The University of Manchester -
Joanne Fitton
Bury Archive Service -
Kate Clanchy
Fiction writer -
Dr Kevin Kane
University of Salford -
Dr Kim Linton
The University of Manchester -
Kooj Chuhan
Virtual Migrants -
Linda Kirstein
University of Edinburgh -
Professor Nancy Rothwell
The University of Manchester -
Nicola Stone
Christie NHS Foundation Trust -
Pharmacy Students (B Team)
The University of Manchester -
Qi Liu
University of Salford -
Ra Page
Comma Press -
Sam Ingleson
University of Salford -
Sarah Evans
Institute of Cultural Affairs -
Sarah Fox
The University of Manchester -
Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer -
Dr Sheena Cruickshank
The University of Manchester -
Sheila Whipp
Community Participant -
Tony Lloyd
MP
Choose a participant on the left to hear their individual thoughts on the subject in relation to their Beacon Project
Anthony Kollie
Step Up
Say, if a project is actually a community development project that has been developed by three partnership organisations: Way In, African Caribbean Mental Health Services and a Pakistani resource. The key role is to implement the delivery of Racial Equality Agenda from the Department of Health to ensure that people from the BME access mental health services and have appropriate services provided to them. The community engagement approach tries to empower them and through that I came in touch with the Beacon Project. Say if a programme which was done in partnership with the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations or Padron or a training programme and in this programme we’ll learn about different techniques or becoming influential and developing a leadership role and gaining a positive light of yourself and maybe stepping up and that’s why it’s called Step Up; it gives you an opportunity to realise your potential.
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.
It’s gone fantastic and I feel this is the key if we really want to engage people in science, it’s about involving them from the beginning. If you ask them about what they want and if you involve them when you are delivering the activity. I think it’s fundamental to have links with the communities and in this case it was through Arty from the Inspired Sisters. We couldn’t have done this activity without the support of the community group. I think that is the key for the success of today.
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.
Other participants:
Dr Sheena CruickshankInstitute of Cultural Affairs
Emily Crompton
Institute of Cultural Affairs
I think a benefit of working together with the University for the Institute of Cultural Affairs is that it shows young people who might not have before had the opportunity to see there are courses, academic courses, for them and see these positions as something they can actually get involved with and do and having a collaboration from young people sort of running the event and deciding on the event helps the scientists see that they have to kind of enable the young people to understand their ideas and to have to pitch it at a certain level so it makes them sort of see what kind of abilities they have to do.
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
The work that we’re doing is supported very much so by partnerships and partnerships with different organisations. As you’ve seen here today we’ve got Greater Manchester Police, Salford University, Peace FM and ourselves. Even the building that we’re in today, Stretford High School, they’re a partner in this as well. It’s very important because what we’re trying to do is get across to young people and older people that, you know, guns are not good and there is something positive that we can take from the negative side and negative connotations that are around gun crime and all we’re trying to do is actually educate people to that but we’re not able to do that by ourselves. A lot of our young people are the victims in gun and gang crime and again they can’t solve the issues by themselves, they can’t stop gun crime by themselves, the police are not able to do that by themselves, universities are not able to do that by themselves because today I’ve spoken to different ages, both young people and old people and I’ve spoken to different ethnicities and I’ve spoken to older people from different walks of life, even, I’ve spoken to people who are not even from the immediate central, you know, south central Manchester so and that is because of the partnership working. We’ve all got our own networks and we spread that wider peace agenda and peace message to our networks and that’s what then brings all those people together. So yes, it’s been very valuable having different partners working together.
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
The challenges in this partnership they were not big challenges because all of them they were minimised by our fantastic project manager. There was an overwhelming spirit of contribution, an overwhelming spirit of hard work and I think all the pieces came together, they were joined together naturally.
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.
Other participants:
Kooj ChuhanVirtual Migrants
Gerold Baier
The University of Manchester
Mostly because, especially young people when they hear such things and have never been exposed to it, they bring in very fresh ideas, fresh ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of myself in the academic environment, so I think it’s very beneficial to have this communication with people who are not prejudiced from within academia but to have input. So it’s basically to bring forward the idea. Somebody confronted me with the idea whether one could hear molecules when they move around and when they collide and make chemical reactions. So I have never thought about this, I think it’s actually [a] good idea to imagine this. I have no answer to this but I was never at this level to just imagine what molecules’ noise would sound like and I think it must be interesting.
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.
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.
James Smith
The University of Manchester
But we have been very lucky in this process, we’ve have a very experienced mentor so any of the good ideas have come from her- she got us the piece in the Manchester Evening News and on the website, she had her handle on it throughout the whole experience basically and she came up with some very good ideas of how we could keep track of numbers very accurately, of people, because we were so busy we couldn’t hand out feedback forms. We had an experiment where people were actually drawing on steel plates. What it is, the parents are then standing around and waiting for the kids to draw these things, that’s when you pounce with the feedback forms, something that I picked up from the little event we attended in Birmingham. It wasn’t actually specifically taught but just speaking to other people who work at Universities and Discovery Centres around the country, they said leave the feedback forms somewhere where the kids play and while the parents are waiting they will then fill them in out of sheer boredom.
Related project
Corrosion Summer Ball - ECR Award
Corrosion is recognized as one of the most serious problems in our modern societies and the resulting losses each year are in the hundreds of billions of pounds. However, corrosion science is only taught at a master’s level, and the principles of corrosion are too complex to explain to people without a strong scientific background.
This project inspired the general public with an introduction to corrosion by offering them the chance to build, play and experiment with this exciting and complex discipline. We also aimed to provide an exciting and memorable learning experience. Furthermore it showcased the research of local young scientists, who also act as role models, hopefully encouraging young people to consider a career in science and to find out that corrosion is both interesting and relevant to their daily lives, motivating them to want to find out more.
In providing the researchers with a platform at MOSI makes universities more accessible to the general public, who cannot visit the university easily but who come to the museum and would not usually be exposed to scientists and university research.
Joanne Fitton
Bury Archive Service
I became involved in this project because Gill Morton, the researcher from Manchester University, had been doing research in the archives in Bury. She’d been looking at the evacuee experience and it was really starting to come to light that there was more of a personal story to tell than what the papers alone could tell, so Gill had come to me and asked if I’d help her with her early research. The experience of working with a University has been really positive in that it’s a connection that we as an archive service have never really had before, especially being an out of city centre archive service as well we don’t normally get the chance to be involved in things so it’s really showing to our stakeholders, as a council, that the archive is important, that there’s a story to be told through it, that we can’t get told in other ways.
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:
Sheila WhippCommunity Participant
Kate Clanchy
Fiction Writer
Slightly late in the day, I think, I got a commission from Eureka Press and they wanted to do this particular thing of placing a eureka moment in science within a story and we got in touch with Sarah and Sarah’s been incredible with the amount of information that she’s sent me and very subtle and quick actually when I sent her drafts and things, she sent me back a couple of articles which just kind of answered exactly what I was looking for or what I needed to know as well because actually this brain science business is very complicated. We’d been back and forth with drafts and she’s been really helpful. I think we’ve come out with something quite good in the end, yeah. I think I could’ve written a soppier story and probably people wouldn’t have noticed but it’s more kind of inspiring to be actually confronted with the actual facts. And this story, the images that are the centre of the story are drawn from thinking about the science because it’s about this area of the brain that we only know about by its absence really and trying to find out what’s not there and that’s the centre of the story so I think I needed to actually understand what was not there.
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.
Dr Kevin Kane
University of Salford
We’ve developed a pack, it’s gone out to about 300,000 businesses and it’s actively used in the UK and abroad and these kinds of events help us refine that and develop means of communicating complexity in a simple way. We often use the metaphor of the watch- you read the time; you don’t have to understand the mechanisms underneath but if you do it gives you a better insight.
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.
Dr Kim Linton
The University of Manchester
The other partner in this is the The University of Manchester. This represents the combination of several trusts across Manchester who have several aims and objectives but one of the common threads is to engage more actively with the public on all sorts of different levels. So, engaging with the public on clinical research is something that they are very interested in. They are very interested in doing it as a concept, they’re very interested in doing it well and this is something that we can develop and learn from the experiences to make it even better so this is something that the The University of Manchester will take forward. That could only have been possible being a partnership from the start so I think the partnership has been very powerful in that sense. Having the ideas from Beacon, having the input from Manchester Academic Sciences Centre, I don’t think any of them have come up with ideas we found difficult to deal with, I think we’ve taken them on board and we’ve adapted a seminar and a session that I think reflects all of those ideas. I haven’t found it a difficult working relationship being in a partnership. I think as a clinician and a researcher I’m used to working in collaborative partnerships. I think it’s how we achieve the best outcomes.
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.
Other participants:
Nicola StoneChristie NHS Foundation Trust
Kooj Chuhan
Virtual Migrants
My name is Kooj Chuhan. I’m a project manager and artist and cultural worker and I work for Virtual Migrants. Virtual Migrants is a small group of artists and cultural workers, together with an association of networks, individuals in other and related spheres and we work to produce cultural productions around issues to do with globalisation, migration, and we work using digital media. We collaborate with other media forms and cultural forms as well as digital media. I heard about the scheme that the Manchester Beacon were doing and I felt it had a strong relationship to the issues we were already looking at to do with climate change and through that project we were able to look at the science aspects of climate change and migration but in a much more interesting way than what we’d previously been doing which was more social theory and kind of social based perspectives and political perspectives so that was the way we got involved with the Manchester Beacon.
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.
Other participants:
Ernesto HernandezThe University of Manchester
Linda Kirstein
University of Edinburgh
Well I have to say when this unsolicited email arrived I was slightly sceptical but outreach is important and explaining to people what we do is important. Sarah agreed to come to Edinburgh to chat through the sort of things she would be interested in and I would give her background on plate tectonics and then she left my office with a textbook in tow and that was back in April and then suddenly a manuscript appeared as an attachment on an email. I went through it and was really quite pleasantly surprised by the content. I know that sounds terrible but I was. The science wasn’t perfect but the way she’d integrated logical metaphor into her fiction was really quite inventive. It’s something I’ve never come across before.
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.
Professor Nancy Rothwell
The University of Manchester
I can give one example which is actually very close to my heart because our research is on stroke and quite a number of people who work with me go out and talk about stroke and what it means to patients who suffer a stroke and, as a result, get some very interesting ideas for the research programmes, get people who are sufferers or their carers involved in describing and designing projects and actually have them specifically involved as lay members of ethics committees and so on, so that’s direct benefit to the research.
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.
Nicola Stone
Christie NHS Foundation Trust
I think the value of bringing these different partners together is that there are different sets of skills and expertise within those different areas. But I think this project has probably been one of the best partnerships I have seen. It hasn’t been forced at all; it hasn’t been high-pressured. I mean obviously the deadlines have been quite tight but I think the support’s been there as well and having the regular meetings, you don’t feel like you’re on your own, that you’re guided through the process, you know exactly what needs to be done by what point and it’s not, ‘Well, you come to a first meeting, you do what you need to do and you don’t see anybody or hear anybody until the end,’ it’s done in a very relaxed way so I’m very impressed actually. I think it’s really important to get different people’s views on things and to have feedback from other people who don’t always do what you do so can input, I think, very usefully because obviously this is for the general public as well and having that kind of feedback is very important and having that support as well.
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.
Other participants:
Dr Kim LintonThe University of Manchester
Pharmacy Students (B team)
The University of Manchester
‘Because children learn by doing.’ ‘We’re still at quite an early stage of our process at the moment but what I’ve learnt in particular, and I’m sure you guys have as well, is that there are so many ways that children learn, so many ways that individuals can participate in things so we’ve tried to produce a range of activities that will cater for different learning methods and different learning styles for different children so that’s what we’ve kind of learnt so far.’ ‘Yeah, and also just to appeal to different children, just different things for different people, different interactive stations.’
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.
Qi Liu
University of Salford
How the energy is saved and how to make a home greener. I think this will benefit everybody. For the public they want to know what is going on, what is the actual research from the University. And for us, the researchers, we like teaching the public and selling our points that we are trying to make.
Related project
How Green Are You?
This project presented current research exploring how to use modern communications technology to monitor the use of electricity and gas in homes and then presenting the information back in such a way as to persuade people to reduce consumption and hence, reduce their carbon footprint.
Qi Liu, with support from Professor Nigel Linge, developed an exhibit to get public feedback on the design of the system he had produced - the Digital Environment Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS). The exhibit included eye-catching graphics and posters that explained why the research was important and how the system worked. The actual technology was showcased with live feedback to demonstrate complex data in a very simple and visual manner. The public reaction to these will now inform Qi Liu’s future research work.
Two videos were also produced – one of Qi Liu demonstrating his exhibit and another of the event at MOSI. Both will be uploaded to the University of Salford’s YouTube channel.
Ra Page
Comma Press
The process of working in partnerships is always tricky initially, there's always a certain amount of hesitation when it comes to dealing with scientists from outside, and also pairing writers up with scientists. Writers traditionally work very much in isolation, they do lots of research, they're not scared of research but they're not used to being sort of told how things are, or working collaboratively in any way. So it's always been a great learning opportunity for both sides, and a lot of the writers involved, most of them said, they almost said no initially. They ultimately found it a great opportunity to broaden their palette, and likewise the scientists. They're used to talking to other scientists, they're used to talking to other academics, but they're not used to talking to, not just a member of the general public, someone with their own ideas in terms of how to shape and tell a story, because scientists are always telling stories themselves, so it's kind of a conflict of storytelling.
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.
Sam Ingleson
University of Salford
It feels great, yes. It’s taken a while to get the event up and running- obviously putting in for the science award, I’ve had a lot to do in terms of bringing the different partners together and yes I think sometimes within that space of an event, it’s good to have all the partners here because you do automatically think of new things while it’s happening. So we’re working out a new artist residency to support peace week next year and we’ve been talking about other stuff as well but I think the event has been quite well attended and it’s good.
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.
Sarah Evans
Institute of Cultural Affairs
This project has really allowed science to be accessible for all, be it young people, any ages, any gender, any ability and I think that’s what is highly important to us in this project, that an event goes through which is really exciting and energised by our young people and the young people in the general public.
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.
Sarah Fox
The University of Manchester
I first became involved in the project when I went to one event which was held in Manchester by the Vitae and it was a public engagement where basically they encouraged researchers of all different levels to come and see what was out there, see what public engagement opportunities there were and it was kind of serendipity, you know, by chance because I didn’t think I’d become involved in anything, I just came because I was interested in finding out more about public engagement and what I could do and well, ‘This sounds a lot like something I’d be interested in getting into,’ - I enjoy writing, I enjoy the concept of getting work out to the public.
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.
Sara Maitland
Fiction Writer
When people who aren’t science fiction writers get access to scientists in that way then really quite interesting imaginative, or metaphorical if we want to say it, things might happen so I’m just really happy to be part of that project. I wrote a story for When it Changed, the first book and worked with a bryologist, which is a moss expert, and I had so much fun that I wanted to do more. It’s just fun, it’s a really interesting, smart way of working.
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.
Dr Sheena Cruickshank
The University of Manchester
I’ve been doing public engagement work for a little while but really with schools and I thought, ‘This sounds really exciting,’ so myself, Jo and my colleague Catherine started talking about it and when Antonio advertised the dissemination event we went along to that and said, ‘Well you know we do lots of work about worms and we think this is really important and exciting and we’d love to make some visual things about worms,’ and Arty was there and she’s involved in projects about global poverty, so it was kind of natural grouping together and we both, we all, liked the idea of using some kind of massive demonstration. I’ve been to some where there had been big chalk walkways and we all got very excited about it so it just evolved very naturally from a shared interest in the public and worms and global poverty.
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.
Other participants:
Antonio BenitezMuseum of Science & Industry
Sheila Whipp
Community Participant
At first of all I saw information about it in the BBC History magazine and it said that Gill was speaking at the museum in Bury and there was this exhibition. I couldn’t have gone the day she was speaking but I then, in a few days, when I could, went to the exhibition. And I thought it was a bit, I’m sorry to say this, but I thought it was slightly mediocre because I thought, ‘Oh, there must be a lot more material than this’ and I saw a photograph of Mr Fletcher and I thought, ‘Ooh I think that’s my grandfather with him’ and so on. So I sent her this email saying I’d been to the exhibition and I felt sure there must be a lot more and who I was, and it’d be interesting to chat, I might have something to say, I don’t know, or artefacts anyway. And I said I had a book that Mr Fletcher had given me and he’d written in it and she was excited about that, she rang me back immediately. She said it was the thing about the book that made her so very interested so then we subsequently met up. I told her my aunt was staying with me who was 88 and she was evacuated to Bury so I said she’d be very interesting because her perspective would be totally different because she was a teenager. I suggested that she join us and then I asked my brother because he’d also been evacuated, much younger, he was only 2 or 3, and he was with my mother. So she came for lunch and it’s gone from there. It’s grown because she’s met more people and she knows what to ask for doesn’t she now? So I phoned my aunt and she said, this is her sister now in Guernsey, ‘Edith has filled in a questionnaire and sent it’, there must have been something in the Guernsey paper, and I said ‘Did you ever get a gift from Mr Fletcher?’ and she said ‘Oh, I have a book somewhere’, I said, ‘Bring it with you, has he written something in it?’ Yes. She said, ‘I’ll tell you what I have got,’ she said ‘I’ve got some Red Cross messages’- fancy keeping them all these years. ‘So bring them with you and anything else you can find, any photographs or anything’ And so she turned up, very excited with all this stuff. Well, we had a wonderful lunchtime, you can imagine can’t you, we just chatted away and poor Gillian must have gone off with her head reeling I suppose.
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
Tony Lloyd
MP
I think in all walks of education, in actual fact, partnership is a fundamental thing. Of course, you can teach in a very abstract way and that’s how generations were taught but we know it’s more effective when people can relate their daily experience to these sorts of things that are challenging them educationally because it makes it relevant and worthwhile. So what’s been going on today where different groups, from within the community, those who have campaigned on issues like controlling guns, obviously groups like the police, but in particular the involvement of Salford University, gives a very odd mix in a way which is a very powerful mix because it brings in different experiences and different levels of credibility that affect not just young people but people of all ages, they can hang on to and make sense of.
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.
Challenging perceptions
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.
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.
our learning created by Reason Digital and Dovetail
Funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust. About our funders
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