#CelebratingEngagement: In conversation with Jackie Bell

Picture credit: University of Liverpool

Jackie Bell is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. In 2022, she won the Leadership Award as part of the President's Awards for Excellence in Societal Engagement. Jackie helped inspire young people to engage with science through her work developing the community programme Youth Leader Science Champions.

Jackie took time to talk to the Public Engagement team about her experiences, the importance of engagement, and what she’s working on next.

Can you give an overview of the public engagement project you ran which won the award?

I developed an Imperial-accredited community programme called Youth Leader Science Champions in partnership with Emma Slater, who was the Engagement Producer, to empower local youth organisations and researchers from the Department of Computing to engage young people with science. Over the course of the project, five researchers and six youth leaders worked together to co-create hands-on activities that could be used to engage and inspire children and young people with computer science. Each activity was co-designed by a researcher and youth leader pair to best support youth leaders to confidently facilitate conversations about science. Some youth organisations used the set of activities as a way to introduce science into their regular programmes, others used it to supplement existing STEM activity that they had just started to explore with their youth groups.

The project ended with a celebration event in May 2022. Before then, it developed not only a kit of 14 re-usable science activities that were given to youth organisations to use beyond the scope of the project but a greater level of trust between local youth leaders and researchers. This trust has led to further collaborative projects with the same community partners, and researchers have been inspired to seek out additional engagement opportunities.

Why do you think engagement is important, and what do you think are the benefits of this?

It is important that everyone feels involved with science and scientific research. Understanding how and why things work empowers us to make better informed life choices. Societal engagement can remove fear of the unknown and reduce bias and stigma attached to certain things. For example, vaccines, cancer treatment, artificial intelligence etc.

For me, engagement was always something I enjoyed doing alongside my PhD. It puts my research into perspective, provides a sounding board for ideas and enables active contributions from members of the public, giving both my research and my participants a greater sense of purpose. Involving members of the public in the co-creation of any project is extremely rewarding, and something I would highly recommend to all my colleagues!

What advice would you give your colleagues at Imperial who want to engage more with their audiences?

Start small and give yourself plenty of time! Collaborative projects work best when you identify clear goals, set expectations, and take time to build trusting relationships with your collaborators or participants. Get to know your audience – their interests, values, and personal experiences. Meet a couple of times before your project begins so that they become comfortable around you. This will help build strong foundations of trust, which will enhance any current and future partnership working.

What are your future engagement plans, now you’ve won the award?

Receiving this award has inspired me to further produce and facilitate engagement activities for staff and students in my department, and the wider faculty. I hope to run a second phase of the Youth Leader Science Champions programme with a new group of youth leaders and researchers, while introducing elements of mentoring by existing participants, for example, those accredited as Youth Leader Science Champions. I also plan to continue working with the four youth organisations I have already built relationships with, offering bespoke support and opportunities for further collaboration. Watch this space!

Are you interested in nominating a colleague, student or an inspirational partner who has gone above and beyond to support the development of societal engagement at Imperial? Please read our guidance and submit your nomination!