SEPnet, together with STFC, Institute of Physics and the University of Birmingham are proud to launch the evaluation report from Interact 2017. Interact 2017 was a symposium whose aim was to cultivate a community of engagement practitioners within the physical sciences who develop high quality STEM engagement and encourage a culture of strategic and reflective practice.

The symposium was a success with over 120 physical scientists from across the UK attending and sharing best practice. The symposium is also measuring its impact on these scientists through a yearlong evaluation process, the baseline of which can be found in the report.

In addition to this, the report showcases the rich landscape for Outreach and Public Engagement that currently exists in the physical sciences across the UK and sets good measures for its continued development.

The symposium also featured plenary speakers Prof Alice Roberts (University of Birmingham), and SEPnet’s own Prof Jim Al Khalili (University of Surrey) talk about their careers as engaged researchers and science communicators.

Over half of the 30 parallel sessions on offer at Interact 2017 were delivered by a physicist from a SEPnet partner, or had some SEPnet involvement on their project. This shows SEPnet leading in Outreach and Public Engagement best practice across physics departments in the UK. This is all thanks to the continued long-term commitment from all our partner universities to the SEPnet Outreach and Public Engagement programme through the hard work from the Outreach Officers, Physicists and all our project partners.

If you missed the day and would like to get a feel check out his video from the Institute of Physics which features SEPnet’s Director of Outreach and Public Engagement, Dr Dominic Galliano.

SEPnet looks forward to supporting the next Interact symposium in 2019.