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Warwick Institute of Engagement

I:DNA - Publishing your engagement work

Background

I:DNA is a Wellcome Trust funded project that was created to engage the public with research led by Professor Felicity Boardman, in conjunction with Dr Corinna Clark, at Warwick Medical School. The research explores the experiences of people living with inherited conditions and their attitudes towards genetic medicine.

This video provides an overview of the art installation produced to explore these themes. You can read more about the project as a whole here.

Publishing your engagement work

We have submitted a paper (I:DNA: Evaluating the Impact of Public Engagement with a Multimedia Art Installation on Genetic Screening) for peer review, which details our experiences and evaluates the impact of I:DNA through a thematic analysis of data left on feedback cards/forms, as well as an analysis of the artwork produced by the public in response to the installation (poetry, children’s artwork).

This analysis was combined with descriptive statistics of visitor numbers, and proportions of visitors leaving feedback. The data were analysed to assess their fulfilment of three key areas of arts-based public engagement impact1:

  1. Changing views
  2. Inspiring behaviour change and
  3. Supporting capacity for future PE activity

In addition to the paper, we developed teaching materials from the learning acquired through I:DNA. These have included talks on the creation of I:DNA and the balance between art and research in engagement (University of Nottingham, March 2020) and Seminars in the School of Life Sciences and WMS (Summer 2022). We also created this resource for the WIE Skills Festival so that we can share our experiences of public engagement with the University community.

1Ball et al, 2021. Arts-based approaches to public engagement with research: Lessons from a rapid review . Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA194-1.html