The Public Engagement team in ERO coordinate the University’s curated programme at the Edinburgh Science Festival in partnership with colleagues across the university and at the National Museum of Scotland.
What did we do in 2023?
The Edinburgh Science Festival was almost back to normal in 2023, with a huge range of face-to-face drop-in activities and talks. We worked with the team at the National Museum of Scotland and ran 8 days of family drop-in activities and 5 days of interactive workshops.
We were thrilled to be able to run a series of adult discussion events in the Bayes Centre covering topics from “Deepfaking the News” to the “Science of Happy Couples”. Several of our events were part of our year-long celebration of ‘60 years of AI and Computing. We worked with Dynamic Earth to deliver three wonderful multidisciplinary events: Oysters in Edinburgh; Emotion and Climate Change; and Our Health, Our Planet, Our Future.
Tam Dalyell Prize for Engaging the Public with Science
A highlight of the Festival was working with colleagues across the university to host the Tam Dalyell Prize for Engaging the Public with Science at the Playfair Library. This year’s winner was Dr Sinead Rhodes, Senior Research Fellow, Child Life and Health and Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences for her work on putting neurodivergent young people at the heart of her research programe.
Sinead’s fantastic lecture can be seen on our YouTube channel:
Nominations for the Tam Dalyell Prize for 2024 will open in September 2023.
Plans for 2024 – Get involved!
The Science Festival team are now well underway with their planning for 2024 which will be themed “Shaping the Future”. This theme will celebrate the power and potential that human creativity, collaboration, innovation and play have to change the world for the better. They are keen for their programme to be as interactive and creative as possible for adults and children alike, and their main call for contributions opened on 22 June 2023.
You can apply now to be part of our curated programme with opportunities to:
- run an interactive workshop or event aimed at family groups in the National Museum of Scotland (NMS)
- contribute to the University of Edinburgh drop in interactive science activity space at NMS
- develop a self-guided walking tour using ArcGIS Storymaps (support available, see Discover Edinburgh’s Mathematical History for an example of one of the tours delivered in 2022)
- deliver an evening event aimed at adults
- deliver an evening sociable science event aimed at adults
- run an outdoor activity
The deadline for applications to be included in our curated programme is 25 August 2023.
The deadline for the Science Festival open call is 10 September 2023. You can find out more about our involvement with the Edinburgh Science Festival on our dedicated SharePoint site and join our Teams channel.
