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. 

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. 

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.

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

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.

Thousands of young women and girls have had the chance to explore the world of science, engineering, and light technologies thanks to a European photonics research consortium that has created their girls in STEM ecosystem, a series of 33 workshops and 11 Photonics Challenger projects across 10 European countries in a bid to tackle the underrepresentation of women in science.

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), less than 30% of the world’s researchers are women.

However, a new outreach project has been tackling this underrepresentation by engaging young female minds with STEM, in the hope that they will pursue a career within the photonics, science or engineering industries.

Staged in ten countries across Europe, a total of 1221 girls have attended the ‘Phablabs 4.0’ initiatives since last year. The workshops have created novel and innovative problems for students to solve using lasers and photonics, the technology around the emission, manipulation and detection of light.

Combining a ‘Fab Lab’ – or a fabrication laboratory – with the world of photonics, the workshops and Challenger Projects offer a glimpse into careers in photonics, engineering, computer coding, and robotics.

Pearl John, SEPnet Public Engagement Leader at the University of Southampton, has led the UK element of the project. Partnering with the Green Lab agri-tech laboratory in Bermondsey Pearl and her team have delivered a series of hands on photonics workshops, reaching audiences who would not otherwise have the opportunity to access hands on physics experiences.

Pearl John and the team from Southampton University.

Hands-on Opportunities

Students have been exploring tasks as varied as creating an artwork made from lasers, modifying a cuddly toy with photonics, or building an infrared glove that acts as a remote control where touching two fingers creates a signal.

The more advanced Challenger Projects have tasked students with building an Invisibility Cloak or creating their own hologram. Some students, like Ester Muylaert, 18, from Halle, Belgium, are really excited to discover material they would not learn anywhere else.

“Phablabs is amazing and interesting. We’ve learned lots of new skills that we wouldn’t have picked up in school. To see the job in front of me and to meet the person who does that job has given me loads of ideas about what I can do in the future. It’s really made me want to work with photonics.”

The researchers have targeted three age categories with workshops aimed at high school girls (Young Minds), female university students (Students) and women who may have already started their careers (Young Professionals 18+).

Gender Balanced Resources

One of the results of the PhabLabs 4.0 project has been the publication of a new booklet, A Gender Balanced Approach. The booklet acts as a guide to future Fabrication Laboratories so that organisers in schools or universities can use it as a reference to gain the interest of girls and young women in science and technology.

By creating gender-sensitive material for the workshops and “Photonics Challenger Projects” the organisers have garnered the interest of girls and young women in science, to generate a lasting impact on their personal relation to STEM and Fab Labs.

Supported by the Gender Action Team, the developers have had the backing of the European Commission with funding from Horizon 2020, and support from a number of professionals such as Professor Averil MacDonald from WISE (Women in Science and Engineering).

“We are delighted to be able to open a door into a world of science that some girls and young women may feel is closed,” Professor MacDonald said. “Girls and young women are more likely to consider studying STEM subjects beyond age 16 if they see that the subject keeps their options open.”

“The STEM sectors can only benefit from the talents of these young women. More girls and young women deserve the chance to have successful and satisfying careers in science, technology, engineering, manufacturing, mathematics and construction,” said Professor MacDonald.

The resources are available as an open resource toolkit for educators to use with their students.

For more details contact phablabs4.0@gmail.com.