WCAIR Public Enagagement at 6

4 key concepts:

> Community > Connectivity > Culture > Creativity

Community

We have worked in a close partnership with the Stobswell Forum since 2018 The relationship has been incredibly beneficial for both sides We were able to use our digital skills to keep the Forum functioning throughout COVID The Forum was, ultimately, the only one of Dundee’s community councils to have a weekly Zoom meeting.

As we became able to work in person again, we were able to tackle a new project that both the Forum and WCAIR were interested in We worked with Open Close Dundee, who pioneered our local street art trail, which Stobswell wished to add to. Following an open call, and extensive consultation with locals, scientists, and other colleagues across the University, we created a huge new piece with artist Lewi Quinn, transforming a blank façade on a local care home

The work has had a fantastic response throughout the city – indeed, it is visible from across parts of the University campus and even across the River Tay. The piece has cemented our place locally, and made a lasting mark on Dundee, and is featured in Dundee City Council’s next 10-year plan

Connectivity

A partnership with Girlguiding was originally established through the co-creation of the Medicine Maker Badge in 2019 In early 2020 we were a key stop on the Scotland-wide game ‘Wander the World’, which saw 700 Girlguides from across the nation join us in the School of Life Sciences

This connection continued throughout COVID In March of 2021 we ran an incredibly successful ‘virtual sleepover’, which saw audiences from the length of the UK and beyond. Over 1,000 people took part, and our resources saw over 6,000 downloads. The Facebook group was a marvellous way of engaging with audiences, with many hundreds of photos shared, and thousands of comments

The period from 2020–23 has seen huge changes in how we live and work. It has presented challenges, opportunities, and a chance to look at what we do afresh. While it has had difficult moments, refocusing on what really matters to us as a Centre has led us on to our biggest projects yet. We found that our core mission and refreshed strategy could be distilled down into

WCAIR Public Engagement Team: Ali Floyd (PE Manager) and Ailsa Mackintosh (PE officer)

In the 2019 WCAIR symposium, one of our researchers proposed the idea of a physic garden on campus as a public engagement project The idea was very well received and the Centre board approved funding, to begin development in 2020, as a partnership with the University of Dundee Botanic Garden

Of course, this became a protracted process, but by mid-2021 the garden was indeed built and planted up It had evolved from a physic garden to a medicinal garden, and the long gestation had allowed a great deal of maturation in our ideas In particular, it allowed us to build new partnerships with organisations also interested in science and gardening This has so far included:

> A sensory garden at Dundee Science Centre

> A physic garden at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath

> Dundee Museum of Transport’s new garden area

We are also investigating other places, including the new ‘pocket parks’ in Stobswell, which are within sight of our new mural We are also working with HMS Unicorn, one of Dundee’s most iconic tourist attractions The garden has provided inspiration for a whole new range of activities to make science approachable to a wide variety of ages It has also allowed us to begin an Instagram, thanks to the visual nature of the project, again reaching new audiences.

Culture

The Wellcome Centre is part of both the School of Life Sciences and the wider University of Dundee community. As such, we are in a position to create a great deal of good as part of our own internal culture.

One key area where we have excelled is in training We have long been a key part of the School of Life Sciences internal training schedule, but in the last 2 years that has expanded The University’s Organisational and Professional Development department asked us to share the training we developed with the entire community. This has now reached around 100 people, who have taken inspiration in areas such as developing new activities, making short stories for YouTube, and even developing games to bring research to life

At the same time, we are also an active part of the University’s wider culture of equality, diversity, and inclusion. The Centre PE team’s skills have been essential to running LGBT+ History Month at the University of Dundee, supporting diverse voices and stories.

Creativity

Our mural has not been our only creative work In early 2020, we began to work with artist Emily Fong, with the hope of her becoming our artist in residence As we all left the building shortly after, this was impossible – but we came up with an alternative plan.

Emily spent much of 2020 meeting with our senior scientists on Microsoft Teams They talked about science, art, and life. From these conversations, Emily created a beautiful series of portraits and blogs, which grew on our website Emily formed a particularly strong bond with Professor Alan Fairlamb, and the two have met online or in person weekly since that time, Alan leading Emily in science, and Emily inspiring Alan’s growth as an artist

As we came out of lockdowns and returned to in-person working in late 2021 and early 2022, we were ready with the next phase of this experiment Laboratory Art Binge was a series of workshops, where Emily invited Centre staff to be creative Working in small groups, they transformed a set of materials, including ex-crab-pots salvaged from a Fife beach, into something useful. Some groups created sculptures which brought their research to life in a new way, while others created more abstract work. In each session, people discussed, candidly, their work, science, and how they do and don’t feel creative The sessions were a great chance for our staff to make new connections and look at their work afresh We filmed them at work, and have a vast repository of photography and footage of them explaining complex concepts in beautiful, simple language.

Our next step brought the project full circle, back into LifeSpace Instead of using the gallery simply for an exhibition, Emily and Alan decided to occupy the space, living there for a full week This piece of performance art activated conversation in the School of Life Sciences in a totally new way Their concept was to live as parasites in the building, adapting it to their needs, without harming their host This has ultimately led on to a superb new exhibition, Bonding: electrons are FREE.

Information about all WCAIR’s Public engagement activities can be found on our website, where you can also play the online versions of a number of games we have created and download the Medicine Maker badge pack https://wcair.dundee.ac.uk/public-engagement/