Junk the Jargon 2011

Junk the Jargon 2011 is nearly here!

Can you make your research clear and entertaining to a wide audience in only 3 minutes? If you think so, or would just like to try, then enter the competition!

Faculty Heats

Humanities & Social Sciences: Tues 8th Feb, 4pm in Lock-keeper’s Cottage, Mile End

Science & Engineering: Wed 9th Feb, 4pm in People’s Palace LT1, Mile End

Medicine & Dentistry: Thurs 10th Feb, 5pm in Perrin LT, Blizard Building, Whitechapel

The Final

The final will be on Thursday 17th Feb in People’s Palace Lecture Theatre 1 from 5pm. It will be followed by prize-giving and a drinks reception in the People’s Palace foyer. Prizes of £500, £250 and £100 will be awarded for the top three presentations, and there will also be a separate prize awarded based on the audience’s vote.

Judges for the final are:

Prof. Evelyn Welch, Vice-Principal (Research & International Affairs)
Prof. Colin Jones, President of the Royal Historical Society
Nicola Horne from Cancer Research UK
Rhian Harris, Director of the V&A Children’s Museum
A representative from the science communication organisation Guerilla Science

To find out more, or to book a place at one of the faculty heats, please contact Jo Cordy: j.m.cordy@qmul.ac.uk.

Help teachers bring real science into schools!

This is a new project designed to help secondary science teachers bring contemporary science and real scientific data into their classes through collaboration with researchers. The project gives researchers the opportunity to communicate their science to a public audience and could lead to longer-term associations between the researchers' institution and schools.

Each researcher would work with one or two individual teachers and interact with them via a website. The aim would be to work with the teachers to develop a classroom resource using the researcher's data.

Anticipated time commitments would be 1 hour/week for 12 weeks.

Participating researchers would be required to provide:

A short written account of their research
A sample data set that could be used by students
A short video biography explaining their career path (if possible)
Science Learning Centres are initially looking for researchers to become involved in the pilot programme in spring 2010. Researchers who would like to know more or who are interested in taking part should email the external contact at freshscience@slcs.ac.uk.

REMINDER - Junk the Jargon - Win £500 for 3 minutes' work!

Junk the Jargon - Win £500 for 3 minutes' work!

Can you communicate your research topic to a broad audience in 3 minutes?

Can you make it interesting, engaging and fun?

Do you want to win £500?!

If you think so, you should enter “Junk the Jargon”, a new competition for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at Queen Mary.

A competition will be held in each Graduate School in January (details below), and successful participants will go through to the final, held on Wednesday 27^th January, from 5pm. Anyone not participating in the competition is encouraged to come and watch and support the finalists. A drinks reception will be held afterwards.

The final will be judged by a panel of experts, including Prof. Sue Hartley, who is giving the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year, and Dr Tiffany Jenkins, Arts & Society director at the Insitute of Ideas (www.instituteofideas.com). Prizes of £500, £250 and £100 will be awarded for the top three presentations.

You can view videos from a similar, national competition (Famelab) to get an idea of what you can do in 3 minutes: Here and here.

If you have any questions, please e-mail Jo Cordy in ESD.

Details of your Graduate School’s heat:

Science & Engineering: Wednesday 13^th Jan, 5pm in Peoples Palace lecture theatre 1.

Humanities & Social Sciences: Wednesday 13^th Jan, 4:15pm, location TBC

School of Medicine & Dentistry: Wednesday 20^th Jan, Perrin lecture theatre, time TBC

Look out for e-mails with more details of the competition in the near future!

Pitch Your Idea 2009 - Photos at last!

The Pitch Your Idea business plan competition final was over a month ago now, on April 8th, but I've finally got photos from it to post here, to give everyone an idea of what the event was like.

Nine finalists pitched their business plans to a panel of six judges whose expertise covered finance, IP, biotechnology and entrepreneurship. Following their pitch, each finalist was grilled for about 15 minutes by the panel - an experience that was described as being nerve-wracking, but much more positive than Dragon's Den! After a long deliberation (that felt even longer to those of us waiting outside) the judges finally settled on a winner - Becky Stewart from Electronic Engineering for her "AudioBlitz" idea. Melissa George from the Physics department and Martin Morrell, also from Electronic Engineering, were awarded runner-up prizes.

Everybody really enjoyed the day, and the feedback from both the judges and the finalists was very positive. The judges were extremely impressed with standards of the ideas and pitches, and the finalists all said how much they appreciated not only the judges questions and advice, but also the confidence and communication skills they had developed through the competition.

Pitch your Idea will be running again next year, probably starting in January 2010, so watch this space if you are interested! A web area will be set up to publicise next year's event, and photos, videos and interviews from this year will be available on that site.

FameLab

FameLab is a competition that aims to find the new faces of UK science, engineering and maths. Entrants must prepare an exciting 3-minute presentation about a scientific topic that will engage a non-scientific audience, and then attend a regional heat (the London one is on 25th April) and present in front of judges. Alternatively you can video your presentation, send it in and have the chance of going straight through to a regional final. Ten finalists picked from the regional finals will win a weekend masterclass in science communication and the opportunity to take part in the FameLab final at the Cheltenham Science Festival in June.

See the website (link above) for more details, and have a go!

If you decide to enter, I would be really interested to hear about your experiences. Please let me know if you're thinking about it - j.m.cordy@qmul.ac.uk.

Perspectives - A poster competition with a difference

Do you discuss your science with confidence?

Or is its social impact just a brief sentence at the start of a publication?

Scientists often have to show that they are aware of the social & ethical context of their research. Yet most early-career researchers have little time set aside to consider the social implications of their work.

Perspectives, a poster session with a difference, is a chance for you to discuss your research with a non-specialist audience. Attend an interactive training day – learn about poster design and sharpen your communication skills. Then present your poster at the British Science Festival in September, at the University of Surrey in Guildford. Cash prizes are awarded by a panel of expert judges.

For more information, and to apply online, visit the website.

Researchers in Residence

Some of you might remember that I sent an e-mail round a while ago about the Researchers in Residence scheme, which gives PhD students and post-docs (currently only those funded by UK research councils or Wellcome Trust) an opportunity to spend a few hours in a local school sharing your research and experience. This is a really exciting chance to step outside the world of academia and develop your communication skills in a completely different environment.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to arrange for the organiser to come to QM and run a training session here, but there is another session at Imperial on 16th March, if anyone is interested in going along to that and finding out more.

Also, if anyone is already on the scheme, I would be very interested in hearing about your experiences, and perhaps you would be able to write a short article about it to post on this blog? Please let me know!