Reaching out to new audiences
Through the outreach fund, we support projects that raise awareness of the place of chemistry in our lives. In the latest round of funding, we were able to give grants to 23 different projects across the UK and Ireland.
We were pleased to support the Science and Energy demonstration lectures, which have been have been a regular event for the Mid Wales Local Section since 1990.
"The Science and Energy lectures give our 9- to 12-year-olds their first involvement in practical science", says Brian Davies, Chairman of the Mid Wales Local Section. "They increase the profile of chemistry among the sciences and, by showing that chemistry is a practical subject, stimulate an enthusiasm for the subject before that stage in an educational career when subject choices have to be made.
"The challenge has always been to make these annual lectures available across the entire area of the Local Section, the 2000 square mile sparsely populated rural area comprising Ceredigion, on the west coast, and the inland northern part of Powys. The expenditure is too much for a small local section to bear without additional support — so the contribution of the Outreach Fund is essential and much appreciated."
The lectures will be taking place this spring, in a range of venues across Mid Wales.
The Outreach Fund also aims to support projects which develop the science communication skills of people in the chemistry community. One example from the previous round of funding was support for a project to facilitate collaboration between chemists and TV and radio producers.
Lucy Vernall of the Academic Ideas Lab explains the idea behind her application: "If you’re a chemist with a great idea for a TV or radio programme that you think will capture the public’s imagination, just how do you start trying to make it happen? We wanted to enable chemists with a passion for communication to find out how to bring their knowledge to really large audiences through working with mainstream media.
"The Outreach Fund support has helped us secure two top producers, one from TV, one from radio, to come and lead brainstorms with chemists to come up with chemistry programme ideas.
"We put together some very focused training to help chemists have input into programming right at the beginning of programme production, in the development phase. The lead time for this type of work is in years – but we hope that this training will forge ongoing collaborations that ultimately will result in some innovative chemistry-based programmes reaching large numbers of people."
The next deadline for application is 29 April 2016. You'll find a list of all previous funding and more details on how to apply on our Outreach Fund page.
