Reuben awards 2022/23 Public Engagement with Research Innovation Fund Grants

We are pleased to announce the awardees of the 2022/23 Reuben Public Engagement with Research (PER) Innovation Fund, a funding scheme now in its second year.

One of Reuben College’s core values is Public Engagement with Research (PER), and many of our Fellows and students are already involved in projects that connect the wider community with our academic research.  Public Engagement has mutual benefits for both the public and researchers, and enhances the quality, reach, impact and relevance of research.

In order to support this goal Cat Vicente and Janet Stott, Reuben’s Official Fellows in PER, launched the first Reuben PER Innovation Fund last year, allowing students to run their own public engagement projects. Collaborative projects with an interdisciplinary dimension were particularly encouraged, capitalising on the cross-disciplinary community that a college like Reuben College can uniquely foster. The fund also aims to help the students develop their leadership and project management skills, as well as starting to build a funding track record. Each project has been assigned a Reuben Fellow as a mentor, to provide bespoke support for the students.

You can find out about the inaugural projects supported by Reuben’s PER fund here.

Elvina (Elvie) Crowe (MPhil in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance):

Journal to relate as nature: cultivating reflective reciprocity

Journaling is well known to have positive effects on our mental well-being. Putting pen to paper may feel archaic, but this slow-form self-expression can be a vital opportunity to pause, untangle our busy minds, and reveal what really matters. Elvina’s project seeks to combine this fulfilling activity with the therapeutic experience of passing time in nature. Based on research on ecotherapy, she will design a mini journal with prompts that guide the writer to develop their connection with local expressions of nature. With carefully thought-out and creative guidance, this journal seeks to cultivate a heightened sense of nature’s aliveness in surprising and fun ways. Come the end of summer, they will be distributed amongst a variety of community groups in Oxford and London, such as at Hackney City Farm.

Cillian Gartlan (DPhil in Clinical Medicine):

Pandemics: The Unanswered Questions

Cillian is studying for his DPhil in a group with Professor Miles Carroll at the Pandemic Sciences Institute (PSI), on areas such as vaccine responses to surveillance of emerging viruses, for both current and future pandemics. However, this group is aware of the disconnect between the questions that interest them and those that a non-expert audience may have. The impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic means that pandemic threats are at the forefront of the public consciousness – but what are people most concerned about or interested in when it comes to pandemics?

Through this public engagement project, Cillian will consult the public on their unanswered pandemic questions, taking advantage of the fantastic setting of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This will be an opportunity to listen, but also to ask and answer questions, and discuss important research findings that may have failed to reach the public. He will then capitalise on this new knowledge to produce a video summarising the most common questions and answers.

Cillian says: “We were delighted to receive the PER funding from Reuben College to carry out this project that we’re very passionate about. With support from the Reuben PER fellows, we also applied for matched funding from the Pandemic Sciences Institute (PSI) and are also very grateful for receiving this! Together, this allows us to not only carry out the project as originally intended, but to make a high-quality video that we can share to increase awareness around pandemic-related research and hopefully fill in the gaps concerning questions that many people still have regarding pandemics.”

Cillian will be collaborating with other DPhil students from the Carroll group: Caolann Brady (St Hugh’s College), Grace Hood (Balliol College) and Hannah Klim (Lincoln College).

Jakub Hantabal (MSc in Precision Cancer Medicine):

Summer Data School

Jakub’s project will be a 5-day, transformative career-boosting bootcamp in Bratislava, Slovakia. This bootcamp is a part of portfolio of events of the NGO Data Science Academy, which Jakub co-founded. The goals of the NGO, as well as Summer Data School itself, are to educate a cross-disciplinary community on the basics of data science. The courses are designed to introduce the participants to programming in Python, providing a foundation on the basics of data handling, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Jakub says about the funding: “My team and I are very grateful to Reuben College for supporting our project. The PER Innovation fund allows us to build a legacy for our Summer Data School, by capturing the course on video and making it available online, as well as improve our public presence.”

Jakub will be collaborating with Imrich Berta (Agel in Slovakia) and Laura Johanesova (Universitat Wien) on this project.

Charlotte Lenhard (MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance):

Artsy Approaches to Climate Justice

Charlotte’s project explores the intersection between climate justice, climate law, and art. Charlotte plans to bring people together for a shared creative experience. Climate justice and approaches to it can often feel intangible, but art can help make these complex processes tangible. Poetry and collage are not usually part of academic curricula, and this project seeks to explore what it may be like if they were. 

On receiving this funding, Charlotte says: "I appreciate being trusted to create a project I care about. Science is often critiqued for being removed from publics and creative approaches, but that is not always true and, crucially, it does not have to stay this way."

Julia Salafranca (DPhil in Molecular and Cellular Medicine):

Painting with arthritis

Julia’s "Painting with arthritis" workshop aims to raise awareness for people with rheumatic diseases. Members of the public will be invited to use gloves that mimic the stiffness of arthritic hands to perform simple tasks, such as painting a picture using markers of different thickness. As making detailed drawings using small markers is challenging, this will provide a practical and first hand experience of the difficulties arthritic patients encounter when they undertake day-to-day tasks, and kickstart a conversation about why research into rheumatic diseases is important. 

Julia says: "The great thing about combining science and art is that it allows you to reach a wider public and have fun while learning".

Laxmi Thapa (DPhil in Atmospheric Oceanic and Planetary Physics) and Puyu Wang (DPhil in Engineering Science):

Voices in Research: Student Perspectives on Multidisciplinary Studies

Laxmi and Puyu will launch a series of podcasts with students engaged in multi-disciplinary research. The interviews will feature students from the University of Oxford and around the world. They hope the podcasts can inspire and motivate younger generations to pursue their own research interests in multi-disciplinary domains.

Laxmi and Puyu say: “We are grateful to Reuben PER Innovation Fund and the college for supporting this project.”