On 6th December at 4pm, we are planning to celebrate public engagement at Bournemouth University with a short talk from Prof Alice Roberts and some fantastic examples of public engagement at Bournemouth University. Please do put the date in your diary now!

Alice is University of Birmingham’s  Professor of Public Engagement in Science and is well known to many from appearances on TV programmes such as Prehistoric Autopsy, The Incredible Human Journey, Coast and Time Team. Alice is a passionate advocate of the importance of public engagement, as you can see in this video.

Very excitingly, she has agreed to address an audience at Bournemouth University on the importance of public engagement! So, to further inspire colleagues about public engagement, we are looking for volunteers from our academic community to talk about why public engagement matters and to give some practical demonstrations of what they do.

Do you regularly go and talk to schools? Perhaps you have an interactive exhibit? Can you explain your research in 3 minutes, FameLab style? Do you have a film of your work? Could you explain why public engagement is a crucial element part of your work? If you can spare a small amount of time to contribute to this event, we want to hear from you!

Please contact Becca Edwards on redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk or 01202 961206 if you are interested in sharing your work at this very special celebration of public engagement.

Café Scientifique, Tuesday 6^th November at 7.00pm, The Fastest Men On No Legs: Oscar Pistorius, prosthetic limbs & the role of technology in elite sport – Bryce Dyer. Café Boscanova, Bournemouth. For more information, click here

ESRC Festival of Social Science:  Bournemouth University is hosting an unprecedented four events!

Monday 5^th November, London 2012: Was it Worth It? Interactive event for young people to review the impact of the Olympic and Paralympic Games both locally and nationally.

Wednesday 7^th November, Pathways to Impact: ageing, diversity, connectivity and community ESRC Festival of Social Science launch of the National Lottery funded Methods to Diversity and a chance to see the award–winning short film, Rufus Stone

Thursday 8^th November: What Constitutes Evidence for Copyright Policy? This interactive event offers the opportunity for discussion on evidence for copyright policy between social scientists, policy–makers and producers and users of copyright works.

Friday 9^th November: Going For Gold: Leveraging Post Olympic Tourism Legacies. In the post-Olympic Games period, this workshop will explore the extent to which the 2012 Games remains able to deliver global networks to support tourism promotion overseas, to engage industry and government in supporting the growth of the visitor economy, and to maximise the impact of public investment in tourism.

Dates for the diary

25^th January, 2013 – Multiculturalism and After: Has multiculturalism provided a durable ideal upon which a cohesive and tolerant society can be built? Or has it failed? This half-day conference will provide an opportunity to reflect upon the future of cultural difference in Britain – how do we experience it, what policy agendas does it call for, how can it be a source of creativity and dynamism within a positive national identity? Speakers include:

–        Prof. Ted Cantle CBE, founder of the Institute of Community Cohesion, will talk about ‘Interculturalism’, his new book which proposes a new paradigm for social integration.

–        David Aaronovitch, The Times columnist and author.

–        Jamie Bartlett, Head of the Violence and Extremism Programme at DEMOS.

Please contact Prof Barry Richards for further details.

Public engagement activities further afield

If you are out of town, it is festival season! Check out the fantastic activities at Manchester Science Festival or Cambridge Festival of Ideas.

Public engagement opportunities

–        Registrations for this year’s FameLab are still open! This is a really exciting competition to discover the new leading voice of science and engineering across the world and is designed to inspire young scientists and engineers to engage with the public.

–        The National Co-ordinating Centre has opened a call for public engagement associates to help deliver and support their work. The NCCPE is looking for individuals that can support various areas of their work with a passion for public engagement.

–        Workshop at Cambridge University on Communicating Research which is part of the AHRC Social Media Knowledge Exchange Project.

–        NERC funded? If yes, NERC are offering public engagement training including media training and support on how to design public engagement activities.

Impact updates

–        The ever useful LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, is publishing a series of advice notes on how to prepare impact case studies for REF. So far advice notes one and two are proving to be very popular!

–        New report from the National Institute of Health Research: Impact of Patient, Carer and Public Involvement in Cancer Research

–        HEFCE are looking for research users (deadline 5^th December) to be used on the expert panel to assess the impact elements of REF. To help this, a handy guide for research users has been released, which is an excellent introduction to REF including impact elements.

The NCCPE has announced that booking has now opened for the third 3^rd National Conference: Engage 2012. This two day conference will explore how public engagement enables universities to face the challenges posed by the need to more rigorously demonstrate the impact of research; increasing demands for a ‘relevant’ curriculum that prepares students for life beyond university; and the need to mobilise knowledge in addressing challenges faced by society.

The conference will take place in Bristol on 5^th & 6^th December 2012, with keynote presenters including Carole Souter (CBE), Chief Executive of the Heritage Lottery Fund and David Sweeney, Director (Research, Innovation and Skills), HEFCE; themed workshops; and a host of other interactive sessions, delegates will be able to explore different aspects of the engagement agenda including research; teaching and learning; knowledge exchange; and social responsibility.

This year the NCCPE is delighted to announce the inclusion of three specialist workshops – providing an opportunity for delegates to meet others committed to the engagement agenda, and work together to share learning and experiences. These workshops are themed on: Creative Partnerships; Public Engagement with Health Research; and Museum and University partnerships.

The event is aimed at anyone passionate about the role of public engagement in higher education and interested in helping universities better engage with society. Early bird booking rates currently apply – and you can book your place here: www.survey.bris.ac.uk/nccpe/engage2012

More information about the conference and specialist workshops can be found here: www.publicengagement.ac.uk/engage-2012

Booking is open for the next ambassador event taking place on Wednesday 7^th November. The event will run from 10.30am-4pm. Delegates will be able to find out more about public engagement at King’s College London; take a tour of the Museum of Life Sciences; and discuss relevant topics, informed by suggestions on the booking form. If you are a member of the scheme, please book here www.survey.bris.ac.uk/nccpe/peanov12. Find out more about the scheme here.

 BU’s Dr Genoveva F. Esteban and Dr Demetra Andreou will be taking part in the Society’s of Biology’s Biology Week, with help from Mrs Judith Wardlaw ( Industry Partnership Development Manager at The Thomas Hardye School). The event will discover the hidden world of water – capturing images of microscopic wildlife living in fresh waters, including those microscopic organisms that live inside others. Year 10 biology students and the Student Voice council will use the images to inspire a design for a banner depicting the “Wonders of Biology at Thomas Hardye School”.  The banners will be used at a diverse range of public events, including the popular Dorchester Community Lectures organised by the Thomas Hardye School.

For more details about Biology week, please click here.

For further details about the event, please contact Genoveva directly.

Missed last Friday’s Seen But Seldom Heard performance? Well, you missed out! But don’t worry, you can learn a bit more a bit more about the project and the incredibly inspirational kids that are involved through a documentary preview, which can be found here.

Please do share it with your colleagues, friends and family!

If you have any queries with regards to the Seen But Seldom Heard project, please contact Dr Carrie Hodges

Event: What Constitutes Evidence for Copyright Policy?

This event is co-sponsored by CREATe, the AHRC/EPSRC/ESRC Centre for copyright and new business models, University of Glasgow

November 8^th 2012

7th floor of Bournemouth University’s Executive Business Centre

 89 Holdenhurst Road, BH8 8EB, close to the main line railway station. 

This interactive event offers the opportunity for discussion on evidence for copyright policy between social scientists, policy-makers and producers and users of copyright works. Copyright law is a topical and contentious area that affects a wide range of stakeholders with differing views on copyright policy. The need for evidence-based policy on copyright policy was emphasised in the Hargreaves Review and has led to several calls for evidence from stakeholders. The responses they provide to the Intellectual Property Office are varied in nature and quality; the IPO has responded by issuing guidelines on what constitutes acceptable evidence (which itself is contested).

“Besides being a matter of pressing public concern, copyright also attracts the interest of a broad range of social science disciplines each with its own rules of evidence. The emphasis on economic growth as the objective of copyright policy has shifted the need for evidence in the direction of economics but economic evidence is not always easily available. Nor it is the case that only quantitative evidence is regarded as valid.”

The event, which is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, will take the form of panel and round table discussions between policy-makers from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), stakeholders from the creative industries and academics from economics, sociology, law and cultural studies with expertise in copyright. The focus is on what evidence from these fields of study is relevant and useful to policy-makers and those seeking to put their case to them. The event is open to members of the public.

The event is free and all interested parties are welcome. However, there are a limited number of places, therefore if you would like to reserve a place, please contact Dr Rebecca Edwards on (redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk)/ 01202 961206. Please also contact Rebecca for any other queries that you may have relating to the event.

Programme:

10.30 Registration and coffee

11.00 Welcome: Sally Weston (BU Head of Law)

11.10 Guide to digital interaction: Dr. Dinusha Mendis (BU)

11.15 Introduction: Prof. Ruth Towse (BU)

11.30 Example: The Parody Project

Speakers: Dr. Kris Erickson, Prof. Martin Kretschmer (BU)

11.45 Session 1. Policy-makers’ view on evidence for evidence-based policy.

Speakers:

Tony Clayton (Chief Economist, Intellectual Property Office)

Pippa Hall (Economic Advisor, IPO)

Linda Humphries (Assistant Director, ICT Futures, Cabinet Office)

Chair: Prof. Martin Kretschmer

12.30 Session 2. Stakeholders’ view of evidence for copyright policy.

Speakers:

Peter Bradwell (Open Rights Group)

Frances Lowe (Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Director, PRS for Music)

Andrew Prodger (CEO, BECS)

Jeremy Silver (Chairman of Musicmetric and Specialist Adviser on Creative Industries to Technology Strategy Board)

Chair: Prof. Hasan Bakhshi (NESTA, CREAG)

13.30 Lunch break

14.30 Session 3. Social scientists’ view of evidence for copyright policy.

Speakers:

Dr. Christian Handke (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Tom Hoehn (Imperial)

Prof. Joost Poort (IvIR Univ. Amsterdam)

Dr. Nicola Searle (Abertay)

Dr. Davide Secchi (BU)

Chair: Prof. Philip Schlesinger (Glasgow)

15.45 Session 4. Open discussion with audience on all sessions

Chair: Prof. Charlotte Waelde (Exeter and chair, Copyright Research Expert Advisory Group CREAG)

16.00 Tea break

16.30 Session 5. Lawyers’ response to evidence for evidence-based copyright policy.

Speakers:

Prof. Ronan Deazley (Glasgow)

Prof. Lilian Edwards (Strathclyde)

Prof. Christophe Geiger (CEIPI, University of Strasbourg)

Prof. Paul Heald (Illinois & BU)

Chair: Sir Robin Jacob (UCL)

Open discussion

18.00 Drinks

19.00 Close