The National Forum for Public Engagement with STEM, a group that comprises Government, funders of STEM engagement across the UK, and the key national networks (ASDC, NCCPE, BSA) are hosting a national networking event on November 1st from 11am to 5.30pm in Central London.

This event is aimed at:

• Leaders and senior managers: people with responsibility for and oversight of public engagement in their organisation and who are involved in strategic decisions about how to allocate funding, evaluate impact and support involvement and staff / volunteer development
• Experienced practitioners: people with a significant track record developing, delivering and evaluating public engagement, or researching the field, and who are committed to enhancing the quality of activity in the sector
• Collaborators and intermediaries: people who work in intermediary roles and as brokers, helping to bridge between scientists and communities they hope to engage with

The event will provide the opportunity to learn more about the activity of the National Forum and to feed into collective priorities moving forward. The event will focus on the following priority areas:

• Improving models and approaches to funding;
• Engaging underserved audiences;
• Ensuring more effective evaluation;
• Development and sharing of evidence, knowledge, resources and activity.

Places are limited (and we may need to restrict to one per organisation). Please indicate your intention to attend by completing the expression of interest form by 12th October:

https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/national-forum-public-engagement-with-stem-networking-event

Background

The National Forum is a collective of key funders and organisations involved in setting the national agenda for public engagement in STEM. Established in 2014, our goal is to improve collaboration, co-operation and learning across the sector. We want to make better collective decisions and accelerate improvements across the science engagement system.  The Forum was established to help tackle sector-wide challenges that can’t be solved by people working in isolation. For instance, how to address the balance of our funding across different purposes and audiences for engagement; identifying priority areas for sustained public engagement; exploring how we can gather more useful intelligence on the long-term impact of our work; and better supporting professional development and recognition.

You can find out more about our work here: http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/national-forum

If you can’t attend but would like to input into the Forum’s work moving forward we will shortly be circulating a sector survey. We want to hear from a wide range of people and professions, who are in some way involved in public engagement with STEM. This includes science journalists and writers, broadcasters, gamers, community practitioners, teachers and researchers. The full survey will be circulated shortly.