Category / Festival of Learning

Food research? Public Engagement Opportunity – Christchurch Food Festival

Are you involved in research around the topic of food?

We are looking for anyone interested in running a food related activity at the Christchurch Food Festival as part of our “Festival of Learning on Tour”. We have a stool booked at the Family Fun day on Sunday 8th May where we’d like to run some food related research activities that families, children, members of the public could get involved with when passing by.

Could this be of interest to you? If so please contact Katie Breadmore (kbreadmore@bournemouth.ac.uk/ 61356)

 

 

Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team: How we’ve been flying the KEIT high this month.

After a cracking start to 2016 in January, the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) within RKEO have been working hard and continuing with the successes this month.

Public Engagement

The Festival of Learning is fast approaching us (25-29 June) and Naomi and Katie have been busy scheduling in the events that will make up the festival.

Business Engagement

Rising to the challenge of “What will Marty McFly may need in 25 years?” as part of interdisciplinary research week held in January, members of KEIT worked closely with the facilitators to deliver a successful sandpit that involved a number of local businesses including Bournemouth Borough Council, We Are Base, LV= and Barclays Digital eagles. With some great ideas evolving in terms of future collaborations amongst academics and business partners this provided a great networking opportunity for those that attended.

As the current HEIF funding round completes its half way milestone of 12 months funding (1/8/15 – 31/7/16), a number of the 13 projects are beginning to generate potential impact case studies alongside further UK and EU funding proposals. HEIF projects continue to feature in the news with Dr Sarah Bate’s research on super recognisers being published in Scientific American being one of the latest. HEIF projects are also gaining presence on BU’s research website with a project on Roman Britain being the first to go live with more planned.

For the March submission date, we have two potential KTPs.  Both SciTech and the Faculty of Media are working towards each submission, respectively.

NEW – Student Project Bank

We have a new recruit this week within KEIT.  Charlene Steele has joined us from SciTech specifically to work on the new Student Project Bank initiative.  If your students work with organisations as part of the modules they take, please do contact Charlene to find out more about this initiative and how we can help.

Student Engagement with Research

The student engagement page is now live on the Research website, it can be found here. It explains all student facing research activities from the Research Spotlight feature to 14: Live the monthly research talk.

Research Communications

New research project pages are now avaliable on the research website and are a great place for academics to add content about their latest research projects e.g. staff lists, project background and latest news.

Team KEIT (RKEO)

If you’re feeling inspired by this blog post and would like to get involved with some of our projects then feel free to get in touch:

Genna West – Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager

Rachel Bowen – Research Communications Manager

Rachel Clarke – Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP)

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Naomi Kay – Public Engagement Officer

Charlene Steele – Project Co-Ordinator (Student Project Bank)

Katie Breadmore – Public Engagement Event’s Organiser

Oliver Cooke – Student Engagement Coordinator

To find out more about us and what we do, take a look at our team page.

Kites

2 weeks left to get your Festival of Learning proposal in!

The deadline for proposals for the Festival of Learning is 31st January. Proposals cannot be submitted beyond this date. We want to be able to showcase the best of what we do here at BU, which means we are looking for proposals from as many colleagues as possible. If you have not submitted a proposal as yet, there is still time – just!

Think of an idea for an event that demonstrates your research – will it be innovating and interesting to members of the public? Watch our video from 2015 for some inspiration.

  1. Decide if you want your event to be a bookable event that people can sign up for or whether you’d like a run a stall or drop in activity instead (i.e. an activity based on passing traffic rather than pre-bookings)
  2. Consider who you want to be your target audience (adults, families, businesses etc.)
  3. Consider whether your event meets the Festivals objectives, what you plan to do during the event, how it will appeal to your intended audience and what your attendees will get out of attending the event.
  4. Complete the Festival of Learning event application before January 31st 2016: see here (We are unable to accept late proposals due to the tight turn around between the call closing and review by the panel.)

If you would like to discuss an idea in more detail, please call/ email Naomi Kay (Public Engagement Officer) 61342/ nkay@bouremouth.ac.uk or click here for more detailed information about submitting a proposal.

– See more at: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2015/12/07/find-out-how-to-submit-your-festival-of-learning-2016-proposal/#sthash.v33ZvKen.dpuf

Puzzles and ambassadors

Festival of Learning 2016

The festival of learning is in its fourth year and the dates for 2016 have been set as Saturday 25 – Wednesday 29 June for a shorter and more compact 5 day festival. Do make a note of these dates in your diary and let your friends and family know as there will be a huge variety of events they will be able to attend, all for free!

What kind of events could I put on?

We’re open to ideas and willing to support a wide variety of events, you could run anything from a professional development workshop to an art exhibition or you could just have a stool with some hands on activities for passers-by.

Some examples:

  • Gaming, computing and coding
  • Everyday professional skills
  • Health and fitness
  • Topics involving real-world issues
  • Media workshops

I’m keen to run an event! What do I do now?

You have until 31st January to submit your application to be considered as part of the festival of learning. Please click here to find the proposal form and instructions on how to submit. If you would like support in developing an event idea or for any further information then please get in touch with Naomi Kay (nkay@bournemouth.ac.uk), Public Engagement Officer.

Find out how to submit your Festival of Learning 2016 Proposal

The Festival of Learning enters its fourth year in 2016 and will be running from Saturday 25 – Wednesday 29 June. It’s a fantastic public engagement opportunity for BU to showcase the great research coming out of the university. The call for proposals is now open and the process for submitting an application is simple:

  1. Think of an idea for an event that demonstrates your research – will it be innovating and interesting to members of the public? Watch our video from 2015 for some inspiration.
  2. Decide if you want your event to be a bookable event that people can sign up for or whether you’d like a run a stall or drop in activity instead (i.e. an activity based on passing traffic rather than pre-bookings)
  3. Consider who you want to be your target audience (adults, families, businesses etc.)
  4. Consider whether your event meets the Festivals objectives, what you plan to do during the event, how it will appeal to your intended audience and what your attendees will get out of attending the event.
  5. Complete the Festival of Learning event application before January 31st 2016: see here (We are unable to accept late proposals due to the tight turn around between the call closing and review by the panel.)

If you would like to discuss an idea in more detail, please call/ email Naomi Kay (Public Engagement Officer) 61342/ nkay@bouremouth.ac.uk or click here for more detailed information about submitting a proposal.

Arjan Gosal one of our RKEO Research Reflections event presentation joint winners!

At our recent RKEO Research Reflections event at the Festival of Learning it was really interesting to hear about the amazing variety of research taking place at BU and to have them presented with such enthusiasm and different styles.

A big congratualtions to Arjan Gosal who was one of the joint winning presenters – please see below for a taste of his presentation – ‘Losing sight of the trees for the honey’.Arjan Gosal photo (2)

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment highlighted the importance of quantifying ecosystem services as being pivotal to the allocation of environmental resources though robust policy creation and implementation. Whilst biophysical and economic values are often used in conservation planning by decision makers, community ecosystem values are rarely quantified or defined clearly. Recreation, aesthetics and cultural ecosystem services are primary to this work.

 

Arjan Gosal Slide (2)A multifaceted approach using various techniques, including participatory GIS, spatial mapping, GPS tracking of visitors and use of existing data sets are explored in relation to the New Forest. Situated on the South Coast of England, it is a prime example of a historic natural landscape, from being a medieval hunting ground to a commoning system that survives to the current day. England’s most recently designated national park has over 34,000 residents and many more visitors each year. With a clear need to understand the dynamics of how people value the various habitats and areas of this national park; this work aims to provide a strong methodology for inclusion of peoples shifting views on habitats and changing landscapes.

Although a substantial amount of research has examined the connections between biodiversity, ecosystem processes and ecosystem services, much of this has been conducted at relatively Arjan Gosal Presenting at Research Reflections (2)small scales, and with a limited number of species. There is therefore a need to understand how these relationships translate to a landscape scale, at which environmental management decisions need to be undertaken. Thus it is important we don’t lose sight of the wider landscape when assessing cultural services, not just looking at the honeypot sights, so that we do not lose sight of the trees.

Please contact Arjan if you would like to receive further information relating to his research.