The second session in the KPERN Communities of Practice Programme will be held on Wednesday 6th November 1-2pm.
Kasia Senyszyn, a School of Arts PhD student specialising in accessibility in theatre and a member of the KPERN (Kent Public Engagement with Research Network), has been working with Sun Pier House (SPH) in Medway, on the ‘Open Arts My Self’ project. The ‘Open Arts Project’ is specifically aimed at blind and visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing people, young people and their families. The project aims to investigate the value of socially engaged practice, looking at improving well-being and engagement with those people at risk of social isolation.
Project artists from SPH will join Kasia to talk about how the collaboration came about and what it has involved, how it worked in practice, experiences of working across very different organisations, and lessons learned from the whole process. Anyone who is interested in working with Sun Pier House should come along.
Please email Research Impact & Public Engagement Manager Maddy at peresearch@kent.ac.uk to book a space.
There are 3 further sessions in the Programme:
Session 3: External expert Jamie Gallagher: Evaluating Engagement
Half day workshop Wednesday 29th January 2020 (time to be confirmed)
Jamie Gallagher is an award winning and nationally recognised engagement professional and trainer, specialising in evaluation of the impact of engagement activity. After an overview of the engagement with research landscape, Jamie will move on to evaluation: the what, why and how. Participants will be supported to work on their own engagement and evaluation plans during the workshop.
Session 4: Laura Thomas-Walters: Innovative methods of engaging the public with research
Monday 10th February 2020 1-2pm
Laura Thomas-Walters, a PhD student in Conservation Biology, commissioned her PhD quilt as a visual and tactile representation of the breadth of research undertaken at Kent. Laura worked with the Canterbury Quilters Society to produce the quilt, subsequently winning the Graduate School’s Postgraduate Community Experience Award. Laura will talk through the development of this innovative method of engagement, and where it will take her next.
Session 5: Dr Helen Brooks and Professor Mark Connelly: Gateways to the First World War – a plethora of engagement activity
Wednesday 4th March 2020 1-2pm
Between 2014 and 2019, Gateways to the First World War was funded by the AHRC to support public engagement with the centenary of the First World War. In this session Dr Helen Brooks, a Reader in Theatre and Cultural History, and Mark Connelly, Professor of Modern History, will reflect on their experiences of a diverse range of public engagement activities: from talks and workshops to performances and lecture-concerts. They will discuss the ways in which they worked with community groups both as advisors and in developing participatory researcher projects, and reflect on the challenges and possibilities of this kind of work.