This week, Chinese partners, Prof. Lu Gao and Dr. Miao Liao brought the Educational Module Resource (EMR) to science postgraduates at Tsinghua University. The decision to incorporate EMR into the course, Innovation and the Development of Science &Technology, as explained by the module convenor Prof. Zhengfeng Li, was to give students ‘a more comprehensives understanding of innovation’. Students’ feedback confirmed that content of the EMR helped them to be more sensitive about how to approach and communicate ‘unknown unknowns’ in emerging science.
A key deliverable of this ESRC project, the pilot 7 lectures of the EMR are arguably the first attempt to develop an educational resource on public engagement training that speaks to Chinese particularities. It aims to fill the gap of public engagement training in Chinese science curriculum.
Earlier this month, sections of the EMR have also been integrated into Yantai University compulsory module, Dialectics of Nature, which is taken by more than 500 postgraduate students across science and engineering majors. Owing to Prof Gao’s and Dr Liao’s effective outreach and strong commitment, other leading Chinese institutions, such as the Beijing Institute of Technology, the Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and a number of research institutions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have agreed to adopted sections of the EMR into their existing autumn modules.
This pilot run of the EMR is expected to generate valuable insights on institutionalising public engagement education in China. Prof. Goa and Dr. Liao will share their findings next February at this project’s final conference, Governing Trust in the Biosciences: Institutional and Cultural Change at the British Academy in London.