Opening plenary - What can engagement do for you? (R0.21)

Join us for a brief welcome from Rachel Sandby-Thomas and our Directors, followed by a panel session discussing ‘Planting Roots’. This project is a collaboration between Foleshill Community Centre, Warwick Arts Centre and the Warwick Institute of Engagement, inspired by the Community Centre’s Medicinal Garden and involving local artists, Warwick researchers, and members of the local community coming together for a series of creative events. Hear from Becca Randle (Warwick Arts Centre), Laura Harford (WIE) and Helen Needham (Foleshill Community Centre) as they share their experiences and learnings from this collaboration.

Grab a coffee refill before our first breakout session

Breakout 1 - Spotlight talks (R0.21)

11:00 - 11:25: Creating Experiments for School Pupils through programming

Led by Jianhua Yang, Mir Seyedebrahimi, Margaret Low

Programming is one of the few subjects that span various nations' education systems, encompassing primary, secondary, and higher education levels. This diversity presents a unique opportunity to design programming courses with embedded public engagement components. This approach benefits university students by allowing them to practice and develop their programming and public engagement skills. Concurrently, it enhances resources for schools and promotes higher education. In this session, we present a case study of the Warwick Institute of Engagement project, which embeds public engagement elements within a programming module. We report on the overall process of the course design, the involvement of students, and our reflections on the outcomes.

11:25 - 11:50: The Mapping Women's Suffrage Project & Public Engagement: Reflections & Strategies

Led by Tara Morton

Mapping Women's Suffrage, 1911, is a digital citizen science project that visually maps the home locations and often hidden lives and materials of ordinary women and men that campaigned for Votes for Women across the country at the height of movement. The project was developed with support from the University of Warwick's History department, technologies team, is hosted by the University, and also has partnerships with the National Archives, UK Parliament, with regional museums, and local history groups across the country. It has produced several successful public engagement events including for Coventry City of Culture, and during COVID-19 lockdown, for the ESRC Festival of Social Science, 2020. This session will reflect upon some of these engagement events, who participated and their impact, but also upon wider strategies for building engagement relationships between digital humanities projects, history, and contemporary community groups.

Cancelled

Breakout 2 - Designing and Running Inclusive Events (R0.14)

Led by Beth Russell, Creative Learning Project Officer at WAC, Siân Bolton Widening Participation Officer, Aqsa Akhtar Widening Participation Events and Operations Coordinator

This workshop aims to help event planners create inclusive and accessible events. It will be an opportunity for collaboration and brainstorming on best practices for designing events that consider neurodiversity, disability, religious requirements, and other factors to ensure that events are accessible, inclusive and beneficial for all.

Breakout 3 - Working with Young People in Outreach Activity
(R0.12)

Led by Amanda Bishop, Widening Participation and Outreach

This interactive session will support those wanting to deliver outreach activity and events to young people. The session will look at adapting content for different ages, covering different types of activity i.e. school visits, family events, in school, on campus and some top tips for creating these activities and events.

Breakout 4 - Prototypes for regenerative futures (R0.03/4)

Please note this is a double session that will run from 11am-12:50pm.

Led by Adela Glyn-Davies, Design Studies

Regenerative Design is a multidisciplinary area of practice which seeks to build a restorative relationship between the social, natural and built environments. This intersection of complexity is often referred to as the 'Terrain for Sustainability', which seeks new interventions in the design for health wellbeing and belonging that includes our planet.

This type of design entails the scoping and generation of change, and as such falls under a very large and prominent area of practice called: Social Design. At Warwick, our division in Design Studies, together with Warwick Institute of Engagement, runs a Social Design module which enables students, and members of the public, to become Designers and propose innovative solutions to reimagine our urban environments.

This session declares you a designer today! As agents of change with a diverse scope of knowledge and lived experience, we will create a prototype of a shared, desired future city. This session will unleash the urban planner and future citizen in you, and engage you in a regenerative design sprint! Areas we will think about are housing, education, infrastructure, healthcare, energy, nature, industry and leisure. Our materials will be recycled, emerging and possible also imagined. Through this exercise we're aiming to demonstrate collaborative engagement in action, and how lessons from Social and Regenerative Design can be applied to your own practice.

Breakout 1 - Information Session - More about Warwick Institute of Engagement (WIE) (R0.21)

If you are a new fellow we recommend attending this session. It is running again at 2:45pm so you can choose which timeslot works best for you around what else you'd like to attend.

Led by Rachel Edwards, WIE Associate Academic Director

An introduction to what the WIE does, and how you can get involved with our events, training, and funding schemes. Aimed especially at our new WIE fellows but open to all.

Breakout 2 - Evaluating Public Engagement Activities (R0.14)

Led by Vishalakshi Roy and members of the Evaluating Engagement Learning Circle

The session will focus on the discussion of case studies of how two very different types of public engagement activities were evaluated and how the information from the evaluation was used. The speakers will present their experiences of undertaking evaluation and reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches they took. The session will also include a Q&A and discussion around good practice in evaluation of public engagement to inform evaluation activities that delegates are currently undertaking or planning for the future

Breakout 3 - Spotlight talks (R0.12)

12:00 - 12:25: Using Social Media for Science Outreach and Engagement

Led by Shams Neupane, Charlotte Cornbill, Rachael Ralph, Tasha Reddy (tbc) and Phoebe Do Carmo Silva (tbc)

This session will highlight our experience as PhD students using social media channels such as instagram, TikTok and X (twitter) to present our work and give glimpse into our lives as researchers. We will focus on how we have been using educational posts, videos, and even the latest trending memes to transform complex scientific concepts into accessible and entertaining content for a broader audience aiming to promote #science #engagement

With thanks to Dani Groves and Saskia Bakker for supporting us in organising this session.

12:25 - 12:50: Youth Support Programme (YSP): A Transnational Partnership for Developing 21st Century Skills

Led by Dr Freeha Azmat and Dr Asima Iqbal

We will be presenting impact of a transnational collaboration which offered a comprehensive skill development programme for local unemployed youth community Pakistan. We will present how we engaged local public from different regions in Pakistan and develop individuals who can contribute effectively to a global world by applying their transferrable, digital, and global citizenship skills. The project is envisioned to have its impact at three levels: youth development, community development and social development. We will share audience feedback as part of this session.

Breakout 5 - Experience a fun way for a group to generate ideas (R2.38)

This is a small workshop with only 10 spaces. It will take place upstairs in the WIE Meeting Room on the second floor. This is due to the nature of the session which requires limited numbers.

Led by Ed Watson

In this session you will experience a way to generate ideas to solve a knotty issue in a collaborative, equitable and inclusive manner. Once experienced you will be able to easily use this technique yourself effectively elsewhere to generate a variety of potential solutions. This approach works well with a diverse group. It is based on Design Thinking principles which promote collaboration, are inclusive and can be a lot of fun.

Learning about collaborative idea generation may be particularly relevant for those thinking about working with external partners, however lessons from this activity may also support those working in groups such as our Learning Circles, or those chairing and attending meetings in your normal day to day role.

Join us for a buffet lunch - please let us know about any dietary requirements you have when you register.

Breakout 1 - In Conversation - Audience Development: From the Community to the University
(R0.21)

Led by: Hardish Virk, WIE Regional Fellow and Helen Wheatley, Co-director of Warwick Institute of Engagement

From engaging communities with health, education and social services to developing audiences for theatre, arts and heritage, public engagement has been central to the work led by Hardish Virk for nearly 34 years. Going into and learning from the community as well as working with research and data has informed policy and strategy underpinning the civic activities of many institutions he has worked with. This in conversation event will present case studies as well as a deeper understanding of why community is at the heart of public engagement.

Breakout 2 - What do you think about Public Engagement? (R0.14)

Led by Ellie King

Warwick Institute of Engagement is currently embarking on a project to develop a framework and methods toolkit for conceptualising and measuring public engagement across our activities. As part of this process ,we would like to invite you to take part in a workshop to share your ideas about good public engagement, what the Institute’s objectives should be, and how we can measure this.

This session will be a focus group where you will have the opportunity to share your thoughts and ideas on all things Public Engagement, contributing to the work of the Institute.

Breakout 4 - Embedding Public Engagement in the HE Classroom. A co-creation workshop (R0.03/4)

Led by Gioia Panzarella and the WIHEA/WIE Pedagogies of Public Engagement learning circle

This co-creation workshop is led by members of the WIE/WIHEA Pedagogies of Public Engagement Learning Circle; it aims to contribute to the objectives we set for 23-24 by producing resources for the Warwick teaching and learning community. These resources will serve to encourage the integration of Public Engagement activities into our teaching practices. In the workshop we will develop principles and strategies for pedagogies of public engagement collaboratively, by focusing specifically on teaching activities designed to embed public engagement in teaching practices. Members of the Learning Circle will facilitate discussions among attendees and gather initial materials to create a working document to be disseminated through WIE/WIHEA channels. Learning circle members who currently incorporate public engagement activities into their teaching will offer starting points for discussion by sharing their practices and providing examples.

Breakout 5 - The best of the bunch - How a group can make a choice from many alternative ideas (R2.38)

This is a small workshop with only 10 spaces. It will take place upstairs in the WIE Meeting Room on the second floor. This is due to the nature of the session which requires limited numbers.

Led by Ed Watson

In this session you will experience a collaborative and effective way for a group to collectively and equitably evaluate a range of potential solutions, usually to a knotty problem, and select the best ones to pursue. This approach works well with a diverse group. It is based on Design Thinking principles which promote collaboration, are inclusive and can be a lot of fun.

Learning about collaborative decision making may be particularly relevant for those thinking about working with external partners, however lessons from this activity may also support those working in groups such as our Learning Circles, or those chairing and attending meetings in your normal day to day role.

Breakout 1 - Information Session - More about Warwick Institute of Engagement (WIE) (R0.21)

If you are a new fellow we recommend attending this session. It is running again at 2:45pm so you can choose which timeslot works best for you around what else you'd like to attend.

Led by Rachel Edwards, WIE Associate Academic Director

An introduction to what the WIE does, and how you can get involved with our events, training, and funding schemes. Aimed especially at our new WIE fellows but open to all.

Breakout 2 - How to get started: Co-production and Communities (R0.14)

Led by the Collaboration and Co-production Learning Circle

Would you like to work with a community group or in partnership with a charity, special interest group or institution to engage the public in new ways but don’t know where to start? This session is for you! We’ll take you through how to work in collaboration with external partners and share top tips for making sure that things go smoothly. You’ll hear from academics and community partners and there will also be some activities to help you work through how to do co-production.

Breakout 3 - A practical guide to hands on engagement stalls (R0.12)

Led by Kerry Baker, Warwick Institute of Engagement

If you're keen to run hands on engagement activities this is the workshop for you. We'll be exploring the three stages of engagement, how to keep things manageable for yourself, and how to make sure you have a fun and engaging activity that helps your audience learn something new.

Breakout 5 - Field Trip - Beyond Canvases: Crafting Connections in Inini Initiative's Exhibition (Meet in the Ramphal Atrium to walk over to Warwick Arts Centre together)

Led by Becca Randle, Warwick Arts Centre, a member of Inini Initiative that partnered on the project and Artist Rumbi Savanhu.

Join the team responsible for the Monumental Visions: Speculative Future Through Art project for a trip over to Warwick Arts Centre to view the exhibition in situ and hear from those involved. This talk will provide an overview of the exhibition, covering the key themes, concepts and messages conveyed. Hear from community partners and artists on the project plus the Warwick Arts Centre team. Followed by a discussion on the process of working with together. We'll highlight the collaborative aspects and the unique contributions of each partner, challenges faced and how they were overcome.

Closing Session

Join us in the Atrium for a fun and informal session to close the day. We'll have fizz and nibbles, some examples of public engagement activities we've run at our Resonate events, posters showcasing engagement projects, and a few short talks to wrap up the day - including a presentation from our conference live scribe about the sessions he's visited over the day.

With thanks to the following people for volunteering their time to display their activities

Yu-Ting Lai - Pizzanality

Do you see yourself as an activist? This is a 10-minute drop-in activity for everyone to explore the concept of activism. The only thing you need to do is to make a 'PIZZA' (unfortunately there is no real pizza.) Let's explore the relations between pizzas and activists and try to make impact on campus.

Anne-Marie Broomhall, along with colleagues and students from Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics - The Sun, stars and galaxies

This will be a combined stand that will showcase the 'Dynamic Sun' activities that we have developed: Explore the science behind the dynamic features of our Sun, such as sunspots and prominences, with experiments that demonstrate the same phenomena, including plasma balls and magnets. We will also show some games that two URSS students (Gillian Fernades and Gabbie Bassett) developed as part of their summer project: The "Journey through the Milky Way" challenges participants to complete tasks and answer questions in order to get home to Earth from the edge of the Milky Way. Meanwhile, you can learn about different stars, constellations and solar system objects by playing Top Trumps.

Niraali Mehta and Sam Trouton – Celebrating Women in STEM

Niraali is currently developing a women in STEM themed magazine that will be distributed to upper primary/ lower secondary school aged students. Take a look at their designs so far and add you own suggestions and ideas.

Giulia Lorenzi - Musical Reflections: A Seminar Series to Bring Philosophy of Music to the General Public

Giulia will be presenting a poster about a seminar series for the general public that she organised, convened and led on exploring the philosophy of music. With thanks to the support of the Institute of Advanced Study and the collaboration of Warwick Arts and Music Centre who provided support for the series.

Rebecca Nealon - Coding with Sophie

Rebecca will be presenting a poster on her outreach series "Coding with Sophie" - including what they have learned, the impact from the students and future goals to reach a wider audience. She will also talk about how WIE Resources were used to support the development of the programme.

Angel Sun - Sharing my URSS Project: Colonial art of justification in Hong Kong education policy

Angel's poster will share her experience of doing the URSS project exploring how the British colonial government justified the counter-communist educational policies in Hong Kong between the 1950s and 1970s. In particular, sharing how she engaged the public with that research in various ways such as blogs, a student radio show, and taking part in WIE's Resonate Roadshow event in Leamington Spa.

Suzanna Dickson - Colours in roots

Suzanna will be presenter her popular "Live Labs" activity - talking about colours in plants and how we use them as scientists, with an interactive display.

Ellen Smith-Dennis - Multilingual Coventry

Who is multilingual and how multilingual is Coventry? What are Coventry’s top 20 languages? Where do they originate? Come and join in with some tabletop activities and find out more about the vital role that supplementary language schools play in maintaining the use of community languages in a multilingual city.

Lindsay Muscroft - Patients as teachers of clinical skills: co-production with students

Lindsay’s poster will share how she used the WIE module development fund to involve some members of the local community in teaching clinical skills to first year medical students. Students co-created the new sessions, which saw patients adopt a teaching role, helping to teach skills to students and giving them feedback from a patient, rather than a doctor perspective.

If you'd like to present a poster or run an activity please email

and we'll aim to fit you in.