Tagged / #PublicEngagement
Spaces available: Evaluation of Engagement workshops delivered by Dr Jamie Gallagher
Evaluation of Engagement
Mon 18 March, 1-4pm, Talbot Campus
Successful public engagement can benefit research, researchers and the public – but how do you go about demonstrating this change? This workshop will guide you through the best evaluation processes, showing you when, why and, crucially, how to use evaluation to provide reliable, clear data. It will highlight how to demonstrate success to funders, record impact for the REF, help improve your processes, and give you a better understanding of the people you are connecting with.
To book a place on this workshop, please complete the booking form under Impact Essentials: Evaluating Public Engagement – 18/03/2024, in the drop down menu
Advanced Evaluation
Tues 19 March, 9am-12pm, Lansdowne Campus
Taking an in-depth look at evaluation, participants will explore data capture, analysis and reporting. From surveys to focus groups, you will learn how to format powerful questions and report meaningful data. Discover how to develop evaluation plans for even the most complex topics. You will also learn how to write evaluation reports for funders or for the REF. This workshop requires good base knowledge of evaluation, ideally from attending the previous Evaluation of Engagement workshop.
To book a place on this workshop, please complete the booking form under Impact Essentials: Advanced Evaluation of Public Engagement – 19/03/2024, in the drop down menu
NB: While we recommend you attend both sessions, you may judge the first session on its own as appropriate for your needs. However, as the advanced session will build on the knowledge and skills gained in the first session, we do advise against only attending the second.
If you have any queries about either session, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.
A tale of two ministries
Yesterday in Nepal we attempted to meet two government ministers to present policy recommendations generated by the study examining the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move to a federal government structure. This three-year project is UK-funded by the MRC, Wellcome Trust and the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; formerly DFID) under the Health Systems Research Initiative. Through our collaborating partners in Nepal we had managed to make initial contacts with the Prime Minister’s office and a senior secretary in the Ministry of Health & Population. The timing was significant as yesterday was the last day that UK-based members of our team were in Nepal. The day started with a possible meeting with first the Prime Minister Pushpa Dahal, followed by a possible meeting with the Health Minister Mohan Baladur Basnet. However, as the saying goes ‘timing is everything!’ And, in the end the time was against us.
One of the two principle investigators of our study, Professor Simon Rushton from the University of Sheffield, and got ready early in the morning, only to be told by our Nepalese collaborators that the traffic in Kathmandu was hectic. Having waited for nearly an hour for our transport, we decided to split up with one of us joining some of our Nepalese collaborators trying to see the Prime Minister (PM) and the other one with a team to visit the Minister of Health & Population. Prof. Rushton went to the latter and after a period of waiting he and one of our Nepalese collaborators managed to meet the Minister and his staff. He also managed to hand over our policy recommendations. This offered a nice picture opportunity to illustrate a REF Impact Case Study.
Three other Nepalese collaborators and I, on the other hand, waited for over two hours in the waiting room of the Prime Minister, who turned out to be in an urgent meeting with two senior ministers. After over two hours we had to call off our attempt to see the PM. All I ended up with as ‘evidence’ was a picture of the tissue box in the PM’s waiting room. In the end I had to rush to Tribhuven International Airport to catch my flight to Qatar, then onward to London Gatwick.
For the team visiting the PM it felt very much like Robert Burns’ poem: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley.”
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
New Generation Thinkers 2024 has launched _AHRC and BBC Radio 3
Since 2010 the New Generation Thinkers scheme has developed a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience through the media and public engagement.
It’s a chance for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community. Each year, since 2010, 60 applicants are invited to create ideas with the BBC, of which 10 will be chosen as New Generation Thinkers. Please check the call link for your eligibility.
Your research must have a primary focus in the arts and humanities. Your research could be bringing together arts and humanities research with other non-AHRC funded disciplines, provided you can demonstrate suitable links to the world of arts and humanities and that arts and humanities remains a primary focus.
The 10 that are selected as New Generation Thinkers, will be working with BBC Radio 3 and benefiting from a unique opportunity to develop their own programmes for the station and a chance to regularly appear on air. The AHRC also provides media training for Thinkers, and offers the possibility of working with BBC TV, speaking opportunities, involvement with the AHRC-funded Being Human Festival and more.
The timeline of the process is as below.
Timeline | |
---|---|
3 July 2023 9:00am | Opening date |
30 August 2023 11:00am | How to apply webinar |
5 September 11-12:30 | BU Workshop/ mock panel with RDS and peer review college expert from BU- please check the events calendar booking page to be available soon. |
27th September 2023 | final proposal submitted in the UKRI Funding Service for RDS review |
3 October 2023 4:00pm | Closing date -submission |
December 2023 | AHRC and BBC assessment meeting |
Week commencing 11 December 2023 | Applicants informed of decisions |
January 2024 | Final 60 attend workshops with the BBC |
January to February 2024
|
Final 10 advised |
Which of us is human? Our experience being part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science
By Dr Maxine Gee and Dr Rachel Moseley
Back on a rainy November day in 2022, Drs Maxine Gee and Rachel Moseley transported members of the public into a future where robots and humans live and work together. The public met our future confederates and were posed the task of identifying which of the two was human and which was a robot. Our mission: to increase understanding and empathy for autistic people.
You might ask: What on earth do robots and the future have to do with autism? How can science-fiction have anything to say on this topic?
This event was held as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, an annual, UK-wide, free celebration of the social sciences to which BU has contributed for over ten years.
Our underlying research
The idea for the activity was based on shrewd observations by Dr Maxine Gee, Principal Academic in Screenwriting (Faculty of Media and Communications). Dr Gee studies how post-human characters (e.g. robots and other forms of artificial intelligence) are portrayed in media. What kind of qualities are written into these characters to signal to the audience that they’re not human? What qualities do screenwriters use to communicate that they’re not to be trusted, and what qualities make us root for them? You might think about Wall-E, whose expressive features and gestures make him highly lovable, or Data from Star Trek, whose attempts to understand and mimic the people around him endear him to the audience. Compare them with the Terminator or HAL, whose logic and unemotionality in pursuing their objectives inspire fear or distrust.
Dr Gee found that in science fiction screenwriters often distinguish human characters by expressions of emotion, and by the ability to tell stories so these characters can connect with others, express themselves and their identity, and also sometimes to lie or con their way out of situations. Moreover, characters in these films and television shows are perceived more positively when they express these characteristics.
These assumptions are based on a fundamental error: the idea that there is just one, ‘right’ way that humans express emotions and communicate. While each one of us is unique, most ‘neurotypical’ people have brains that work more similarly than dissimilarly to one another. People who are ‘neurodivergent’, though, have brains which function in more markedly different ways. This colours everything about the way they move through and experience the world, and gives rise to different ways of expressing emotions and communicating.
Autistic people are one such group, and this makes life very difficult for them. Being autistic is like having a mind which works on a different operating system, an apple mac in a world of Microsoft PCs. Because non-autistic people speak a slightly different social and emotional language, they can sometimes overlook or misunderstand autistic expressions of emotion, leading to stereotypes of autistic people as ‘wooden’ or, indeed, ‘robotic’.
You might have heard of the Uncanny Valley effect in robotics – the more human-like a robot appears, the more unnerved people are by the slight deviations that shockingly reveal their artificiality. Research suggests that a similar process might be at work when autistic and non-autistic people interact, where differences in emotion and social behaviour can be unnerving for non-autistic people. From a very early age, non-autistic children distance themselves from autistic peers, while not necessarily being able or willing to consciously explain why. Autistic people are often socially excluded or bullied for their differences.
Dr Gee chatted to Dr Rachel Moseley, principal academic in Psychology, whose research focuses on mental health in autistic people. They noticed a parallel where many media portrayals of autistic people display traits which tend to mark out non-human characters in science-fiction – unemotionality, “cold” logic, rigidity in manner and movement. Since these features are often written to portray non-human characters less than sympathetically, we wondered whether there might be a link between these “less than human” portrayals of autistic people and the stigma they face.
Our public engagement activity
With the help of Bournemouth’s general public, we performed a field experiment. The public were told that one of our two colleagues from the future was a robot, and asked them a series of questions to try identify who was human. While we did have one robot and one human character, both were in fact carefully written to reflect different portrayals of autistic people. In the portrayal where autism stereotypes dovetail with robot characters, “Chris” (our robot) was logical and unemotional, without a lot of humour. In contrast, “Alex” was playful but diffident, constantly eager to please.
They were based on autistic descriptions of camouflaging, which is when neurodivergent people consciously try to hide their differences and ‘act neurotypical’, from the way they make eye-contact, to copying their body language and speech mannerisms. Just like non-human characters are perceived more positively when they express emotions and social behaviours, autistic people are perceived more positively when they perform camouflaging behaviours, and it helps them avoid bullying or social exclusion. The problem is that camouflaging is exhausting, and it reinforces a sense of low self-worth. Autistic people who spend a lot of time camouflaging tend to have poorer mental health and also be more vulnerable to suicide.
We wondered whether the general public, who might be used to depictions of non-human characters, would be led to identify Chris (our stereotypical autistic portrayal) as the robot. Actually, we found that people were conflicted, with guesses balanced between the two characters. People noticed the Uncanny Valley aspect of Alex’s mannerisms, and knew there was something different about this character.
We explored their ideas about the traits they tended to associate with robot characters, and pointed out how these overlapped with representations of autism. In explaining how different types of brain give rise to different ways of socialising and communicating, we spoke about the painful efforts that autistic people go to hide their differences in order to be accepted. Concluding, we invited people to think about their assumptions of what it means to be human (and the inherent flip side of ‘not-human’), and the harm these assumptions could cause for people who don’t display those most common ways of behaving.
We measured the impact of this activity on attendees using surveys, the results of which might also feed into future research. Asked if the event increased their understanding of autism and empathy for autistic people, most of our respondents gave positive responses on the day. Those who responded two weeks later likewise gave mainly favourable responses, with one commenting “It was a very clever and accessible way to teach people about autism”, and others suggesting we should take the performance to schools. We especially valued one response by an autistic person in our audience: “I thought while watching that both could very easily be autistic and was scared that they might just say that being autistic was just like being a robot and that we had no feelings. Very happily surprised”
We ran the activity in thirty-minute slots throughout the day, welcoming over fifty attendees in total. Our immense gratitude goes to the Public Engagement team, our fantastic student actors, and our many colleagues who helped us during this event. We feel that the event was especially special in that it was co-produced, written and acted by an evenly split team of autistic and non-autistic people. One of our autistic actors had a fascinating and poignant insight into the double-bluff of playing a character who was camouflaging their autism just obviously enough for the audience to notice:
“Because I was so used to hiding it all … It was hard to not automatically revert back to covering it all up. Because the aim of being just an autistic person in real life is to try and not show your autism… So, it’s interesting to have to do that, force myself into that kind of corner in a way. … really seeing it and going, “Ah, but this isn’t what I usually do,” or “This is what I usually do,” or “Maybe I can do this in the future,” sort of thing. It almost made me feel slightly more comfortable taking in, kind of, showing a little bit more of me”
As we’re passionate about working towards a world where different ways of existing as a human are valued equally, we’re delighted with this feedback and look forward to taking our work further.
If you’re interested in engaging the public with your research, start by exploring what support is on offer at BU for research communications, impact and engagement. If you’d like to take part in this year’s ESRC Festival of Social Science, explore the other events that took place last year and look out for the call for proposals in March 2023.
Celebrating the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2022 – a look back
This autumn saw BU host five events as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. The Festival is a nationwide celebration of the social sciences, with over 300 events held across the UK this year.
The Festival is designed to promote and increase awareness of social science and ESRC-funded research, enable social scientists to engage with non-academics and increase awareness of the contributions the social sciences make to the wellbeing and economy of UK society.
BU contributed to the Festival for the eleventh year in a row, holding a variety of events spanning research areas and faculties, which were held on campus, off campus and online.
Our festival events kicked off with ‘Which one of us is human?’, an interactive experience from Dr Maxine Gee and Dr Rachel Moseley set in a future where robots and humans looked identical, with two actors answering questions to help identify the ‘robot’ from the human.
Visitors were very engaged with solving the puzzle, with families, couples and people attending alone all teaming up to debate which actor was the robot.
But there was a twist – Maxine and Rachel revealed in their debrief that each actor was carefully written to present with a different type of autism. They went on to explain some of the science behind what autism actually is and discussed with the surprised groups what this meant for their perceptions of ‘humans’ and ‘robots’.
“Did not know much about autism and behaviour – it was interesting to know more and [it] opened my mind”
Feedback from attendee“Excellent – could have chatted to the researchers for hours”
Feedback from attendee
Next in our series of events was the multi-part exhibition ‘Entrepreneurship for Young People’ showcasing the success of the SPEED-You-UP project to develop entrepreneurial skills in young people, headed up by Dr Esther Anwuzia with help from BU and external collaborators.
Hosted in The Old Schoolhouse, a community space in Boscombe, the exhibition shared stories from young people and school staff who had experienced first-hand the benefits the project had brought them.
Day one of the exhibition provided a taster session of the SPEED-You-UP programme, welcoming a group of young people to look at topics such as entrepreneurship, the advantages of having a business, what skills you need to have in business and generating a business idea.
Although just a taster, the session went down well with its teenaged attendees, who praised the opportunity to develop teamwork skills.
Day two welcomed local stakeholders with a professional interest to discuss bringing the programme to Bournemouth.
To reach an even wider audience, the exhibition also ran online, where you can still visit and read about the project.
The next event asked: ‘Are drones the future of delivery?’. Tucked in the corner of the Little Pickle Deli in Boscombe, a team led by PhD researcher Taalia Nadeem invited members of the University of the Third Age to play a new board game, helped along by coffee and cake.
In this game, players must make decisions about how, where, when and why to use delivery drones in a representative Bournemouth of the near future. With lots of factors to consider in making decisions and myriad unexpected consequences, the game drew out nuanced discussion and observations from a group of people that, by their own admission, had not given much thought to the topic before.
“I think the event was very informative and I enjoyed the discussions element of the game which I found enjoyable and interesting”
Feedback from attendee“Initially felt possibly a little negative about drones – see all the positives now!”
Feedback from attendee
These insights were valuable, as they were recorded and will contribute to research led by Taalia with collaborators Professor Janet Dickinson and Dr Angela Smith on the public perception of delivery drones.
Following this was another event focusing on a sometimes perplexing new technology. ‘Demystifying NFTs: Understanding the law and technology’ was an online event hosted by Professor Dinusha Mendis that provided an informed look at a topic usually surrounded by hype.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have captured the public imagination over the past year, but much about them remains a mystery.
External guest Nikolaos Mantis from Museo Techniki guided us through the technological underpinnings, while Dinusha revealed the surprising and sometimes inconvenient truths about what ‘owning’ an NFT actually means.
“Thank you – I hadn’t considered the legal aspects of NFTs and found this an insightful perspective.”
Feedback from attendee
This event welcomed a global audience from Europe and beyond, with guests from Thailand, Bangladesh, the USA, Mexico, Azerbaijan and Dijibouti, amongst other places.
To enrich this event further, Dinusha took an informative zine she had written all about NFTs, and ‘tokenised’ it as an NFT itself. A short quiz that was ran at the end of the event provided an opportunity for three lucky attendees to win a unique NFT to keep as a very appropriate souvenir.
If you’re left feeling curious about NFTs, you can catch up on this online event, including all the chat, polls and questions.
Rounding off our events this year was ‘Medical monsters: reducing medical anxiety through play and gamification’.
This playful workshop, aimed at children aged 7-11 and their guardians, explored strategies to reduce patient (children) anxiety around medical appointments and admissions. Featuring specially designed sessions of Jenga, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and virtual reality experiences, attendees explored and addressed personal anxieties around medical appointments.
Jointly delivered by Dr Holly Henderson, Dr Heidi Singleton and Professor Debbie Holley, the event welcomed families with young children to Bournemouth Gateway Building to try out the various experiences on offer.
As with Taalia’s event, these activities provided benefits for everyone. Not only were the organisers able to learn from trialling their activities with people of all ages, but the feedback of attendees will feed into ongoing research and projects to apply these techniques more widely.
“I think this topic of research is crucial. We have 2 children who are in hospital regularly and getting them to go to appointments is really challenging.”
Feedback from attendee“Welcoming, friendly and couldn’t have come at a better time for us. Well-structured and useful – Thank you”
Feedback from attendee
All of the events this year were made possible by the ESRC, with whom we co-fund our annual festival activities. Event organisers applied through an internal process back in April 2022, and were selected by a panel from across BU. They were supported in bringing about their creative and engaging projects by myself (Adam Morris, Engagement Officer) and Beverley Allen (Events and Communications Co-ordinator).
If you’d like to take part in a future ESRC Festival of Social Science, it’s a great time to start thinking about what you could propose. Start by reading our blog post announcing the call for proposals for this year’s festival. If you’d like to start discussing your ideas, get in touch with the public engagement with research team at publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Dr Alina Dolea awarded trophy at Romanian RePatriot Gala 2022
Dr. Alina Dolea, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy, has been awarded a trophy at the RePatriot Gala organized in Iasi (Romania) on October 7th, 2022, in recognition of her research on Romanian diaspora, nation branding and public diplomacy. Alina was named one of Top 100 Romanians in Diaspora who make a difference, excel and inspire in 10 different fields of activity, top published by Romania’s Newsweek magazine. She was acknowledged for her work and contribution to Education, alongside other 9 Romanian researchers and professors (Categoria Educație | Repatriot). This was the fifth edition of the Gala organized annually by RePatriot, was recorded and is to be aired by the Romanian National Television.
The Gala event was the highlight of the RePatriot Summit 2022 attended by over 200 participants who gathered to find solutions to the economic crisis and the Ukrainian war at the border. Opening remarks were delivered by state secretaries of the Romanian President, the President of the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian Prime Minister. During the Summit, Alina contributed to the discussions within the Education Strategic working group, a format of networking and know-how exchange that will continue with regular meetings throughout the year.
Alina’s insights are all the more relevant as according to the latest UK settlement scheme statistics, Romanians are now the largest national group in the UK (with close to 1,3 million applications), followed closely by Polish and then Italian nationals.
RePatriot is a community of Romanian entrepreneurs and business leaders established in 2015 with the aim to connect Romanians abroad with business, investment and development opportunities in Romania. Currently, over 5 million Romanians (of a total population of around 20 million) live abroad and constitute collectively the biggest investor in Romania through the remittances (money) they sent back. This community aims to act as a networking platform to encourage more business investments in Romania and know-how transfer.
Carbon tax as a panacea to responsible consumption & production post-COP26
Bournemouth University is hosting an event on 9 June 2022 from 9:30am – 1:00pm on Carbon Tax and how it affects household income inequality.
Several guest speakers from charitable organisations, local businesses, youth activists, and university representatives will be in attendance alongside members of the local council. Free meals including coffee/tea and midday lunch will be provided.
Please register your interest through the link below:
Please let us know if there are any issues with registering.
For further information on this event, please contact s5205209@bournemouth.ac.uk
We look forward to hopefully seeing you there!
The first SAMARCH family science event of 2022 goes swimmingly!
In March this year, SAMARCH featured at the Family Science Fair at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester as part of British Science Week. Genoveva Esteban, Katie Thompson and students from Bournemouth University ran interactive activities on the life cycle of Atlantic salmon and showed participants how to determine the age of a fish! There was a fantastic turnout and involvement (interaction with >1,000 people!) from all visitors. If you want to know more or take part in next year’s event, please email Genoveva on gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk or Katie on thompsonk@bournemouth.ac.uk. Don’t forget to visit the SAMARCH website for more details on the EU Interreg project!