Impact & Engagement Festival 2020

 

The 2020 Impact and Engagement Festival at Keele University took place on 15-19 June 2020, with all sessions running either digitally or via telephone consultation.

Building on the success of the Celebrating Impact Conferences in 2018 and 2019, the purpose of the Festival was to present and celebrate the high impact and engagement research taking place at Keele.

Please note that all of the sessions listed below are for Keele University staff only, unless otherwise stated.

Events schedule:


All week (Monday 15, Tuesday 16, Wednesday 17, Thursday 18 and Friday 19 June 2020)

Planning for Impact and Engagement
Delivered by Dr Kat Mycock and Dr Gemma Scott

Keele research and impact development professionals will be available to support you to effectively plan and deliver impact from research through one-to-one phone consultations. Consultations will provide tailored, one-to-one advice and resources to support planning on public engagement and developing impact from research.

  • Applications closed at 12pm on Wednesday 10 June.

Monday 15 June and Tuesday 16 June 2020

Measuring and evaluating impact - how to collect impact data, assess it and present it
Delivered by Amira Tharani, Senior Consultant in Charities Evaluation Services at the National Council of Voluntary Organisations

Being clear on outcomes and impact can help to plan, manage and improve research making the biggest difference you can to beneficiaries. On this course, you’ll create an evaluation plan so you can demonstrate the difference your work makes. The course also includes a brief introduction to ways to collect data. If you want to effectively monitor and evaluate the work you do and the difference it makes, this course is for you!

Session 1 - Introduction to monitoring and evaluation (Monday 15 June, 10am-11.30am)

  • This session will begin by outlining what evaluation is and how a theory of change can be used to help support monitoring and evaluation of impact. By the end of the session you will have constructed the story of your research.

Session 2 - Measuring change: Deciding how and when to collect evidence (Part 1) (Monday 15 June, 1pm-2.30pm)

  • Building from session 1, we will carefully consider the outcomes that you wish to achieve, and the indicators that could be used to measure, evidence and evaluate the impact of your research.

Session 3 - Measuring change: Deciding how and when to collect evidence (Part 2) (Tuesday 16 June, 10am-11.30am)

  • This will focus upon some specific tools that you can apply to evaluate your work including surveys, interviews, focus groups and participatory methods.

Amira is a senior consultant at NCVO Charities Evaluation Services working across projects including delivering open and in-house training, supporting clients to build their evaluation capacity, conducting external evaluations, and supporting clients with strategy development.

The latest impact blog from NCVO: Evaluating under fire: Managing impact during coronavirus


Wednesday 17 June 2020 (2.30pm-3.30pm)

Media engagement: Getting your research noticed
Delivered by Kirstie Dolphin and Paul Newton, Strategic Communications and Brand Marketing

Virtual delivery: A pre-recorded video, followed by a live question and answer session

This session will explore the various opportunities for media engagement around new research papers, studies, grants, outreach projects and other activities that you undertake in your academic role. Whether it’s a live interview from our campus-based TV and radio studio, an article for The Conversation, a press release, or how to use social media to promote research, this talk will showcase how you can connect your expertise with a wide audience, raising both your personal profile and that of your research.

By the end of this session you will:

  • understand the benefits of proactive engagement with the media
  • be familiar with The Conversation, and the process of writing an article
  • understand the procedure and timescales for issuing press releases
  • understand how to deal with media enquiries
  • know who to contact for media engagement activities at the University
  • know how to use social media to promote research and maximise opportunities

About the Strategic Communications and Brand Marketing team:
We are responsible for all media relations at Keele University, in order to enhance the University’s academic reputation regionally, nationally and internationally. As such, we disseminate institutional and research news, and coordinate media engagement activities across the organisation. We also match our academics with the news agenda in order to secure opportunities for them to give expert comment.


Thursday 18 June 2020 (1.30pm-2.30pm)

Why don't facts convince people? But research can
Delivered by Scott McArthur, with contributions from Paul Ramos (vet & National Geographic presenter) and Robert Zubrin (world authority on space engineering & Mars)

Changing minds, including our own, can be a very tricky business. Simple logic suggests that giving people the facts will move them to change their minds, but this doesn’t work. Scott’s session will provide you with some strategies and tools that you can use to enhance public engagement activities to move beyond fact telling towards influencing understandings and opinions of topics. See his TEDx talk.

This session will include 3 short films:

  1. Why don’t facts convince people
  2. Using research to convince people
  3. Developing personal and professional skills to convince people

 A Question and Answer session will be hosted after the films are released with Scott on Thursday.


Friday 19 June 2020 (2.30pm-4pm)

Overcoming the challenges of implementation: Top 10 Tips
Delivered by Professor Krysia Dziedzic and Dr Laura Swaithes, Impact Accelerator Unit

This presentation shares lessons learned from implementing national guidance in musculoskeletal primary care and presents the evidence behind 'what works'.

We will share insights from a research study and national implementation project which informed the development of the Top 10 Tip for the Council for Allied Health Professionals in Research publication 'Implementation for Impact'.

About your speakers:

Prof Krysia Dziedzic

Director, Impact Accelerator Unit; Professor of Musculoskeletal Therapies Versus Arthritis; NIHR Senior Investigator; Adviser NICE Fellows and Scholars programme; Hon. Implementation Consultant, Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust, Staffordshire

Dr Laura Swaithes

Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow, Impact Accelerator Unit, Keele University


Previous events

  • For content from past previous Celebrating Impact conferences, please see the Previous Events page