Piercing the darkness

A post from the CPE blog about my reflections on a recent REF workshop.

“No light, but rather darkness visible” was the comment by my neighbour at the workshop we were attending on writing REF impact templates.  Quoting Milton’s Paradise Lost, he was referring to the guidance for impact templates which seemed to impress (and bemuse) a number of us with its opacity.

The workshop, run by the NCCPE, was designed to help us those us involved in the REF process think about ways to tackle the impact templates for each Unit of Assessment.  In relation to other sections of the REF guidance, many people feel that this area lacks detail so it was unsurprising that a large chunk of the workshop focused on challenging our misconceptions.  One area of confusion was the relationship of the template to the impact case studies, bearing in mind that the template should be a framework on which the case studies sit but that the case studies don’t have to reflect the template.

Another difficulty many people face is that Units of Assessment can be made up of several different research groups with different approaches; as such, you can end up with a patchwork quilt of ideas rather than a coherent theme.  Thankfully, there is an acknowledgement of this challenge in the guidance so there is no expectation for one approach in each template.  Conversely other people felt that their issue was that of generic plans across several Units rather than a tailored approach – a single-colour duvet rather than a patchwork quilt, as it were.  Advice here was that the strategy section of each template should be reflective – thinking about issues as well as strengths and providing an honest (but positive) assessment about where improvements could be made.

There were some handy tips from the day, especially that engagement which has had an impact on research strategy actually belongs in the environment template rather than the impact template.  And we were encouraged to suggest questions that the NCCPE could take to the REF panels and ask for clarification.  So whilst we may not have moved into the bright light just yet, at least now there might be a glimpse of something through the darkness.

Stories from the War - Avonmouth and Shirehampton

A post from the Know your Bristol blog, looking at our event in Shirehampton.  Naturally there's going to be a focus on war in the next year so it was good to get a taster of just some of the stories from here in Bristol.

It’s been nearly a hundred years since the start of the First World War but the history and heritage of it is still with us – something that was clearly shown at our latest Know your Bristol event.  Held at Shirehampton Public Hall, we had a steady stream of visitors coming to look at the resources gathered so far and contribute their stories to this growing archive – with many being so eager they turned up before we’d even got everything set up.

Shirehampton and Avonmouth both contributed to the war effort, with the latter being a strategically important military depot – a place from which many troops and equipment were dispatched to the Western Front.  In addition a remount depot was established at Shirehampton that stabled and supplied over 300,000 horses and mules to the front between 1914 and 1918.  Nowadays there are no visible remains of this site, but one of the first oral histories was from a lady remembering the large post that was one of the last remaining features from the depot before being pulled down sometime in the 70s.

We also heard personal stories of grandfathers and other family members who’d fought in the war, and the photos and mementoes that they’d sent back from the front.  A beautiful example of this was the collection of postcards decorated with detailed French embroidery, with the colours and patterns looking like they’d just been stitched yesterday.  Less attractive, but just as fascinating, was a genuine German bayonet and sheath with a tragic history.  The bayonet had been used to kill a British soldier but its owner had been killed at the same time so the bodies of these soldiers from opposing sides were found right next to each other.  A sad tale and a reminder of the impact that the War had on people, not just locally but from all over the world.

Research Encounter #4: Becky Jones

Some encounters aren’t all about work.  Becky Jones from the School of Biochemistry recently spent six months working with us at the Centre for Public Engagement.  Having just submitted her PhD, we met up to celebrate so the writing here may have been influenced by a glass of bubbly!

The cytoskeleton is a protein structure that helps cells to change shape.  This is particularly important for immune cells when faced with infections so that they can take up bacteria and dead cells, and interact with each other to fight the infection.  A protein called WASp (nothing to do with wasps) is only found in immune cells and plays an important role in regulating the cytoskeleton.  Mutations to the gene that produces the protein can lead to a rare but heritable disorder where patients are susceptible to bacterial infection.  Becky is studying zebrafish larvae, which are translucent – this means you can image them and look at cell behaviour and movement in living organisms.  By looking at the WASp protein and how mutations affect the fish she can start to uncover how such mutations might work in the human body.

Research Encounter #3: Christina Rowley

Dr Christina Rowley is a Research Associate in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, as well as working for the ESRC.  I caught up with her at a Connected Communities showcase (with her ESRC hat on) but we managed to find a few minutes to talk about her on-going research.

Popular culture and politics may seem worlds apart, but is this really the case?  In the Vietnam War, soldiers would listen to the music sent by their friends and family; today, iPods are common items of a soldier’s equipment, with music being played as they prepare for battle or in their vehicles.  But why are rap and heavy metal so prevalent on playlists? And what role does popular culture have in influencing the attitudes and behaviour of both military personnel and the public towards war?  Christina’s work looks at culture and its relationship to military interventions, and how TV can be a critical space to explore politics.

Research Encounter #2: Frances Cartwright

This next Encounter is with Frances Cartwright who is a 2nd year PhD student in the School of Biological Sciences.  Frances is no stranger to public engagement, having been a volunteer at the Festival of Nature and for our Seeds of Change project – however she doesn’t normally get the chance to talk about her own research so here it is.

Climate change mitigation is perhaps the biggest research challenge we face today.  And, as with all challenges, there are a variety of approaches that can be taken; one of these considers increasing the reflectivity of surfaces so that more of the Sun’s energy is reflected back into space.  But it’s not just buildings and roads that can reflect energy – computer modelling suggests that increasing the reflectivity of crops by only 4% can lead to a temperature decrease of 1°C in the crop fields during the summer.  So what affects the reflective properties of crops such as barley and wheat which are common in agriculture?  Frances is currently investigating natural variations in the plants – from how hairy or waxy the leaves are, to any differences in the cell structure.  Once these factors have been established, it’s the first step to ensuring crops to maximise their reflectivity and play their part in the fight against climate change.

Research Encounter #1: Simon Potter

So here’s the first of my Research Encounters – with Dr Simon Potter, Reader in Modern History.  Simon was game enough to be the guinea pig for this endeavour, telling me about his journey from straight-forward archival research to thought-provoking questions about the role of the media.

It's hard to imagine a time when news wasn’t instantly at our fingertips – from the internet to Twitter on our smart phones it’s possible to get news from around the world as soon as it breaks.  But this was not always the case – in the 19th and early 20th century news could sometimes take weeks to flow from one part of the British Empire back to the UK.  Then, as now, news was not always unbiased – with national institutions such as the BBC using broadcasting as a propaganda tool.  So what pictures did the media create for those living at the time who may have been part of the Empire but never saw any of it? How did it connect places separated by thousands of miles?  And what role did these transnational organisations and media corporations have on how people saw the world around them?  These are questions that are rooted in history but which certainly are of relevance today.

Knowing our Bristol

Another post from the Know your Bristol blog - looking back on the events last year, the value of non-academic knowledge and how it will be used to shape future decisions in Bristol.

How well do you know your neighbourhood?  This has been the question at the heart of Know your Bristol as it aims to celebrate memories of Bristol as seen through the eyes of the community.  In the past year, through seven road shows at locations throughout Bristol, we have managed to collect around 40 oral histories and capture over 750 digitised images – with photographs ranging from family outings to special occasions to snapshots of everyday life.  The stories have been poignant, with tales of loved ones no longer with us.  They have been entertaining – a highlight of mine being the tale of a zookeeper being knocked over by a dead giraffe (it’s surprisingly hard to conduct an interview when you’re trying not to burst into laughter).  But above all, they have been an insight into a part of Bristol that hasn’t been documented before, and in some cases a Bristol that no longer exists.

It’s clear from this project that Bristolians, past and present, have a wealth of information about this city and we have attempted to capture just some of this in a booklet summarising the series of events so far.  Know your Bristol has shown the value of non-academic knowledge in thinking about our lives and our heritage.  And for some of us who are new(ish) to Bristol it’s been a fabulous way to get out of the ivory tower and explore parts of the city we may have never come across otherwise.

But the project also has a longer legacy than that.  The images and oral histories are steadily being uploaded onto the Know Your Place site, run by our partners at Bristol City Council.  This site not only provides a rich and detailed history of Bristol through the ages but the material is also being used to inform decisions about planning at a neighbourhood scale and in schools as part of a locally relevant learning resource.  So people’s memories aren’t trapped in their heads, or even hidden away in a dusty archive – they are readily available for people to use as they wish.  And this is not the end for Know your Bristol.  Thanks to additional support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund we will be working with more community groups to explore areas we didn’t manage to reach last year.  So watch this space for more stories from our events and let’s see what more we can find out about this diverse and fascinating city we live in.