CASE STUDY
Challenge: The Wellcome Trust funds the brightest minds and best ideas in biomedical research. It requires their research scientists to engage with the public. My challenge was to find an innovative way to help scientists feel confident communicating their science to non-specialist audiences.
Solution: A programme of two-day narrative skills workshops bringing together cohorts of Wellcome Trust researchers and media professionals.
Outcome: Alumni are more confident, excited and effective in public engagement.
“Unexpected, challenging and exciting”
“I thought and talked of little else for days afterwards”
“Caroline did an excellent job. She is clearly a master in working with groups of people and her ability to deal with the diverse personalities in the room was very skillful – she made it look effortless. Her feedback was insightful, well thought out and constructive. What came across was she was there to help us develop.“
Wellcome Trust Fellows
CASE STUDY
Challenge: In 2011 The Foundation for Polish science(FNP), with support from the European Regional Development Fund, launched the SKILLS project to develop the skills of the R & D sector’s employees and PhD students. My task was to train FNP laureates and scholars in public speaking and presentation skills.
Solution: A series of two-day intensive workshops conducted in English to help Polish researchers communicate more effectively, and with a variety of audiences.
Outcome: More than 250 research teams’ leaders, Post Docs and PhD students trained in narrative, pitching and presentation skills.
“Caroline explains things in a very clear and friendly manner. She is definitely a passionate tutor. All her feedbacks are professional, constructive and point at all important details. Caroline treats all participants with great respect and patience. The learning environment created by her in the room is very pleasant but also mobilize participants to work.”
Katarzyna Pronobis, Project Skills, Foundation for Polish Science
CASE STUDY
Challenge: The world looks to the Engineering faculty at Imperial College to help solve some of the planet’s long term critical engineering challenges. The faculty wanted to engage more of its researchers in collaborating to develop new approaches to some intractable problems.
Solution: An adaptation of a ‘World Café’ event, led by senior staff and attended by 60 engineers from across the faculty.
Outcome: Identification and agreement of some important goals. Strong faculty wide support for more collaboration in tackling the challenges and the generation of some first stage promising ideas.
“Caroline helped us design a half-day session aimed to engage and focus people across the faculty on critical engineering problems. The Grand Challenge was a very successful event. The sessions sparked many ideas and potential collaborations. She has also given us the confidence to run follow up activities ourselves that will help us elaborate on this approach.”
Chris Hankin, Professor of Computing Science, Deputy Principal: Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London.