Category: PhD

Science Communication Sabbatical Diaries

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

When I first arrived in Bristol, I could never have imagined how transformative my time there would be. Let me set the scene: a PhD student from Bolivia whose teenage imagination was filled with Poirot’s grey cells, Miss Marple’s mystery parties, British music, Skins, Monty Python, Trainspotting… Yes, I was a ‘Britophile’. Over time, university and adult life meant I’d forgotten that passion, until my love for Science Communication brought me back to the land of my dreams as a visiting research student at one of the loveliest places on earth, the Science Communication Unit  (SCU) at the University of the West of England (UWE).

When I arrived I was both excited and slightly nervous. I had brought a research project that mattered deeply to me, but I wasn’t sure how it would resonate with others or how much it would evolve during my time at the SCU. Now looking back, I can see that every conversation, meeting, or even casual lunch made my research stronger. What started as a sabbatical soon became much more than that: an exercise in collaboration, cultural immersion, and rediscovering what makes research truly meaningful. Please join me in this brief diary of my stay.

March 28th 2025 – First Steps

Today I went to campus for the first time. Everything felt new: the architecture, the rhythm, even the way people smiled in the corridors. I visited the Engineering School, the Students’ Union, and finally the College of Business and Law, X Block, where Professor Clare Wilkinson wants us to meet on Monday. I remember thinking, “This is it. This is where it begins.”

And I haven’t even mentioned the sunshine—yes, there was plenty of it.

March 31st 2025 – Meeting Clare

Our first face-to-face conversation happened in Clare’s office. I had spent almost six months exchanging emails, filling out forms, and navigating the usual bureaucracy, so finally meeting Clare in person felt a bit unreal. Clare is one of the leading voices in science communication, so I feel incredibly lucky that she would be hosting me during this journey.

She warmly explained how the sabbatical would work — the weekly meetings, the structure of the SCU, and the community of visiting researchers. Then she handed me a book, Race and Sociocultural Inclusion in Science Communication, which resonated with my PhD interests, and recommended a bibliography on systematic reviews, the area I was currently focusing on.

It was a short, welcoming meeting. The perfect beginning. Clare encouraged me to set clear, achievable goals for my stay. I told her that finishing a chapter of my thesis would feel like a dream come true. 

Before leaving, she introduced me to Ana Vasconcelos, another sabbatical researcher from Portugal. We had lunch together, and she even helped me find an adapter for my cables. That small act of kindness made the day brighter and was my first taste of how welcoming this community would be.

April 9th 2025 – Going deeper

My second week was busy. I spent hours at the 24/7 library, a paradise for any researcher. Excellent Wi-Fi, comfortable chairs, and quiet spaces that made me feel instantly productive. 

That morning, I met with Clare again, this time to present my research plan in detail. Of course, I was very nervous —would she think my project was too small, too messy, too ambitious? But she listened carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and told me she was genuinely interested. That gave me confidence. It was the first time I realised that what I was doing mattered. I felt my voice from the Global South was not only welcomed but needed.

That day I met Dr. David Judge, Jane Wooster and Dr. Achintya Rao, team members in the SCU, for the first time. We shared a lovely lunch chatting about gardening and birds, while I was still picking up the accent and the new words. I nodded wisely… even when I only understood 70%. I didn’t yet know how much I would learn from them later.

April 17th 2025: Coffee, potatoes, and cinema

I still laugh when I remember my “time-zone limbo.” After nine years living in Spain, where the clock runs one hour ahead of the UK, my sense of time was completely mixed up. I’d often arrange things “an hour later” or “an hour earlier,” forgetting which time zone I was actually in.

Ana and I agreed to meet for lunch at 1:30. So there I was, waiting, getting hungrier by the minute, until I gave up and ordered a delicious jacket potato. But Ana had already eaten with Achintya, perfectly on schedule, just not my schedule. When we all realised the confusion they advised me to keep both clocks on my phone.

 I still do.

We made up for the missed lunch with coffee that afternoon. We talked about conferences, cinema, urbanism, dictatorship and, of course, about Bristol. How each of us experienced the city in their own way. Ana had already made it part of her rhythm, and Achintya, with her global perspective, saw it through many lenses. For me, everything still felt extraordinary.

Their insight helped me see that my stay in Bristol wasn’t just about research; it was also about learning how people live, work, and dream here. 

April 25th 2025: Immersed in The Cave

I had the chance to spend a day with students studying for the MSc in Science Communication at UWE. We started with a VR Immersive Experience in ‘The Cave’, an emblematic and very cool space where we got to experiment with alternative identities and explore what living with blindness or schizophrenia might feel like. It was powerful, emotional, and unforgettable.

Immersive experience in The Cave

It was wonderful to spend time with such a diverse group: people of different ages, backgrounds, and scientific passions, all united by a shared curiosity about communication. Their energy was contagious, as was their willingness to teach me about the nuances of British people and culture. They convinced me that I needed to visit Cardiff as soon as possible!

Later, I joined sessions led by Clare, Achintya, and Professor Emma Weitkamp, where we explored Evaluation and Impact in Science Communication, Social Media in the Communication Mix, and Arts-based Approaches to Science Communication. Each session added something new, practical, inspiring, and deeply relevant.

Deep down, I caught myself wishing I could have done such an MSc when I started my career. It was exactly the kind of creative and collaborative environment I’ve always loved.

April 29th 2025: My first SCU meeting

This was a turning point. I had the chance to present my project to the entire SCU. The table was full of wisdom, and I met many of the members for the first time. The format —sharing updates followed by open feedback— revealed just how many inspiring projects and ideas were taking shape within the group.

I prepared a colourful presentation to introduce who I am and did my best to tell my research story. The feedback was sharp but generous. Listening to comments from Dr. Laura Fogg Rogers, Andrew Glester, and Dr. Andy Ridgway, and being challenged to rethink some of my assumptions, made me realise that my research was part of a larger, evolving conversation.

Afterwards, Emma told me she believed in my project. She encouraged me to attend a writing retreat and offered to help me review my methods. For a student far from home, her generous support felt like a gift.

May 15th 2025: Writing together in the city

The writing retreat was one of my favourite days. We met in the Arnolfini Building, right in the city centre. Each of us worked quietly on our projects, yet the room was full of connection. During breaks, we talked about history, politics, and gardening. Dr. Amanda Webber had just returned from a field trip in Madagascar, and I was thrilled to finally meet her and hear about her experience there.

Over one of the breaks, David and I had a fascinating conversation about actor-network theory and its relation to situational analysis. He is a very kind human being, and it was great to find common ground in frameworks often used in science studies, and to see how we were both applying them in our own science communication work.

Later, I had an amazing one-on-one with Emma. We began by sharing our migration journeys before diving into the details of my work. Besides being generous and incredibly insightful, Emma is also fun and easy-going, making hard work feel light. That day, I left with a clear roadmap: coding tests, a stronger framework, and the reassurance that I was on the right track.

May 27-29th 2025: The Conference!

After two years of working mostly alone, attending the 2025 Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Conference with the UWE team felt like a privilege. It was even more special because the event was taking place right here in the UK, in Aberdeen. 

Among the sessions, the discussion on Science Journalism for Development in the Global South resonated deeply with me. It explored uncritical reporting, science-unfriendly cultures, and the persistence of a neo-colonial scientific order — issues that felt close to my own research. The closing talk by Dr. Rajesh Tandon was equally powerful, calling on us to reclaim science as a public good in the service of democracy.

The PCST Conference at the P&J Live, Aberdeen

Beyond the sessions, reconnecting with colleagues, meeting authors I admire, and spending time with the wonderful UWE crowd reaffirmed why I love this field. One of the highlights was standing side by side with Beatriz Vietie and Ana — three generations of sabbatical students at UWE — a living symbol of mentorship and continuity.

I also had deep, inspiring conversations with Sarah Behenna, whose project with girls and science reminded me of the bigger purpose behind everything we do: to make knowledge inclusive, to help others, and to bring science closer to people.

June 5th 2025: About lunch drop-ins

Not all growth happened in formal meetings or structured encounters. During a lunch drop-in, Ria Griffiths and Jane Wooster introduced me to the great British debate: cream first or jam first on a scone? The Devon or the Cornish way? We laughed and shared stories, and for me, it was another kind of learning. Two amazing women, full of facts, thoughtful about humanity, and completely okay with my Latin American laughter.

As a Bolivian abroad, these small cultural exchanges were just as important as the academic ones. The time spent with Ria and Jane in our office was full of moments that made me feel closer to British culture. They taught me about daily life, expressions, humour, and the quiet warmth hidden beneath the English rain.

June 9th 2025: A Bee Orchid on campus 

Monday had just begun, and I was on my way to the library when I ran into a very concerned Amanda. The reason soon became clear: a newly bloomed bee orchid on campus, a rare and beautiful flower that doesn’t appear often in gardens. I’d seen a picture before in Emma’s office, so I understood the excitement. 

Bee Orchid at Southerham Farm Nature Reserve © Michael Blencowe

Amanda explained how important it was to protect these rare blooms, especially since some gardening work was happening nearby. But to our surprise and relief, the gardener had already noticed the orchid and was being extra careful not to harm it.

It was a quiet, special moment, a reminder to slow down, to look closely… to stop and smell the roses…or, in this case, the orchids.

June 12th 2025: Clare and Guidiana go for lunch

Throughout my stay, I was lucky to have the continuous support of Clare who somehow always found time despite her impossibly busy schedule. She is not only deeply knowledgeable but also incredibly thoughtful and clear, a person with the rare gift of making complex things simple.

I admired her ability to remember everything that was happening across the Unit, to share readings and bibliographic gems at the right moment, and to write the clearest, most encouraging emails. During my stay, she helped me rethink the structure of my research and how I see myself as a researcher.

Claire seemed amused by my Britophile enthusiasm: my excitement about the never-ending sunny days, the delicious dishes, and the authors and musicians I’ve admired since I was a teenager. That day over lunch, we got to talk about that: about our simple, human sides. I told her about my family following this experience from the other side of the ocean, and she shared stories that helped me see her beyond the academic brilliance.

At some point, I told her I’d been keeping a diary of my visiting research experience as a way of not forgetting any of it. She smiled and said, “We’ve never posted a diary format on the blog.” And now, we will.

Interlude – My Bristol Moments

Beyond the campus, Bristol itself became part of my research journey. The city has this rare energy: creative, kind, and full of curiosity. We The Curious absolutely blew my mind. It’s such an extraordinary concept: a space where families spend the afternoon playing with science. I loved watching parents, children, and grandparents exploring science side by side. 

The planetarium was even better than expected: immersive, beautifully narrated, and rich in astronomy. I was fascinated by the M Shed Museum. There wasn’t enough time to dive into every detail but it offered a powerful reminder of how science, culture, and history intertwine in the making of place and identity.

Between those experiences, the street art, the concerts in the city centre, and the food I enjoyed (because yes, I really liked the food!) Bristol felt like a vibrant place where science, art, and everyday life flowed together with creativity, dialogue, and of course, a pint and a smile. 

June 16th 2025: Simplifying and deepening

A short meeting with Clare and Emma helped me realize something crucial: I didn’t need to cover everything. They encouraged me to focus: “Go deep, not wide.” Be exhaustive with fewer cases, keeping the analysis simple but meaningful. 

Their advice changed how I approached my work. It showed me that solid research isn’t measured by volume but by clarity —by choosing with care and asking the right questions. 

In a way, it was preparation for leaving: an invitation to refine, to consolidate, and to take the most valuable insights forward with me.

June 23th 2025: The Farewell

My last day at the SCU office was a full house. It felt like a normal workday, yet I could sense that quiet mix of joy and nostalgia. I joined my final SCU Meeting, where I shared that my communication had been accepted for the Science Communication Conference in Mallorca, a piece of work inspired directly by what I developed during my stay.

We laughed about how much I’d grown to love English food (yes, really!). We took pictures, exchanged small gifts and I left a sombrero de sao as a small souvenir and gesture of gratitude. Then we had lunch and, later, one last drink together in the garden.

It was the perfect ending: simple, warm, and full of community. The kind of goodbye that doesn’t feel like an ending at all, but rather the start of a new chapter. 

Gracias, Thank you

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank Clare and Emma. You gave me guidance, patience, and trust. And to Achintya, Amanda, David, Jane, Sarah, Ria and all the SCU members who made Bristol feel like home. You didn’t just strengthen my research; you offered me community.

I came here as a PhD student from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, carrying my own questions and doubts. I leave with stronger research, new friendships, and a renewed love for British culture. Jacket potatoes, scones, pints, ceilidh dances, rare orchids, deep conversations, and countless moments of laughter— all of it is now part of me.

By Guidiana Landivar Paz, PhD sabbatical student 2025 ( Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

A fresh (and sunny) start at the Science Communication Unit (SCU)

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

After almost three months back home, it’s nice to sit down and try to put into words the adventure I experienced at the beginning of this year.

I always wanted to have an experience abroad, and I never had the chance to do an Erasmus exchange during my undergraduate or postgraduate studies. So, I guess it was now or never — my last chance to try visiting a university overseas. A new adventure, and at the perfect time for my PhD, just before I dive into the you-know-what document.

I remember my last week in Portugal before I travelled to the UK. Let me get as much sunshine as I can before I never see the sun again for three months, I thought.

At least that’s the perception that we, Portuguese people, rooted by the sea and under the sunshine, have of the UK. To my surprise, though, the sun was shining on many days during my stay. As I told my colleagues at the SCU, “I’m going to be an ambassador for the good weather in the UK.” But, as they keep telling me, I was very lucky, it’s not always like this.

Weather talk aside — always the first topic to break the ice — my experience in the UK gave me three incredible things. I developed more confidence as a PhD student in science communication, had the chance to meet incredible people and, I’m now a fan of musical theatre – how many Wicked shows are enough?

Let’s focus on the first two topics here, which are most aligned with the purpose of this blog post.

I’m a PhD student in Science Communication, based at one of the leading biomedical research institutes in Portugal — the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra. My project sits at the intersection of health communication and information design. I’m using a participatory approach with clinicians, patients and families to create illustrated educational materials about autoimmune encephalitis. This group of rare but treatable brain disorders is still widely unknown. In fact, there is a lack of credible, accessible, understandable and relatable information available to patients and families living with this condition, especially in Portuguese. With this project, I’m aiming to help change this, while also contributing to research on how scientific designers and illustrators can use collaboration with end-users to design better and more effective communication methods.

Coming from a neurobiology background, switching to science communication meant learning an entirely new set of research tools, knowledge systems, and ways of thinking about reality — ontology and epistemology were just words that I had never heard before. Although I am well supported by an interdisciplinary group of supervisors, I wanted to learn more and have the experience of being embedded in a science communication research group. And the opportunity at the Science Communication Unit gave me just that.

At the SCU, I was hosted by Dr Margarida Sardo and Professor Clare Wilkinson, who provided incredible support by not only discussing and providing feedback on my project, but also mentioning the different opportunities that were open to me during my stay. These included participating in other projects and attending classes from the MSc in Science Communication at UWE Bristol. Having previously taken a Continuing Professional Development module with the team, I was unsurprised by how interesting, dynamic, and practical these classes were (after all, it’s a communication Master’s). However, the incredible and talented group of students I joined as part of the programme, who made me feel so welcome from day one, were another highlight of the stay.

I also got to explore and be inspired by UWE’s different campuses. I was mostly based at Frenchay (home of the SCU), but also spent time at Bower Ashton, the hub of the creative studies, and Glenside, with its picturesque buildings.

Since the best is saved for last, during my stay I met fantastic researchers, staff, and fellow PhD students. Most of my days were spent in SCU 2C010 with the best company, such nice and funny people: Ria, David, Achintya, Henry, Jane, Jelena (and, towards the end of my stay, Guidiana, also a visiting PhD student starting her own adventure).

Time flew during those three months, and I already miss it.

See you next time, SCU@UWE!

Ana Vasconcelos, visiting PhD student from the University of Coimbra, Portugal

Nature Connectedness 2025 – Presenting PhD research

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

Last month on a hot afternoon I presented at my first external conference – Nature Connections 2025 hosted by the University of Derby Nature Connectedness research group. My presentation was held in the beautiful Electric Daisy gardens. This was my first presentation as a PhD researcher and was the perfect platform to share my research, which is all about the social and cultural influences we have growing up and how that might impact individuals nature connectedness and access to citizen science.

The Electric Daisy Gardens, a buzzing Oasis in the heart of Derby city centre, created to bring people together for connection, culture and nature. Photo by Natural England, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/).

The University of Derby Nature Connectedness research group was established to understand the human relationship with the natural world and the benefits that come with feeling connected. These benefits include improved mental well-being and enabling pro-nature behaviours, meaning a better relationship with nature helps both people, and the climate and environmental emergency we currently face. Headed up by one of the UK’s leading experts on nature connectedness – Professor Miles Richardson the group have been fundamental in establishing a measurable pathway to nature connectedness, outlined in their Connecting Families with Nature handbook. This pathway provides five routes to a sustainable connection with nature as sometimes, simply being in or looking at nature, is not enough to form a meaningful relationship.

Professor Miles Richardson undertaking his welcoming speech on day one of the Nature Connectedness 2025 conference. Photo, authors own.

To say I was nervous about presenting at the conference was an understatement. Having pretty much submitted my PhD thesis during the conference, I had got better at dampening my inner saboteur. I’ve worked on my PhD whilst being a single parent and the journey to completion has not been easy. I had been wanting to present at a national conference for some time, and many aligned with my research, but often they fell within the school holidays, when finding childcare can be difficult.

My PhD was in collaboration with the National History Consortium. This fantastic organisation knew that citizen science brings benefits to mental health and wellbeing and wanted to understand how they could better reach minoritised groups. The research started by determining barriers to participation, but conducting surveys and interviews it soon became apparent to me that the ‘Nature Capital’ a person has access to (defined here as the social and cultural resources that support engagement to the natural world) also impacts not only their relationship with the natural world but whether they access citizen science. My research shows evidence that individuals with greater access to supportive nature experiences, informal and social settings about nature feel more connected to it. This reaffirmed what I had always suspected, there are disparities in whom can access nature and the benefits this brings.

Back to attending the conference and my feeling of anguish. Being an ex-teacher, I was not short on experience in presenting to large groups. This conference was different. Here, all the experts in nature connectedness were sharing their findings, experiences and all felt as passionate as me about nature connectedness. This aspect of attending was amazing. To be surrounded by like-minded individuals who care deeply about the natural world was truly inspiring. It was the in-between conference stuff I was more nervous about. Taking me back to feelings at school of trying to find a seat in a busy canteen through the bustle of individuals already engaged in conversation, these same feelings played a part in my imposter syndrome. Surely I was not good enough to be there.

As it was I was presenting at the end of the conference, not a choice I would have made as I’m a get it over and done with type of gal. With the audience of academics, practitioners and experts in the field of nature connection all waiting eagerly in the blaring sunshine I had already worked up a sweat. It felt like each talk was a reminder of where I had gone wrong in my meticulous planning and practising. Was it too late to change? Obviously, it was, I would be on in thirty minutes and my presentation had been submitted in advance. If anything, I had over practised. A habit I had developed early on in my teaching career, as I knew if I practised my lessons thoroughly, I could handle all that a room full of teenagers threw at me.

The talk before me was about experiences of low-income residents and allotment gardening and was a great back drop for my talk. As it ended, I could hear the shrill high-pitched noise in my ears and felt the clammy sweat building on my already sticky hands from sitting in the sun. The time had come. It was my turn to present my research on nature connection and Nature Capital to UK experts.

I am happy to report the presentation was a success. I was handed a microphone so felt like a pop star. I even manged to crack an awkward joke. It’s an amazing rush when you get to present your findings from three years of hard work. The time flew and before I knew it those dreaded words of ‘are there any questions’ were being asked by the host. I had mixed feelings when no one piped up, did that mean they were not interested, or did they just need rest after a hot afternoon in the sun? I was soon reassured it was the latter. Several people approached me after my talk to compliment me and I was even mentioned on Linkedin!  Natural England even posted a wonderful blog all about the conference content. I had arrived!

My thoughts about presenting at a conference for those that are considering it? It is scary but worth it. The brilliant people I met and spoke to, all the wonderful talks and workshops, the experience of being surrounded by so much passion about nature, left me feeling rejuvenated but tired! What now? Well, I have submitted my PhD, and the conference reaffirmed the career path I wish to take; I want to be part of the world of nature connectedness. I want to help and supporting people from disadvantaged backgrounds (like me) to have a better nature connection so that everyone can reap its benefits.  

A huge thank you to the University of Derby Research group for allowing me to attend and present at the conference and to the Natural History Consortium and UWE Bristol for supporting my PhD research. #NCx25

By Jen Weston, PhD student, Science Communication Unit, UWE Bristol.

Kitchen Cultures: cultivating cross-cultural conversations towards inclusive climate futures

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

Introduction

These are some of the questions that have emerged through Kitchen Cultures, a project that has been developed with the Eden Project’s Invisible World exhibition during lockdown as part of a remote residency. In collaboration with six migrant women+ of colour (all from formerly European-colonised nations) and no-waste chef Fatima Tarkleman (herself a first generation migrant of mixed Nigerian-Ugandan-Pakistani heritage), we created a process to gather existing recipes that referenced the diverse cultures, knowledge and experiences of our participants, and to develop new recipes that that could be used to reduce food waste in the home.

By creating new collaborative recipes that utilised preservation techniques to keep or extend the life of locally grown/available ingredients, this project seeks to:

  • Discover existing and create new recipes to address food waste;
  • Create cultural encounters that tell us something about food, migration and colonialism;
  • Include women who are often excluded from the conversations about sustainability;
  • Learn about different ways of thinking about sustainability from different cultures;
  • Create a relationship with the land in which we live now in order to take responsibility for its future.

Food waste in the UK

In the UK we waste over 70% of food waste post-farm gate in the home (6.6mT annually), although many households have adopted behaviours that reduced this during the pandemic. At the same time, COVID-19 has exposed major inequalities in the UK food system, and left millions living in food insecurity. However, it is important to note that the vast majority of food waste happens at the industrial scale due to exploitative and extractive agricultural systems.

As such this project does not intend to use these issues in order to justify the sticking plaster of reducing food waste in the home as an answer to systemic food inequality. It is possible to cheaply preserve foods at home if you have time, money, resources and knowledge to do so, and some of the outcomes from the project will enable you to do so more effectively. However, in order to properly address food poverty, we need agricultural and hospitality policy that supports a resilient food system, and the political will to create a more just and equitable society.

As a collective, what we feel is important is to think about ourselves and our food systems as implicated within an ecological system that is currently facing a major crisis. The primary aim of this project is to pluralise conversations about climate change and sustainability by drawing from the knowledge, experience and values of diverse cultural imaginaries. The practice developed thus sought to acknowledge and honour the ways in which ecological knowledge is held and communicated in families and communities through our food traditions, and to learn from them in order that we may find new ways to live ethically in a world that we share with multiple species.

Sustainability and colonialism

Industrial agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate change, contributing to emissions, fossil fuel extraction and deforestation. Global agricultural systems destroy biodiversity and create dependencies on industries such as GMO seeds and livestock, fertiliser and machinery which has created billions in farming debt. In the exchange value system, where fossil fuels were conceived as a direct replacement for slave labour on the plantation and in the factory, the bodies of black and brown people and land continue to be seen as cheap resources to be extracted for profit. Climate change as we currently understand it is implicitly constructed through the logics of colonialism, and explicitly maintained through the infrastructures of racial capitalism.

People in the global south are more likely to be living the direct effects of climate change (flooding, drought, biodiversity loss, crop failure), despite contributing the least emissions. One of the primary threats to human life due to climate change is food insecurity, yet the 10 most food-insecure countries in the world generate just 0.08% of total global CO2. The 50 least developed nations of the world have contributed only 1% of global greenhouse emissions in total. The Global North is responsible for 92% of carbon emissions, yet instead of addressing this debt, climate change campaigners Europe and the US often frame the responsibility for the ecological as shared by all humans equally, and advocate for deeply racist ideas such as population and immigration control.

All of us involved in Kitchen Cultures are from countries that are living the legacy of colonisation in terms of the resources, people and land that have been extracted, and which formed the basis of the wealth that in the UK. Colonisation was an ideological project that reshaped the bodies, minds and lands of colonised people, and its legacy of globalised capital and cheap industrial labour is one of the main drivers of climate change today. The legacy of colonisation on the wealth, land and other resources in our countries of origin meant many migrant families moved to the UK to provide better opportunities for their children; we come from cultures that think intergenerationally, and as a result we tend to waste as little as possible (food or otherwise). 

We know that there’s knowledge in diaspora communities that isn’t always visible to outsiders; our recipes tell the stories of who we are, of where we are from, where we have been, and where we live now; and the climates, resources and species we’ve encountered along the way. We wanted to create a space in which our participants could tell their stories, in their own words, or through their own practice(s) in a space in which they are the experts, their kitchens.

Over six weeks we worked remotely with our collaborators to develop recipes, and to tell stories, through poetry and through food. By working with diverse food preservation knowledge in partnership with holders of that knowledge from diaspora communities in the UK to develop recipes and processes, we wanted to invite ways of thinking sustainability and ecology from the perspective of different cultures (human, ecological, microbial). Starting as a simple recipe development exercise, it evolved into a community storytelling and recipe sharing project that, as a result of COVID-19, has predominantly run remotely on Zoom, Whatsapp, Instagram, and via discussions over the phone.

We were extremely lucky in this unprecedented time to get some funding from Eden Project to do this work, so we were able to facilitate access to the project through bursaries, and to cover all associated costs, including for home filming equipment. The recipes and stories that are the outcome from this stage will become a series of documents and workshops which will then be shared with communities around the UK via the Eden Project’s community outreach program. As they are shared, we expect that these recipes will evolve/adapt/respond to their context, and participant stories and recipes will be enriched through this network of cross-cultural sharing across the UK. 

COVID-19 and connecting to others

We are living through extraordinary times; however, this moment offered us an opportunity: to address social isolation in marginalised communities; to think about and act differently towards nature; to learn from and value different ways of knowing the world; and to do all of this in solidarity with each other. By engaging communities (human and other) traditionally left out of debates about the future of science, technology and ecology, we might begin to address some of the systemic (racial, gendered, economic) inequalities in our society that have been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through our experience of the collective grief, confusion and trauma, we felt that it was important to create connections between communities and people who might be experiencing isolation and disconnection. After the murder of George Floyd by police in the US, and the resulting wave of protests, there was also an increased awareness about the ongoing legacy of colonialism in the form of systemic and structural racism experienced by migrants daily. It was in this moment that it felt more important than ever to create a space in which PoC/BAME/global majority women+ could talk about their experiences of migration, colonialism and race in a way that was generative, healing and respectful.

Food is one of the ways in which we care for each other in our communities, and many of us come from cultural and cosmological traditions that consider nature (land, animals, rivers, trees) as part of these communities. By working collaboratively with each other, and by drawing attention to the organisms (bacteria, yeasts) in our environment and in/on our bodies who we also collaborate with through food preservation, I wanted to create conversations about what it means to care for each other when resources and opportunities globally are scarce for all species.

We’ve just completed the first stage of research with our participants, but the work is currently still in progress. We will be running the second stage of workshops with the Eden Project later in the year, with a view to developing a recipe kit that they can share as part of the Big Lunch next year. This is the first blog post introducing the project; in the future I hope to share some recipes and poetry that we are collecting from our participants, and to talk a bit more about the process we developed to conduct the research. We are also producing a short film, which will be available to watch on the Eden Project Invisible Worlds’ site as of December.

About

Kaajal Modi is an artist/designer and practice-based PhD Candidate at UWE Bristol, supervised by Teresa Dillon from the Digital Cultures Research Centre, and Emma Weitkamp from the Science Communication Unit. She is interested in fermentation as a metaphoric and material practice to create cross-cultural conversations about climate, migration and justice. Kitchen Cultures is a project developed in collaboration with the Eden Project and no-waste chef Fatima Tarkleman.

You can follow the outcomes on our Instagram: www.instagram.com/our_kitchen_cultures

Mutual Shaping in Swarm Robotics: User Studies in Fire and Rescue, Storage Organization, and Bridge Inspection

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

Fire engine at the Bristol Robotics Lab after a focus group session with local firefighters

I remember this story as if it was yesterday. It was the summer of 2013. I was laying on my bed, listening to music. All of the sudden, I heard someone screaming louder than my music, and banging on the door of my flat. I quickly took off my headphones, dashed to the door, opened it, and found my neighbour shaking, with her face as pale as chalk. Without any word, she grabbed my arm and pulled me towards her flat. Then, I went into panic. Smoke was coming out of the door! As we entered the flat running, my neighbour quickly managed to explain that the heater above the wooden bathroom door had caught fire while she was giving a bath to the old lady she was caring for. The old lady needed rescuing. Luckily, we both could take the old lady out of the bathroom before the fire developed more. A fire brigade came in a matter of minutes. The bathroom was destroyed, but no-one was injured.

After that experience, I knew I wanted to do something useful for firefighters because I had experienced how extremely dangerous it is for them to enter a building covered in smoke to put out a fire. Did I become a firefighter? Not quite. I decided to do a PhD in swarm robotics at the Bristol Robotics Lab to design useful technology for fire brigades. Swarm robotics is the study of hundreds and thousands of robots that collaborate with each other to solve tasks without any leader, just like swarms of ants, bees, fish or even cells in our bodies. Imagine if firefighters could release a swarm of robots at the entrance of a building on fire to create a map of the hazards, source of fire and casualties, so that firefighters don’t waste time searching (which is one of the most dangerous parts of their profession). Swarm robotics could also be applied in other settings. How about if warehouses had a swarm of robots automatically organising the stock so that employees only have to ask the swarm for the products they want? Or what if a swarm of robots could spread all over a bridge to monitor cracks? In my opinion, robot swarms are almost ready to leave the lab and enter the real world. We just need to know the type of robot swarms that potential users need. So, along with co-authors Emma Milner, Julian Hird, Georgios Tzoumas, Paul Vardanega, Mahesh Sooriyabandara, Manuel Giuliani, Alan Winfield and Sabine Hauert, we did three studies where we spoke with 37 professionals from fire brigades, storage organisation and bridge inspection. The results have recently been published in the open access journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI (you can read the paper here).





Mutual shaping: a bidirectional relationship between the users and the technology developer

For the three studies, we followed the framework of mutual shaping. The long-term aim is to create a bidirectional relationship between the users and the technology developers so that we can incorporate societal choices at all stages of the research and development process, as opposed to more traditional methods where users are asked what they care about once the technology has already been designed. In our studies, we first had a discussion with participants to find out about their job, their challenges and their needs, without any introduction to swarm robotics. After listening to their explanation of the art of their profession, we introduced them to swarm robotics, and gave them examples where robot swarms could be useful for them. Finally, we had another discussion around how useful those examples were for them, and challenged them to think about any other scenarios where robot swarms could assist them.

We found very helpful take-home messages. The first one was that participants were open to the idea of using robot swarms in their jobs. That was somewhat surprising, as we were expecting them to focus more on the downsides of the technology, given how robot swarms are frequently portrayed in science fiction. The second point had to do with the particular tasks that participants felt robot swarms could/couldn’t do. This was an extraordinary insight because we identified their priorities, hence the next steps to advance in the swarm robotics research. For example, firefighters said they would highly benefit from robot swarms that could gather information for them very quickly. On the contrary, they wouldn’t like robot swarms extinguishing fires because of the tremendous amount of variables involved in fire extinguishing. That’s exactly the art of their profession – they know how to extinguish fires. In the study with the sector of storage organisation, a participant from a charity shop said that they wouldn’t like robots valuing the items they receive, but robot swarms could be useful for organising the stock more efficiently. Bridge inspectors would rather assess whether there’s damage by themselves, given the information about the bridge that a robot swarm sends them. Finally, most participants brought up concerns to tackle if we want to successfully deploy swarms in the real world. These mainly had to do with transparency, accountability, safety, reliability and usability. Some of the challenges for swarm robotics that were collectively identified in the studies are the following:

  • How can we really understand what’s happening within a robot swarm?
  • How can we make safe robot swarms for users?
  • How can we manufacture robot swarms to be used out of the box without expert training or difficult maintenance?


Bar chart of answers to one of the questions asked to fire brigades

Personally, what struck me the most in my study was that almost three quarters of the participants from fire brigades expressed that they would like to be included in the research and development process from the very beginning. So, engaging with them through mutual shaping was a good choice because it opened up the relationship that they apparently want to have. And that’s really inspiring! I hope our research opens up exciting paths to explore in the future. Paths that will take swarm robotics a step closer to making robot swarms useful for society.

Daniel Carrillo-Zapata, PhD in swarm robotics and self-organisation, Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Discovering science communication at the Science Communication Unit, UWE Bristol

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I’m a junior assistant professor at Utrecht University, which means I split my time 50/50 between teaching and PhD research. The moment I knew I wanted to specialize in science communication was when I was attending a lecture about an – at that time – recently published study as part of my training in Ecology. I remember being upset by the fact that no one outside the academic world had caught onto the study that the researchers had spent six years on. So many more people could benefit from the new insights!

That’s why I specialized in science communication through a graduate program in Writing and Communication at the University of Amsterdam. It involved a year of training in Communication Studies and Argumentation Theory as well as a six-month internship. For my internship, I worked at the science department of a Dutch national broadcasting agency (VPRO): I worked in communication, was an editor for the website and assisted in the production of Labyrint, a weekly science popularization program on national television.

After finishing my training, I worked as a teacher both at the University of Amsterdam, where I taught science communication and academic skills, and at Utrecht University where I taught in interdisciplinary research skills and academic writing. In my role as a teacher, I became interested in teaching practices and wondered why science communication played such a small role in academic programs. In the Dutch educational context, science communication training is part of graduate training although it is mostly confined to dedicated science communication programs or electorate courses. I especially noticed the lack of structural training in science communication and a lack of attention being paid to skills associated with communication in undergraduate training programs. As such, I wanted to know how science communication training could be implemented in the undergraduate program where I taught: Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University. Liberal education students are trained in interdisciplinary research skills and use insights from different disciplinary fields to study societal issues. These are real-world problems that often need societal awareness to come to a solution. Because most liberal education students pursue a career that enables them to make an impact on society, it’s important for them to learn how to communicate outside of their academic specialization.

In my PhD project, I get to explore science communication for interdisciplinary research settings. As my passion as a teacher is on teaching writing skills, they are the focus of my project. I use insights from both Linguistics and Educational Sciences to discover how writing skills in the genre of science communication, or popularization, can best be taught in liberal education settings. I use Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University as a case study.

I found out about the Science Communication Unit (SCU) when I was applying for the Julie Johnson Kidd Travel Research Fellowship. This grant allows teachers in liberal education to spend time at another university. Although Utrecht University has a highly regarded Linguistics department, it does not have a research group dedicated to science communication research, which is why I felt I could really benefit from input from the Science Communication Unit at UWE Bristol. What attracted me to the SCU was the fact that the research group combines insights from theory and practice, being known internationally as a leader in academic research into science communication, as well as producing its own science communication efforts. What made me especially enthusiastic about a stay at the Science Communication Unit was the MSc Science Communication that offers training to a new generation of science communicators.

In terms of my PhD, the literature told me that explicit teaching of science communication skills would lead to better scores and a higher self-perception of writing abilities. The next step was finding teaching interventions that are effective in teaching these writing skills, and the Science Communication programme was the perfect way for me to see teaching activities in action. The module ‘Writing Science’ was of specific interest to me as it is unique to have a course that focuses solely on writing skills in science communication. As part of my sabbatical I could sit in on teaching in this course and observe best practices in teaching. I was also able to ask students taking the module to participate in my research by letting them write one-minute papers and reflect on learning goals, the content of the classes and the results of the teaching efforts. Furthermore, I let students fill in a questionnaire about self-perception of their science communication skills and writing abilities. This gave me insights into the self-perception of their writing skills as well as their likes and dislikes in the way that the curriculum was built. I’ve never seen a more enthusiastic group of students! They loved everything about the programme and had no dislikes.

Left to right: Clare Wilkinson, Emma Weitkamp, Andy Ridgway and Hannah Little

I was also able to interview Emma Weitkamp, Hannah Little and Andy Ridgway, staff who teach on the module, about their didactical frameworks, educational vision, how to build a science communication curriculum, and educational techniques. I got to sit in on teaching for undergraduate programmes at UWE Bristol and on masterclasses, continuing professional development aimed at those working in the field. What really stood out to me is that in all their teaching, the SCU team would actively make the connection between theory and practice, offering many examples of science communication efforts to their students, as well as enabling students to participate in real-world science communication themselves.

More generally, my time in Bristol gave me insights into effective teaching techniques for science communication within the context of a specialized graduate programme. I will bring these insights with me to inform my further research. The next step in my own project is implementing teaching interventions in the undergraduate programme Liberal Arts and Sciences, and my stay in Bristol gave me some great insights into how I might construct this part of my research.

I felt like a research stay at the start of my second year of research was a great time for me to spend some time at SCU. This stay gave me some great insights into theory and practice and helped me bring more focus to my project. The entire team made me feel very welcome during my time at UWE, with academics  Andy Ridgway, Andrew Glester, Clare Wilkinson and Kathy Fawcett, letting me sit-in on their teaching. Furthermore, it was great to spend time with fellow PhD students David Judge and Elena Milani, who became real friends and helped exploring Bristol. In short, I would highly encourage any PhD student thinking about spending time at UWE Bristol to say yes to the opportunity!

Florentine Sterk stayed at the Science Communication Unit from September to November 2019 as a visiting PhD student. You can find out more about opportunities to spend a PhD sabbatical in the SCU here: https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/research/sciencecommunicationunit/coursesandtraining/postgraduateresearch/phdsabbaticals.aspx

2018 Max Perutz Science Writing Competition – winner announced!

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The winner of the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) 2018 Max Perutz Science Writing Competition has been announced. The competition, now in its 21st year, was open to all PhD students funded by the MRC and entrants were tasked with writing about their own research, explaining to non-scientists why their research matters in just 800 words. Since the competition started in 1998, more than 1,000 researchers have submitted entries and taken their first steps into science communication.

Natasha Clarke winner of the 2018 Max Perutz Science Writing competition

This year’s winner is Natasha Clarke of St George’s, University of London with her article: ‘How artificial intelligence, and a cup of tea, could help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease’. Briet Bjarkadottir, of the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford was the runner up with her article: ‘Stopping the conveyor belt – cancer and fertility’. Fraser Shearer, of the Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh, was commended for his article ‘Keep calm and carry to term’.

Andy Ridgway, a Senior Lecturer within the Science Communication Unit, was among this year’s judges that also included the MRC’s Executive Chair, Professor Fiona Watt, Dr Claire Ainsworth, freelance journalist and science writer; Stephen Curry, journalist and science writer; Dr Roger Highfield, MRC Council member and director of external affairs at the Science Museum Group and Jennifer Rohn, journalist, novelist and scientist at University College London.

 

Andy said: “What really shone though in the shortlisted entries was the power of telling a relatable, human story when explaining the importance of medical research. By showing how a disease or condition impacts an individual and how this new treatment will change their lives, it conveys the impact of the research in a powerful, engaging way.

“It was a pleasure to read all the shortlisted entries and there are some gifted writers in the field.”

The awards were announced at a ceremony at the Royal Institution on 25 October by the MRC’s Executive Chair and Chair of the judging panel Professor Fiona Watt, alongside Professor Robin Perutz, son of the late Max Perutz.

Fiona said: “It has been a great pleasure to chair the judging panel of this year’s Max Perutz Award.

“The competition is a great way to highlight to early-career scientists the importance of science communication and to showcase their work.  This year we received a record number of entries, from about 10% of MRC-funded PhD students.

“The topics of the winning articles are artificial intelligence and Alzheimer’s disease; cancer and fertility; mental health, depression and stress. I’d like to thank everyone who entered the competition – the judges had a tough time making the selection. Our PhD students do a brilliant job at bringing their research to life – using everyday language, rhetorical devices and personal anecdotes.”

All of the short-listed articles, including Natasha’s winning entry, are now published.

 

Never say never again…

Author Science Communication Unit | Posted on

After my PhD viva in 2004, I promised myself I’d never again study for a qualification. Having gone straight from A-levels through a degree to a doctorate, I felt as if I just couldn’t learn anything more. But a decade later, I found myself at a career crossroads trying to figure out what to do at the end of my maternity leave.

Inspired by my elder daughter’s curiosity, I set up a blog, Simple Scimum, to answer questions about science and nature. Slowly, as the blog gathered followers, my confidence grew; and when one of my daughter’s friends asked if I would answer her science questions too, I knew I had to turn science writing into something more than a hobby.

I began searching for jobs that involved writing about science and quickly realised that a qualification in science communication would be an advantage. So, I googled ‘sci comm Bristol’ and found UWE’s MSc in Science Communication, which sounded brilliant but was more than I could manage whilst working part-time and looking after two young children. However, the Postgraduate Certificate in Practical Science Communication was exactly what I was looking for: a one-year, part-time course with intensive teaching blocks, offering hands-on experience and links to industry. I applied for the September 2016 intake and won a bursary towards my tuition fees: I was going back to university!

I felt nervous about returning to study after such a long break but I knew that this was just the first step along a new career path.

The ‘Writing Science’ module was an obvious choice, with the opportunity to create a magazine and develop a portfolio just too good to miss. I learned the essential elements of journalistic practice and wrote a bylined article for UWE’s Science Matters magazine. But the real highlight was a three-hour workshop on ‘how to write a book’ – I’d love to write science storybooks for children, and came away bursting with ideas, enthusiasm and an action-plan to turn my dream into reality. (Roll on NaNoWriMo…!)

But it was through the ‘Science in Public Spaces’ module that I discovered just how strongly I want to inspire young children and engage them with research. I designed ‘Simon’s Box’ to talk about genetic disease and genome editing with GCSE pupils in local schools. And I had the best time in the Explorer Dome learning about science shows for young audiences. Seeing how to encourage children to learn through stories and play was a fantastic experience and a seminal moment in my desire to become a science communicator.

At times I found it hard to juggle study, work and childcare but the intensive teaching blocks made it easier for me to attend lectures and workshops. I paid for my younger daughter to go to nursery for an extra morning each week and used that time for reading and research. Still, I often found myself studying between 8pm and 10pm, when the kids were tucked up in bed, and I was grateful for 24-hour online access to UWE’s library facilities. But now the hard work is over and I’m just waiting for my final results.

Over the past year, I’ve been part of a supportive cohort of students who are committed to science communication. I’ve developed the confidence to pursue a new career path and given up my old job to become a Research Fellow in UWE’s Science Communication Unit. Before the PGCert, I dreamed of working in science communication but now I’m actually doing it.

Kate Turton

Researching images on social media – nuts and bolts

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Images and videos are pervasive online, these days, web articles include at least one image or video. On Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat these visual contents are even more common, and social media platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, and Pinterest are entirely dedicated to their sharing.

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Images can emphasise textual messages, or even convey a message without text at all (Hankey et al., 2013), and they can increase the visibility of a tweet and how often it is shared (Yoon and Chung, 2013). There are so many images on social media that these platforms have become picture databases, and these have become subject to research. For example, Vis et al. (2013) explored images production and sharing practices on Twitter during the UK riots in 2011; Tiggemann and Zaccardo (2016) analysed Instagram images related to the #fitspiration movement, addressing their potential inspiration for viewers and negative effects on viewers’ body image; and Guidry et al. (2015) investigated the content and the engagement of pro- and anti-vaccine images shared on Pinterest.

My Ph.D. research uses one of these databases – it focuses on vaccine images used for advocacy that are shared on Twitter. Sourcing the images that are my data may sound simple, after all, I only need to download my data from Twitter, right? However, it is rather more complex than that. To start with, there are many different communities on Twitter, and they share images on a range of different topic. They may also share images on the same topic from different angles; for example, if we search #health on Twitter, we will see pictures related to healthy food, obesity, fitness, losing weight, public health policy, etc. So, the biggest challenges are how to find the communities of interest and then to develop a data analysis strategy that uncovers how they use their pictures.

To help me narrow the potential field of image research for my PhD, I asked the following questions:

  1. What topic am I interested in? Which communities do I want to study?
  2. Which social media outlets would I find most interesting/useful for my research?
  3. Each social media platform is used by different audiences, so it is important to think about the overall question we are asking. For example, young adults use Facebook, whereas teenagers prefer Snapchat, and Chinese people may be on Weibo.
  4. Where are these communities from? Which language(s) do they use?
  5. If we focus our research on Europe, we have to take into account that Europeans speak different languages. If we focus on English language, we have to consider that our images will come from all over the world, but especially from the US, UK and Australia.

Afterward this initial sifting, I had more questions to answer:

  1. What keywords should I use to search on my chosen social platform (in my case, Twitter)?
  2. Each topic and each community has its own “slang” or “dialect” and therefore keywords. On Twitter, for example, users in favour of vaccinations tweet their content including the hashtag #vaccineswork, whereas people against vaccines use mainly the hashtag #vaxxed and/or #CDCwhistleblower.
  3. How can I find the relevant keywords?
  4. Previous research on social media can suggest some terms; in my case, keywords such as vaccine(s), vaccination(s), vaccinate(d) and immunes(z)ation (Love et al., 2013; Salathé et al., 2013). Searching for these generic words, I found both tweets with and without hashtags that talked about vaccines. However, some communities use specific keywords which may not include these terms (e.g. #vaxxed) and they may use these keywords to label their tweets as relevant to the topic. For example, a tweet claiming “They’re poisoning our children #CDCwhislteblower” and showing an image with a child whilst being vaccinated, would be relevant to vaccinations even if it did not mention “vaccine” or “vaccination”. This tweet would not appear in my research if I set my data collection using only generic words, thus I needed to search for relevant hashtags as well.
  5. How do I find relevant hashtags?
  6. A first step would be considering which hashtags previous studies used, then searching Twitter for generic hashtags and see which other hashtags people use. There are also some online tools that can be helpful, such as Hashtagify.me, Get Tags and RiteTag.com. These online software packages suggest correlated hashtags and their popularity.

Answering these questions helps us define the criteria for data collection, but they also show how complicated research on images shared on social media is. As with any data collection method, planning, defining and developing are key for research drawing on online images. We need to be able to justify the approach we took and show that the data collection process is robust. This means, as with many other types of data collection, that we need to pilot and test our data collection methods ensuring that they deliver the material we anticipate and which will validly help us to address our research question. There are so many pictures online, uploaded, downloaded, edited and shared, that the choice of image collection methods becomes key to ensuring the quality of the study overall.

 

Elena Milani

 

References

Hankey, S., Longley, T., Tuszynski, M. and Indira Ganesh, M. (2013). Visualizing Information for Advocacy. Nederlands: Tactical Technology Collective.

Love, B., Himelboim, I., Holton, A. and Stewart, K. (2013) Twitter as a source of vaccination information: content drivers and what they are saying. American Journal of Infection Control [online]. 41(6), pp. 568-570.

Guidry, J.P., Carlyle, K., Messner, M. and Jin, Y. (2015) On pins and needles: How vaccines are portrayed on Pinterest. Vaccine [online]. 33(39), pp. 5051-5056.

Salathé, M., Vu, D.Q., Khandelwal, S. and Hunter, D.R. (2013) The dynamics of health behavior sentiments on a large online social network. EPJ Data Science [online]. 2(1), pp. 1-12.

Tiggemann, M. and Zaccardo, M. (2016) ‘Strong is the new skinny’: A content analysis of #fitspiration images on Instagram. Journal of Health Psychology [online].

Vis, F., Faulkner, S., Parry, K., Manyukhina, Y. and Evans, L. (2013) Twitpic-ing the riots: analysing images shared on Twitter during the 2011 UK riots. In: Weller, K., Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Mahrt, M. and Puschmann, C. (2013) Twitter and Society. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., pp. 385-398.

Yoon, J. and Chung, E. (2013) How images are conversed on twitter? Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology [online]. 50(1), pp. 1-5.

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