The Centre for Public Engagement has funded 7 projects as part of the 2020-2021 Large Grants. You can find out more about each project below:
ATLAS Open Data in Schools Environments and Beyond
Seth Zenz & Natasha Hehir, School of Physics and Astronomy
The ATLAS Open Data in Schools Environments and Beyond project looks to develop new mechanisms for engagement in the 'ATLAS Open Data' strand of the Physics Research in Schools Environments (PRiSE) programme to reach new audiences within schools and in the community. One group will look at how to adapt the delivery in schools during COVID-19, and how to best use the latest public data from the Large Hadron Collider. A second group will develop a version of the project that can engage with students who are 14 years old or younger, and can be delivered in community settings rather than in schools. A third group will focus on an entirely remote version of the project with the smallest possible home computer requirements
Citizen Health Lab
Clare Relton, Beverley Nickolls & Darren Umney, Institute of Population Health Sciences & Kevin Williamson, Rotherham Doncaster & South Humber NHS Foundation Trust
The Citizen Health Lab project seeks to develop a novel online platform to enable communities to engage with, shape, and participate in population health research. The project will run a series of workshops and one-to-one interviews with citizens, community leaders and local organisations in Tower Hamlets and Doncaster to collaboratively develop the design of the platform, and its’ functionality, and inclusivity principles
Creating an online community of democratic knowledge production in 'arts for mental health'
Maria Turri, Wolfson Institute Preventative Medicine; Megan Clinch, Blizard Institute & Louise Younie Institute of Population Health Sciences
This project will bring together practitioners, service users, artists and academics to coproduce an online community in the ‘arts for mental health’. The group will work together to shape and build a space where individuals and groups interested in the arts for mental health come together to engage in knowledge production, insight sharing, and learning. The project will be launched to a wider community of stakeholders at the Mad Hearts conference in June 2021
Food-Flips Online: Encouraging healthier choices by children via a fun online game
Zoe Davies, Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine & Holly Gabriel, External Partner
Food Flips is a fun and interactive game that teaches children how to interpret colour coded nutrition labels on food and drink. This project will allow for the production of an online, socially distanced way to learn and play, both in the classroom and at home. By exploring different functionalities and ‘levels’ of difficulty for different age groups, the game can be incorporated into different elements of the primary school curricula.
Deep History Detectives: Discovering and documenting Palaeolithic finds from the north Norfolk coast
Simon Lewis & Claire Harris, School of Geography
The Deep History Detectives project will develop a series of training events and online resources aimed at local volunteers to help build and develop their skills in recovering and recording Palaeolithic finds from the north Norfolk coast. This project will support a community of ‘eyes on the ground’ who are actively searching for, and recording, artefacts that may otherwise be missed. This collecting will contribute to furthering the understanding of a critical period in human evolution.
Seeing Music: An interactive digital exhibit on sensory variation and the cross-sensory experience of music
Charalampos Saitis, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Sciences & Christine Cluskey, Newcastle University
Seeing Music is an interactive online exhibit that will invite visitors of the Edinburgh Science Festival to engage with ongoing research into cross-sensory experiences of sound and music through a collaborative and dynamic music visualisation game where players choose the colours and textures they hear. Visitors will be able to explore the results in an interactive data dashboard which will also contain information on the underpinning research and the goals of the work.
Stepney Words 50 Years On
Nadia Valman, School of English and Drama & Alan Dein, External Partner
In 1971, Chris Searle, a young English teacher was sacked from Sir John Cass Foundation School in Stepney for publishing ‘Stepney Words’ a collection of his students’ poems reflecting on their neighbourhoods and communities which gave honest, raw reflections on their lives. In response to Searle’s dismissal, over 800 students went on strike, sparking new debates in the national press over modern education. This project commemorates this remarkable moment in local history by bringing Chris Searle and some of the former pupils back to Stepney to participate in intergenerational writing workshops, to share this history and create poetry that reflects young people’s lives in today’s East End
Due to the extraordinary circumstances facing the 2019-20 Large Grant cohort, some projects have continued into 2020-21. These are:
Love Letters to Cairo: a place-based filmmaking as engagement workshopJessica Jacobs, School of Geography & May Al-Ibrashy, Megawra Built Environment Collective
Promoting engagement with end-users in disability researchIldar Farkhatdinov, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Sciences; Stuart Miller, William Harvey Research Institute & QMUL Cybathlon Team
The Big Science Question 2020James Scales, Blizard Institute & Chris Griffiths, Institute of Population Health Sciences
You can read more on these projects, and the rest of the cohort in the Public Engagement Large Grant 2019-2020 page.