Action Research - Beacons

The Engaged University: Issues and Action

This is a group for managers, directors and coordinators of the Beacons for Public Engagement projects, including from the NCCPE.

For information on each of the 6 Beacons for Public Engagement, please visit the Beacons tab on the main page: http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/beacons

The starting question for this group is:

How can an intensive investment in Public Engagement projects translate into sustainable engagement across higher education institutions?

This group is a closed group, with membership drawn fully from the Beacons for Public Engagement..

This group meets regularly for coordination between the different projects, and had its inaugural Action Research meeting in April 2010 Further meetings will take place in conjunction with ongoing coordination meetings.

Next Beacons meeting: 14 July

To discuss the work of this group please contact Danny Burns

Members of the AR Beacons Group

Biographies

Sarah Aldridge: Beacon North East

Sarah Aldridge has overall responsibility for the Beacon North East programme alongside her current responsibility for the Aimhigher programme across Tyne and Wear, Northumberland. Sarah is a trained project manager who has excellent and diverse skills in partnership working, developing strategies for change and setting the strategic direction of both programmes with all partners.

Steve Cross: University College of London (UCL)

Steve Cross is UCL's first-ever Head of Public Engagement, and responsible for the university's activities as a Beacon for Public Engagement. A long time ago he was a geneticist, and has since worked on family exhibitions and events for the Centre for Life in Newcastle, as an exhibition curator for Wellcome Collection and the Science Museum, and as a writer and web content developer for anyone who would have him. These days he tries to help UCL staff at all levels and students to connect their work more effectively with people outside academia. Amongst other things, he's the developer of Bright Club, where researchers from every discipline make their work funny in front of a public audience. Steve is from Nottingham, and wishes he had the accent to match.

Bruce Etherington: Beacon for Wales

Bruce Etherington is the manager of the Beacon for Wales, a partnership between Cardiff and Glamorgan universities and Techniquest, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales and BBC Wales. The Beacon for Wales works with all the Welsh universities to learn from them and to provide advice on how to embed public engagement in their work. Previously, Bruce was the manager of SETPOINT Wales, a programme to increase the number of young people taking scientific and technological qualifications and careers. He has also worked in university outreach, in planetaria and at Techniquest and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales.

Paul Manners: National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement

Paul Manners is responsible for the strategic direction of the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE). Originally trained as a secondary English teacher, he worked for twelve years at the Open University as a producer of TV, radio and multimedia before joining the BBC as an executive producer of a number of national public engagement campaigns. He advises a number of national organisations on learning and engagement, including the National Trust and the Science Museum, and attempts to relax through a combination of playing blues guitar, football, reading, sharing music and pottering in the garden.

Erinma Ochu: Manchester Beacon for Public Engagement

Erinma Ochu is currently Creative Director of the Manchester Beacon for Public Engagement, a partnership initiative connecting Greater Manchester Universities to local communities. See www.manchesterbeacon.org. Prior to this, Erinma worked as a production executive in the Film Industry for five years and as a cultural programmer of large scale events, working for Brixton-based B3 Media. See www.b3media.net. Erinma is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and honorary research fellow at The University of Manchester. Her research background includes a PhD in Applied Neuroscience, a 2-year fellowship from NESTA (The National Endowment for Science Technology and The Arts) to develop new ways to communicate science to the public and action research into creative learning and teaching through Creative Partnerships and the Engage Enquire Programme. 

Heather Rea: Edinburgh Beltane

Heather Rea is the Project Manager for the Edinburgh Beltane - Beacon for Public Engagement. She did a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and a PhD at Edinburgh Napier

University in Manufacturing Systems.  She worked as a researcher at Heriot-Watt University where she ran a number of public engagement projects funded by the EPSRC and the Royal Academy of Engineers before joining the Edinburgh Beltane project working to encourage researchers and PhD and undergraduate students to share their enthusiasm with school children and the Edinburgh International Science Festival audiences.

Julie Worrall: CUE East

Julie Worrall hails from a Cambridge ‘town’ stock of bakers, bus cleaners and bed makers, and lives with her children in beautiful North Norfolk where she runs the lanes and gazes at the sea. She joined UEA in 2005, after nineteen years in public and voluntary & community sector roles, most latterly, Chief Executive of Victim Support Norfolk.  With a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies (Distinction, 2003), Julie has extensive project management and partnership experience in housing, homelessness, social policy and criminal justice, including a range of ground-breaking initiatives such as the Norfolk Joint Protocol for Homeless Young people, Norwich Link Line (winner, National and European Crime Concern Awards 1997), the first Strategy to Tackle Street Homelessness in Norwich and the Norwich Equality Charter (winner, Anglian Regional Council Equalities Award 1998).  For over thirty years, Julie has undertaken a range of voluntary roles.  She is a trustee of ARVAC, the Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector, and represents UEA on the management committee of the West Norwich Partnership.  Julie instigated and coordinates UEA’s Annual Community Engagement Survey and co-authored UEA’s successful bid to become a Beacon for Public Engagement.  Julie is a member of UEA’s Enterprise & Engagement Executive and the Association of Universities East of England Community Engagement Sub-Group.  She is currently researching a doctorate at UEA on the culture of higher education in relation to public and community engagement.