Outreach and Public Engagement

Please read our complete Outreach and Public Engagement Strategy, which shows how all our projects and activities fit together. 

• If you’re a teacher or secondary school student, you can find out about our Outreach projects to support school students and teachers of physics.
• If you are a physicist at one of our universities, you can find more information on Public Engagement with research.

Our strategy

Our strategy for SEPnet outreach and public engagement activities is split into three core programmes outlined below.

We have also developed a Roadmap for Engagement with young people to support our strategy – this details the programmes we deliver and the target audience. We’ve included a delivery plan from a SEPnet university to demonstrate a realistic long-term programme using these interventions.

Core Programme 1: School Outreach

Aim: To raise, or at least maintain the science capital of Key Stage 3 students in the region by communicating the following messages via our programme of activities:

1. Anyone can do physics.
2. Physics is exciting, relevant & important; it goes beyond the classroom.
3. Studying physics further broadens career possibilities.

Core Programme 2: Teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Aim: To support the work of science teachers in the classroom by providing training to help Physics teaching become more equitable, and to help maintain and raise the science capital amongst their students.

Core Programme 3: Public Engagement with Research

Aim: To cultivate and embed a culture of engaged physics research with the public across all SEPnet partners. We believe it is important to support the research groups to develop, run and evaluate impactful methods of engaging different and diverse publics with their research.

This programme uses the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s (NCCPE) definition of Public Engagement. All projects based on research / working outside schools are included in this programme.

The full strategy includes more information on these programmes and information about individual projects. 

If there’s any information you require and can’t find, please email us at outreach@sepnet.ac.uk.