IV. WIE Creating the Right Opportunities for Collaboration with the Public

WIE CREATING THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION WITH THE PUBLIC

Prior to the establishment of the Institute, the university of course had a rich and varied programme of public engagement events. But with the organization of the British Science Festival (BSF) at Warwick in 2019, and the advent of Coventry as City of Culture, it became clear that there was a need to streamline and organize ‘the university’s offering’ in order that it could become more than the sum of its parts to take advantage of opportunities like BSF, and also offer a coherent commitment from the university to the City of Culture celebrations. The Institute was formed as preparations for City of Culture year were in full flow, and has developed as the natural home for the organizing team of the university’s Resonate Festival – a year-long festival dedicated to celebrating Coventry as City of Culture, which you can read more about below.

The Institute now offers a diverse annual programme of public engagement events covering a wide range of disciplines and communities of interest, hosted both digitally and in different geographical areas of our region. This is the natural ‘other side of the coin’ of our building capacity and expertise work: to give those staff and students who have developed their skills sets in public and community engagement a great set of opportunities to discuss, collaborate and co-produce ideas and research with a wide variety of publics. Some of these opportunities are hosted in collaboration with particular faculties and research projects (like our annual Festival of Social Sciences) or as part of national campaigns (like Pint of Science). Others are more local to our region (like this year’s City of Culture celebrations) and others are particular to the university of Warwick (see projects we have funded below).

The Institute seeks both to organize a programme of events, which staff and students can contribute to, as well as financially support individuals and groups throughout the university to develop their own projects. In the past year we have funded projects in conjunction with the Connecting Cultures GRP, as well as funding community groups directly to work with partners inside the university. And we have been delighted to launch our own Collaboration and Co-Production fund to support the development of new relationships (as well as the strengthening of existing ones) between university staff and community groups, with the express aim of helping them develop co-produced research grant applications and public engagement activities (read more about all of this on the following pages).

Going forward post City of Culture year, the Institute has a clear strategy for developing its programme of public events each year, which will ensure that we continue to develop relationships with community partners we have worked with in the past; develop new relationships with geographical communities and communities of interest in collaboration with other 2030 Strategic goal teams (e.g. Regional and Community Engagement, Innovation and Inclusion); as well as speak out on the national stage as part of a series of university priority debates and topics (e.g. Sustainability).

As such the Institute is not only enabling wider discussion and debate about crucial topics within our region and more widely, but working to permanently lower the ‘invisible force field’ between the university and its communities by hosting public events both on campus and in our region and by supporting ongoing collaboration between our staff and community groups. In so doing, not only is the Institute enabling the university’s 2030 strategic goals, but also playing a crucial part in ensuring the university has a proactive role in its region and within important national debates.