Public Engagement Provision. (360G-Wellcome-106241_Z_14_A)

£19,500

We are strongly committed to public engagement through personal, departmental and institutional initiatives. Personal commitments range from regular schools lectures to media commentary; PJR and CJS also fulfil leadership roles in Dep artmental/University public engagement programmes. This encompasses planning a nd development of programmesand participation, and includes both presentation of our own laboratories' work and that of the wider University. We are closely involved in initiatives including local festivals and heritage events, public lectures, STEM Ambassador activities, and schools events. The Department of C hemistry has organised several events celebrating the International Year of Cr ystallography (2014). The Nuffield Department of Medicine has recently sponsor ed and organised events at the Cheltenham Literature (2013) and Science (2014) Festivals. We now propose to use a Provision for Public Engagement to support a pilot public engagement activity at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH), in conjunction with two other research groups. This will bri ng our research to a large audience (OUMNH has approximately 600,000 visitors/year) and provide us and our research teams with a significant opportunity to train with Museum staff and interact with the public on a much larger scale. The pilot will be broadly constituted around the theme of Sensing, and will include contributions on bacterial sensing and circadian rhythms. Our own contribution, co-curated with the OUMNH award-winning education and communication staff, will start with the history of our work in Oxford, and illustrate how distinct research pathways can come together with exciting implications for medicine. Oxford has a long tradition of research into the physiology of hypoxia, including John Scott Haldane's famous expedition to Pike's Peak, Colorado in July 1911, whereMabel Fitzgerald established the sensitivity of blood haemoglobin levels to even minor reductions in oxygen at moderate altitude. Later, erythropoietin (Epo) was established as the hormonal regulator of this response; it was the extraordinarily sensitivity of Epo to altered hypoxia that led PJR into the field of hypoxia research. In a completely different line of investigation based on another famous area of Oxford research (antibiotics), CJS's structural studies of enzymes involved in antibiotic synthesis led to an appreciation of the wider role of biological oxidations. Using a variety of media (text, images, objects, interactives and face-toface discussion), we will show how these distinct lines of work unexpectedly converged with the discovery of cellular oxygen sensing pathways that generate the oxygen-sensitive signals that regulate the formation of blood and blood vessels, and how this might now leadto new treatments for anaemia and vascular disease. The nine-month pilot will develop an exhibition showcase of current Oxford science stories, pitched mainly towards adult, student and older school-age visitors. Training in public engagement will be provided for early career researchers (ECRs) by the OUMNH staff, and these researchers will conduct face-to-face discussions with the visitors at key times during the exhibition. A varied public programme of activities (seminars, workshops, and family-friendly drop-ins) will accompany the exhibition. We will follow this with a series of new exhibitions, featuring science stories from across the University. Following the pilot, theinitiative has been identified as a strategic priority for the 2014-2016 Oxford Institutional Strategic Support Fund. We will emphasise evaluation, and share results and best practice, to encourage and develop further exhibitions. Museum staff have excellent experience in evaluation (recently commended by the Arts Council) and oversee a suite of evaluation methods including full ACORN analysis of visitor numbers and demographics, plus enhanced qualitative data from a subset of visitors. A digital feedback system at the exhibition exit will gather information on visitors' immediate impressions. This will be supplemented with a post-it board where visitors canwrite thoughts and ideas, and vox populi videos to use in post-project evaluation. Attendancenumbers and feedback will also be collected for events, as well as a record of demand. Finally, we will evaluate the experience of ECRs, to determine the long-term impact on their research and engagement.

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 19500
Applicant Surname Ratcliffe
Approval Committee Science Interview Panel
Award Date 2014-12-03T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2014/15
Grant Programme: Title Provision for Public Engagement
Internal ID 106241/Z/14/A
Lead Applicant Prof Sir Peter Ratcliffe
Partnership Value 19500
Planned Dates: End Date 2021-08-31T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2015-09-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region South East