Dr Churnjeet Mahn has been chosen as one of five UK researchers for Unbox Festival Fellowship

Thursday 10 January 2013

Naomi Beaumont, Head of International at the AHRC. “These fellowships present an exciting opportunity for open-minded creative-thinking researchers. The opportunity will give the fellows the experience of working within a non-academic environment and within a cross-cultural setting. The fellows will apply their research skills to new to these types of non-academic challenges. The host organisations will hopefully gain new perspectives on the current challenges facing their organisations as well as providing a unique and enriching research experience.”

Fellowships will take place at one of five different hosts. Each team has a different focus and suggested research themes, the successful AHRC Unbox Fellows are:

•             Dr Misha Myers, University of Falmouth, Fellow for unTILL: Augmenting Agriculture with New Technologies

Dr Myers will be joined by the British Council Fellow, Joshua Oliver a Film Producer and Director and the UnBox Fellow, Saswat Mahapatra to work with Digital Green (DG). DG combines technology and community engagement to improve the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of small farmer livelihoods. Digital Green uses technology to reach out to its target audience: not only does it promote the use of technology to increase the efficiency of agricultural produce; it also uses film as a medium to spread expertise. Along with this work on the field, DG actively tries to engage an urban audience with the work it does, in order to connect the two. DG has also developed social networking games that are based on real life information of farmers: they have a database (farmerbook) that tracks each of the farmers it works with – on the technology adapted by them, their engagement with Digital Green, and real time updates on their current farming activities. Dr Myers will be working to develop ways to take information back to the community via the farmerbook database.

•             Dr Padmini Ray-Murray, University of Stirling, Fellow for unPLAY: Gaming for Social Innovation

Dr Padmini Ray-Murray will be joined by the British Council Fellow Andrew Clarke, a Technical Advisor and the UnBox Fellow, Anupam Mediratta to collaborate with Quicksand a multi-disciplinary consultancy that brings user-centered design principles to the core of innovation. A key strand of their work includes developing educational games using Kinect technologies to break age, class, language, and literacy barriers. They aim to engage their audiences in activities to communicate social messages. Dr Ray-Murray will help to develop new games that will be featured at a mini-arcade at UnBox.

•             Dr Churnjeet Mahn, University of Surrey, Fellow for unMAP: Culture and Heritage Preservation

Dr Chaurnjeet Mahn will be hosted by the Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative (CRCI) which promotes India’s cultural heritage through community participation. CRCI consistently tries to harmonize the imperatives of heritage conservation with the historic and current realities of the site. Towards this end, it works in active partnership with communities to develop appropriate strategies for conservation in both rural and urban areas. Dr Mahn will be joined by the British Council Fellow Ioanna Manoussaki-Adamopoulou a Filmmaker and Researcher.

•             Professor Andrew Burton Newcastle University, Fellow for unBUILD: Sustainable Lifestyles

Professor Andrew Burton will assist People Tree an independent arts and crafts business that combines a sense of social and ecological responsibility with the spirit of collective creativity. People Tree is currently engaged in collaborating with chef Satish Warier, in setting up an arts, crafts and food space in Goa. Professor Burton will work with the British Council Fellow Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad a Creative Director and Product Designer alongside the UnBox Fellow Stanzin Losal Shamshu to support the develop of this new venture into a demonstration space for a more ecologically active approach to art, food, crafts and heritage.

•             Dr Emile Devereaux  at Lancaster University, Fellow for unVEIL: Film and Digital Media for Open-governance

Dr Devereaux will work with PRS Legislative Research. PRS provides a comprehensive and credible resource base to access Parliament-specific data, background information and analysis of key issues. PRS also engages with citizens, through various forums and both traditional and digital media. The target audience is young, active Internet users who may already be interested in governance and law.

The general idea of PRS’s work is to use creative ways to present governance and law based information in a simplified, easy to understand form. This digital output (in the form of videos, or mobile phone apps or other technological avenues that can be explored) would seek to inform the audience on the nuances of law making and good governance. Dr Devereaux will work with the British Council FellowAlexander Jolliffe, Animator and the UnBox Fellow, Radhamohini Prasad.

All of the researchers will attend the festival itself, where they will have the chance to bid for further AHRC small scale funding to continue collaborations formed.

For further information, please contact:

Danielle Moore-Chick, AHRC: 01793 416021 d.moore-chick@ahrc.ac.uk

1. For full details of the Fellow, the host institutions, please got to: http://fellowships.unboxfestival.com/ 
2. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: ancient history, modern dance, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, English literature, design, the creative and performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98m to fund research and postgraduate training in collaboration with a number of partners. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please go to: www.ahrc.ac.uk   
3. For further details on the British Council Fellows: http://creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org/creative-entrepreneurship/news/unbox-fellowship-winners-announced/           
4. The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We are a Royal Charter charity, established as the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our 7000 staff in over 100 countries work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year through English, arts, education and society programmes. We earn over 75% of our annual turnover of £739 million from services which customers pay for, education and development contracts we bid for and from partnerships. A UK Government grant provides the remaining 25%.  We match every £1 of core public funding with over £3 earned in pursuit of our charitable purpose. For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org. You can also keep in touch with the British Council through http://twitter.com/britishcouncil and http://blog.britishcouncil.org/.
5. The UnBox Festival takes place from 6-10 February 2013 - celebrates interdisciplinary processes and experiences that shape contemporary thought and action across a range of domains, through keynotes, discussions and workshops anchored by leading and emerging practitioners. http://unboxfestival.com/
6. The UK Science and Innovation Network has bases in 25 countries with around 100 staff in total. The Network’s purpose is wide-ranging, and involves science diplomacy and fostering collaboration in science and innovation. We work with academia, research establishments and businesses in the UK and its international partners. Our work includes gathering information, providing analysis, producing reports and running briefing sessions. We use interactive platforms such as seminars, workshops, conferences, sponsored visits and researcher exchanges to engage the UK and its international partners directly. Further information is available on our website http://www.bis.gov.uk/go-science/about/how-we-work/science-and-innovation-network
7. University of Falmouth
8. University of Stirling
9. University of Surrey
10. Newcastle University
11. Lancaster University