The Vice-Chancellor's
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The Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards 2016 At the University of Oxford we believe that public Foreword from the Vice-Chancellor engagement enriches research and society and are committed to enabling our researchers to inspire, consult I am delighted to introduce these awards to recognise and celebrate excellence in Public Engagement with Research from across the University. and collaborate with the public. It has been exciting and reassuring to see the myriad ways in which people have been engaged with the extraordinary research here at Oxford. Of the 84 entries we received to the 2016 Awards, we have shortlisted 12 across the three categories – Projects, Early Career Researchers, and Building Capacity. The range of activities showcased demonstrate Our vision is to embed high-quality and innovative public the many outstanding examples of public engagement with research activity across the breadth of our Divisional and engagement as an integral part of research culture and museum communities, but there is great potential to do even more. practice at Oxford, enhancing our position as a world- We want to create a climate in which we can embed public engagement even more deeply into our research practices, and I am very grateful to Professor Sarah Whatmore, the University’s Academic Champion for Public Engagement for leading research institution. spearheading this work. Our aim is to ensure that Oxford acquires a reputation for engaging the public that equals our reputation for research. I encourage you to take inspiration from the inaugural winners of the University’s Public Engagement Awards and reflect on opportunities to engage the public with your own research. Best wishes Professor Louise Richardson The Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards 2016 PROJECTS PROJECTS Archeox: East Oxford – Learning from the Masters: One history or many? the Great Box Project Collaboration Collaboration Professor David Griffiths Professor Laura Peers Department for Continuing Education Pitt Rivers Museum & School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography What did you do? Who did the project reach? What did you do? Who did the project reach? From 2010–15 Continuing Education has hosted an Over 650 volunteers participated in the project with 6,000+ The project tested an innovative way to allow ethnographic To share knowledge the artists held open studio sessions archaeological and historical research project on the volunteer-days recorded. The programme particularly collections to be accessible to their communities of origin, with University staff and public, and Oxfordshire carvers landscape and historic environment of East Oxford, wanted to engage harder to reach audiences and worked by replicating one key object. The Pitt Rivers Museums and furniture makers. Videography documented the through community engagement. Excavations have taken with charities focused on homelessness, mental health holds a collection of materials from the Haida Nation process for a project website. The new Great Box then place at prehistoric and medieval sites including those of and Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESD) in British Columbia, Canada. In 2009, brothers and went home to Haida Gwaii and was used in secondary- national importance for which little information was known pupils. An atmosphere of shared enthusiasm, non- professional artists Gwaai and Jaalen Edenshaw studied school art classes, public discussions and a Haida Gwaii before, and new data has been gathered about life and hierarchy and mutual support was cultivated; volunteers the ‘Great Box’, an 1860s Haida masterpiece in the Museum exhibit. death, pathology, diet, economy, and topography. acted as mentors to the less experienced. A sense of museum. In September 2014, they returned with carving shared ownership of the project was carefully nurtured and tools and a blank box of the original dimensions. Working What was the impact of the project? Led by a core team of 4 and equipped through Heritage volunteers were able to influence the research direction of with the historic box, they replicated each carving stroke, Haida people regard the ‘repatriation’ of the Great Box as Lottery Funding support, Archeox has passed on skills and the project. learning how it was created. very significant. Marnie (Haida Secondary School assistant): techniques to its public participants including landscape “.... We can see it in books, but to actually come up and archaeology, excavation, geophysics, GIS, museum What was the impact of the project? see it and feel it and examine it—it can only benefit our collections research, together with IT, project management, Archeox has generated significant research outcomes community and our people. Having direct access to this writing and teamwork. and had a demonstrable impact in advancing the city’s will continue to inspire and challenge.” Inspired by the archaeology research agenda, which now includes a strong project, the artists are developing a new Haida language community-based theme. The experience of working with art vocabulary, a significant outcome for an endangered volunteers has been transformative for the academics Indigenous language for which art terms had not been involved, leading to a wholesale positive reappraisal preserved. of the potential of public participation in university- based archaeology and heritage research. The training programme embedded in the project connected volunteers to other study opportunities, professional accreditation, and the NVQ Scheme in Archaeological Practice. The project is currently being written up as a case study for use in the next Research Excellence Framework. The Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards 2016 The Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards 2016 PROJECTS PROJECTS Using co-design principles to inform the Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement design of assisted living technologies for and Development (part of the Humanitarian older people with complex needs Innovation Project - HIP) Collaboration Collaboration Professor Trisha Greenhalgh Professor Alexander Betts Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences Refugee Studies Centre, Department of International Development What did you do? Who did the project reach? What did you do? The project aimed to As well as working with the refugee peer researchers, we The project identified and addressed barriers to the use of co-design process. In a second study (ongoing), we are challenge the dominant also built relationships with refugee communities, including assisted living technologies by older people with chronic supporting organisations to adapt their work processes to framing of refugees holding launch events in the refugee settlements. Other illness and their carers through a co-design approach. allow greater personalisation of technologies. as passive victims in collaborators included the United Nations Refugee Agency There has been much investment in technological Participants in the project had revisions made to their own need of humanitarian (UNHCR), the Government of Uganda, and colleagues at innovations to help people maintain independence and self- care packages and/or technologies provided as a result of assistance by exploring Makerere University. manage chronic illnesses and progressive frailty. However, the co-design process. the economic lives of uptake of these remain low and if installed they are often refugees in Uganda. What was the impact of the project? abandoned or deliberately disabled by the people they are The work fed directly into the ongoing technology and Central to this project was the training of 42 refugees The research was enhanced significantly through its intended to help. service design work of industry and public sector partners, several of whom have changed the way they assess as peer researchers and enumerators, enabling them to participatory approach as the use of refugees as peer Who did the project reach? people for assisted living technologies and provide ongoing become co-creators of the research. researchers secured significant access to the refugee Participants in the original study included 40 older people support. communities. UNHCR’s former Deputy High Commissioner with complex needs. The team focused on those under- Why did you do it? for Refugees noted that “[their] work has been path- represented in previous co-design studies (e.g. diverse The programme has attracted much interest from UK There is an urgent need to rethink refugee assistance. breaking; and it has fundamentally altered the debate ethnic groups, non-English speakers and those with and abroad. Success in the initial study helped us gain Refugees are frequently thought of as a ‘burden’ on on the impact of refugees in countries of asylum, dementia). a programme grant from the Wellcome Trust to explore host states but they have the potential to contribute demonstrating the capacity of refugees for self-reliance organisational aspects of technology co-design. We are economically as well as socio-culturally. Even under the and their ability to contribute to hosting societies”. The What was the impact of the project? also part of an EU-wide collaboration that is planning a most constrained circumstances, refugees engage in research was featured in over 50 media interviews and The team gained many insights from working with the Horizon 2020 bid to extend this co-design work. significant economic activity, and in doing so often create in a TED talk viewed 600,000