Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Curiosity Carnival (The Curiosity Carnival: Oxford European Researchers’ Night 2017)

Teaser

By capitalising on the University of Oxford’s world-class European-funded research base, together with our outstanding museums, libraries, gardens and woods, education programmes and public engagement expertise, we will create a truly inspirational multi-venue...

Summary

By capitalising on the University of Oxford’s world-class European-funded research base, together with our outstanding museums, libraries, gardens and woods, education programmes and public engagement expertise, we will create a truly inspirational multi-venue multi-disciplinary European Research night in 2017.

The event itself will be a city-wide programme of high quality and innovative activities utilising both University of Oxford venues in addition to busking-type activities taking place in shopping centre locations. Each venue will have its own ‘flavour’ – focusing on specific research topics and encompassing different activities - so that there will be ‘something for everyone’.

By focusing on quantity and quality, we will create a much bigger impact on the audiences and participating researchers and create a long lasting legacy.

Objectives:

a) Organise an inspirational large-scale public engagement with research event at 8 different venues and locations that engages 10,000+ people via the live activities and 250,000+ via digital and media activities.

b) Increase awareness of research and its impact on society to an audience of young people and their influencers.

c) Enable at least 200 researchers, including a significant proportion of female researchers, to take part.

d) Inspire young people to consider a career in research

e) Share our challenges, successes and lessons learnt.

Activities will include interactive stalls; games; mass experiments; science ‘demos’; a ‘living library’ for the public to take out a researcher \'on loan\' and two grand finales with musical performances.

The awareness campaign will facilitate even greater public-researcher engagement across digital and media platforms. This will include a fun and educational online activity for school pupils to interact with researchers. The in-depth impact assessment will utilise baseline data and both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Work performed

\"1.2.1 Awareness campaign Work Package 1

Overview of the results
o Development of terms of reference for the Awareness Working group, comprising representatives from
o the academic divisions;
o the collections;
o the Public Affairs Directorate;
o Research Services;
o external partners MRC Harwell and Oxford Brookes University;
o Drafting of the communication and engagement plan, in 4 sub-groups focused on the following aspects:
o Design and visual identity;
o Offline marketing;
o Online marketing and engagement;
o Schools and community engagement;
o Development of a communication and awareness plan covering channel analysis, costing, activity leads, risks and mitigation, and impact measures;
o Development of design and visual identity focusing on stimulating and feeding curiosity in a vibrant and colourful way with a view to illustrating he \"\"curiosity carnival\"\" theme;

1.2.2 Activities during the Night Work Package 2

Overview of the results

o Setting up of the Night Working Group, composed of representatives of all delivery partners;
o First meeting of the group on 30th September 2016;
o Setting up of a collaborative space on the University\'s file-sharing site (Sharepoint);
o Development of the programme of activities on the night, as shown in the table below(further details about the group composition, call for expressions of interest to be found in Deliverable 2):

Activities:

September 2016
WG meeting 1 Presentation of the original bid for Curiosity Carnival, to ensure all members of the WG had a clear understanding of the vision for the event and expectations.
Ongoing activity Continued engagement with delivery partners
Preparatory programming work: creation of planning documents etc.
October 2016
Ongoing activity Continued engagement with delivery partners
Preparatory programming work: creation of planning documents etc.
Create Expression of interest documents & process
WG meeting 2 Brainstorm with partners, covering:
o Audiences
o Time & format for activities
o Thematic approaches
November 2016
Ongoing activity Call for participants opened (a copy of the proposal form and example of response submitted included in appendix 2)
Raising awareness with researchers across the university, encouraging them to submit their ideas for Curiosity Carnival
December 2016
WG meeting 3 Initial review of Expressions of interest received from research community, including:
o Reviewing quality & spread of proposals
o Grouping proposals from across the university into common programming themes

159 Expressions of Interest were received. These varied from submissions from one researchers featuring one idea for an activity, to a submission from a department featuring multiple activities. A good spread of expressions of interest were received:
Oxford University (OU) Humanities Division: 40
OU Mathematics, Physical & Life Sciences Division: 28
OU Medical Sciences Division: 43
OU Social Sciences Division: 40
Other (OU Gardens, Libraries, Museums, Oxford Brookes): 8

January 2017
WG meeting 4 Second review of Expressions of interest received from research community
(due to a larger than anticipated number of Expressions of Interest being submitted the review process took longer than anticipated and was not completed in the December WG meeting)

Allocation of subgroups to focus on programming at each venue
Ongoing work Venue subgroups meeting(s) to develop a framework programme for each venue, drawing on the Expressions of Interest received as well pro-actively seeking out researchers to fill gaps in programme
February 2017
WG meeting 5 Presentations of draft programming framework for each venue to the WG.
Gaps (e.g. in research area or format) identified to focus ongoing development work
Ongoing work Venue subgroups continue to meet to refine draft programme for each venue

\"

Final results

\"1.2.3 Impact Assessment Work Package 3
Overview of the results

o Setting up of the Impact Working group aimed at :
o Assessing public engagement with Curiosity Carnival;
o Assessing the impact of Curiosity Carnival in changing the conception of \"\"research in young people and their influencers;
o Assessing the impact of Curiosity Carnival on researchers;
o assessing Curiosity Carnival visitors experience;
o Setting up of a collaborative space on the University\'s file-sharing site (Sharepoint);
o Details about process, work group composition etc. to be found in Deliverable 3;
o Agreement on the following document related to the key audiences for the impact assessment:\"

Website & more info

More info: http://www.curiositycarnival.org.