Pub-lic engagement? Academics combine pints and research

Monday night in the pub and there is only one subject on everyone’s lips – Brexit. And though the discussion is being led by one man, he is far from the usual pub bore.

Paul James Cardwell, professor of law at King’s College London, was giving a talk on whether the UK could rejoin the European Union through Pints of Knowledge – an organisation that has hosted “sharp, thought-provoking” talks in the capital since launching last year.

Speaking in The Star by Liverpool Street rather than a lecture hall puts an academic like Cardwell “outside [their] comfort zone” and poses a number of challenges, particularly not knowing who will be in the audience, he said.

“The role of academics, as public-facing people, is one which can be difficult. There’s an art to doing it well, and not everyone would be good at it or want to engage in that,” he told Times Higher Education.

“I think you’ve got to have a certain confidence in your subject and that you’ll be able to explain it without using jargon or without having to do 10 weeks’ worth of explanation before you get to your main point.”

Kaja Franck, a senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Hertfordshire, has also spoken at several of these events, and will next give a presentation on the origins of Gothic literature at a pizza restaurant in east London.

With academia’s historic reputation for being an ivory tower, Franck said “doing public events humanises us and humanises our work”.

“It’s good for academics to remember that their work should be in the public’s best interest even if, like my research on fictional monsters, it perhaps doesn’t seem always particularly relevant,” she said.

“The world is made up of people with a vast number of interests and academia absolutely reflects that. When we do public engagement, we are encouraged to think about how we present our work and remember that for most academics, our work is research and education.”

Pints of Knowledge is far from the only organisation bringing scholarly talks to the masses, or even combining them with alcohol. The annual Pint of Science festival brings researchers to pubs and cafes to share their scientific discoveries with the public.

And with the podcast boom providing plenty of further speaking opportunities for scholars, Franck said this is the “halcyon period of academia and public engagement”.

“Although it was said recently that the public are bored of experts, I can’t help thinking that expertise seems to be something that people still find interesting and with which they want to engage, but on their own terms.”

Nathalie Pettorelli, a professor at the Institute of Zoology, co-founded global public outreach platform Soapbox Science in 2011 to promote women and non-binary scientists and the work they do.

She said publicly funded academics should be able to explain what people’s taxes are spent on, and help build trust in scientific processes.

“To do innovation, you also need to convince your potential user that this is something that could make their life better, and that relies a lot on trust between researchers and the general public, and you build that trust through communication.

“Our assessment of our events across the world has shown that we do change perception one by one.”

Rather than students, or paying customers, their target audience is people who would not normally speak to a scientist – something the researchers take specific training for and often struggle with.

“We’re trying not to preach to the converted, but instead having more direct links with surprising people by making it something that they didn’t think would be interesting, interesting.”

For Pettorelli, speaking to a wide selection of people has the potential benefit of one day increasing diversity within science.

“We have had many parents telling us, for example, that they just never thought that this would be a career for their little girl or their little boy.”

Mick Cooper, professor of counselling psychology at the University of Roehampton, has given a number of talks through The Weekend University, which hosts presentations on making evidence-based ideas from psychology more accessible.

He said disseminating ideas into wider society is an important function of academia with clear professional benefits.

“Getting feedback, seeing how ideas are received, developing materials to communicate that in an accessible way is all about sharpening my ability as a teacher, as a researcher, and reminding me of the importance and the skills in being able to communicate widely.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com