15 July, 2019
Struggling to keep your head above the water of work? I鈥檓 sure no matter what your career stage, this crosses your mind when your experiment doesn鈥檛 work for the fourth time with a deadline around the corner. You sit, dejected, in your office chair and scroll through your e-mails to find a request for assistance with public engagement. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have time for that鈥︹, but I urge you to hold that thought for a second. My argument is twofold.
The first is the classic: the impact you could have on society. There are two rather depressing headlines I鈥檝e read in recent years鈥 the first is a politician saying that people have had enough of experts. The second is that measles has gone up and MMR vaccine uptake is down. This is a wake-up call. In the war of information, we (researchers) are losing. Pseudoscience, disinformation, and 鈥渇ake news鈥 have swept through social media and we鈥檝e been caught off-guard, complacent in our approach of sitting quietly in shadows, publishing in journals which no member of the public is going to so much as glance at.
It is our duty as researchers, custodians of truth and data, to emerge from the shadows and disseminate research as far and wide as possible. Sound dramatic? It is. The statistics on MMR speak for themselves. Simply put, it is absolutely no good us slaving away in the lab developing knowledge, if people ignore it or can鈥檛 access it.
The second is what鈥檚 in it for you. I have delivered several careers talks to school groups at the Babraham Institute. The irony being that I鈥檓 still unsure of my own path. But perhaps, it鈥檚 not so ironic after all. I actually find these talks an ideal opportunity for self-evaluation. What doI want to achieve? Why am I here? How can I make best use of my skills in the future? The bulk of my schools鈥 talk centres on this uncertainty and how it鈥檚 healthy to be open-minded and to challenge yourself over the path you have planned in your head. I often ponder my life plans after these events and usually tweak my thoughts as a result.
The public are basically a great sounding board because they鈥檙e not in too deep. A few months ago, I got to enjoy developing the escape room with the fantastic team - Chiara, Piotr and Izzy. These guys, I will be frank, put a lot more effort in than me; however, I think that highlights an important point鈥 we have a great Public Engagement team who understand that sometimes your research is having a tough spot and your time is pressured. That鈥檚 okay, give a little time, it doesn鈥檛 have to be lots!
Anyway, my point is that at the end of the escape room sessions at the , we sat down with the contestants who鈥檇 taken part and had a cuppa and a chat. Within ten minutes we were discussing the ethics of gene editing using CRISPR. You鈥檒l have few opportunities to get that level of discussion with people that aren鈥檛 involved in research day to day.
Overall, Public Engagement is great, not just as a 鈥渄o good鈥 activity, but for yourself and your own development. It offers perspective on why we do what we do. Now, more than ever, that perspective will be critical for ensuring research is important and relevant to the public (in their eyes as well as your own). Going forward, we must be even bolder in our strategy of reaching communities who currently do not interact with academia. That will only be possible with researcher involvement. Come on, make the truth great again.
The team are delivering over 25 sessions of the Cell Escape in the Faraway Forest at the from Thursday 18th to Sunday 21st July 2019. Can you solve the puzzles and save your cells?
This is the third of three blog posts in a series about the Escape Room project 鈥 you can read the others at:
#1 The Cell Escape! Developing novel ideas for engagement #2 The Cell Escape! The science behind the scenes #3 The Cell Escape! A researcher's view of Public Engagement
15 July 2019