Connect - May 2022

A new three part interactive events programme exploring essential themes and skills for public engagement with environmental research begins this month. Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has created the Environmental Engagement in Practice programme. This series of free, practical, day-long events brings together researchers, policy makers, creatives and community practitioners to explore public engagement with environmental research, informed by the Insights Report. First online session is 25 May and open for booking now. Find more information on the programme and events running later in September and January on the NCCPE website using the same link.

The next NCCPE PEP Network Event is on 30 June which includes a writing workshop. Writing club – writing about your work is a practical session providing an overview of how best to tell your story, the practicalities of publishing and other ways to share your work. With tips and techniques from a range of contributors, they hope to inspire future work. There's also a session for those new to engagement to ask questions and get advice from fellow PEPs and of course to network! Click here for more information on the session and how to join and make the most of being a Public Engagement Professional.

FESTIVAL OF NATURE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND NETWORKING SERIES

A Prescription for Performance
Dr Ruth Riley led a project in the Centre for Academic Primary Care with Johanna Spiers, investigating what happens when GPs (General Practitioners) seek support for mental health problems, stress and burnout. Ruth was keen to find ways to share the doctors’ powerful stories more widely and make them come alive. She successfully applied to an open call from the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute (EBI) for researchers seeking to collaborate with artists on a show for the first Feel It Festival in Bristol. They worked with Viv Gordon, a theatre maker, survivor activist, arts & mental health campaigner, and performance artist with lived experience of mental ill health. Further funding from Arts Council England enabled them to take a refined production around 6 UK venues and a two-week run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Ruth comments “Being involved in PreScribed was the highlight of my career to date. It reinforced the value of using creative methods for engagement and communication and I always cost this into bids now.”
More information on the project can be found here.

It's REF publication week* and you may be interested in reading the NCCPE's draft response to a consultation call as part of the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP). Launched by the four UK funding bodies (Research England, Scottish Funding Council, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland) it's sought views on the design of the UK’s future research assessment system.

The consultation is considering the purposes of a future exercise, the principles that should guide its development and the assessment criteria and processes.

Following a workshop to gather feedback from the HE engagement sector on how public engagement could contribute to the design of a new assessment format the NCCPE has now released a draft response which you can download here.
*REF 2021 is released tomorrow Thursday 12 May!

Hello Bristol Public Engagement community!