Disposal? UCL Museums & Collections and the Consultative Exhibition
In October 2009, UCL Museums & Collections held an exhibition which asked the audience to contribute to discussions about one of the most controversial subjects in the museum world: what should we keep and what should we get rid of?
Bright Club: public engagement variety night
Bright Club provides an enjoyable first-step into public engagement for students and staff. It is run by the UCL Public Engagement Unit and happens every month in a comedy club in London.
Supporting informal professional development in public engagement
There are many ways to support informal development in public engagement in an institution. This case study describes some of the event formats that have worked well at the Edinburgh Beacon.
The Crescent Network - Fostering PE through networks
Set up in early 2010 the Crescent Network is an informal forum for early career researchers to develop their public engagement skills
Qualitative baseline research at UEA
CUE East Beacon carried out a qualitative baseline survey of a cross-section of academic staff at UEA. It not only provided a baseline against which improvements can be assessed, but also recognised the activity already taking place and identified motivations and barriers for getting involved.
How MMU and people in Hulme and Moss Side came together to breath new life into film archive collections. In 2009 MMU's Northwest Film archive worked alongside a local cultural broadcaster on a public engagement fellowship project using archive footage as a platform to co-create a new short...
Systems for Staff: coordinating and supporting public engagement at Beacon NE
Beacon NE is one of six Beacons for Public Engagement, established to encourage public engagement in the Higher Education sector and is a partnership between Newcastle University, Durham University and the Centre for Life.
Future animals: Friend or Food?
‘Future animals’ was an integrated arts and science project that brought together teenagers, Cardiff University staff and students, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, and an artist to discuss how human manipulation of past animals produced animals of the present day, and to design animals for...
Embedding recognition for public engagement into promotions criteria at UEA
A set of promotions criteria on Enterprise and Engagement has been developed to reward those who get involved in engagement at UEA – to try to tackle the perception amongst staff that time spent on public engagement isn’t formally recognised by the university.
Early Career Researcher Awards
Vitae North West Hub and the Manchester Beacon collaborated to support researcher development through PE and mentoring to five projects in the North West region
Manchester Community Science Awards
Four awards of up to £2000 each were available to develop PE activities during the Manchester Science Festival 2010.
Manchester Beacon Science Festival Community Awards 2010
Fostering new partnerships between research networks and community groups. This case study explores the role of the Museum as a bridge to build links between universities and community groups.
How can Beacons help foster change within institutional culture? This was the starting point for the Manchester Beacon Steering Group, who recognised that this change could be encouraged within certain contexts.
Step Up- Community Leadership Programme
Step Up was a bespoke leadership development programme led by the Manchester Beacon and Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations, designed to support and mentor leaders from the BAME communities.
Collaborating for Social Justice: a community-university partnership
Mutually beneficial partnership between Thrive, a community organisation committed to assisting people to overcome poverty and the Centre for Social Justice, Durham University
Developing low carbon neighbourhoods: a collaborative action research project in Newcastle
Improving university engagement with communities and neighbourhoods in Newcastle upon Tyne to discern local visions and actions relevant to building low carbon communities/neighbourhoods
Beacon North East Co-inquiry Action Research (CAR) Project
Members from BE North East, community group, Thrive, Durham University and Newcastle University formed co-enquiry action research group to research co-enquiry
Developing Durham Local Food Network: the role of a Master's student
Co-inquiry partnership (community-university research partnership), centred around the provision of a masters Postgraduate bursary awarded to Amy Mycock to develop a website for Durham Local Food Network.
Digging where we stand: a research collaboration between older people and planning students
Community-university research partnership involving postgraduate planning students worked with older people in two diverse neighbourhoods to draw out qualities of those neighbourhoods that were supportive or detrimental to older residents’ quality of life.
Cross-Institutional Collaboration
The aim of this initiative was to help establish effective support for public engagement activities across the Edinburgh Beltane partnership.
The CUE East Individual Awards are aimed at providing an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution that staff and students at UEA and at the Norwich Research Park have made to university community engagement.
Beacon for Wales funding rounds
The Beacon for Wales has been focussing on raising the profile of engagement as a valid activity for university academics, and has managed to award £208k to 16 projects across four different Welsh universities in two funding rounds.
UCL Step Out and other adventures
A collaboration between UCL's public engagement unit and their volunteering services unit to encourage postgraduate students to develop public engagement projects.
The Beacon Bursaries scheme is one of the funding schemes facilitated by the UCL Public Engagement Unit. The Beacon Bursaries funding scheme provides small grants of up to £1,500 to support projects or activities that will help staff and/or students to connect their research or teaching with groups...
All My Worldly Possessions: The Guernsey Evacuee Experience
Exploring the Guernsey Evacuee Experience enabled university researcher Gill Mawson to talk about her work and the Bury Archives. Sharing the stories of evaluees made the Archives and university research more accessible to the general public.
A series of public & school engagement activities took place in Manchester to highlight important issues surrounding food security & urban agriculture, which culminated in a 'Finale Day' on 3rd July 2010 at the Manchester Museum
The UCL Public Engagement Unit works to embed public engagement into University life and trains up academics to take part in FameLab, the international science communication competition
The Evaluation of the UCL Beacon
This case study outlines the lines of inquiry used to evaluate UCL’s programme as part of the Beacons for Public Engagement (BPE) initiative.
Is there chemistry when Miss Sulphate meets Mr Copper? Can you turn your pennies into gold? University of Manchester researchers worked with the Museum of Science and Industry to develop four interactive experiences on corrosion science for the Manchester Science Festival – with resounding success!
Places to start: opportunities for Public Engagement
It is important that staff and students have access to training, but is vital that they also have opportunities to ‘do’ public engagement. This presents a number of challenges. This case study focuses on some of the routes staff and students at the University of Edinburgh have followed to gain...
The promotion of using computer game design in education. To inspire and interest 12–14 year old school pupils in computer science by giving them opportunities to make computer games in the classroom.
At the centre of Staging the Henrician Court research project was a full-scale public production of John Heywood's The Play of the Weather in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace. The project included other public engagement activities including public lectures and theatrical workshops.
UCL Provost's Award for Public Engagement
The reward and recognition of PE activity is a core goal of the Beacon for Public Engagement (BPE) programme. The UCL-led Beacon have approached this is a number of ways, including the organisation and delivery of an internal awards programme for public engagement called the Provost’s Awards for...
Co-ordination and networks to support Public Engagement
It is challenging to coordinate information about PE, particularly across large institutions. It is also difficult to establish and maintain networks of people who work in this area. This case study explores how the University of Edinburgh is attempting to do this and shares the lessons learned so...
Developing infrastructure to support learning
Networks, events programmes, training opportunities and formal CPD in public engagement all support learning but delivering these initiatives requires experienced staff and other resources. Find out the Edinburgh Beltane tackled this.
Building formal support for public engagement into CPD Programmes
Our objective when we set out on this project was to provide a clear overview of the range of public engagement activities, the training and development opportunities available, and a way to support a strategic approach to professional development.
Centre for Social Justice and Community Action
Durham University’s Centre for Social Justice and Community Action (CSJCA) was set up to promote relevant, community-based participatory research.
