Goldsmiths public engagement celebrated at awards ceremony

Staff and research students at Goldsmiths celebrated the excellent public engagement in 2017 at the Warden’s Annual Public Engagement Awards on 3 May 2018. 

The awards recognised and celebrated the excellent work researchers at all career stages did with members of the public, whether they were sharing ground-breaking findings with new audiences or collaborating with the public throughout their research.

An exceptional range of innovative activities and projects were nominated by Goldsmiths staff. This year’s nominations were at a record high, showcasing different approaches to engaging the public with research and practice. 

The researchers worked with organisations like the BFI, the Labour Party, the Zoological Museum Hamburg, and Parliament to engage diverse audiences through film, performance, art and citizen science. 

Winners and commendations were picked out by the Public Engagement Advisory Group from three categories: Established Researcher, Early Career Researcher and Postgraduate Researcher. 

The overall award in the Established Researcher category was presented to Dr Jennifer Gabrys (Sociology) for her project, Deptford Data Stories. She collaborated with residents, workers and community groups in South East London to develop a citizen-led air-quality monitoring project which empowered local people and impacted policy. 

This year the established researcher category included two special awards for excellent engagement with an emphasis on our local community in Lewisham and on research impact, awarded to John Price (History) and Sue Clayton (Media and Communications), respectively. 

John Price won for his project commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham and Sue Clayton was awarded for challenging the UK government on child refugees through her film Calais Children: A Case to Answer. 

In the Early Career Researcher category, Iris Garrelfs from the Department of Music won for her work on Longplayer Day 2017, a 12-hour nomadic, cross-disciplinary music festival celebrating the partnership between Goldsmiths and the Longplayer Trust. 

This year’s winner in Postgraduate Researcher category was Tom Keene (Design) for his project Database Estate, an intensely collaborative, cross-disciplinary campaign to save Cressingham Gardens Estate in South West London 

Pat Loughrey, Warden of Goldsmiths said: “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the nominees, whose work with the public is a real asset to Goldsmiths and an example to our community, and beyond.”

The awards highlighted the real sense that researchers, partners and the public benefited from the work Goldsmiths, demonstrating how research in the arts, humanities, social sciences and computing can create real positive change in the world. 

 

Find out more about the valuable work of all nominees in the awards programme