Public Engagement 101 - Funding, Planning and Evaluation
Duration 0.5 days
Team Researcher Academy
This course is delivered by Researcher Academy, initially as a pilot course.

Target Audience

This session is aimed at those looking to run a public engagement/outreach project or who are already involved in one, who want a complete run down of the skills needed to successfully engage with their audiences.

Ie, students co-ordinating the Pint of Science festival or staff co-ordinating an event or activity at Wonder, etc.

Pre-requisites

Participants should submit a brief summary of the project they are working on (or a potential future project they’re working towards) at least a week beforehand, to allow the course tutor to adapt the session to their needs. These will also be referred back to during workshop as part of an exercise. Summaries should be limited to 500 words.


Please email your summary to 

Matthew.Young@nottingham.ac.uk


Process

Lecture style talk, group activities and discussion.


Course description :

Overview:

Planning, managing and delivering a public engagement/outreach is often much more of challenge than it first seems. The very nature of public engagement work means that one project you work on can look completely different to the next, requiring an entirely different approach to planning and execution. This course will be tailored to your specific projects, taking you through the nitty gritty, but very necessary details of preparing and delivering an engagement project – from applying for funding, to designing your activity and evaluation and report writing.  

Leading this session is 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: The aim of this course is to give those developing and coordinating public engagement projects the necessary tools to make their event a success. From securing and managing funding, to planning and executing workable aims and objectives, to evaluation and reporting.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this session you will:

  • Understand how planning the aims and objective of a public engagement project are essential to making it a success.
  • Be able to assess the practical needs of your project.
  • Understand the language, tools and approaches you will need to utilise in order to successfully engage your audience.
  • Know how to build an evaluation framework into your project from the beginning stages and how to carry out effective evaluation of your work.
  • Understand what major funders expect in terms of money management and reporting.
  • Know what types of funding for public engagement projects are available to you, both locally and nationally and how to approach them.
  • Be able to effectively organise and manage your own project funds, in the context of the University of Nottingham finance systems.
  • Know what support is available to you at the university.
  • Influencing, working with others, negotiating and securing resource or support


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.

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