Introducing the winners of the 2023 Societal Engagement Seed Fund. We're excited to support a diverse range of public engagement initiatives through this fund, read below to find out more about each project.

The Bridge local women's community engagement group - led by Alison Perry

The Bridge women’s health community engagement group were able to use Societal Engagement seed-funding to host two well-attended and vibrant events that raised awareness on topics in women’s health.  The first event, held at The Invention Rooms in January 2023, was based around a film series called “It’s Okay to Ask”, which celebrates diversity and cultural awareness in women’s health and maternity systems and included topics such as female genital mutilation, LGBTQIA+ experiences of maternity, and disability.  The second, also at The Invention Rooms, was an event to open communication and awareness around menstrual health and period poverty awareness.  This event featured three documentary shorts, “talking tables” with researchers and public facilitators, alongside a sewing performance of homemade period products.

Both events were well-attended by members of the community, researchers and clinicians and involved a wide range of contributors to the events, including the local Sewing Group (run by the Eritreyan community social group).  We learned that there is a large gap in the women’s health research space for people to engage, inform, influence, and debate current issues and exclusions in women’s health. We found that those best placed to create these spaces need resources, support, and recognition to do so.

Modifiable factors affecting HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis access - led by Christina Atchison

This project aimed to improve the delivery of HIV PrEP for Black women in England, who were found to be the most underserved group. The objectives included exploring the modifiable factors to PrEP access through focus groups and co-producing recommendations to address said factors via workshops. The Societal Engagement seed funding allowed for the successful engagement of 19 Black women, and subsequent identification of six key barriers to their use of PrEP: knowledge gaps, restrictive policies, cultural stigma, healthcare distrust, relationship challenges, and suboptimal PrEP use. It also found six facilitators including improving knowledge, addressing racialised discrimination and community advocacy. 

Workshops led to co-designed interventions that focused on improving HIV and PrEP awareness and knowledge among Black women through national and local campaigns, emphasising the involvement of Black women in public health decision-making to build trust with marginalised communities.

Exploring the senses at the Pint of Science festival - led by Laura Fabbri

From 22—24 May 2023, we hosted a vibrant series of workshops and scientific talks as part of the annual Pint of Science festival. Our events delved into the fascinating world of The Senses, with a special focus on smell, hearing, and sight.

Each evening, we welcomed a diverse group of scientists and researchers, who shared their latest projects and potential future applications in their respective fields. Their presentations sparked curiosity and inspired thought-provoking discussions during the Q&A sessions that followed.

But this wasn’t just about listening—we wanted our audience to experience science hands-on. Between talks, we ran interactive activities and games designed to challenge perceptions and deepen understanding of the senses:

  • BSL (British Sign Language) Competition – Attendees tested their memory and speed in recognising and using sign language.
  • Guess the Marbles – A sensory challenge where participants had to estimate the number of marbles in a container using only touch.
  • Draw the Secret Item – A creative game where players had to draw an object described to them without seeing it, testing their reliance on verbal descriptions.

These activities added a fun and immersive element to each night, reinforcing the theme while encouraging audience participation.

A key highlight of the event was our collaboration with the charity “Fight for Sight”, which works to prevent and treat blindness and visual impairments. To provide a firsthand perspective, we also invited a patient-representative speaker, who shared personal insights about navigating daily life with a visual impairment. Their presence added an important human dimension to our discussions, highlighting the real-world impact of scientific advancements in eye health and accessibility.

For our team of undergraduate and postgraduate students, this event was both a challenge and a rewarding learning experience. Organising the festival required careful project planning, selecting and coordinating guest speakers, and managing everything from venue logistics to public engagement.

The Pint of Science festival was a fantastic opportunity to bring scientific research out of the lab and into the public space. By combining expert talks with interactive experiences, we not only shared knowledge but also sparked curiosity and conversation about how we perceive the world around us.

Psychedelic Research: a Delphi process - led by Leor Roseman

The “Delphi Study on Setting” aimed to formulate reporting guidelines for ‘setting’ in psychedelic clinical trials, informed by the voices and expertise of 89 researchers, clinicians, and past clinical trial participants. The interdisciplinary and international group of experts was guided through four rounds of the iterative and anonymous Delphi process.

In Round One, experts were prompted with an open-ended question asking them to list the extra-pharmacological variables they consider most important to report in clinical trials with psychedelics. In Round Two, they rated a list of 49 items, extracted from the groups’ responses in Round One, in terms of importance and coherence. In Round Three, experts were fedback items that had reached consensus in certain sub-groups (e.g., past clinical trial participants, or BIPOC individuals), but not in the whole-group, and asked to reconsider their stance in light of their peers’ differing perspectives.

In Round Four, experts gave their final approval of the 30 items that reached consensus in the whole group. The Delphi process was successful in generating the “Reporting Setting in Psychedelic Clinical Trials” (ReSPCT) Guidelines, due to be published in Nature Medicine, and shared with the wider scientific community and public via a website dedicated to enhancing the guideline accessibility.

The sweet danger of sugar on the heart - led by Blerina Ahmetaj-Shala

This project aimed to increase community awareness of how science contributes to advancing knowledge in healthcare. Through informative workshops at a church and community centre, members of the local community gained insights into the causes, prevention, and treatments of diabetes, and its connection with heart disease. Those taking part felt that the sessions had a significant impact on their understanding of the disease, serving as a foundation for improving their own health and well-being. In understanding how diabetes affects their bodies, participants were encouraged to share this knowledge with their families and friends, contributing to the empowerment of their community to make informed decisions and enhance their lifestyle. The long-term hope is that these efforts will positively influence the NHS.

Virtual audio: illusion or reality? - led by Harry Jenkins

The Societal Engagement Seed Fund contributed to the success of ‘Virtual Audio: Illusion or Reality?’, one of nine flagship exhibits chosen to be featured at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2023. The exhibit brought together research from the Audio Experience Design team in the Dyson School of Design Engineering to showcase their work on the development of immersive audio and its potential applications. Visitors got the opportunity to have conversations with the research team, have their ears 3D-scanned, try out VR games, and listen to immersive audio demos.

Ten thousand people, from school students, to families, to professors, visited the Exhibition across the week, leading to thousands of conversations and hundreds of engagements with the demonstrations. The activity led to media coverage, fascinating insights from visitors, new engagement opportunities, reusable demos, and a continued culture of public engagement within the research team. For more information on the exhibit, watch the project summary video here.

How can we frame antimicrobial resistance to the public? - led by Kate Grailey

In this project we explored what Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) meant to members of the local community in Northwest London, gathering insights and themes regarding antibiotic use, and used this knowledge to co-design new names to describe AMR with public members. We found that AMR was not a popular or well-known term and did not convey the issue well. Working with the public to create “new” names for AMR in a series of workshops led to the decision that Antibiotic Resistance, the Antibiotic Crisis or Superbugs were better at both communicating the issue and at inspiring behaviour change around antibiotic use. We worked with our public voice group to design posters incorporating these newer terms, to be shown to participants and tested in an online survey experiment.