Expanding our network across the regions

Samantha Murphy, Royal Society of Chemistry

Inspiring and engaging the next generation of chemical scientists is one of our strategic priorities. Whether it’s through chemistry demonstrations and lectures, outreach events and activities or videos, games and resources, we want to show children how chemistry relates to our everyday lives and pique their curiosity for the subject.

Working with teachers, students and advocates

In order for us to broaden our activities and reach even more students all across the UK and Ireland, we expanded our network in 2010, putting in place nine Education Coordinators in the different regions to support and promote our high-quality educational activities. Working with teachers, students and advocates for the chemical sciences, they helped us to coordinate, support and promote our events, resources and competitions across the UK and Ireland. Through developing key relationships and networks within the regions, they have supported three of our activity areas:

Engaging and supporting teachers

Since 2010, our Education Coordinators have reached thousands of teachers. In 2014 alone, they connected with 4,500 teachers and 1,450 trainee teachers at cluster teacher events, continuing professional development (CPD) events, local science festivals, through regional networks and the Initial Teacher Training scheme and many other activities and events. These connections enable us to share insights into our work, including Learn Chemistry, CPD opportunities and enrichment and enhancement activities available to students including ChemNet, the Global Experiment and our popular competitions.

Enthusing students with chemistry

In addition to providing teachers with access to information and resources, our Education Coordinators also connect with students across the regions, showcasing the different ways in which we support those who study chemistry. In 2014, our Education Coordinators coordinated 79 ChemNet events that reached 2,861 students, in addition to supporting the delivery of 85 Chemistry at Work events and 313 Spectroscopy in a Suitcase visits.

Developing local networks

Through the regional team, we have also built strong networks across the regions. From members in Local Sections to education support organisations, industry and those working in higher education, these connections have helped us to form partnerships and collaborations throughout the UK.

Expanding our network

With the aim of building on this success and delivering even more activities, we decided to further expand our regional education network. This investment in local activities forms part of our outreach strategy.

Growing our network of locally-based Education Coordinators will improve our visibility across the regions, increase the delivery of our outreach activities and better support our members and other advocates. In addition, we will have a more balanced geographical spread or contacts within each of the regions. During the last few months, we have completed a competitive tender process to select hosts for an additional nine Education Coordinators – one more in each region.

Our new hosts include universities, further education colleges and science centres, and will enable us to work in partnership across different sectors. After having selected nine organisations to host our new Education Coordinators, we are in the final stages of confirming the formalities.

To support the activities of our Education Coordinators, we have also recruited five Regional Programme Managers. Each of them manages and supports a team of Education Coordinators and oversees the activities within each region. They also engage with many of our partners and contractors supporting our outreach activities across their area. Overseeing these activities, they are able to ensure effective coordination and communication of all relevant activities and events.

Looking ahead

Having put in place these changes across the UK and Ireland, means that we are now much better placed to achieve our ambitious plans to widen participation and engagement with our education activities and resources. In addition, our regional network will allow us to embed new outreach activities.

In the coming year, we will specifically focus on:

• supporting teachers in their roles as high-impact influencers through the promotion of Learn Chemistry Partnership, CPD and the chartered science teacher (CSciTeach) award;
• supporting the recruitment and training of chemistry teachers
• by continuing to visit Initial Teacher Training providers to highlight our resources and organising events to promote careers in teaching to chemistry undergraduates;
• increasing participation in the chemical sciences beyond compulsory science education by increasing ChemNet membership and our presence at careers events; and
• engaging, enthusing and informing key audiences to increase understanding of the importance and impact of the chemical science, for example by supporting and coordinating schemes such as Chemistry at Work, Spectroscopy in a Suitcase, science fairs and other outreach events.

Working with our members

Finally, we will continue to place strong emphasis on engaging and supporting our members in acting as advocates for the chemical sciences. We are currently exploring the best way to coordinate this and discussed a number of options with members at the General Assembly in November.

In the meantime, if you are interested in volunteering to support education and outreach activities in your local area, a great first step is to become an RSC STEM Ambassador. As an RSC STEM Ambassador your will get support from your regional Royal Society of Chemistry representatives and STEMNET to help you get involved in local opportunities.