Engagers' DIgest - 5/4/11

Dear all,

While Easter eggs are just on the horizon, there is still time for lots of interesting public engagement in April...

Changing Perspectives: connecting art and science - until end April
You have until the end of April to see the two stunning University of Bristol exhibitions of science-inspired art at the Bristol Gallery and Grant Bradley Gallery. Read our piece in this week's Big Issue - centreforpublicengagement.blogspot.com/2011/04/changing-perspectives-exhibitions.html
Over the coming fortnight hear talks on topics as diverse as 'inspired engineering' and 'manipulating biologies'. Knit yourself a neuron or two on Saturday 9 April at the Grant Bradley Gallery, and try your hand at science-inspired fiction at a workshop on 13 April and open mic on 19 April. More information and event details here - bristol.ac.uk/changingperspectives

In the Digest:

1. Beacon for Wales Social Media for Researchers - 11 April 2011 [all fields]
   
2. Universities Week case study requests - deadlines in April and May [all fields]
   
3. Vice Chancellor's Impact Award [all fields]
   
4. ESRC Festival of Social Science - funding deadline June 2011 [social sciences]
5. Nuffield Council on Bioethics - consultation deadline 15 June [sciences, social sciences]
   
6. NCCPE news and resources [all fields]
   
7. Other events

1. Beacon for Wales Social Media for Researchers - 11 April 2011
Social Media for Researchers is organised by the Beacon for Wales and is FREE to attend. There are only 12 places available so contact the Beacon to reserve your place now: 029 20 870 862, beacon@cardiff.ac.uk Trainer: Dr Alice Bell; Monday 11th April 2011, 1.00 – 4.00pm
3.07 Training Suite, Julian Hodge Study Centre, Cardiff University
More information on this Beacon for Wales event listing.

2. Universities Week case study requests - deadlines in April and May
Universities Week - What's the Big Idea? runs from 13-19 June 2011, with the aim of demonstrating how universities impact on the local community and the UK society as a whole. They are looking for case studies of work that illustrate their 4 main themes - society, research, business and the factshare generator. Deadlines for the case studies are throughout April and May. More information here - http://www.universitiesweek.org.uk/Home.aspx

3. Vice Chancellor's Impact Award - deadline 25 April 2011
The Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award is part of the New Enterprise Competition 2011. Two awards will be made this year, a winner’s prize of £1500 and a runner-up prize of £500 to individuals or groups showing outstanding innovation in creating economic and/or social impact from their research. The Vice-Chancellor's Impact Award is sponsored by IP Group. More information from the Impact Award site.

4. ESRC Festival of Social Science - funding deadline June 2011
The ESRC Festival of Social Science will be taking place in 2011 from 29 October to 5 November. Applications to participate in the Festival are now welcome and are available at www.esrcfestival.ac.uk.
Two types of applications are available:
a) Applying for support of up to £2000 -- due 3 June
b) Applying for event to be listed: non-supported -- due 17 June
The Festival welcomes event applications targeting a non-academic audience including young people, third sector, the public, business or government.
The guidelines around the aims of the Festival and how to apply are in the Application Guidelines under Organise an Event.

5. Nuffield Council on Bioethics consultation - deadline 15 June 2011
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has just launched a consultation on emerging biotechnologies - www.nuffieldbioethics.org/biotechnologies. One of the areas they are looking at is public engagement, asking questions such as - What role should public opinion play in the development of policy around emerging biotechnologies? What public engagement activities are, or are not, particularly valuable with respect to emerging biotechnologies? How should we evaluate public engagement activities? Is there something unique about emerging biotechnologies, relative to other complex areas of government policy making, that requires special kinds of public engagement outside the normal democratic channels? Contribute your views!

6. NCCPE news and resources
Check out the latest news and resources from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement, and subscribe to the mailing list to receive updates yourself.

7. Other events:

Widening Participation through Part-time Provision
Goldsmiths, University of London, Friday 20 May 2011
http://www.uall.ac.uk/

And just a little reminder - we need some light boxes for an exhibition at the Bristol Gallery for 10 days from 14 – 23 October. Please let us know if you can help!

Best wishes,

Philippa

Changing Perspectives exhibitions

In the Big Issue this week....

Science and art – not enemies after all.

Image: Untitled future mutation by Luke Jerram

Two exhibitions open in Bristol this April make it clear that the debate over the ‘two cultures’ of science and art should be long gone. With a range of stunning science-inspired art, the University of Bristol’s Changing Perspectives series shows that while art and science interrogate the world in different ways, they both overlap and push each other in exciting, new directions. From delicate virus particles hand-blown in glass and the personal reflections of medical students confronted by dying patients to haunting drawings of the Alps’ fading glaciers, these exhibitions and the accompanying talks and events bring to light the fascinating work that emerges when artists and scientists get together.

In the Grant Bradley Gallery on Bedminster parade the Changing Perspectives exhibition is inspired by the body. It includes international artist Luke Jerram’s transparent glass viruses that provoke questions about the global impact of virus-borne disease, and research images taken with an eye for the aesthetic that open up microscopic worlds of crawling cells and flowering moulds. Work by medical students, for example the stunning centrepiece by student Rachel Handley, questions the role of the doctor in helping to support a dying patient, while reciprocally, work by patients calls on doctors of the future to see, hear and touch their patients with compassion. You would not be the first to leave the Gallery with a lump in your throat.

The art-science smorgasbord doesn’t end there. A second exhibition at the Bristol Gallery, also part of Changing Perspectives, makes tangible the complex and often abstract worlds of mathematics, physics, chemistry and physical geography. Find out what makes researchers tick through photographic portraits and films, how the equations that describe chaotic systems can be captured in crochet and steel, and what a nano-brush for a nano-dog might look like...

A series of free, public evening events accompany the exhibitions; this week sees two talks - artist Emma Stibbon and glaciologist Giles Brown discussing the fragility and changing nature of our natural environment, and a composites engineer and artist getting to grips with ‘Inspired Engineering’.

Both exhibitions are open until the end of April. More information at bristol.ac.uk/changingperspectives

The Grant Bradley Gallery - 1 St Peter’s Court, Bedminster Parade, BS3 4AQ. Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm

The Bristol Gallery – Millennium Promenade, Harbourside, Bristol BS1 5TY. Mon – Fri 10 am – 6 pm; Sat – Sun 10 am – 5 pm.