This is a pilot course delivered by Researcher Academy.

Target Audience

This session is targeted at those involved in or planning and/or running a public engagement/outreach project who want to know how to curate better content for their target audience and how to effectively navigate basic event logistics such as use of audio-visual equipment and risk assessments.

Pre-requisites

None

Process

Lecture style talk interspersed with group activities

Course Description

Overview: Running a public engagement/outreach event can be a very demanding task; you want to focus on the quality of your engagement work, but all the necessary logistics of risk assessments, publicity strategies and more may seem like a completely alien burden.

If this sounds familiar to you, then fear not! This course is designed to help those working on all manner of public engagement projects will cover audience mapping, including looking at what barriers your engagement will face and effective use of publicity. You will also cover risk assessments and insurance, general health and safety and will get a hands-on run through of how to properly work commonly used audio-visual equipment.

The session will be led by Matt J Young, a neuroscientist and public engagement professional. He has coordinated and produced large-scale science festivals including Pint of Science Nottingham and the Festival of Science and Curiosity, working with primary school children through to art-loving octogenarians.

Aims: To help those undertaking a public engagement/outreach project to better understand their target audience, use publicity effectively, and necessary administrative logistics.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this session you will:

• Be able to confidently map out your target audience to understand who they are and how you can engage with them.
• Have a better awareness of the barriers, both seen and unseen, that you will need to overcome in order engage your target audience.
• Understand what media tools are available to you that will allow you to interact with and publicise your event to your audience.
• Have a better understanding of which approaches to publicity you should take for your project.
• Know what support is available to you at the university
• Be able to write a thorough risk assessment of any event
• Be able to run a public event safely and successfully in novel, off-campus environments.

Booking Conditions

Latecomer policy

Researchers should plan to arrive prior to the advertised course start time. Except for exceptional reasons, there will be no admittance to a Researcher Academy or Faculty Training Programme (FTP) course 15 minutes after the advertised course start time.

Importance of booking commitment

When booking on to a Researcher Academy short course you are entering into a commitment to attend. If you find that you are no longer available to attend you MUST cancel your place (on the system if more than three days before the course) or if at short notice by emailing pg-training@nottingham.ac.uk. This will ensure that your place can be offered to another researcher on the waiting list. Failure to cancel a place results in other researchers missing out on places through the waiting list process.

It is unacceptable for researchers to just not attend when booked onto a course. Researcher Academy maintains records of those who repeatedly do not attend courses they have booked. This may affect future eligibility to book onto further Researcher Academy courses and will affect considerations for Researcher Academy funded opportunities.