9:30am - 5:30pm British Summer Time (GMT+1)

Wednesday 14 June 2023

Surrey Engage 2023: Looking Outwards

A one-day event packed with top-quality, practical training and leading speakers in the field of public engagement, offering the opportunity to boost the impact and value of your research, and potentially to unlock the means to secure additional funding streams to extend your work.

We understand that public engagement is multi-faceted and there isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ way of doing things. Impact can be measured in various forms - by writing an extract in a book, influencing policy, speaking at an event, or inspiring the next generation. This symposium will dial in to the importance of impact on society and allowing research to be the catalyst for change. It will offer training to impact personal skillsets and behaviours, offering the prospect of transforming research to deliver real policy change. Let’s talk about why involving the public can improve the quality of your research and when, and how you can do this – and how this can engage and enthuse funders.

In what we hope will become an annual event, we are providing various opportunities to take part in engagement training as we run a variety of fun, useful and accessible taster sessions in the morning which aim to develop your skillset.

We are delighted to welcome Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock as our keynote speaker in the afternoon, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock will be talking about the importance of being an educator and her life as a leading academic to science communicator.

We will also be featuring a speaker from the UKRI Public Engagement Team, who will be speaking on UKRI's new Public Engagement strategy and UKRI’s ambitions to break down barriers between research, innovation and wider society.

Finally, we'll be opening the floor to our attendees so you can have your say on how public engagement is perceived and supported here at Surrey.

More informally, we’ll have an opportunity for Surrey engagement stars to talk about their work in sessions and through poster displays, inspiring others to build engagement into their research programmes, projects, and practice.

Whether it’s because your impact case studies need polishing, you’re thinking your career could blossom if you just put yourself out there more, you’re looking for an innovative way to tell people what you’ve been up to in the lab or you’re just interested in the softer side of research, this day will have something for everyone from seasoned professors to those beginning their early-career research journey.

Ultimately, we want to build and celebrate a wide community of engagers at Surrey who know that Engagement with the Public and sharing Knowledge isn’t just a hobby or a “nice to have”, but an increasingly critical part of professional research practice.

Free

Lecture Theatre D
Lecture Theatre Block
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 7XH

back to all events

This event has passed

Please book your tickets via Eventbrite using the link to the right.

If you have any questions about the day, please email the Public Engagement Team at publicengagement@surrey.ac.uk

Keynote Speaker

Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE is a space scientist whose passion is presenting science to a general audience and demonstrating that you ‘don’t need a brain the size of a small planet’ to understand, participate in and enjoy science. Her BBC 2 programme, “Do We Really Need the Moon?” showed just that. The programme earned Maggie the talkback Thames new talent award at the prestigious Women in Film and TV Awards in December 2011.

She went on to present “Do We Really Need Satellites?” and was one of the main scientists on Channel 4’s Brave New World and panellist on Sky One’s science show ‘Ducks Quack Don’t Echo’. She is currently presenting Sky at Night on BBC 4, Mini Stargazing for Cbeebies and is a contributor on Channel 4’s quiz show ‘I Literally Just Told You’. She makes regular appearances on The One Show, Newsnight and Woman’s Hour and was a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and BBC1’s Last Night of The Proms (2021). Her book ‘The Sky at Night’s Book of the Moon’ (BBC Books) was published in September 2018 and her children’s book ‘Dr Maggie’s Grand Tour of the Solar System’ (Michael O’Mara) was published in 2019. Her new children’s book ‘Am I Made of Stardust?’ is out in September (2022). Maggie is President of the British Science Association.

Maggie studied at Imperial College where she obtained her degree in Physics and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Since then she has spent much of her career making novel, bespoke instrumentation ranging from hand held land mine detectors to an optical subsystem for the James Webb Space Telescope.

To further share her love of science Maggie conducts “Tours of the Universe” and other public engagement activities, showing school children and adults around the world the wonders of space.

Agenda

TIME	SESSION	HOST	ROOM
09.30	Coffee		LT D
10.00	Welcome	Vickie Sheriff, Director of Communications, Public Affairs & Events & Caroline Fleming, Director of Innovation Strategy Ross Kelway & Becki Leach, Public Engagement Team	LT D
10.30	Training options	1. Storytelling for Engagement with Dr Anna Ploszajski 2. Innovation Policy with Chris Webber & Poulomi Solanki from UK Gov, Open Innovation Team 3. Developing Public Engagement Ideas from Phrase to Funding Dr Steve Cross 4. Can you Teach Public Engagement? Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor	All sessions will take place inside the Lecture Theatre block
11.30	Training options	1. Getting into Broadcast: What's the Point and How Can You Do it? Sam McKaylin 2. Evaluating Engagement Dr Jamie Gallagher 3. Writing with Impact for Broad Audiences with Dr Mike Rose & Dr Nadya Yakovchuk, Doctoral College 4. Better Conversations with the Public: Setting Yourself up for Success Fiona Mckenzie	All sessions will take place inside the Lecture Theatre block
12.30	Lunch & Networking	Your opportunity to meet and discuss with all the trainers about the services they offer as well as the chance to speak to internal colleagues about public engagement case studies and best practice.	Upper Concourse
13.30	Panel Discussion	What's in it for me? The benefits of public engagement for Researchers Chair: Professor Bob Nichol, Pro Vice-Chancellor & Executive Dean (FEPS) Panellists: Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock Steve Scott, Public Engagement Lead, UKRI Professor Dan Horton, Associate Dean Research and Innovation (FHMS), Professor of Veterinary Virology Professor Rachel Brooks, Professor of Sociology, Associate Dean (R&I) FASS, University of Surrey	LT D
14.30	Break
14.40	Plenary & Keynote	1. Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock Maggie will share invaluable insights on how science and technology affects our lives and the importance of being an educator. 2. Building a new relationship between research, innovation and society: a representative from UKRI Public Engagement Team Speaking on UKRI's new Public Engagement strategy and UKRI’s ambitions to break down barriers between research, innovation and wider society. 3. Have your say: is Surrey supporting Public Engagement Activity? with Dr Jamie Gallagher	LT D
16.00	Closing remarks	Professor Tim Dunne, Provost & Senior Vice-President	LT D
16.15	Drinks reception	Ross Kelway & Becki Leach, Public Engagement Team	Upper Concourse
17.30	Close

Taster Training Sessions

Storytelling for Engagement, Dr Anna Ploszajski

Join materials scientist and professional storyteller Dr Anna Ploszajski for this whistle-stop tour of the world of storytelling for public engagement. You’ll be introduced to the tools you need to tell creative and compelling stories about your work to make you more memorable, understandable and engaging, increasing the overall impact of your work. We’ll cover how to structure like a storyteller, how to create compelling worlds and characters, and how to make your message pitch-perfect for any future audience.

Better conversations with the public: setting yourself up for success, Fiona McKenzie

Do you want to engage a wider group of people in your work but worry about how to communicate and manage the conversation? This session will offer practical tips to improve how you have conversations with the public about your work. We will unpick the key elements and look at how to prepare well. It is suitable for any level of experience. Engagement is most valuable when it's rooted in meaningful dialogue. Come find out how to make that happen at this session.

Developing Public Engagement Ideas from Phrase to Funding, Dr Steve Cross

You've had a great idea for a public engagement project, but now what? In this session, Dr Steve Cross (who has been running public engagement projects for over 20 years) will show you have to shape and write about public engagement ideas in ways that will help you get support, funding and participants. Feel free to bring along an existing idea or come and learn the principles and techniques involved.

Evaluating Engagement, Dr Jamie Gallagher

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 give you reliable and clear data. Demonstrate success to funders; record Impact for REF; learn how to improve your processes and have a better understanding of the people you are connecting with.

Getting into Broadcast: What's the Point and How Can You Do it? Sam McKaylin

Sam's been a lot of things: a machine learning engineer, a TV producer, an intergalactic space worm (He promises this is relevant). But the thing he's been lucky enough to enjoy the most is making children's science TV.

Join him in this session to find out how you can build your brand as a researcher, explore what the point of doing broadcast work really is and to discover how you can get in front of the people in broadcasting who actually matter.

Engaging with Policy-makers, Chris Webber & Tessa Dowdell, UK Gov, Open Innovation Team

The Open Innovation Team is a cross-government team that works with experts and academics to generate ideas and insights for policy. They will be delivering a one-hour taster session of their ‘policy masterclass’, covering policy-making practice and tips and strategies to better communicate with policymakers and increase your policy impact. The session will also involve time for discussion and questions.

Writing with Impact for Broader Audiences, Dr Michael Rose & Dr Nadya Yakovchuk

Modern researchers are increasingly expected to be able to communicate their research to a variety of specialist and non-specialist audiences with confidence, clarity and impact. The aim of this workshop is to equip you with valuable writing strategies for producing impactful text for broad audiences. This interactive session covers three main themes:
1) Motivations and Choosing Your Audience
2) Making Headlines
3) Writing for the Genre
You will get an opportunity to explore a selection of texts of different genres to highlight some of the key differences between them and more traditional academic texts, and to identify strategies used to ensure that writing is impactful.

Can you Teach Public Engagement? Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor

How do you engage an audience? What is needed for an effective blog post? When an interviewer changes topic how do you respond? These were the questions facing a group of Maths and Physics students who opted to take a new Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences (FEPS) module in education and public engagement. A multi-department course taught by academics across the Surrey campus, this talk will cover the story behind the module. We will share how and why the course formed, content, structure, assessments and some of the exercises the students undertook… audience participation at the ready! With plans to offer the module to other departments and the addition of a pedagogic research stream, the talk will conclude with a discussion on the future of taught public engagement content at the University of Surrey.