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Public engagement

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Public engagement is an important objective for i-sense. Speaking with a wider audience helps us:

  • generate public awareness
  • communicate our research outcomes
  • encourage conversation and dialogue about our research areas and important topics
  • gain input and insights from potential end users
  • build knowledge and understanding

Find out more about the conversations we've been having with the public by checking out our case studies:

2019

Institute of Healthcare Engineering Autumn Research Symposium (2019) 

This year the Institute of Healthcare Engineering held their annual Autumn Research Symposium at the Wellcome Collection. They conveyed the diversity of UCL's healthcare engineering excellence through a mix of panel discussions, demonstrations and stories from people with lived experience. i-sense researchers held a public engagement stand at the Symposium, showcasing our research from dashboard development to the engineering behind lateral flow tests.

Acknowledgements: This symposium was organised by Alice Hardy and Georgina Cade, UCL.

i-sense at Great Exhibition Road Festival (2019)

The i-sense team within the Prof Molly Stevens Group at Imperial College London put on an interactive display at the Great Exhibition Road Festival. The group set up three zones with activities for children of all ages to engage in research concepts underway in the group. 

Acknowledgements: This activity was led by Dr Jonathan Wojciechowski and Dr Leah Frenette, in collaborations with Dr John Goertz, Ms Ilona Sunyovszki, Dr Hyejeong Seong, Dr Jonathan Yeow, Mr Mike Potter, Dr Axel Moore, Ms Katya Pchelintseva, and Ms Charlotte Lee-Reeves, Imperial College London.

Science Summer School for young migrants (2019)

This summer a group of PhD students from the London Centre of Nanotechnology (LCN) and the Institute of Education (IoE), including i-sense PhD student, Dounia Cherkaoui, ran a two week summer school for refugees, young migrants, and asylum seeking students at UCL.

Summer work experience with the McKendry group (2019)

Over the summer, the i-sense McKendry group hosted two London based secondary school students in our lab at the London Centre for Nanotechnology. The students spent time shadowing experiments, learning about lateral flow tests and coding techniques, and developing their science communication and engagement skills.

2018 

 

Digital Health Tech Show (2018)

On 13 and 14 March, i-sense members joined the Digital Health Technology Show at the ExCel Centre in London. The show is estimated to have attracted more than 4,000 people over the two days and gave us the opportunity to speak to some really engaged people, from those interested in the potential translation of our technologies, to students from various universities across the UK.

EPSRC Science for a Successful Nation (2018)

On 21 February 2018, the EPSRC held a showcase at the Royal Society in London to promote the importance for EPSRC investments, in the context of UK prosperity. A number of EPSRC funded projects were selected to showcase their work as part of the visual backdrop to the event that also included panel discussions and debate.

2017

 

New Scientist Live (2017)

Researchers from i-sense joined the award winning show, New Scientist Live, as thousands of people visited the ExCel centre in London for a stimulating festival of ideas. This year marked the second year of the show, which featured five themed zones, including cosmos, earth, humans, technology and engineering. Sitting within the technology zone, the i-sense exhibit attracted a range of participants, from those excited to hear about our research into mobile healthcare and diagnostics for infectious diseases, to those wanting to be tested for the i-sense ‘Science Bug’.

Llama Outbreak! at Courtyard festival (2017)

Researchers from the i-sense Llama Outbreak Control Unit were back again this year at Courtyard in Kings Cross, Green Man’s Welsh beer and cider festival, to track a strange disease spreading across London. First seen in Wales during the 2016 Green Man Festival, Llama Outbreak! is a live game that aims to simulate the spread of an infectious disease throughout a festival. The project was produced by Einstein’s Garden, in collaboration with researchers from i-sense at the University College London (UCL) and funded by a Wellcome Trust Society Award.

2016

 

Rosalind Franklin Appathon (2016)

Through the Rosalind Franklin Appathon, we aimed to harness this digital revolution to reach out to a much larger global audience than traditional women’s networking events, and challenge cultural stereotypes. There is a growing movement in apps for social change but relatively few apps to empower and support women in STEMM, representing an opportunity for the UK to take a leading role.

Llama Outbreak! Einstein's Garden, Greenman Festival (2016)

As thousands of people gathered at Einstein's Garden, a unique area of Greenman Festival that brings science to life through art, nature and interactive experiences, they came across a rather unique stall. The Llama Outbreak Control Clinic was set up in response to a public health emergency that had descended upon the festival - a strange virus that was turning people into Llamas!

2015

 

i-sense Bug Hunters at UCL Spark Festival London (2015)

i-sense researchers invited the public to be scientists for a day at our "Bug Hunters" stall at this year's Spark Festival London at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Through fun, hands-on activities, we took visitors on an interactive journey for our hunt for bugs- to detect and identify infectious diseases much earlier than is currently possible. 

Visit i-sense at the Science Museum (2015)

Our latest flu work features in the Science Museum's 'Too much information: Health tests today' exhibit from 29th June-29th September 2015.