For the last few years, our Engaged and Participatory Research (E&PR) Fund has aimed to facilitate connections between researchers and partners external to the university. On the 15th June, we invited our 2024-5 and 2025-6 cohorts to join us for a special event, sharing findings and best practice, and celebrating their fantastic achievements from the course of their projects.
Run across the academic year, the E&PR Fund invites applications from researchers across all career stages and faculties in collaboration with local, national, and global partners. In the last two years, more than £100,000 was awarded across all three faculties, covering topics ranging from the future of sustainable seaweed farming, to using tabletop games to minimise damage to heritage collections.
As the funding period for the 2025-6 cohort draws to a close, we wanted to take the opportunity to showcase the phenomenal achievements of our awardees, and explore what both partners have learnt together. Attendees enjoyed refreshments while taking a look at what their fellow awardees had been up to through a series of posters exploring the achievements of and next steps for these projects. Several project teams also brought some tangible outputs from their work, including the data collected, displays of artwork, and even an interactive game.
One aim of the event was to foster a sense of community between awardees. Since all awardees have been focussed on their own projects and other responsibilities, we wanted to bring them together to learn from and celebrate with one another. These pieces of work are united by a commitment to research that reflects community voices, and demonstrates a positive outcome for the people impacted the most.
But what did the project teams themselves take away from this experience? Dr Dreolin Fleischer led a facilitated conversation, in which attendees discussed a range of topics that impacted their research. Both cohorts shared advice on managing ethics processes, and working with both young people, and more generally with partners and research participants outside of the University. We heard from external partners from a range of organisations, who each brought their own insights from working collaboratively on a university-funded project.
A huge congratulations again to awardees from both years of the scheme, and thank you to those who attended on the day and shared their perspectives.
If you would like to find out more about the Engaged and Participatory Research Fund scheme, check out the Funding section of our website, or read our Blogs page for case studies from past recipients.
We will launch the next round of Engaged and Participatory Research funding ahead of the 2026-7 academic year.