Living Knowledge Conference beats on...

The six parallel sessions on Friday afternoon opened discussion in areas from striking a balance between the needs of participants and avoiding exploitation of participants to planning for demographic change, encouraging various models of knowledge exchange and evaluating the process and the outcomes of community engagement in science, technology and innovation. Take a breath!

The abstracts and links related to the Parallel Sessions are located on the Living Knowledge webpage.

I’ll give you a taste of the sessions with the help of Paul McGill, from the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland. Thanks Paul. Off to the conference buffet and ceilidh now – for more discussion and engagement of course!

…but here are those summaries:

Session 1.1. Community-based research: finding a balance between non-government organisation-student-higher education institution needs
Chairs: Gerard Straver and Ils De Bal

Meeting the academic criteria does not mean civil society organisations will be happy with it. Tension between scientific and academic needs on the one hand and civil society organisations on the other.

One centre engaged 900 volunteers and employed 80 of them. Where does the money come from? This is a problem. Can you ask beneficiaries for payment for some or all of the work? Should there by criteria for deciding how much an organisation should pay.

Community research is win-win but to what extent do the different experiences influence the approach to research (e.g. by intermediary bodies like Science Shops)?

Impact of research on policy-making and on university curricula: sometimes it has tremendous policy impact and in other cases little or none.

No agreement on paying students for their research: in some cases they get academic credits, in others they are paid.

Session 2.1. Encouraging models of knowledge exchange: planning for demographic change
Chair: Paul McGill

What does it mean for users (such as older people) to be involved in research: It’s not enough to interview them or get them to fill in questionnaires. We need to ask the extent to which they want to be engaged and take account of practical issues.

Why do older people drop out of research projects (people who are poor or in bad health more likely to leave)? We can tackle some of the causes and minimise drop-out rates and can boost participation through social networking sites and by pointing to positive impact of previous community research projects.

Local versus global? There was discussion of the extent to which a local research project, e.g. a survey, may or may not be representative of the wider population. Does that matter?

Issue of paying community researchers: some research centres pay and others do not.

Session 3.1. Climate change: science and civil society
Chair: John Barry

Meeting the challenges of climate change requires a partnership of the university, municipal authorities and community. The issues must be brought out to the people. Science shops have a role to play in this.

We need to search for new funding mechanisms to apply new ideas in food, transportation and housing.

Breaking down the barriers between the university and community requires more effective communication.

Session 4.1. Avoiding exploitation: good practice in engagement and knowledge exchange
Chairs: Bill Peterman and Kim Treasure

Setting an agreed vision of the research from the start is central to breaking down silos and building confidence and trust among stakeholders. Various disciplines having shared responsibility, with co-directed research. An aim is to improve quality of life and ‘wellness’. Working from a grass-roots level, in response to concerns expressed by community partners, with genuine participation; best to focus on solutions rather than problems alone.

All stakeholders should be involved from the very beginning of the project. It is not about community members dropping in and out to do specific jobs.

What if the results reflect unfavourably on the community or are not what they want? How can you help them to see the bigger picture in a positive way rather than focusing on smaller negative points?

Working with universities to value community based research just as much as laboratory research.

Session 5.1. Sustaining community-based research practice through arts and cultural forms
Chairs: Khan Rahi, Heather Floyd and Caragh O’Donnell

How can the community feel ownership of research? It must be involved from the beginning in formulating the questions and community expertise must be recognised – there is often disrespect for community knowledge.

There is a role for the community in disseminating research; example given of good practice in a working class area in Belfast, but this may be threatened by lack of resources.

Quilting – making a large blanket in groups – is one of many means of giving a voice: it can transcend a lot of layers and can release stories during the process.

Session 6.1. How do we evaluate both the processes and the outcomes of community engagement in science, technology and innovation?
Chair: Norbert Steinhaus

Standards for evaluating science shops and community based research: who sets them? Where do they come from? For example if there are no mission statements defining the Science Shop, how are evaluation criteria to be defined?

A template for quality improvement was presented and triggered some disagreement about the relevance and possible constraining effects of structured evaluation; also raising questions about the limits of self-evaluation.

Overall there was great interest in the possibility of developing a shared evaluation framework and instruments. Some discussion on relation between such evaluations and kinds of assessment applied at disciplinary level in higher education.

Living Knowledge Conference, Belfast

In the morning plenary on Friday, Robin Webster, Chief Executive of Age Action Ireland, spoke about the rights, duties and responsibilities of all people [growing old]. He reflected on the nature of partnerships comprised of the advantaged and disadvantaged, and whether the motivations of public alliances were biased because of natural (individual, organisational and institutional) self-selection. He provided warning that power balances in partnerships were inevitable and that diversity represented a major challenge, but also of course, an ideal opportunity to readdress those inequalities.

Professor Monica McWilliams, Chief Commissioner for Human Rights in Northern Ireland, who was chairing the session, provided summary for the short presentations provided by Mr Webster, who was joined by Dr Rajesr Tandon of the Society for Participatory Research in Asia, Murielle Gagnon from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Professor Gerry McCormac, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Planning and External Relations at Queen’s University Belfast.

Professor McWilliams suggested that public and community-based research had huge potential and obligation to have serious impact on policy, legislation and regulatory frameworks. She echoed Robin’s comments by finishing the session with the advocacy notion: is this partnership what we [the public] really want? Why not ask us and check.

There was enough time for a few questions before morning coffee, one of which was answered by:

It doesn’t mater how complex the research findings are, the most important thing is to communicate to all audiences with open and accessible language in terms the reader cares about. Who just wants to read the executive summary of a lengthy report and not really be able to, or have the energy to, read the rest?

When the comments from the floor moved on to question the identities community and co-creation of knowledge, they prompted the comment from Dr Rajesr Tandon:

Who is any partnership made up of? We’re heading towards a knowledge economy, what about the knowledge society? We’re not working in a social vacuum and the economy is merely a subset of the whole society.

Science Communication Conference

We've just seen the reports and presentations from the British Science Association's Science Communication Conference, which are now available online.

The University of Bristol was very well represented, with presentations from our very own Gillian Squirrell, Kathy Sykes and Dudley Shallcross, as well as Paul Manners and Sophie Duncan from the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement and Savita Custead at the Bristol Natural History Consortium. All in all, an impressive Bristol turnout.

Engagers Digest

The Engagers Digest is a regular e-mail listing of public engagement opportunities, which we send to interested staff and students at the University of Bristol. We're going to start posting it on the blog so people can refer to it easily; here's last week's edition:

1. Answer questions for Bang Goes the Theory. It's based on an online forum, so is a great way to engage with the public in a supportive environment where you can also get constructive feedback about communication.
2. The British Science Festival takes place at the University of Surrey on 5-10 September 2009.
3. The British Interactive Group's Little Event takes place on 7 September at Thinktank in Birmingham.
4. The inaugural meeting of the Physics Communicators Group takes place from 10.30 to 4.30 on 9 September at the Institute of Physics in London.
5. The first ever Festival of Innovation takes place at the Science Museum near Swindon. To get involved, contact Cheryl Hewer
6. Communicate 2009, the conference for environmental and conservation communicators, takes place in Bristol on 21-22 October 2009.
7. Some forthcoming deadlines for public engagement grant schemes:

• ESRC Festival of Social Science activity sponsorship (up to £2,000): 9 October 2009
• Wellcome Trust Society Awards (over £30,000) and Broadcast Development Awards (up to £10,000): 9 October 2009
• Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Awards in the History of Medicine (over £30,000): preliminary application 20 October 2009
• Wellcome Trust Arts Awards and People Awards (up to £30,000): 23 October 2009
• National Science and Engineering Week Awards (up to £2,000): 2 November 2009


• Royal Society Partnership Grants (£250-3,000): 6 November 2009
• BBSRC Public Engagement Awards (up to £5,000): 15 January 2010

Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition is a major London-based event that illustrates the cutting-edge of UK science and technology. It is an opportunity for the public, directly and through the national media, to find out more about the UK's science and meet the minds behind it. There were 26 exhibits accepted from all over the UK, including two submissions from the University of Bristol. Visitors to the exhibition included members of the Royal Family, business and academic pioneers, MPs and Civil Servants, schools groups and the general public.

Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

View more presentations from cpebristol.

Shhh...

Doors Open Day's coming up soon, and we're taking bookings for tours of the amazing new Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information; apparently it's the quietest building in the world...

Why do you engage?

We know people do public engagement for lots of different reasons; what are yours?

What motivated you to do it in the first place? What do you get out of it? What skills or experiences could you share? We're interested to find out so we can help give people more of a sense of what public engagement's like, and why they'd want to do it.
Let us know by commenting below.

Photo by: alexanderdrachmann