Posted by Admin on 30 April 2019
The Wellcome Centre is incredibly proud of everyone who works with us but we want to highlight a few people who’s work has been in the spotlight.
Michael Flexer, Publicly Engaged Research Fellow on the ‘Waiting Times’ project has won the 2019 Public Engagement Award from Birkbeck, University of London.
‘Waiting Times’ is funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Prof. Laura Salisbury (Exeter) and Prof. Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck).
Michael designed a series of storytelling workshops, ‘Messages in a Bottle’, in which users of the day hospice in Honiton shared stories of their experiences of time.
Michael delivered the workshops with Kelechi Anucha (PhD student on Waiting Times) and Hospicecare staff. Michael and Kelechi have offered the prize money (£150) back to the hospice, to be used to fund something that the users of the day hospice who collaborated in the research can enjoy.
The Birkbeck award committee particularly commended how the relationship with Hospicecare was carefully developed throughout the research process, making it an excellent example of engaged research. Dr Elliot Kendall, Director of Research (English and Film) congratulated Michael and Kelechi on this recognition of their impressive engaged research practice.
Dr Charlotte Jones and Dr Michael Flexer have both won a place in the Engage Researchers Academy.
This is a year-long professional development programme that supports participants to develop their skills and experience in engagement and enhance the impact and relevance of their research.
We look forward to hearing more about the programme over the year, and benefiting from Charlotte and Michael’s experiences.
Our very own Alex Smalley has been working with the BBC’s ecodrama Forest 404 to understand how the sounds of nature might affect wellbeing. To take part in the study you can visit here, and to listen to Alex talk about it on BBC Radio Devon recently follow the link
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