Step 7: Workshops!

A large part of the year has been made up of workshops. It's a catch-all term for getting a mixed bag of people in the room to throw around ideas in a dramatical format. It's quite out the ordinary for anyone who doesn't play drama games almost every day of their life & it throws up some interesting thoughts, questions, discoveries.... talents.

In addition to all the workshops we have done in secondary schools with our VR & Quantum colleagues, we have also worked at We The Curious to engage a scientifically minded slice of the Great Bristol Public.

Beyond that Kilter has also been into the Research Centres to offer a kind of Creative Public Engagement toolkit for researchers themselves. Here's what Quantum Phd Reseacher & Public Engagement Enthusiast, John, had to say about it all.

'Questioning Quantum' was an exciting event for us researchers. Normally when we do outreach and public engagement, the focus is heavily on the science, and we struggle to get a two-way dialogue going about our work. This time, the whole focus was on ethics, and conversations about the wider implications for society of what we do. In addition, our outreach encounters are often very fleeting and we have to get across what we study and why it's important in a short amount of time. By contrast, this workshop offered an opportunity to get into detail on the issues we were talking about. The 'Washing Line of Time', where attendees made predictions about where they think our work will be in the future, was a great opportunity for us to hear people's concerns and try to debunk myths about our research area, quantum technologies. I think it got us thinking more about issues we don't really come across in our day-to-day work, and has given us an insight into a totally new way to approach outreach. We're delighted we had the opportunity to take part in the project!

Thanks John!