Encountering research (and researchers)

I’m in the enviable position of spending a large part of my time interacting and working with researchers from across the entire University.  As such, I get to hear about just some of the fascinating research that takes place here, from areas where I have a passing knowledge to questions and issues I had never even thought about.  It seems a shame to keep all these remarkable stories in my head.  In addition, I have been known to say that I’ve never come across a researcher who hasn’t been able to explain their work to a lay audience (OK, admittedly it’s easier for some, but given time and a few handy tools I still believe this is the case).  But it’s a bit glib for me to state this and not rise to the challenge of whether I can explain other people’s research.

So I’ve decided to combine the two and keep track of my encounters with researchers – when I meet a University of Bristol researcher as part of my work I’ll try and get them to explain their work to me.  I’ll then write a brief snapshot of what I think their research is about* and post it here, with the hope that others get to see just what amazing and unexpected things people work on at the University of Bristol.

* with the caveat that it’s my interpretation of their work so any errors or inaccuracies are mine.

Why the REF is like writing a novel

Another post from the Centre for Public Engagement blog.

Last week I went to a workshop that the NCCPE was running on developing impact case studies for the REF.  The REF is, unsurprisingly, on the minds of a lot of people within the University at the moment so it was a good time to get some tips on writing a good impact case study.

The first revelation of the day was that we weren't going to focus on the evidence required for a case study.  So far, the majority of my thinking around the REF has concentrated on coming up with ways of developing evidence of reach and significance; so I was expecting the workshop to include techniques and methodologies for producing this evidence.  However, apart from a mention that the REF panel will appreciate the challenge of gathering evidence retrospectively, we left that aspect of the case studies alone.

In the REF pilot, the highest scoring case studies were those which had a coherent narrative.  So instead of thinking about evidence, we found ourselves looking at the narrative arc and how the format of the case studies could be used to fit the progression of a story.  This is not to say that a good case study should be a work of fiction - the quality of the writing is always going to be less important than the story it tells.  But like all good novels, you need a narrative that hooks the reader and keeps them involved.  At the heart of this is the research itself, which should be thought of as the main character in the story.  If you don’t engage with the main character it can be quite hard to maintain your interest in the novel, as I have found on many occasions (since this is my personal version of the post, I can digress - see below*).  Once this is done, there is only the not so small task of describing the impact, both in summary and in more detail, and providing the evidence for the research and impacts.  And all of this in a very limited word count – this is definitely no War and Peace.

Bearing all of this in mind, there are still challenges to face with writing impact case studies – not least the difficulty of attributing impact and disentangling it from all the other factors that might have affected the outcomes.  One helpful suggestion from the audience was to use language that focused on the contribution that the research and impact had, rather than making over-ambitious claims about impact in a vacuum.  And of course there is still work to do in writing and honing the impact case studies at the University.  But hopefully we now have some more techniques to help us with making the most of the impressive impact that research here has had, whether it’s on the economy, culture, policy or society.

*  There are many instances where I don't agree with or sympathise with the main character but total incomprehension is much harder to deal with.  A good example of this is Don Quixote, one of the only books I have failed to finish.  I just cannot work out if he is crazy or idealistic or why he even does half of the things he does - his character is unfathomable (and why would anyone walk around with a bathtub on their head?).  However I've been told by a friend that I might just have a poor translation, so perhaps I'll give Don Quixote another go some day.

The value of memory

This is the last of my posts (at the moment) for the CPE blog. I wrote this following the pilot event in our Know your Bristol series which I have been the project manager for. The project has given me an insight into Bristol and the lives of its inhabitants, not to mention all the wonderful images and stories that have been captured. These are currently being developed into a booklet which will be launched at the final celebratory event in December.

“But I really don’t know why you’d be interested in my memories” said an elderly gentleman to me at Hillfields library the other week. I was there for the pilot of Know your Bristol – a series of events organised by the University about sharing and capturing the heritage of Bristol, as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants.

In public engagement, the perception used to be that researchers are the experts, keen to impart knowledge and understanding of their work. But in recent years this has evolved into a more nuanced argument: researchers may well be the experts in their field but members of the public have opinions, values, and lay and professional knowledge that can contribute to research. From the plumber who gives the biologist an insight into networks to the family photos that give a greater understanding of a period in history – these examples are all around us now. However, one of the challenges we face is to convince people, from funders and researchers to the public themselves, that these conversations can be of value. Events such as Know your Bristol give us an opportunity to get out of the office (or the laboratory) and experience first-hand what we can learn from the public.

So to return to my elderly gentleman – what was the value of his knowledge? Well, it turns out that the ‘official’ record of how the Hillfields estate was constructed isn’t entirely correct. Apparently there’s a mistake about which houses were constructed first and he should know – he moved in to one of them! It’s not a massive change but now, at least, the historical records of Bristol are a tiny bit more accurate. All this from one conversation at a library; let’s see what we can uncover from the next events.

Not really a book review

Daphne du Maurier’s novels exude magic, and I don’t mean in a Harry Potter kind of way. There is something slightly otherworldly and mysterious about her stories, largely because of the settings. Several of her novels are based in Cornwall, where she lived most of her life, and the ethereal but rugged landscape seems to permeate through the text. My Cousin Rachel, which I have just finished reading, is no exception. From the sun-drenched villa outside of Florence where time seems to stand still, to the dreamlike but surprisingly domestic Cornish estate, the scenery sweeps the reader away in a flood of images and sets the tone for the story.

It’s difficult not to see in Rachel the shadow of du Maurier’s most famous protagonist – Rebecca de Winter. Rachel could easily be dismissed as another femme fatale – manipulating men (in this case the hapless and naïve Philip Ashley) into doing her bidding, pretending she is in love them with them while secretly despising them all. But whereas the plot of Rebecca is designed to slowly uncover the true nature of her character, no such conclusion is possible in My Cousin Rachel. In fact, if you are someone who likes stories to finish unambiguously and tie up all loose ends, this is not the novel for you. Just when you think Rachel’s motivations are about to be uncovered, the final twist in the tale leaves you wondering, just as Philip does, who Rachel really was.

Rebecca has been one of my favourite novels since I first read it years ago, and is one of several books that I will happily re-read again and again with no loss of enjoyment. I even spent ages looking for a second hand copy because, at the time, the paperback version made it look like a Mills and Boon romance! So it was with a little trepidation that I embarked on My Cousin Rachel – no one likes having their illusions shattered. Thankfully the story is just as entrancing and Rachel is as fascinating as, and even more complex than, her counterpart. Just when you think you have her figured out she slips through your fingers like smoke. Like all the characters in the story, I think I am a little bewitched by the elusive Rachel.  I may have to go searching through the second hand bookshops to find a copy to match the version of Rebecca on my shelves.

Debating a mayor for Bristol

This was a post I wrote for the Centre for Public Engagement blog about the lively debate we held in February 2012 on the referendum for a mayor in Bristol.  In May, Bristol was the only city that voted to have a mayor; elections for the post have yet to be held so there will be further discussion of the issues, especially as part of the University's Thinking Futures festival in November.

There was a buzz about the Council House on Wednesday night – so much so that one person (a local Councillor, I presume) expressed a wish that Council meetings could be so popular.  But this time people were gathering to debate one particular issue: should Bristol have an elected mayor?  In a couple of months Bristolians will be asked this question in a referendum (albeit in a convoluted way that was the source of much amusement, and possibly bemusement, on the night).  However, there has been limited discussion of what this would entail outside of the political sphere so our aim in organising this public event was to open up the discussion to the community.

Professor Alex Marsh started the event with a brief history of mayors in Bristol and how this current trend towards elected mayors fits with the Government’s localism agenda – see Alex’s blog for his thoughts on the evening.  Then the four panellists – two for the motion and two against – were allowed a few minutes to briefly outline their positions.  The ‘For’ panellists, Mark Weston and George Ferguson, argued that at present the leader of the Council (the nearest thing we have to a mayor) is chosen by 70 Council members – leaving the remaining 316,930 (or so) citizens of Bristol with no say in the matter.  An elected mayor would be chosen by Bristol and would act as a champion for Bristol.  The ‘Against’ panellists, Barbara Janke and Deborah Hallett, countered that a mayor would not be a panacea for all the problems in Bristol and the city-centric focus would restrict Bristol as an economic and strategic powerhouse.

However, things really started getting exciting when the discussion opened up to the floor.  Insightful questions were raised about the lack of information on the mayor’s role and mandate, how the system would work and how the electorate were meant to reach any kind of decision without these basic facts.  Even the heckling added something to the evening, with an impassioned plea from an audience member to resist the fear of change.  And to top it off the interactive voting system, which gave us sleepless nights beforehand, worked perfectly and tracked the audience’s shifting views.  At the end of the night, the ‘Yes’ vote was higher than the ‘No’ (47% to 36%) but the percentage of ‘No’ votes had increased significantly. 

Our aim in setting up this debate was not to sway people in any direction or to endorse any political (or party political) view.  So, for me, the most interesting statistic was that 83% of attendees felt that the debate was useful in helping them shape their opinions on whether we should have an elected mayor or not.  What the result is going to be on the 3rd May is still anyone’s guess.  But I’d like to believe that people left with a feeling that they were able to contribute their thoughts and views on what Bristolians want for our city.  And let’s hope this discussion continues all the way to the polling booth.

The role of engaged learning

Yet another post from the Centre for Public Engagement blog. This one is some thoughts from December 2011 on engaged learning projects, including our work in this area, and the potential value of these to students. Since then, we've been pressing ahead with our plans for engaged learning.

In the past couple of years a major buzzword in public engagement, at least in the academic environment, has been engagement with research.  This is not entirely surprising given the requirement of Pathways to Impact to link public engagement activities to the research in the grant.  It’s even less surprising given the current demands for impact in the forthcoming national REF exercise, which again makes the connection between engagement and the underpinning research.  So it was heartening to hear a different form of engagement being discussed at the NCCPE’s Engage 2011 conference: engaged students.

Students doing public engagement as part of their degree was the topic of two sessions I attended on the second day of the conference.  The first session focused on postgraduates at a University of Bath Doctoral Training Centre, which contains a module on public engagement.  The second session (which just happened to be run by us at the Centre for Public Engagement!) considered case studies of engaged learning for undergraduates.  These case studies ranged from sociology at the University of Cambridge through to American students learning language and culture in Siena, Italy (where they talk about it as service learning, but the UK and the US have never been consistent in terminology).  And of course there was our own example of engaged learning in the form of our community-based learning project for 3^rd and 4^th year civil engineering students.  Admittedly, postgraduate students and, to some extent, undergraduate students carry out research so these activities could be considered a facet of engagement with research.  But realistically, many of these projects are just as, if not more, interested in the value of the skills and experiences that the activities offer to the students – particularly in terms of employability.

Engaged learning raises some interesting questions.  Should such engagement be compulsory and, if so, will that lessen the quality of the engagement?  Will it mean that certain students do not pursue a particular degree course because of the public engagement obligations?  Will public engagement become a box-ticking exercise for students rather than something they deliberately invest time and effort in?  Feedback from the projects discussed at Engage does not seem to reflect this rather gloomy outlook.  The students are genuinely motivated to do public engagement and are excited by the opportunities presented to them.  But these are certainly questions to be considered by those of us looking to embed public engagement in the student experience.

Of cakes and elephants - communicating environmental issues

Since I've been a little slack in my attempts to write posts for this blog, I thought I'd start adding some of the posts I've done for the Centre for Public Engagement. So here's my first ever blog post, which is a reflection from the Communicate conference held on 2nd and 3rd November 2011:

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”  Thus speaks Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, my favourite of all Shakespeare’s plays.  But it was interesting to hear these words quoted by Professor Aubrey Manning, the eminent zoologist, at the Communicate conference held in Bristol the other day.  Rather than facing a prim and slightly self-righteous Malvolio, he was facing the equally unappealing prospect of how to communicate difficult environmental issues – the so-called elephant in the room.  A suggestion came from an audience member that the Queen should not be allowed to ship in 500 (or so) horses from around the world for the Olympics because of the environmental impact this will cause, especially considering that horses aren’t exactly thin on the ground in the UK.  

But this is just an extreme example of the issues that all of us face when thinking about our choices in the future.  Will we have to give up our treasured possessions such as the classic cars that Professor Manning admits to being his vice?  Or will it be a lifestyle change – relinquishing the idea that we have a right and the means to have a cheap holiday in the sun?  The idea that life in the future is going to be very different in terms of aspirations, not to mention action, was a major facet of the Elephant in the Room discussion.  But it also ran through the conversations during the rest of the day, in particular the Living with Environmental Change session on communicating across sectors.   Our table struggled to describe examples of effective communication across sectors, especially when communicating scenarios for future behaviour as individuals.  

It seems that many of us, especially those of us who have worked in or alongside those in this research area, are aware of what must be done to minimise our environmental impact.  But that doesn’t mean that we are necessarily able to face up to action ourselves.   Can we really come to terms with the fact that, some day, there may be no more cakes and ale?