Today I'm in a Public Engagement Symposium, looking back over the last two years of our Public Engagement Team, and looking forward for the future. The team was formed in 2012 following a successful RCUK bid, and was set up to really change the culture in the University and champion and embed public engagement so that all researchers can contribute in taking research to the public. Public engagement has also been built into our HR strategy.
The team has delivered 13 festivals and 7 single events. Festival of the Mind 2012 was the first big event, with 18,000 attendees, and it showcased research from across the University, but also involved working with partners across the city. In 2014, the Sheffield Bazaar in was held in Castle House, a disused department store as part of Festival of the Mind, and 27,182 people attended the Festival. Also ran Sheffield Festival of Science and Engineering in 2013 jointly with Sheffield Hallam Univerity
Another example of a successful event was The Mobile University, where a vintage bus went to 3 different locations across City, equipped with mini iPads and local wifi, to provide a chance for early researchers to showcase their work.
The total number of visitors to all of the events is 60,468.
As well as delivering using our own platforms, the team have been working with partners, especially the City Council working on events including Off the Shelf and DocFest.
A major part of the day today is looking at case studies of successful examples of public engagement, many of them very impressive, so will try and post about a few of them.
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