CUE East Awards

Background

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, and to raise the profile of public and community engagement. The research-driven culture at UEA means that public and community engagement is not a priority, so is difficult to undertake as it does not bring in significant funding. These awards aim to change that, and embed a culture where knowledge dialogue activity is encouraged and rewarded appropriately.

The awards were open to all UEA and Norwich Research Park staff and to all students registered at UEA, and nominators were asked to provide a supporting statement as well as evidence of the specific contribution that their nominee had made to public and community engagement. The prizes took the form of a payment: in this, the first year of the awards, the panel received eight nominations and made seven awards of £1,000 each.

Successes

• There were some excellent examples of public engagement: for example, the mobile family laboratory that was taken to rural Norfolk schools
• The awards finally recognised some of the hard work put in by those involved in public engagement
• The awards were good profile-raising for public engagement:  They were presented during Summer Congregation, a significant development in embedding public engagement at UEA, as the awards shared in the prestige of other awards given out at Congregation.

Lessons Learned

• The awards should be more widely promoted, such as publicising them to potential nominees throughout the year (staff and students) so that they can put their name forward to the senior nominator in their school or division.
• Membership of the award panel should be reviewed to ensure that collectively, panel members have a sound understanding of public engagement and knowledge of University processes and systems.
• There should be different categories of awards to allow for comparison between nominees, which would also lend the awards more transparency.
• Clearer criteria for the Awards need to be developed: specifically, public engagement needs to be more tightly defined for the purposes of the awards and for different groups

Three sample award winners

Dave Hart, Institute of Food Research: Dave has always been actively involved in instigating and delivering public engagement with local schools, health organisations and charities, including Norfolk's Spring Fling and the Norfolk & Norwich Food Festival. Thousands of pupils and families have participated in Dave's activities, including Jellyvision, where pupils compete to make the tallest jelly where their food technology, chemistry and engineering skills are severely tested.

Stephen Ashworth (pictured right) has been actively involved with public engagement for the past ten years and is the Schools Liaison Officer for the local section of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has organised the annual Salters’ Festival of Chemistry, the Norwich Science Olympiad working with hundreds of local pupils of all ages, regular workshops for Women’s Institute Groups and developed a workshop for blind and partially sighted participants called ‘Looking Glass Laboratory’.

Val Striker, Faculty of Arts & Humanities: Val Striker in the Humanities Faculty here at UEA, has played a major role in organising the Literary Festivals which have attracted 90,000 attendees over the past 15 years. Her contribution has often been warmly acknowledged not only by the writers coming to UEA but also the editors and publishing houses with whom she has been in regular contact with. Val has worked tirelessly to promote the reputation of the University in the city and the region.