Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery and Research Governance Teams
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
    • Research Excellence Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • Post-REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

January 16, 2018

Talking about public engagement at BU

BU research, Business Engagement, Coffee Morning, Global engagement, Public engagement, Student Engagement, Uncategorized Francesco Ferraro

Few weeks after Café Scientific (details here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=64189), I received an email from Devon Biddle and Sacha Gardener regarding the opportunity to be interviewed on the importance of public engagement activities and how my projects had benefited from them, not only during the recruiting process but also in expanding my research horizon and raising awareness on what I am doing (details here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=53295 )

Therefore, in just a couple of days, thanks to the staff of the Orthopedic Research Institute who provided the location, we started shooting, and here is part of the interview:

I would like to thank Davon, Sacha and all the BU staff for this interview,  it was great, and I really hope that helps to have more people involved in public engagement activities.

 

Following the full script of the interview.

 

  • Could you tell us a little bit of your self

My name is Francesco Ferraro, and I am a PhD Student here at Bournemouth University. Currently, I am working on a project which aims to understand the effects of inspiratory muscles training on balance and functional mobility for healthy older adults. The goal is to develop an innovative and effective training for falls prevention.

Before arriving here at BU, I obtained a Bachelor Degree in sports science from University of Rome Foro Italico while in the meantime I was working as a football coach and after I moved to Naples for complete my Master Degree in sports science prevention and wellness. There I worked on motion analysis in young adults, while in the meantime I was a trainer of the Italian Federation of Weightlifting.

  • Could you tell us your favourite public engagement opportunity at BU?

It is hard to tell, I have enjoyed all the events in which I took part including Pint of Science, Café Scientific, The Festival of Learning, lecturing at University of Third Age and others.I gained something from each of them, and I gave something at each of them. But if I have to pick one, and only one I would say the Festival of Learning. Among all the events FOL is the one who gives you the opportunity to meet all kind of people.

You have the opportunity to explain your research to a very young audience, as well as people with excellent knowledge in your field, while surrounded by members of the BU Staff, BU students and colleagues that are there to help you and motived you.

  • Why do you find public engagement a good asset to both your research and the community?

My study aims to understand the effect of inspiratory muscle training on balance and functional mobility. My final purpose is to develop a strategy to prevent falls accidents in people over 65.

Therefore it is a research for the community as any other research, especially in health and social science, is done for the people. Hence what would be the point to work for the community and do not explain to them what you are doing? As researchers we have the opportunity to share with others much more than a picture on Twitter, or Instagram, we have the opportunity to share knowledge, ideas and instead of likes, we will have more questions, more curiosity and the chance to give to the audience our ideas.

  • At Café Scientifique, the public was really engaging in the fact your research was trying to better the wellbeing of the older generation. Why do you think people are so engaged in your research?

At Café Scientifique I was able to give to them my idea. Instead of explaining right away what my research does I told them the idea behind it and why is important to research on it. The reason why we had a great respond must be sought in my past years of work in the public engagement.

Any research is fascinating in is way, but is crucial to share it with others, not only peers and experts but also with the people for which the research is done.

  • You use your public engagement to advertise the need for participants in your current research, is this an effective way of getting the participants you need?

Yes, it is. But it is not the reason why I do public engagement. I have been introduced to public engagement by my supervisors: Alison McConnell, James Gavin and Thomas Wainwright with the aim to share what learned and discuss it with others.

  • If you were to advice new researchers about public engagement, what would you say to them? 

Do it if you want to do it.

Public engagement is not easy especially if you do it because you “have to”. Do it if you want to share your research if you want to challenge yourself, if you want to meet the community then you will make a great event. You must have the right motivation if you do it just to “hunting” participants it won’t be neither correct or fun, and people will understand, with the result that you and your research will lose trust.

  • What do you gain most from public engagement?

Motivation – to work more for the community, to help people to learn and understand what we are doing here at the BU and how it helps their wellbeing.

Confidence – have the opportunity to talk to 50, 100 or even 200 people at each event, has grown my confidence inside and outside the University.

Knowledge – I do believe that everyone has a story to tell and you can learn a lot from it. I am always surprised at the questions that I receive.

People curiosity drives my curiosity as well and helps me to think and re-think at my research.

  • What are you going to do next?

I do have a couple of projects going on, but I will take part in the next Festival of Learning (third year in a row), and I will see what other opportunities the public engagement team will give to us.

 

Thank you for reading.
Francesco.

 

Tags: BU research Cafe cafe sci cafe scientifique facebook Ferraro ferrarotrainer Festival of Learning fferraro Health IMT istagram ORI oribu Pint of Science public engagement research RMT social sciences Twitter YouTube

Related Posts

  • Developing a public engagement event – WorkshopOctober 24, 2016
  • Public engagement training for NERC funded researchersFebruary 11, 2013
  • Public engagement @ BU – What it is? Why it matters? And why you should get involved with public engagement!August 28, 2013
  • Public Engagement, Bournemouth University & FusionSeptember 16, 2014

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Research Digest

Subscriptions to the BU Research Digest email are currently unavailable.

We hope to have them back online soon. In the meantime, you can sign up or unsubscribe by emailing research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • Association between Traumatic Injuries and Heart Rate Variability- Systematic Review Published in PloS One by an MSPH PhD StudentMarch 21, 2023
  • BU Research Funding Panels 23 – Call for Chair & Deputy Chairs, Reopening CallMarch 21, 2023
  • Traveling with pets: designing hospitality services for pet owners/parents and hotel guests,March 21, 2023
  • Online public lecture from BU academics this Thursday evening: Pioneering women at the BBCMarch 20, 2023
  • Conversation article: Bones like Aero chocolate – the evolution adaptation that helped dinosaurs to flyMarch 20, 2023
  • BU CEDARS SURVEY 2023March 20, 2023
  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Round 8 – Internal Process LaunchedFebruary 23, 2023
  • Save the Date – 26 April 2023 – UKRO Annual Meeting with BU AcademicsFebruary 16, 2023
  • BA/Leverhulme Small Grants 7th June 2023February 13, 2023
  • COST Information and Networking EventFebruary 13, 2023
  • Funding Development Briefing 08/02/23 Spotlight on: BA/Leverhulme Small Research GrantsFebruary 6, 2023
  • Research Professional – all you need to know.February 1, 2023
  • European research project to promote local food purchasing and reduce food wasteMarch 9, 2023
  • HE Policy update for the w/e 27th February 2023February 27, 2023
  • Save the Date – 26 April 2023 – UKRO Annual Meeting with BU AcademicsFebruary 16, 2023
  • COST Information and Networking EventFebruary 13, 2023
  • Horizon Europe Update – January 2023January 16, 2023
  • Horizon Europe ResourcesJanuary 5, 2023

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Dr. Pramod Regmi Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HE-BCI
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • research methods
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2023. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use