Young people who may have thought that scientists were ‘boring’ and ‘nerdy’ changed their minds after having an opportunity to ‘Meet the Scientist’ face-to-face.

That’s one of the key findings of a study published in the International Journal of Science Education by experts from the University of Southampton’s LifeLab project into student-scientist engagement.

The ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions are part of a wider initiative to promote health literacy through science education. The LifeLab project is an innovative educational intervention which actively engages with young people, teachers and researchers. The aim is to introduce the science that explains how lifestyle choices at an early age can drastically affect young people’s health and the health of their future children.  As part of the hands-on practical day, students take part in ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions where they have the opportunity to meet and talk to scientists, from both academic and clinical backgrounds.

Scientists from different areas led small group discussions with school students aged 13-15 years. Feedback from the school students showed that these short informal interactions changed the students’ expectations of what scientists are like. In their post-session feedback, students pointed out that the scientists they met were not as expected because they thought ‘of a stereotypical scientist [as] a nutty professor’ or because they thought that they would be ‘mad and posh’. Instead, the students found the scientists to be ‘normal and chatty’.

“Students have been reported to have stereotypical views of scientists as middle-aged white men in lab coats,” said Kathryn Woods-Townsend, co-author of the study and Programme Manager for the LifeLab project. “We argue that a way to provide students with a more realistic view of scientists and their work is to provide them with the opportunity to interact with scientists during short, discussion-based sessions.”

Scientists themselves viewed the scientist–student interactions as a great vehicle for science communication. Interestingly, the scientists were aware of the stereotypical images held by students and felt this needs further attention in order for students to become more interested in science.

The study was carried out by academics from the University of Southampton’s Education School and Mathematics and Science Learning Centre. LifeLab is based at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.

You can find the full study here.

Students from the Winchester School of Art (WSA) had the opportunity to showcase their talent at an innovative event called ‘Future Focus’, attended by leading employers from the UK fashion industry.

Amanda Bragg-Mollison, Programme Leader of Fashion Marketing/Management at WSA, came up with the idea of the event to get her students in front of industry leaders.

WSA invested in a centrally located London venue and, after months of negotiation, forged a partnership with LS:N Global, a market intelligence agency which has clients across the fashion industry.

This was key to WSA successfully inviting some very influential people to the event held in Soho. Attendees had a 30-minute consumer trend presentation by LS:N Global which explored the impact of the digital environment on consumers and the consequences, challenges and opportunities this presents for brands. Industry professionals in attendance said how insightful and useful the presentation was and  how it provoked self-reflection about the use of technology in our daily lives.

Following the presentation there was a video of work by WSA students, who are all in their final year of the Fashion Marketing and Management degree, and the opportunity to network with some of the UK’s leading names in the industry.

It is hoped that the event will help graduates onto the career ladder in the highly competitive fashion industry.

Amanda says: ‘My vision would be that ‘Future Focus’ becomes the ‘go to place’ for leading brands in the fashion industry who are looking for high calibre graduates.”

You can read more about the event at the ‘Future Focus’ blog.

Professor Alex Neill, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education), tells e-Voice why technology-enhanced learning (TEL) was chosen as a focus for the year and why staff involvement and ideas are crucial to its success.

Q. Technology-enhanced learning has been chosen as a focus for enhancement activity this year. What does that mean?

A. Like any good university, we are constantly trying to enhance what we do. By identifying a particular enhancement theme, we create a space for people to really focus on enhancement in one area for a set time. If we can build genuine engagement with the theme, then we can also create momentum behind it across the University.

Q. Who picks the enhancement theme?

A. The University’s Academic Quality and Standards Committee (AQSC) looks at the insights and suggestions emerging from the Faculty programme reports and selects the theme.

This time we saw all kinds of things coming through from the Faculties around the use of technology in the way they deliver education or lead educational development. After seeing that input, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) was a natural choice.

It is a very broad area – it could include lecture capture, massive open online courses (MOOCs), online distance learning, the way people are using Blackboard and much more.

Q. How can people get involved?

A. There are colleagues across the university doing things with technology in truly innovative and creative ways that others could learn from and students could benefit from. I would love to see those ideas feeding upward as a result of this theme.

To bring as many people as possible into a conversation about good practice and innovative ways of using technology, the Institute of Learning, Innovation and Development (ILIaD) are setting up a series of University-level events. Anyone with an interest is welcome to attend – the first event is a TEL conference on Highfield Campus in April.

ILIaD is integral to the success of this theme and joining their Community of Practice (CoP), a growing network of colleagues who are passionate about innovation in education and TEL, would also be a great way to start getting involved.

Q. What would make TEL a successful enhancement theme this year?

A. At the end of the year I’d like to be able to say we’ve seen real engagement with this theme  – if 1000 colleagues with a direct interest in the design, development or delivery of education have participated in some form of activity linked to the TEL theme, I’d feel we’d really achieved something.

Success would also be about what people did as a result of attending those events – what spin-off activity they organised or took part in, for example, and how many independently organised events and workshops took place over the course of the year.

The TEL conference in April is a great opportunity to be there at the start and influence how the conversation develops this year.

To register for the TEL conference:https://sotontel.eventbrite.co.uk and follow the hashtag #SotonTEL for updates.

Got an idea? Want to host an event? Or want to join ILIaD’s Community of Practice? Please talk to your Associate Dean for Education and Student Experience or email enhancement@soton.ac.uk

The challenge of translating research discoveries into viable business and industry ideas is being addressed by a new innovation to commercialisation programme.

Innovation-to-Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) is run by the SETsquared Partnership and funded by HEFCE and InnovateUK.

Its aim is to move ideas and innovations out of universities and into the marketplace. The programme funds teams, with grants of up to £50,000, to determine whether there is a market for their discovery.

The basis of ICURe is a real-world, hands-on, immersive learning experience about what it takes to successfully transfer innovations into the market.  It is about engaging with industry and talking to customers, partners and competitors to identify the most appropriate business model.

Programme participants go on a three-day intensive boot camp followed by a market assessment period. This involves early career researchers taking the lead in engaging with potential customers, partners and competitors to validate the commercialisation potential of the research. Each team is fully supported by SETsquared and has a business mentor from a relevant industrial sector.

ICURe ties in closely with work by HEFCE to develop entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in a new generation of scientists and engineers.  The programme will also benefit teams who just want to improve their knowledge of the marketplace. This can be used back in the lab to either refine ideas and technologies or to take the research down another path.

This video case study shows an example of ICURe in action – https://vimeo.com/120785720 – the password is SETsquared.

For more information on ICURe please contact Ben McClure, Programme Manager 01225 388722.

Professor Tim Minshull and Professor Hywel Morgan, have been awarded Wolfson Research Merit Awards by the Royal Society, for their outstanding work.

Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the scheme aims to provide universities with additional support to enable them to attract science talent from overseas and retain respected UK scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.

Professor Tim Minshull (pictured left), a marine geophysicist who uses sound waves to study the structure of the Earth’s crust beneath the oceans, was awarded for his research into ‘The ocean-continent transition at magma-poor rifted margins’. His current main research focus is on the processes by which continents break apart.

Working with an international team of collaborators, Professor Minshull is studying these processes using sound waves generated at the ocean surface that travel deep into the earth beneath and then return to sensors placed on the ocean floor.  His current research focuses on areas west of Spain and west of Ireland, where the crust has thinned so much that seawater has penetrated and reacted with the mantle beneath.

Professor Minshull says: “I am delighted to receive this award and very much enjoy the stimulating research environment in Ocean and Earth Science at Southampton that has made it possible.”

Professor Hywel Morgan (pictured right), a professor of Bioelectronics and Deputy Director of the University’s Institute for Life Sciences, received his award for his research into ‘Low cost Thin Film Transistor electronic systems for Healthcare and Diagnostics’.

Professor Morgan’s research focuses on the fusion of low cost electronic devices with microfluidic systems for next generation miniature diagnostic systems.  The aim is to develop sophisticated yet inexpensive analytical devices that have a wide range of applications, from allowing doctors to make faster and more accurate diagnosis, to answering fundamental research questions about disease.

Professor Morgan says: “I am thrilled and honoured to have received this award from the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation.  It will allow me and my group to push forward our research in this very exciting and fast moving interdisciplinary field.”

It’s an award winning event which shows how science shapes our world, from the importance of bacteria to discoveries in the solar system. This year’s Science and Engineering Festival has so far attracted more than 3000 people.  The coordinator, Zena Hilton talks to e-Voice about how she got the show on the road and looks ahead to Ocean and Earth Day at the end of April.

Q. Can you give us your personal perspective about being behind the scenes of such a large project?

The Southampton Science and Engineering Festival is focused around two key events: Science and Engineering Day and Ocean and Earth Day. The festival, which is part of British Science Week, includes two free public open days – Science and Engineering Day which took place on Saturday 14 March and Ocean and Earth Day which is on Saturday 25 April.

I coordinated the advertising for the festival as a whole and project managed the Science and Engineering Day itself. On the day, there were more than 80 shows, tours and activities for all ages including wearable technologies; the health of your home; landslides; the secrets of animal bones; virtual musical instruments; stem cells; knee replacements; memory loss; immune cells and much more.

Science and Engineering Day is the largest event I have ever worked on and is not something that you can do by yourself! There are many staff and students that have a great deal of experience working on the day, so building up a relationship with them, especially in the early planning stages was essential.

Q. What was different about the event this year?

A. For the first time, the planning for the festival is being looked at over a three-year period, instead of year-on-year. We refreshed the marketing to better reflect the aim of the festival which is to educate and inspire people. Developing a social media presence has helped to broaden the geographic reach of the event and build it up as a regional science festival.

Q. What was the University keen to promote in particular this year?

A. The main thing was to try to find a balance of new activities and popular activities from previous years, rather than highlighting anything in particular.  Also ensuring that contributions came from a broad range of faculties and academic units was key.

As 2015 is the International Year of Light, there was the chance to explore the fibre-drawing towers and clean rooms, which produce the optical fibres that power the Internet and power global communication networks.

2015 is also the centenary of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, so there were mathematics activities related to this, including a lecture on the Science of Stephen Hawking.

Q. What were some of the favourite events this year?

A. Tours of the RJ Mitchell wind tunnel, where Britain’s Olympic athletes conducted testing ahead of their Gold medal success.  Other favourites were the Laser Light Express, Ian B Dunne’s Science Magic show, and a whole range of hands-on activities.

Q. Why is this event significant to the University?

A. Science and Engineering Day is a real celebration. Staff and students work together to showcase what we do to educate and inspire the wider public, especially young people.

Q. How does this event link with connectivity?

A. Science and Engineering Day is a “connected” event in various ways. Staff and students work together to make the day possible and those that attended were staff, students, alumni and members of the public. This year, Lloyds Register and Southampton City Council also led activities.

Q. How will you measure the success of the fair?

A. In addition to keeping track of visitor numbers, social media has provided almost instant feedback this year, and it is interesting to hear how much people enjoyed the event, whether for the first time or for the fourth time

Ocean and Earth Day is on the 25 April at the National Oceanography Centre and runs from 10:30 to 16:00. You can find more information here.