Research and Industry
We can help
We want our organisation to be the bridge between the public, local research and industry, to help connect people of all ages and backgrounds with your work.
You can take part in our public events or work with us on projects, we can help share your updates on social media, and we will have dedicated exhibition spaces for research and industry in the science centres we’re creating. We’re also here to offer our expertise on science communication and public engagement.
In addition, we offer staff/student training in public engagement, and custom public engagement programmes to engage the public with your work.
Public engagement programmes
What we can do
If you’re looking to connect the public with your work, we can help! Some of the activities we can do include:
- Designing and delivering interactive, public exhibitions.
- Designing and facilitating public consultations and project co-creation sessions.
- Designing and running educational workshops in schools.
- Producing YouTube videos.
- Livestreaming on YouTube (check out our current live Q&A series: South West Science Chats).
- Producing live lab or site tours to schools or the public (check out our ESC Live project resources to see what we can do).
- Creating a pack of hands-on demonstrations or exhibits related to your research, and showing these at public events and festivals.
- Designing and running citizen science projects.
- Designing infographics – useful for public engagement and including in presentations.
- Creating simple WordPress websites and landing pages.
- Organising and facilitating public talks, panel sessions and lab tours.
- Recording, editing and promoting podcasts.
How do I take part?
Send us an email! We’ll arrange an initial meeting with you to establish how we can help, and then we’ll put together a programme and formal quote to fit your budget.
We can write proposals for you to include us in future grant applications, or we can help fulfil your public engagement requirements on existing grants. Perhaps you have co-creation funding as part of a fellowship and would like to work with us in a different manner; either way, whatever stage you’re at, we’d love to hear from you!
Examples of our work
We’ve been working with academics from Exeter and beyond to help engage the public with their work. To get an idea of what we can do, have a look at the examples below:
Public Engagement Training
We can provide training on a range of topics, including:
– meaningful public engagement with communities (pictured),
– translating complex ideas into tangible activities or resources,
– making physical and digital resources including videos and social media content,…
anything we have expertise in!
Exhibitions
We worked with academics in the Exoclimatology group at the University of Exeter and local artists to design and run our first public exhibition in 2022 (funded by an STFC Spark Award). This hands-on experience was guided by a team of mediators (local scientists and Exeter Science Centre volunteers) and connected over 1200 people with this research. Check out our exhibition virtual tour to find out more.
In 2023, the original exhibition was reimagined with input from local communities to make an even more research-filled and accessible experience. Find out more on our Climate Exhibition 2023 page, including the thorough report on our impact.
Citizen science projects
We worked with Prof. Ben Temperton’s team on the Citizen Phage Library project.
The work included designing workshops and water sampling trips with schools and community groups, as well as a project landing page and videos.
You can find out more on our Phage Therapy Citizen Science Project page.
Community engagement
We’ve worked with some of the amazing communities in Exeter and in the region to connect them with STEMM research.
From January-March 2024, we worked with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and University of Exeter data science academics to understand community feelings about transport, and helped them contribute to the academics’ research (pictured, top).
We’ve run workshops with community groups for our Climate Exhibition 2023 (pictured – Alice with members of the Pelican Project) and supported the British Science Festival Community Grants scheme by engaging with and guiding community groups with their projects.
We also worked with the IDSSSM team (bottom image) to consult members of the public on their project results and future direction in a focus group event.
Public events
We’re greatly experienced with designing, organising, promoting and running public events.
In February 2023, we ran a set of props-only lightning talks in Exeter Cathedral over two evenings during their Gaia installation (top image), and in June 2023, we worked with Prof Nathan Mayne to organising a set of lightning talks in Exeter’s Guildhall shopping centre (middle video). You can find all the videos and resources on our Exoclimes landing page.
We also co-curated The Great Imagining Exeter (bottom image), a rapid-response event about our connection with nature. Find out more on our event page.
We regularly pop up in community locations like libraries, community centres, museums and festivals to bring hands-on, research-inspired activities to people of all ages. Check out our events page, and for an example of one of our recently-completed projects, have a look at the Operation Earth Tour project.
YouTube videos
We can design, record, edit and promote educational and informative YouTube videos.
Have a look at the Meet the Team video we produced for Prof Temperton’s citizen science project, and the short Tackling Maths Anxiety video we produced for Drs Julie Pepper and Katherine Ashbullby.
We also run Q&A livestreams! We helped design and host the Great Conjunction livestream (viewed over 300k times!) with the University of Exeter’s Astrophysics team during the Christmas 2020 lockdown, recorded and edited livestreams from energy generation locations streamed directly to schools, run a mini-series on AI and ChatGPT, and currently run a series called South West Science Chats.
You can check out our YouTube channel for all the other videos we’ve created.
Website design
We completely designed and created the new website for the Wu Lab research team, including the production of detailed research summaries. The website is aimed towards the public with an interest in tech / AI / machine learning / 5G, and people working in research and industry. Check out the website here: https://wu-lab.exeter.ac.uk/.
We’re also working with academics at the University of Exeter and Cardiff University to connect the public with a new project on Image-Driven, Subject-Specific Spine Models (IDSSSM). Check out the website we designed here: https://idsssm.exeter.ac.uk/.
Landing pages
We can produce and host educational and informative landing pages on our website, to provide more information and link to any resources that we produce.
Have a look at the page we designed for Prof Ben Temperton’s citizen science project, or the resource page on Maths Anxiety for Drs Julie Pepper and Katherine Ashbullby.
Infographics
We’ve prepared the first infographic for the IDSSSM research team from Exeter and Cardiff University, to describe the background and aims of the project.
As part of this design, we created the project logo and colour palette which is used throughout the website. Check out the full infographic here.
We’ve also designed infographics for students and teachers as part of our Maths Anxiety project, working with psychologists at the University of Exeter.
School workshops
We have years of experience designing and running hands-on workshops in schools, to communicate research to young people.
In our project with Prof. Francesca Palombo, we designed and delivered workshops for GCSE / A-Level students based on the research team’s work: explaining the physics of Raman and Brillouin spectroscopy, and their applications in cancer research. The resources are freely available on our Schools webpage. We’ve also run phage hunting workshops for schools across the region as part of the Phage Therapy Citizen Science project.
In 2023, we toured the Operation Earth programme to schools across the South West, designing a circus of hands-on activities. We’ve designed an even more ambitious workshop for Our World From Space, including a circus of activities for 120 students and a team Mission activity (we have a current call for research input on this project!).
We’ve also led a workshop based on our Climate Exhibition as part of the Exmouth College Space Day for the past couple of years (bottom image). This workshop is repeated throughout the day for over 100 year 7 students from various schools in the region.
Summary
We want to make it easy for you to increase and demonstrate the impact of your research. This also helps us to raise funds for and awareness of the Exeter Science Centre and meets our aims of better connecting the public with current research and industry.
We have proven experience in public engagement with research; we take an interest in all areas of research connected to the sciences (STEMM) and global issues; we have a growing network of schools, community groups, businesses and organisations across the region and beyond, to help you reach a wide range of different audiences. We are passionate about finding creative ways of making science more accessible for all and highlighting the importance of interdisciplinarity across all disciplines. We’re also part of the UK and European networks of science centres and through their national projects and training programmes we stay at the forefront of best practice in science engagement.
Please get in touch to work with us! If you don’t have funding available and would like to work with us on an ad hoc basis, we’d still love to hear from you.