Public engagement

Communicating with the wider public about your work can be rewarding, and eye-opening, you may well be exposed to completely new ways of thinking about your research that you hadn’t considered, and gain vital practical feedback from stakeholders. Distilling your research into clear and concise explanations is a brilliant way to hone your communication and networking skills too. Given that much of the research conducted at the university is funded by taxpayers, it is only fair that we make an effort to communicate what that money is being spent on, and how it will help society.

Help and advice

As ever, there are many resources available to help you when it comes to developing public engagement tools and events:

The CambPlants team have experience in developing materials for public engagement events – we can talk through your topic of interest and help you develop ideas.
The University’s Public Engagement Team are a mine of information, run training, and are also open to chat through your ideas, or your Pathways to Impact statement.
Greg Foot has produced a brilliant series of YouTube tutorials on science communication, aimed at scientists – Talking Science: An Introduction To Science Communication | YouTube Course.

There are lots of ideas and resources online already, so you don’t need to start from scratch!

The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement has a lot of information on their website.
The Royal Society of Biology has a library of resources.
Science and Plants for Schools also have a library of resources.

Public engagement events you can partake in

There are many existing public engagement events run by the University and other organisations, so there are plenty of opportunities to a part of bigger events such as:

Hands-on family friendly festivals – from 2021 these events are mainly digital until social distancing requirements in the UK change:

Opportunities to give public talk in pubs/cafes:
- Science on Sundays at the Botanic Garden
- Café Synthetique
- Pint of Science

If you help out at a bigger event, you wouldn’t need to worry about setting up equipment or advertising – this would already be organised by the respective outreach teams. All we would need you to do would be to talk to the public, and share your love of science.

Other sorts of public engagement

Manning a stall at a festival or giving a talk to the public are the typical examples of public engagement, but there are plenty of other ways that you can engage with others about your research. For example:

Tweeting or Instagram-ing about your work, or life as a scientist.
Going into schools to talk about science, with organisations like the Brilliant Club.
Giving an interview on TV or radio.
FameLab - a communications competition designed to engage and entertain by breaking down science, technology and engineering concepts into three minute presentations.

Help and advice

Public engagement events you can partake in

Other sorts of public engagement

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