Chris Allton

Public Engagement and Outreach

I have been involved with public engagement and school outreach activities for the last two decades. This was formalised in 2016 when I founded and led Oriel Science. Our mission is to enhance the Future Generations’ educational and career journeys, to address under-representations, and to enrich the general public’s engagement with science and research. We do this by taking Swansea University’s amazing research, packaging this into exciting, interactive and visceral exhibits, and putting these in places people go. ``Oriel'' is Welsh for ``gallery''.

 

The project launched in 2016 as a Pop-Up Science venue in Swansea’s city centre which welcomed 17,000 visitors over 100 days. Since then, we’ve been involved in over 100 events and have engaged with 150,000 people.

 

These events include: our annual Super Science Swansea events in the National Waterfront Museum with more than 3,000 visitors in 5 hours each year, community events, exhibitions in Swansea Museum and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, careers fairs, and talks in schools, science fairs and Museums.

 

We were excited to launch our new city-centre venue in May 2021. Already many thousands of pubic visitors and students on organised school trips have enjoyed our venue. Our large 400 sq.metre venue hosts 30 exhibits showcasing Swansea University research and covers two themes: Movement and Motion and the University's Response to Covid. Feedback we've received from visitors has been overwhelmingly positive with comments such as
        Highly informative and great interaction with the children, very interesting
and
        I visited the new exhibition in the city centre and I found it amazing
A full 40% of our visitor's first ever University experience was Oriel Science proving that we'd built a space which was welcoming to all.

 

Oriel Science levers significant benefits to the University. It delivers: (i) a student recruitment vehicle, (ii) a boost to our ``students' experience'' providing employment, final year projects and a base for students in the city centre, (iii) grant capture enhancement via public engagement``impact'', and (iv) a strong statement of the University's Civic Mission credentials.

Awards

STFC Leadership Fellowship in Public Engagement (2018 - 2022)

Swansea University Research and Innovation Award (2020)

Organisation

Founder and Director of Oriel Science (from 2015)

Co-organiser of the monthly public lectures, Oriel Science Cafe (from 2011)

Co-organiser of the annual Physics Christmas Lecture which hosts around 500 high school students

Co-organiser of the Physics Department's Particle Physics MasterClasses for A-Level students

Talks

Gig in Einstein's Garden at the Green Man Festival (2020 postponed due to COVID, and 2022)

British Science Festival (Swansea 2016 & Coventry/Warwick 2019)

Invited talks at the British Science Museum, London (2019)

Talks at the Swansea Science Festival (2017, 2018 & 2019), the Wye Valley River Festival (2020), the Methyr Science Festival (2019, 2020), and Pint of Science (2018 \& 2019)

Numerous presentations in schools, museums, libraries, community events, the Welsh Assembly and Swansea Prison(!)

Judge for Science Competitions

SET for Britain Houses of Parliament, London (2012, 2013 & 2014)

3 Minute Wonder science lecture competition for young researchers, Cardiff University (2013)

Big Bang Wales Competition for High School Students, National Waterfront Museum, Swansea (2010 & 2011)

FameLab science talk competition, Swansea (2018 & 2019)

Media Appearances

Oriel Science has appeared in the media 100 times in radio and TV interviews, press releases, newspaper articles and tourism web pages. My media appearances include:

Radio interviews for BBC Radio Wales (2011, 2012, 2017, 2018) including live interviews (2008 & 2017)

Live radio interviews for Swansea Sound (2016, 2017x2, 2018, 2019, 2020)

Appeared in an end-of-year round-up for HTV Wales (2016)

Live TV interview: HTV's Wales Tonight regarding the switch-on of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), 10th September 2008

Funding Awarded

The project has been awarded funding totalling £580,000, including:

 

Financial contributions from the Colleges, Estates and the Senior Management Team within Swansea University

STFC Leadership Fellowship in Public Engagement grant

Welsh Government's Enhancing Civic Mission and Community Engagement grant

Welsh Government's National Science Academy award

STFC SPARK & Small Award for Public Engagement grants

UKRI Public Engagement Citizen Science grant

EPSRC grants via the SURGE and Cherish-DE schemes

Public Engagement component of Innovate UK and Ser Cymru 2 grants

The Princes Trust Achieve Programme

Swansea Business Improvement District contribution

 

It has been part of the Case for Support in at least eight successful Swansea University grants bringing in £10.5M to the University and included in a further 20 grant applications which are awaiting funder decisions.