Oxford Inside Out 2023

Tuesday 19 September – Blavatnik School of Government and St Luke's Chapel, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

10:00 - 11:00 Empowering Female Entrepreneurship and Investment (Blavatnik Lecture Theatre)

Join us at the Oxford Inside Out Festival for an insightful fireside chat that delves into the world of female entrepreneurship and investment. In this engaging one-hour session, we'll bring together entrepreneurs, investors, and experts to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and strategies that drive women-led businesses and investment initiatives. From breaking barriers to fostering inclusivity in the startup ecosystem, this conversation will explore key topics such as access to funding, mentorship, overcoming biases, and building resilient businesses. Whether you are considering starting a business, supporting others or simply curious about the evolving landscape of business, this fireside chat offers a platform to gain valuable insights, network, and be inspired by the journeys of successful women in the field.

10:00 - 10:30 Shaping Destiny (film) (Blavatnik Seminar Room 3)

This is a short documentary about an interdisciplinary public engagement project. Through the film, the team hope to present motivations and voices of internal and external partners, and members of community groups involved in engagement activities. Together with the videographer, Gary Tanner who documented each processes of engagement, the team explore what is public engagement with research and community groups, and what it means to people in the project. Followed by a Q&A.

10:00 - 10:30 Life Without Music (Oxford Sparks micro-documentary) (Blavatnik Seminar Room 4)

A look at our relationship with music, framed around the work of MuzoAkademy II - a non-profit community group that is part of the University's Science Together initiative. The film will include interviews with community group members, in addition to University researchers.

10:30 - 11:15 Facilitated Networking (Blavatnik Inamori Forum)

This will be an opportunity to connect with Oxford Inside Out attendees and for people from different spheres of engagement to have conversations and network. Join us for an interactive session where you can learn from others with experience of engagement projects; identify those looking to collaborate with businesses, public and community groups and policy makers; and find inspiration for getting started with engagement.

10:45 - 11:15 Soufray Blow: Cultural Responses to Caribbean Volcanism (film) (Blavatnik Seminar Room 3)

Showcase of collaborative community projects on St Vincent and Montserrat, documenting the cultural responses in film, public art and poetry to volcanic unrest and eruptions over the past 100 years.

10:45 - 14:30 Exhibition (St Luke's Chapel)

11:15 - 12:45 Putting people at the heart of policy and practice (Blavatnik Lecture Theatre)

How can you engage the public and partners in your research, and what’s the value? At this session, hear about practical ways that research and policy making can be done with people, and why this is important for impact and accountability. 

Join experts who are engaging local communities, the public at a national level, government and other stakeholders for a discussion and Q&A. 

Jessica Reedy on “Going from Research to Policy and Practice”: Hear about the Government Outcomes Lab’s extensive experience in balancing impactful real-world engagement with maintaining a reputation of academic excellence and rigour.

Miriam Levin on “Putting people at the heart of policymaking”: Miriam will talk about Engage Britain’s people-powered policy making process to tackle Britain’s biggest challenges, and share what works and lessons learnt. 

Miriam Chappell on “Experts by experience”: Miriam will share Oxford Hub’s participatory approach to community engagement and encourage participants to think about how similar approaches can be used in a research context.

11:15 - 12:45 Approaches to Support Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (Blavatnik Seminar Room 4)

This interactive workshop will share toolkits and highlight resources available to help facilitate patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in research. The session will draw upon two case studies around stigma in infectious disease outbreaks and using art as a means of public engagement and patient empowerment. 

You will learn effective methods in developing and carrying out PPIE activities, hearing from researchers and community contributors about their own PPIE journeys, approaches, and experiences.

We will share documents and processes used to support PPIE, newly developed by a network of PPIE experts at Oxford. 

Participants will have the opportunity to question and discuss these approaches in an interactive and informal setting. This workshop is aimed at everyone and anyone who finds themselves facilitating PPIE activities, or who may be interested in starting PPIE activities in the future.

11:45 - 12:45 Young people's hearts and minds: Stories of motivation, creativity, multilingualism & mental health (Blavatnik Seminar Room 3)

The session will comprise two case studies based on our respective outreach/engagement work with young people. In our case studies we shall cover particular approaches interventions that have worked well (and not so well!). We shall discuss what are the current challenges in engaging and motivating young people in our respective fields (mental health research, modern languages). In both case studies, we seek to harness the creative talents of young people to co-create resources so that they are more likely to act positively on what they have learned.

In the first part of the session, Dr Charlotte Ryland from The Queen’s College and literary charity the Stephen Spender Trust will share case studies of their successful youth outreach programmes. These projects use ‘creative translation’ activities in UK schools to raise the profile of Polish, Urdu, Romanian and Ukrainian (collectively known as Home, Heritage and Community Languages). You will gain insight into what inspires young people of all backgrounds to develop their creativity through cross-linguistic communication. Dr Jonathan Patterson will also outline how these activities have formed the basis of a knowledge exchange partnership with the Department for Education.

In the second part of the session, Emily Lloyd from the Department of Experimental Psychology will speak about the CoRAY project, a knowledge mobilisation project, which responded to what young people aged 11 – 16 years told us they found difficult in terms of their mental health and wellbeing during the COVID pandemic and beyond. Researchers and young people co-produced resources such as podcasts and films supported by creative agencies such as Fully Focused productions and BBC Bitesize. You can also find out more about how our partnership with the Charlie Waller trust led to sharing the project outputs with teachers, parents and carers. 

12:00 - 16:00 Getting engaged (Blavatnik Inamori Forum)

Meet your divisional engagement reps and talk to them about how they can support you to collaborate through your research.

13:15 - 14:15 Opening Keynote - Inside and Out: firing and wiring together (Blavatnik Lecture Theatre)

In this opening session, the Vice-Chancellor will be joined by guests from City and County Councils to explore shared challenges and opportunities for better collaboration between research and policy in local and regional contexts.

14:30 - 16:00 Dual session: (i) Support Hub: A case study of the intersection of expertise and (lived) experience and (ii) Enhancing Job Accessibility Through Neurodiverse-Friendly Job Descriptions - Co-Production Within the Workplace (Blavatnik Lecture Theatre)

In this dual session, hear about two examples of EDI & Disabled Co-Production.

Part 1

Support Hub is a platform co-developed between Experian and Oxford University spinout Rogue Interrobang, that allows disabled consumers to tell multiple organisations about their support needs from a single place. 

It seeks to solve one of the biggest problems disabled people face in accessing essential services: the difficulty of constantly disclosing sensitive information in order to receive the support they need. This problem has a massive cost for disabled consumers’ wellbeing, autonomy, and finance.

In order to ensure the platform not only solved the correct problem but was itself accessible for those it seeks to help, and successfully engaged them, it involved disabled people in design, build and messaging from the earliest stage.

This case study will look at the practical challenges involved in this approach, from challenging industry-wide assumptions to framing marketing materials, from the user interface to the privacy policy. Speakers include Dan Holloway, Rogue Interrobang CEO, who has 2 decades of intersectional experience as an advocate with lived experience (inside and outside the university).

Part 2

What is it really like for neurodivergent individuals within Oxford University? There are many barriers for neurodivergent individuals to entering, and thriving, in the workplace.

This case study will address how and why accessibility is important and how we can all make small changes so that no matter who you are, whatever challenges or abilities you have, we can overcome. In this session, independent researcher Colin Larkworthy, who has collaborated extensively with many academics and has participated in several psychological trials in the autism field, will be talking through accessibilityin job descriptions, adaptive interviews, internal communication, retention and what he has learned from his own experiences navigating the workforce as a scientist and neurodivergent individual. 

If you’ve ever asked “how did I get that job”, “where is that development I yearn for?”, or more importantly, “why is X job or jobs always out of reach?” - or if you work with people and communities who experience these difficulties (**spoiler alert – that's all of us) this session will have what you “aut” to know to start creating thriving workspaces, in alternative and innovate ways.

14:30 - 16:00 Engaging with Schools: Lessons from Teachers and the Oxford Outreach Community (Blavatnik Seminar Room 3)

The session begins with a presentation summarising the variety of ways the outreach community has engaged and collaborated with teachers and school communities, along with the benefits and challenges we have each faced.

In this session, you’ll hear from college outreach colleagues, Head Teachers, Senior Leaders, Teachers, school Careers and Enrichment Leads from both Primary and secondary schools local to Oxford.

There will be panel discussion that will include audience Q&A

14:30 - 16:00 From Ideas to Impact: Engaging and Innovating Responsibly (Blavatnik Seminar Room 4)

Our engagement and innovation have the potential to leave a positive mark on society. But, are we always acting responsibly, ethically and with integrity? Do we unintentionally hold back the potential for impact?

This interactive session will introduce key concepts, new opportunities and practical resources to support participants to consider and apply responsible engagement and innovation concepts to their own domain and develop tangible next steps to kickstart their own ideas.

Building on insights from the Responsible knowledge exchange, engagement and impact project and EPSRC’s Responsible Research and Innovation Principles, the session will introduce what it means to be responsible and why it matters before working through interactive exercises that will give participants practical insights and tools for implementing responsible engagement and innovation, including sharing potential sources of funding and support. 

This session is suitable for researchers at all stages (inc. DPhil) and those supporting researchers in all disciplines.

19:00 - 21:00 Pitch at the pub (The Lamb and Flag)

Pitch @ the Pub is a fun and engaging way to find out about new and up-and-coming startups, spinouts and social enterprises in Oxford. The purpose is to raise awareness about local startups/ventures in the local area.

Our chosen pitchers will have a few minutes each to talk about their startups, and show the audience what they are working on.

Come prepared to ask questions, and join in with the other attendees and pitchers!

If you have a link to Oxford(shire) and are interested in pitching, let us know. . . we run this event regularly so there is always an opportunity to pitch!

Wednesday 20 September – St Antony’s College and St Luke's Chapel

09:30 - 12:30 Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) online 1:1 sessions

Introductory 1:1 meetings for Small to Medium Sized Enterprises to get to know how you can engage with the University of Oxford run by Dr Charlotte Bell, Senior Business Partnerships Manager, Business Partnerships Office (Medical Sciences). This session is open to all SMEs regardless of subject area. Once registered you will be sent an email with details of how to book your 30 minute slot.

Capacity:15

10:00 - 16:00 Getting engaged (Investcorp Gallery)

Meet your divisional engagement reps and talk to them about how they can support you to collaborate through your research.

10:00 - 16:00 Global Challenges in a Local Context: Designing a Climate Policy Ecosystem for Oxford (St Luke's Chapel)

Attendees can make an expression of interest to attend.

When it comes to tackling the climatecrisis in Oxfordshire, what are the dilemmas and decisions that local policymakers have to make? When it comes to issues related to climate -- including energy, food, and transport, who exactly gets to make those decisions, and how? What kind of evidence do they need – and where can they find it? This session is a must for anyone with ideas for how to respond to any of these questions. 

Join our team of academics and guests from across the local climateecosystem to help lay the foundations for more effective collaboration. We’ll kick off with a scene-setting panel session, including researchers, policy-makers, and change-makers from across the University, the City, and the County, followed by a hackathon to map the local landscape of research and policy evidence and expertise, and to pool ideas as to how we might make strengthen collaboration across the system. We’ll then conclude the session by teasing out a range of actionable next steps.

10:00 - 11:30 What has innovation ever done for us? An arts and humanities perspective (Investcorp Lecture Theatre)

Innovation is becoming increasingly prevalent in research funding guidelines, as well as being at the centre of many policymaker priorities from local to national and international. Traditionally seen as STEM-focused, innovation is now encouraged across disciplinary fields.

It’s not always obvious how humanities research might connect with current industry or social challenges, or when the right moment arises to share emerging research. What does innovation even mean in a humanities context? How do we embrace the full potential of humanities involvement in innovation? This plenary session will address the question in 3 ways: 1. Present ‘A Short History of Innovation’; 2. Share the current challenges of engaging with innovation from the humanities; 3. Hear case studies from humanities-based researchers (and/or partners) who have experience engaging with innovation.

10:00 - 11:30 Your Amazing Brain: a museum/neuroscience partnership (Pavilion Room)

From 2017-2022, the university’s Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN) partnered with Banbury Museum & Gallery to develop a family-friendly neuroscience exhibition, “Your Amazing Brain”. The exhibition and accompanying events programme ran in Banbury in 2022 and then at the Discover Bucks museum (Aylesbury) in 2022-2023. 

Join the WIN team and their museum collaborators for an interactive discussion about the benefits and challenges of museum/science collaborations; the importance of collaborations outside of Oxford city centre; and key learnings from the Your Amazing Brain partnership that may be useful to others pursing this type of project. We’d also love to hear perspectives from attendees about their own collaborations and what they have learned.

This session is aimed at researchers (including doctoral students) and professional services staff. The speakers will be a mix of researchers, professional services staff, and external museum professionals, sharing their different perspectives on the collaborative process.

10:30 - 12:00 Oxford Summit report launch webinar (hosted by NCUB) (Online)

Join the Vice-Chancellor and an expert panel who will be discussing what can be done to mobilise university-industry-government partnerships to develop solutions at the pace and scale necessary to tackle the big issues facing society today. This is an online event and will be hosted by the National Centre for Universities and Business with separate registration.

10:30-11:30 Networks for Wellbeing and Mental Health: Oxford Social Prescribing Research Network and the Emerging Minds Network (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

Explore social prescribing and how it works in practice across sectors including the cultural sector and green spaces; what working in partnership with charities and community organisations can offer and what makes a meaningful research collaboration that can make a difference for mental health across generations.

This session is open to anyone interested in social prescribing, wellbeing, mental health research and collaborations, within and beyond the University. A chance to meet new collaborators and discover a range of approaches to mental health and wellbeing activities.

12:00 - 13:00 Joining the dots: creating outputs across interdisciplinary research (Investcorp Lecture Theatre)

The Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) was created with impact in mind as one of its 3 main aims. Our knowledge exchange team of 8 works with 160+ researchers from multiple disciplines and institutions.

As CREDS neared its final year, we wanted to create an accessible output to share our energy demand story: with evidence, a coherent narrative across all research themes, and recommendations for all.

In this workshop, we will share how we created an inter-disciplinary synthesis of findings from nine themes and used this to build a stakeholder-friendly suite of outputs. We will encourage your questions and comments about our approach.

We will describe the value to our research community and how we have used the outputs with existing and new audiences.

For: programme managers, knowledge exchange/impact professionals, researchers with an interest in enhancing their engagement with stakeholders.

12:00 - 13:00 Listening and learning: centring women’s voices in improving their healthcare outcomes (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

How can we better understand socially marginalised women’s experience of healthcare? What do researchers, community representatives and other potential partners bring to the process of improving equity in accessing healthcare?

To explore these and related questions Dr Tanvi Rai and Ms Sarah Harris will be joined by Cllr Shaista Aziz and Ms Fatou Badjie Ceesay as part of a panel discussion. 

We will explore the power of storytelling with Medical Herstory and discuss best practices for community engagement, illustrated by actual examples of such engagement during research projects. We will also reflect on bridging health research and activism around social justice, such that we do not reproduce the same injustices in research practice that exist in society. 

12:00 - 13:00 Making theatre out of fragments (Pavilion Room)

This panel will explore a multi-year collaboration between academics and creative practitioners, which has culminated in a theatre show inspired by lost texts from the ancient world, and the human urge to piece together a story from scraps of information.

The panel will feature the lead academic on the project, Laura Swift, along with artists who were involved. We will talk about how the research ideas fed into design, staging, sound and music, and how we created an innovative form of shadow puppetry inspired by Greek papyri. We hope to include live demonstration by artists as well as filmed footage. We will discuss the process of the collaboration, and the challenges and opportunities it led to. It will be of interest to researchers/graduate students who would like to form partnerships beyond academia, and potentially to professional services staff who facilitate this type of partnership. 

14:00 - 15:00 Alison Woollard and Paul Manners - Reflections on public engagement with research (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

Join Professor Alison Woollard, University of Oxford's Public and Community Engagement Champion and Paul Manners, National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement as they explore the direction of travel for Public and Community Engagement with Research.

14:00 - 15:00 Jan Royall and Jeremy Long - Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Partnership (Pavilion Room)

15:30-16:30 Helen Margetts and Christl Donnelly - How can research shape better public policy and improve people’s lives? (Pavilion Room)

As researchers, what strategies can we pursue to maximise the value of our expertise and evidence for public policy, and shape outcomes in the wider world? How do policymakers engage with different kinds of expertise, and research in different disciplines?

To explore these questions – and pose your own – why not join Helen Margetts and Christl Donnelly, as their reflect on their experience of research and collaboration with policymakers in government and Parliament aimed at changing lives for the better?

Social Venture Mixer; 16:00 - 18:30 

OSEP and Oxford University Innovation are hosting a mixer for anyone interested or working in social enterprises or purposeful businesses.

Come along to meet like-minded people from the university and Oxfordshire ecosystem who are interested in tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges but want to do business differently. We hope you’ll learn from others about their social ventures, and have the chance to share your ideas and passions. All welcome from across the University and local ecosystem.

Thursday 21 September – St Antony’s College

10:00 - 16:00 Getting engaged (Investcorp Gallery)

Meet your divisional engagement reps and talk to them about how they can support you to collaborate through your research.

10:00 - 11:00 Collaborating for Children in Crisis: Unlocking Opportunities for Greater Impact (Investcorp Lecture Theatre)

More than a quarter of the world’s children live in countries affected by crises, including those caused by conflict and climate breakdown. These children face the risk – and often, reality – of violence, exploitation, and neglect. They and their families are often left to deal with mental health challenges and other consequences that could last a lifetime.

The Parenting for Lifelong Health team at the University of Oxford has been working with UN agencies and other organisations to develop open-source, evidence-based parenting resources to support families affected by crises, which have been translated into over 30 languages and benefited over 16 million people, including in Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Join us, our collaborators and guests to explore how we can improve the way we collaborate with policymakers and affected communities to support families and vulnerable children in crisis.

10:00 - 11:00 From Micro-Internships to Multi-Partner Projects: Using Student Training & Development Programmes to Grow Innovative Research Collaborations (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

This panel session will demonstrate how the Heritage Partnerships Team in Humanities has successfully used student internship and placement programmes to develop and grow innovative research partnerships with external heritage organisations for the benefit of the wider research and engagement community at Oxford. Featuring colleagues from the Heritage Partnerships Team, external partner organisations, the Careers Service and training colleagues, this panel will give practical tips and insights into developing large-scale collaborations through small-scale student activities.

10:00 - 11:00 Sharing experiences of engaging with Oxford’s communities; lessons learned from the third sector (Pavilion Room)

Third sector organisations The Brilliant Club (KS2-5), Universify (YR10-11) IntoUniversity (KS2-5) and Parent Power (parents of secondary school children) come together to showcase how they each engage with Oxford’s local communities. These fantastic attainment-raising and community engagement organisations have some powerful “Lessons Learned” to share, including those relating to post pandemic engagement, which may be of particular interest to researchers and other University colleagues hoping to engage more effectively with local communities far and wide. Listen to a panel discussion and take part in Q&A to hear more and even explore how you could share your research, expertise and skills for the benefit of local communities.

10:00 - 11:30 Introduction to patient and public involvement (PPI) (Online)

This session will provide an introduction to PPI – what it is, why it is important and how to get started with it for your project. It may be of interest to health/medical researchers and students, as well as staff who take on responsibility for supporting or managing PPI activities.

Please register for this session here 

11:15 - 12:15 Striving for meaningful impact by drawing on the expertise of people with lived experience (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

Through the University of Oxford’s Public and Community Engagement Seed Fund, we were able to set up an Experts by Experience Advisory Board with people with lived experience of having no recourse to public funds, to advise our ‘Understanding Migrant Destitution in the UK’ research project.

The funding also enabled us to set up a partnership with a third-sector organisation to offer research training to members of the Experts by Experience Advisory Board so they could be involved as peer researchers during focus groups. 

The panel will involve both university-based researchers as well as members from our Experts by Experience Advisory Board discussing the learning from this pilot participatory research project and the logistics required and ethical factors to consider that can hinder or promote the potential for impact of participatory research.

11:30 - 13:00 Exploring initiatives to positively support experiences of and increase the representation of Black and Minority Ethnic educators and professionals in education (Pavilion Room)

13:00 - 14:30 Impact and benefits of public and community involvement and engagement in health research (Investcorp Lecture Theatre)

Presentations and discussion will be followed by audience Q&A. 

13:00 - 14:30 What do you need, what do you know? An interactive session exploring building relationships between university researchers and local partnerships (Old Fellows' Dining Hall)

Are you interested in using your research and public engagement skills to support local communities?

Or in using your expertise and knowledge to make research more relevant to problems your community needs help solving?

Our research interests touch on everything from history to food to medical science and we will explore how partnership bonds can be formed between researchers, businesses, and local community groups. 

Our session will be split into a panel/ Q & A for the first half followed by a “What do we need, what do we know” networking skills sharing exercise in partnership building suitable for researchers, professional services staff, community groups, or anyone else curious about how partnerships are built, maintained, and grown and how they can get involved. 

14:00 - 15:00 The Rumble Museum and Lessons in Chemistry: two case studies (Pavilion Room)

The Rumble Museum at Cheney School is a unique educational initiative that has the potential to be embedded in a range of learning environments, and to be used in a range of different types of research. They are the only arts council accredited museum that is spread throughout a busy and very diverse state school. They have carried out a range of projects with learners from all backgrounds and abilities, including at risk of exclusion and special needs students, and discovered that working with artefacts is a very effective way of engaging the broadest range of young people.

Lessons in Chemistry is a set of co-created interactive workshops which showcase current research from the Department of Chemistry and its collaborators on sustainable polymers, green fuels and AMR. Learn more about the process from concept, funding, development, trialling, delivery and evaluation. Reflections from the researchers and professional staff involved will highlight the benefits and challenges of undertaking such engagement and the lessons learnt.

15:00 - 16:00 Closing Session - What Next For Engagement? (Investcorp Lecture Theatre)

The closing plenary session will focus on 'The Future of Engagement', and will have a particular focus on ways in which the University can work collaboratively with business, local government, and community to have impact locally within Oxford(shire). In order to give a geographical focus, the speakers will explore the potential role for collaboration within one particular community in Oxford – Blackbird Leys.

16:00 - 19:00 Drinks Reception (The Buttery)

Join us for drinks and light refreshments.