Professor of Sciences and Society

Professor Kathy Sykes

Vision:

Helping to make engaging with the public a valued part of what it is to be a scientist*, at the University of Bristol and across the country.

* I try help researchers across all subject areas engage with the public, whether they are in science, medicine, maths, engineering, social sciences or arts and humanities

Do you want:

- help finding people in the University of Bristol?

The Centre for Public Engagement has great contacts across the University; their public engagement stories give some highlights, and the Expert Directory helps you find your way around.

- advice on funding for public engagement?

See National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) funding opportunities and CPE advice.

- advice on getting started in public engagement?

See NCCPE projects.

- advice on getting into science engagement?

I get asked this a lot. My top tips are:

1. Network**: meet people who do this for a living, across a range of activities. Find out what’s going on, what the range of activities are, what seems most interesting to you. Go to the Science Communication Conference, the World Conference of Science Journalists. Come to the Times Cheltenham Science Festival. Enter Famelab.

** by which I mean ‘help to create a network of people, who work constructively together to build something that benefits everyone’, rather than ‘selectively seek to meet people who you think will bring you advantage’. The former is more fun, more creative and works better too.

2. Experience; get some: there’s a lot of competition. If necessary volunteer (Cheltenham Science Festival; Bristol Festival of Nature), do work experience, enter competitions.

3. Reflect on what you think works well. Go to science engagement events, watch programmes, read books or papers, explore the web. Reflect on what you think works well, and let this inform what you do.

- and to find out more about what I do….

at the University of Bristol and across the country.