All posts by Jacob Dunningham

18Jan/23

Interact 2022 Roving Reporters Observations Published

18th January 2023UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

Interact 2022 was held at City Hall in Cardiff on September 14th 2022. Interact is a series of biennial sympossia on Public Engagement in the Physical Sciences and are a space for researchers and engagement professionals to meet, share expertise, network, and promote best practice. The 2022 event was a fantastic return to the face to face format for the conference and was attended by 195 delegates across multiple universities, research institutions, outreach organisations, learned societies, industry partners and those from other sectors. Interact 2022 was co-organised by SEPnet, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Ogden Trust and Cardiff University.

For Interact 2022 we introduced the role of Roving Reporter and put a call out to delegates to apply for these paid positions. Roving Reporters were tasked with attending the conference as they would have done anyway, selecting the parallel sessions of their choice, and writing us a report summarising their experience of the conference and the content of the sessions they attended. This will serve as a record of the conference, enabling those who could not attend to engage with the conference content, and providing those who attended different parallel sessions to find out about those they couldn’t attend.

A big thank you to our Roving Reporters for their hard work on the report: Stewart Eyres, Ghada Jameel, Claudia Antolini, Holly
Cave, Eliza Hunt and Emmy Amers. The report is available to read and download here.

30Sep/22

Interact Engagement Symposium 2022

30th September 2022Diversity, Impact, Outreach, Public EngagementJacob Dunningham

The biennial Interact conference took place in City Hall, Cardiff on 14^th September. Interact is an engagement conference for the physical sciences co-organised by SEPnet, the STFC, the IOP, the RAS and the Ogden Trust.

The symposium had five core themes:

Evaluation and impact
Reaching audiences underrepresented in the physical sciences
Engagement mediums
Funding routes for engagement
Sharing good practice

Almost 200 people attended on the day from a vast range of universities, charities, industry partners, outreach organisations and learned societies. The day was jam packed with over 20 talks and workshops happening across four parallel sessions and two plenaries. There was also a marketplace area with stands from professional bodies and hands on activities and demonstrations from practitioners. The Sun served as a backdrop to City Hall’s Assembly Room, in the form of a 6-metre sphere art installation, based on research from the University of Central Lancashire and led by researcher Professor Robert Walsh.

The conference was delayed by a year due to the pandemic, and attendees commented on the benefit of being able to gather in person again to network, share ideas and discover new engagement practices and methodologies. Over the entire Interact Conference series data has been collected on engagement practice and culture in the physical sciences to assess the embdedding of engagement culture and identify barriers to progress.

09May/22

There are reasons girls don’t study physics – and they don’t include not liking maths

9th May 2022UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

SEPnet Director of Outreach and Public Engagement, Dr Olivia Keenan, and Senior Outreach Fellow at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, Dr Jen Gupta have authored an article for The Conversation outlining SEPnet’s response to the comments made recently to the Commons Science and Technology Committee on girls and Physics.

Olivia and Jen lay out the evidence around girls aptitude in physics and maths and discuss the research into the real reasons fewer girls than boys pursue physics to A-level and beyond.

Please share this article with your networks to raise the importance of this issue. The full article can be read through The Conversation.

31Mar/22

First F2F GRADnet event in two years: Advanced Materials Workshop at RHUL

31st March 2022UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

Around 20 delegates from across the SEPnet institutes attended the Advanced Materials workshop on Monday, 28 March 2022 at Royal Holloway.

The workshop included the following sessions:

Dr Sam Carr: The theory of strongly correlated systems
Dr David Voneshen: Neutron scattering

The workshop concluded with a proposal writing and review session in which the delegates came up with their own applications for experiments at a large facility. These spanned an exciting range of science covering organic thin films, superconductors and spintronic systems. Only one could be awarded time though with the “panel” backing the thin film proposal.

One of the delegates said “I think the workshop was really great and I am hoping that there will be others in the future that I can take part in.” They thought the “presentations were comprehensible and the lecturers really friendly and easy to communicate with”. They found the session on how to prepare the beam proposals “a really good idea”.

GRADnet hopes to be able to offer a 2-day event next time to cover some of the sessions in more detail as it was not possible this year due to the pandemic.

Thank you to Jon Goff, Professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Department of Physics, Royal Holloway University of London who organised this event on behalf of GRADnet and Dr Sam Carr, Lecturer in Physics University of Kent and Dr David Voneshen, ISIS, Science Technology Facilities Council, for their valued contribution to this event.

14Jan/22

Portsmouth ICG Public Engagement Team win Prestigious Royal Astronomical Society Annie Maunder Medal

14th January 2022UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

Dr Nicolas Bonne, Dr Jen Gupta and Dr Coleman Krawczyk have been awarded the RAS’s Annie Maunder Medal for their work on the Tactile Universe Project. The Annie Maunder Medal is awarded annually for outstanding outreach work.

The Tactile Universe project delivers workshops that make astronomy accessible to vision-impaired children. Their work enables children between the ages of 7 and 14, to experience the benefits of a multi-sensory learning experience, inspiring them to the wonders of the universe with 3d models of galaxies, the Solar System and using sound. A newly funded STFC project will enable the project to expand its interests to the communicate research into gravitational waves. In addition to delivering workshops, the team have created resource kits and train other practitioners and museums to share knowledge so that the project goals are disseminated widely across the UK. The project has received international recognition through invited conference talks, and media coverage, including an appearance on BBC’s The Sky at Night, and has collaborated with an international installation at the British Science Festival. The Tactile Universe also has international reach through the project’s website, where educators across the world can access developed lesson plans, presentations, and instructions for how to create 3d printed models to deliver astronomy classes to children regardless of their level of vision. The Tactile Universe project and its team are commended for their continuing efforts to create a more inclusive environment that brings astronomy to all.

SEPnet send the Tactile Universe team our heartiest congratulations on this fantastic achievement. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Nic, Jen and Coleman and look forward to continuing to do so through the exciting next phase of the project.

10May/21

Outreach and Public Engagement Roadmap Launched

10th May 2021Outreach, Public EngagementJacob Dunningham

In 2017 SEPnet launched it’s first Outreach and Public Engagement Strategy, to help guide activities across the network and to ensure that our engagement activity can has the most impact possible. To supplement this we have today launched our Outreach and Public Engagement Roadmap. This is a document which outlines possible interventions with young people of different ages, and how this can be targeted and supported by work within the same broader community.

The roadmap lays out the programmes we run, their target audiences and age groups, the ideal location to run each activity, and provides supplementary information about the aims of each one. The roadmap lays out how Outreach professionals can maximise the impact of their work within their target communities. We recommend that departments select around 3 target secondary schools to work with, based on their proportion of students from groups currently underrepresented in physics. The feeder primary schools for these secondaries can then be identified as well as any local areas and community organisations local to them. This ensures that we are engaging with the same children, their families and communities over long periods of time, supporting their journeys with physics.

Included in the roadmap is an example delivery plan from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation in the University of Portsmouth. This lays out the scale of programme that is deliverable by one department, and outlines the resources needed to do this.

We hope this document will be helpful across the SEPnet network and beyond in laying out a framework for targeted long term interventions. If you have any comments about this work, or would like to know more, please contact outreach@sepnet.ac.uk.

29Mar/21

SEPnet Public Engagement Awards 2021

29th March 2021UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

SEPnet’s 2021 Public Engagement Awards ceremony took place online on March 25^th, having been delayed from September 2020 due to the pandemic. The awards recognised Physicists across our partner universities for their outstanding public engagement work. The awards served as an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of physicists engaging with the public, a chance to reflect on the last year and the challenges and opportunities it has posed, and space to look forward to consider how we might engage post-pandemic. The awards were presented in 9 categories and different awards were open to individuals, projects, research groups and departments. A huge congratulations to all winners and those highly commended in categories.

Newcomer
Winner – Will Roper, University of Sussex

Communication
Winner – Meirin Evans, University of Sussex
Highly Commended:
Muhammad Hamza Waseem, University of Oxford

Achievement
Winner – Dr Victoria Mason, University of Kent

Public Engagement Champion Award
Winner – Dr Seth Zenz, Queen Mary University of London
Highly Commended:
Dr Stephen Wilkins, University of Sussex

Innovation Project Award
Winner – SETI and Democracy, University of Oxford
Highly Commended:
Space Soundscape, Queen Mary University of London

Impact Project Award
Winners – The Tactile Universe, University of Portsmouth
Space Sound Effects, Queen Mary University of London

COVID-19 Response Award
Winner – Physics Outreach Team, University of Oxford
Highly Commended:
ATLAS Research Group, University of Sussex

Strategic Approach to Public Engagement
Winner – School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent
Highly Commended:
Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth

12Jan/21

SEPnet Public Engagement Awards now open for nominations!

12th January 2021awards, Public Engagement, SEPnetJacob Dunningham

The SEPnet Public Engagement Awards 2021 are now open for nominations! The deadline for submission is 5pm on Friday 19^th February 2021. The awards ceremony will be held online on March 25^th 2021.

The awards have been postponed from September 2020 in the hope that they would be able to go ahead in person. Unfortunately, that won’t be possible this year, however we wanted to make sure that they still went ahead so that we can celebrate and recognise that incredible engagement work that goes on across the whole of SEPnet. In recognition of the current situation we have also added in an award which specifically recognises engagement work done during the COVID-19 pandemic. The full list of categories is:

Newcomer Award (Individual)

Communication Award (Individual)

Innovation Project Award (Project)

Achievement Award (Individual)

Impact Project Award (Project)

Research Group Award (Research Group)

Public Engagement Champion Award (Individual)

Strategic Approach to Public Engagement Award (Department)

COVID-19 Response Award (Individual)

Full information about the eligibility criteria in each category can be found here.

Applications must be submitted using this web form.

There are four types of awards: Projects, Individuals, Research Groups and Physics Departments. Projects, individuals and research groups can be nominated for more than one award however a nomination form for each award is required. Self-nominations are welcome. Projects, individuals and research groups can be nominated in successive years for the same award, however winners will not receive the same award twice. Those previously highly commended in a category are eligible to be nominated into the same category but must demonstrate to judges substantial improvement/development since the last awards. Any work having taken place since September 2017 is eligible. All award applications must be submitted using the web form. If submitting multiple nominations please complete the form separately for each one. Outreach Officers, Public Engagement staff and anyone working on Outreach or Public Engagement at 0.5FTE or higher are ineligible for the Individual Awards. Please note School’s Outreach activities not based on research are not eligible for any award. Nominations must be received by 5pm on Friday 19th February 2021.

30Sep/20

STEM Careers Postcards

30th September 2020UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

We have developed a set of careers postcards showcasing a range of careers which use physics qualifications or skills. These highlight employers in the SEPnet region which offer relevant roles and give information on the levels of qualifications needed.

The new Gatsby Careers Benchmarks, especially benchmark 4, highlight the expectation on teachers to embed careers into their classroom teaching. These cards are an easy way to introduce STEM careers into classrooms, and all are mapped to the KS3 curriculum.

We owe a huge thanks to NUSTEM as these were developed based on NUSTEM resources, and they have been fantastically generous and supportive throughout the process. We have utilised the 15 STEM attributes laid out by NUSTEM, based on previous work of the WISE Campaign and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

We are also very grateful for the support of all the organisations who have contributed including: AWE, Brady Mallalieu Architects, CGG, Fat Fish Games, Forest Learning Alliance, Framestore, Jacobs, The Met Office, Millais Alliance, NPL, RSSL, Surrey Satellite Technology, Thames Water and University of Surrey.

The cards are available to download and print for free here. If you would like any more information about the cards, or advice on how to use them, please email outreach@sepnet.ac.uk.

27Aug/20

Interact 2019 Evaluation Report Launched

27th August 2020UncategorizedJacob Dunningham

The Interact 2019 Sympossium took place in Preston last year, in a world which now feels barely recognisable! It formed part of a biennial series of symposia which aim to foster a community of active public engagement practitioners across academia and industry in the physical sciences. The day itself was a valuable experience to share expertise, network and foster ideas to enrich public engagement practice.

The symposium was co-organised by SEPnet, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Institute of Physics, the Ogden Trust, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the University of Central Lancashire (who acted as the 2019 hosts). The organisers are carrying out a longitudinal evaluation of the symposium series to access it’s impact on the sector, and to better ascertain what is needed from our organisations to support academics and industry professionals in their roles as public engagement practitioners. The report from Interact 2019 has now been published and is available to download from the STFC website. Hard copies are also available on request – please email outreach@sepnet.ac.uk if you would like to some.

We will shortly be sending out a follow up survey to attendees of Interact 2019, to follow up on the impact the symposium has had on their work. We recognise that this has been a rather unusual year and would like to also find out the affect this has had on the sector, and the support that our organisations can provide in the current climate. Pandemic permitting Interact 2021 is scheduled to take place in Cardiff next September.

Author: Jacob Dunningham