Tag Archives: Public Engagement

07Jun/18

The Dark Energy of Quantum Materials – Thursday 14 June – Royal Holloway, Egham

7th June 2018Public EngagementPublic EngagementJacob Dunningham

Limited Places Left! For more information and to register for free sign up here.

Superconductors are fascinating quantum materials with applications that include the lossless transmission of electrical power, levitating trains, making huge magnetic fields, and detecting the tiniest magnetic fields. Conventional superconductors were discovered in 1911 but the theoretical explanation did not come until 1957. High temperature superconductivity, discovered in 1986, is unconventional and we still don’t have a theory that explains it. There are dozens of other types of unconventional superconductors that we cannot explain.

In this lecture, Professor Greene will explore superconductivity and the bizarre behaviours of some quantum materials, and show some of the transformative applications. She will explain what we do know, and give a perspective of how much we still have to learn. Superconductivity reminds her of the universe itself: we use it every day, it’s very useful, and mostly, we don’t know much about it!

Professor Laura Greene is the past president of the American Physical Society, Chief Scientist at the National MagLab and the Francis Eppes Professor of Physics at Florida State University.

For more information and to register for free sign up here.

Thursday 14 June, 6.00 pm, Windsor Auditorium
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX

For more information e-mail here.

19Mar/18

Launch of Interact 2017 Evaluation Report

19th March 2018Public EngagementInteract, Public EngagementJacob Dunningham

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.

01Dec/17

SEPnet celebrates Public Engagement at Award Ceremony

1st December 2017Public EngagementPublic Engagement, Public Engagement AwardsJacob Dunningham

The third SEPnet Public Engagement Awards were held on Wednesday 29 November 2017. The ceremony was a fantastic opportunity to showcase amazing Public Engagement projects and practitioners from across the region.

Awards were were given out in six categories. For some awards the competition was very close, leading to other nominees being awarded a highly commended certificate.

The winners were:

Innovation Project Award
Winner – Tactile Universe, Portsmouth

Highly Commended:
SSFX, QMUL
Stargazing +, Oxford
Walk-In Quantum Computer Installation, Sussex
Collecting the award are the project team, Dr Coleman Krawczyk, Dr Nic Bonne, Dr Karen Masters and Raffles. Dr Jen Gupta couldn’t make the presentation.

Impact Project Award
Winner – Research In Schools, QMUL

Collecting the award is project lead Dr Martin Archer.

Communication Award
Winner – Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé, QMUL

Highly Commended:
Dr Suzie Sheehy, Oxford
Prof Winfried Hensinger, Sussex

Newcomer Award
Winner – Emma Osborne, Southampton

Highly Commended:
Lucy Newnham, Portsmouth
Dr Michelle Collins, Surrey
Sophie Bashforth, RHUL

Achievement Award
Winner – Dr Karen Masters, Portsmouth

Highly Commended:
Suzie Sheehy, Oxford

Research Group Award
Winner – Centre for Particle Physics, RHUL

Highly Commended:
Optical Engineering & Quantum Photonics Group, Southampton.

Collecting the award are representatives, Sophie Bashforth, Anna Christodoulou, Dr Stephen Gibson, Prof Stewart Boogert, Andrey Abramov

Other photographs from the event can be found here.

The panel was formed by Public Engagement experts from outside the SEPnet region, who weren’t Physics focused, and representatives from the IOP and RAS Outreach & Public Engagement teams. They were extremely impressed with the standard of nominations. There were many difficult decisions and it came down to splitting hairs. Thanks to all members of the panel for taking the time to review all the nominees.

A big thank-you to all those who submitted a nomination and hearty congratulations to all the winners.

04Sep/17

SEPnet launches 2017 Public Engagement Awards

4th September 2017Public EngagementPublic Engagement, Public Engagement AwardsJacob Dunningham

Have you been involved in an innovative, exciting or impactful public engagement project? Is there someone is your SEPnet department who has a long history of supporting and delivering public engagement projects? Or someone who’s just started out and whose enthusiasm is infectious and encourages others to take part? Is your research group fantastic in supporting public engagement?

Now’s your chance to celebrate these achievements! SEPnet is launching their 2017 Public Engagement Awards and needs your help recognising the best of public engagement across the network. We are recognising work across three categories, individuals, projects and research groups:

Projects:

Nominations for awards in this category should be for a single project run by an individual or a team. Projects would taken place within the last two years, with some form of output, outcome or long-term impact since September 2015.

Projects nominated in this category can include researchers from outside SEPnet and / or physics research, as long as at least one member of the project’s core team is based at a SEPnet Outreach Partner, including the associate members (Reading, St Mary’s and Oxford) and is carrying out physics research.

Innovation Project Award
This award recognises projects which have delivered interesting and innovative ways in which the public has engaged with physics research. Nominated projects will have had a target public, set aims & objectives, and an evaluation measuring outcomes and if appropriate long-term impact. Projects can include any form of engagement based on physics research with any audience.

Impact Project Award
Projects will have generated long-term impact from their research through any channel involving engaging with the public – including knowledge transfer, working with user groups, debates and many more.

Individuals:

The nominations for awards in this category should be for a single individual based at a SEPnet Outreach Partner, including the associate members (Reading, St Mary’s and Oxford) who is carrying out some form of physics research.

Communication Award
This award recognises an individual’s ability to communicate their own research through different channels including broadcast media (television, radio or film), writing for print or online journalism and public speaking (festivals, lectures, debates or panel discussions).

Achievement Award
This award recognises an individual’s record of sustained (at least ten years) of excellence in engaging the public with research through a range of engagement activities and audiences.

Newcomer Award
This award recognises an individual who is new to engagement and have made an impact that could include any type of engagement activity or project linked to their research.

Research Groups:

For the purpose of the awards a research group is defined as a collection of academics, normally based within a single department at one of the SEPnet Outreach Partners, including the associate members (Reading, St Mary’s and Oxford), working in an emerging or established area of expertise. This should line up with how your institution defines a research group. Nominations can be written by anyone within the research group but must have the approval of their head of group.

Research Group Award
This award recognises a research group that has a well embedded culture of public engagement based on their research.

Please note:

School’s Outreach activities not based on research are not eligible for any award.
Projects, individuals and research groups can be nominated for more than one award however a nomination form for each award is required.
Projects, individuals and research groups can be nominated in successive years for the same award. However winners will not receive the same award twice.
Each award has their own form.
Outreach Officers, Public Engagement staff and anyone working on Outreach or Public Engagement at 0.5FTE or higher are ineligible for the Individual Awards.
Deadline has now been extended until midday on Wednesday 16 October 2017.

Click here for full details on the criteria for all awards.

Awards will be presented on Wednesday November 29th at Prince Phillip House in central London, following the Student Expo.

For more details please see your local SEPnet Outreach Officer or email outreach@sepnet.ac.uk

15Jun/17

WANTED: Sessions and Exhibits for Interact – an engagement symposium for the physical sciences

15th June 2017Outreach, Public EngagementInteract, Outreach, Public EngagementJacob Dunningham

Thursday 14 September, University of Birmingham

Have you worked on an outreach, public engagement or science communication project based on the physical sciences? Are you looking to share your learning, celebrate your success and help others avoid your mistakes? If so then the Interact symposium is for you!

We are looking for all sorts of people to put forward sessions and share their experiences of working on outreach, public engagement or science communication projects. This includes community partners, outreach officers, freelance science communicators, the museum sector, creative producers, the arts community, media, and informal educators as well as researchers with public engagement experience.

Whether it’s a project that engaged a new audience, or an innovative way you raised science capital in schools, a new demonstration that encapsulates all the excitement of your latest research, a tested method of measuring impact or even that project that went so horrifically wrong; this is your opportunity to share!

The conference is targeted at physicists and physical scientists looking to share best practice, exchange ideas and meet some new colleagues for potential future projects. This conference gives them time for them to get out of the lab and think about the public and how to engage with them. The content for the workshop will be decided by those attending.

The STFC, IOP and SEPnet are co-hosting the event around the following themes:

Evaluation and impact.
Reaching traditionally hard-to-engage / underserved audiences.
Schools outreach.
Sharing both good practice and past mistakes.

There will be two different formats for sharing your experience:

Parallel session / workshop. We have many breakout rooms of different sizes that need filling with you and your knowledge! Do you know a few other people who have worked on a similar area? Invite them along and put on a session together. We really want as much variety as possible! We are open to all sorts of formats, lengths of time and audience numbers, at this stage simply let us know! Please submit your session ideas here.
An exhibition space. There will also be an exhibition space for you to demonstrate your activities in the marketplace. Here is your opportunity to show off your demonstration or that shiny exciting bit of kit throughout the day. If you would like to bring along your activity, please fill submit this form.

Deadline for applications will be Friday 30 June. If you are applying for a session, please do also register for the conference here.

Applicants will be told if their session and exhibition space has been successful by the end of July.

We are looking forward to hearing your ideas!

Neville Hollingworth (STFC)
Hannah Renshall (IOP)
Dominic Galliano (SEPnet)

12Nov/15

SEPnet Physics Students: Win a week at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

12th November 2015awards, internship, OutreachContest, Employer Engagement, People like me, PGRs, Public EngagementSean Ryan

Win a week at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Moscow to train with NASA astronauts. (Flights included)

SEPnet and University of Kent’s Department of Physical Sciences are offering the opportunity for 2 physics undergraduates or postgraduate research students to attend Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre to develop their team building and communication skills by training like the real Cosmonauts and Astronauts on the same equipment and facilities.

What you have to do:

Create a video of yourself describing an investigation that you would like to send into space.
The video should be no more than 2 minutes long.
You should consider physics knowledge, presentation skills and feasibility.
- Send the videos (zipped) to employerengagement@sepnet.ac.uk

Deadline 12:00 Wednesday 9^th December

Criteria

You must be a physics student at one of SEPnet’s partner universities at the time of travel.
Have a valid passport.
Be available to travel from 19^th to 25^th March 2016.
Be eligible to enter Russia.

For more information, please click on the link below:

http://www.isset.org/Cosmonaut_Leadership/Downloads/(Medium)%20Cosmonaut%20Space%20&%20Leadership%20Experience%20Leaflet.pdf

10Sep/15

SEPnet launches 2015 Public Engagement Awards

10th September 2015awards, Outreach, Public EngagementPublic Engagement, Public Engagement AwardsJacob Dunningham

Now’s your chance to celebrate these achievements! SEPnet is launching their 2015 Public Engagement Awards and needs your help recognising the best of public engagement across the network. We awarding £100 to projects and individuals in the following categories:

Public Engagement Innovation Project Award
This award recognises public engagement projects which include activities where physics research has been shared with the public through interesting and innovative ways. Projects can take any form of engagement to any audience.

Public Engagement Notable Impact Project Award
This award recognises public engagement projects which have had notable impact. Projects will have generated impact from their research through any channel involving engaging with the public – including knowledge transfer, working with user groups, debates, pro-bono schemes and many more.

Newcomer Award
This award recognises an individual who is new to engagement and have made an impact that could include any type of engagement activity or project linked to their research.

You may self-nominate or nominate others in any SEPnet department. People or projects can be nominated for more than one award. Each award has their own form so please make sure you’re filling out the correct nomination form. Nominations must be received by midday on Monday 28 September 2015. Click here for full details on the criteria for all awards.

Awards will be presented on Wednesday November 18 at Prince Phillip House in central London, following the Student Expo.

For more details please see you local SEPnet Outreach Officer or email outreach@sepnet.ac.uk

Tag: Public Engagement

Projects:

Individuals:

Research Groups:

What you have to do:

Criteria