Bristol Systems Centre leads public engagement training

(15 February 2013) - A joint group of Bristol University EngD and PhD research students in engineering recently took part in an innovative training session on public engagement organised by the Systems Centre.

Facilitator and ex BBC journalist Kate Butler took the students through a morning session on how to talk about their research to a variety of audiences.  Starting from the academic and technically complicated language of their research Kate worked with the students to translate this into more accessible language, thinking about what the audience might care about. Then in role plays the researchers took on a variety of perspectives, from children to pensioners, asking questions like ‘Why does this matter to me?’ and ‘What difference does this make?’.

Paul Worgan from the CDT in Communications said ‘I had a great time on Tuesday, it was a really fun and engaging way of distilling a research idea (and I would recommend it to any of my fellow PhDs). I had never really thought of phrasing a response in the context of the audience before and I think this will be very beneficial when presenting a research idea.’

Dan Petley took the researchers literally ‘outside their box’, with a walk down to the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft yard to try out spray painting their ideas, starting with painting onto a card board box! With new found techniques under their belts the group quickly began work on a large wall mural, starting with a line of oscillation to mark the top boundary. Images began to appear - of Clifton Suspension bridge with a person as one of the pillars, and a colourful quaver joining it at the other end to a lung, outer space, air pollutants and bird stencils, a geometric boundary and the newly invented Human Element!

Liam Boyd from the Systems Centre commented ‘I did quite like the way we all did our separate bits and a 'big picture' 'emerged' from it.’

All the researchers gave a final presentation to camera about their images, surprising themselves with their amazing and engaging images that each uniquely present their research topic in a completely new way.

The researchers will be presenting their images to an invited audience on 12 March in the Systems Centre, to consolidate their public engagement skills learned on the day.