BU Research Blog

When you think busking, you often think of talented (and not so talented) musicians in our public spaces. Sometimes people stop to enjoy the sounds and the spectacle, others may pass on by but find themselves thinking about what that busker was performing for the rest of the day. For many of us, busking engages us with a genre which we would never normally encounter. Personally, even the type of music I would never normally seek out, if it fills a crowded tube station it inevitably puts a spring in my step for the rest of the day.

So how does this relate to public engagement? For many members of the public, it simply wouldn’t occur to them to book on to come to an event on a University campus, giving up some precious free-time. So how do you engage these people with just how brilliant research is? Well, up and down the country, you see researchers who are also buskers. For example, how about this:

• Ingenious buskers
• Street science
• At Green Man Festival, Maths Busking and Ingenious Busking asked, do engineers smell of sewage? Can maths be done with handcuffs?
• The London Science Buskers

Public engagement busking may traditionally be associated with STEM subjects, but the possibilities are endless for all subject areas. How about:

• Teaming up with a performance poet to create an unusual take on the value of your research
• Working with an artist to create an installation which allows people to stop and think about the importance of your research
• Creating giant puzzles in the local area challenging people of all areas to think about problem solving
• Going all out and creating a flashmob?

The advantage of street busking is that it take you directly to members of the public (no worrying about who might turn up) and brings research into a public forum (where sadly, it is all too often absent). Don’t forget, the open call for proposals closes on 6th December! If you wish to put forward an idea, please contact Emily Loring as soon as possible!