Community led third year project submissions

8 January 2024

Our third year Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience students dedicate 40 days to a research, literature review or scientific outreach project. We want to use these projects to benefit the local community. Projects will be centred around physiology, pharmacology or neuroscience. They could involve anything around physical and mental health, agrochemical use, drug use or other relevant topics. If you are a community organisation who has a research question, get in touch.

Why get involved?

Organisations that take part will benefit from:

A student team responding to a challenge or question set by you that is specific to your organisation and its needs. Students will have access to a range of resources and technology to assist them in responding to your challenge or question
A useful output at the end of the project, such as an executive summary or an educational resource (video, leaflet, poster)
Two days a week dedicated to the project from October to March

Expectations and commitments of the project

If you submit a project proposal, this will be offered to the students in May and we will aim to pair you with a group before the summer. Students are then expected to spend two days a week working on the project from mid October through to March. The students will produce a presentation for you in December detailing their progress. They will also produce a resource for you in March, as a culmination of their work on the project. This resource will have been specified by you at the start of the project, to meet your needs and could be an executive summary, poster, leaflet, video or other.

Throughout the project, the students will meet weekly with an academic advisor, who will oversee progress and do day to day trouble shooting.

In return, we would ask that you meet regularly with the student group(for example every 6-8 weeks) and that you are responsive to communication from students. This will allow you to provide feedback on the progress of the project, allowing the students to learn and to produce a mutually beneficial output.

We also ask you to be aware that this project forms part of the students’graded work, and they will be splitting their time between the outcomes for your organisation and the outcomes required for assessment e.g. their dissertation. We therefore ask that any projects you submit are not critical to your organisation and can be adapted to comply with required learning outcomes.

How to get involved?

Please complete this short form

Ideas do not have to be fully-formed.

Feel free to submit initial thoughts or express an interest. We’d be happy to help identify how we can meet your needs and shape a realistic project.

if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact Dr Kiah Tasman (kiah.tasman@bristol.ac.uk)

Further information

Here are some example project topics and formats:

Research Question: What is the impact of mould in rented accommodation on mental and physical health?
Methodology: collection and analysis of lung function and survey data.
Output: Executive summary of results and analysis.

Research Question: What are the impacts on human health of the use of agrochemicals such as pesticides?
Methodology: Literature review of recent scientific research.
Output: Executive summary of the key findings and implications.

Research Question: How successful are different social interventions to promote physical activity?
Methodology: Collection of activity data from volunteers using fitbits.
Output: Executive summary of the results and implications.