This is a pilot course delivered by Researcher Academy


Target Audience

Researchers or any specialist from across STEM and AHSS who would like to engage lay audience about their work or subject-specific content through a talk/presentation/activity, etc.

This course is specifically targeted to those speaking and/or delivering activities at events such as the Pint of Science Festival and Wonder.

Those involved in speaking at or hosting an event for crowds of any size, with particular focus on presenting and speaking at public engagement events.

Pre-requisites

None

Process

Lecture style talk, interspersed with discussion and practical group exercises.

Course Description

Overview: Engaging a lay audience in your research or specialism can be a highly enjoyable and rewarding experience, but at the same time, it can be very daunting.

“Am I using too much jargon without knowing it? How many graphs should I use? Can I mention parts of my work that might be controversial? Will be people even care about what I’m saying? How do I take on the role of speaker, presenter or host?” All of these are perfectly normal questions to ask when preparing for such a task, and this course will help you tackle these concerns and teach you some essential do’s and don’ts for engaging lay audiences.

This session provides a useful overview to translating complex research and technical subject matter for all manner of public audiences, as well as how to improve your public speaking and presenting.

This course is led Matt J Young, a neuroscientist and public engagement professional. As well as coordinating and producing large-scale science festivals, Matt has a wealth of experience communicating complex and in-depth content to young children and families to general adult audiences through talks, workshops and performances. He also regularly performs science-based comedy at nerd-themed comedy nights and festivals.

Aims: To give participants an overview of translating and delivering complex subject matter for the purpose of engaging non-specialist audiences through talks and more.

To help participants improve their public speaking skills and learn how to professionally speak at and host a public event.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this session you will:

• Understand why it’s important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.
• Know the basic do’s and don’ts of presenting at a public engagement event, whether it’s to 3 people or 30, ages 1 to 100.
• Be able to tailor what content you communicate and how you communicate it for optimal engagement with your audience.
• Have the confidence to tackle your next public speaking challenge

Understand the requirements of hosting various public events, including managing crowds and guests/speakers and microphone etiquette.

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.