Inventive: A podcast of Engineering Stories with associated live events and career resources

Lead Research Organisation: University of Salford
Department Name: Sch of Science,Engineering & Environment

Abstract

Engineering is full of stories. It's about people facing challenges and digging deep to overcome them. Unlike conventional action heroes, however, it is not how far they can jump or climb that saves the day. It's how they apply complex scientific knowledge and practical expertise. Unfortunately, the technical depth that lets engineers achieve what they do, is also a barrier to public appreciation and understanding. The Inventive Podcast will use storytelling to overcome this barrier and encourage its audience to dream about Engineering and what they could do. It will achieve this through a co-creation between engineers, fiction writers and award-winning radio producers. We will mix fact and fiction to create engaging stories that work for podcasts, but with real engineers at their heart.

This is also an opportunity to build on the legacy of the 2018 Year of Engineering to counter engineering stereotypes. We will do this by casting brilliant engineers who have fascinating stories to tell. It will feature great inclusive role models, to counter the dominance of white males in many areas of Engineering. We will work with influencers from other spheres to target hard-to-reach audiences.

Podcasting has gone mainstream, with millions now tuning into shows such as Science Friday, RadioLab and Stuff You Should Know. Unfortunately engineering remain relatively invisible in this growing market with mostly small-scale niche podcasts. When Engineering is mentioned, it is usually badged as 'Science', thereby missing the opportunity to educate the public about engineering. Consequently, we will create a podcast that showcases engineering, exploiting the current space in the podcast market. Through this, we will inspire society about the contribution engineering makes.

The challenge is to create a podcast that reaches beyond those already interested in engineering. Unfortunately, the narrative approaches that the media uses for engineering are too often limiting. Historic narratives are common, but that risks reinforcing the idea that the subject is about heavy engineering from a bygone era; it ignores the current engineers who are transforming our modern world. Story-telling focusing on the biggest, longest, tallest is common - a sort of 'boys toys' approach to the subject - but this has a limited appeal. Another common tactic is to set-up some unconvincing jeopardy, patronising the audience and overlooking the fact that engineering is all about designing out risks and failure. To reach a broader audience, engineering needs to tell better stories with people at the centre. It also needs content that engages with the interests and concerns of a diverse listenership.

Consequently, the podcast will explore different narrative approaches. We will interweave factual interviews with engineers who have great stories to tell, with pieces of fiction that we'll especially commission. For example, what superpower does a particular engineer wish they had to make their job easier, and what engaging fictionalisation could build on that premise? This would allow us to explore in a fun way something that is central to engineering practice: finding ingenious ways to get around limitations.

Two other public-facing activities have been built around the podcast. The first is live recording, which creates opportunities for dialogues with the public, for example over ethical issues in engineering. The second is the development of media-rich resources for careers advice in schools, drawing on the compelling stories of the engineers to inspire the next generation of engineers.

To achieve the above, we have assembled a team of experts in radio, animation, social-media promotion and career/curriculum development. To shape the project and maximise impact, we have a small advisory board who bring expertise in science communication and writing fiction and non-fiction.

Planned Impact

The three public-facing activities are each a primary pathway to impact:
1. The podcasts (and marketing campaign).
2. Live recording events.
3. Career resources for schools with rich media.

These activities will deliver impacts to the following groups:

A) General public:
* Improved knowledge about who engineers are and what they do.
* Improved knowledge about the contribution engineering makes to society.
* Promotion of diversity through showcasing of inclusive role-models.
* Inspire educational influencers and potential engineers about the possibilities that a career in Engineering provides.
* Podcast and animations enrich publics' cultural lives.

B) Project team:
* Principal Investigator: extend communication beyond Acoustical Engineering.
* Co-Investigators, writers and animators: Work across disciplines, broadening and deepening their artistic portfolios to include engineering and exploring new approaches to narrative.

C) Participant Engineers:
* Increased visibility for their professional contribution.
* Improvement to their skills in communicating engineering.
* A route for public discussion around the ethics of their engineering.
* A platform upon which to build further engagement activities.

D) Wider engineering research community:
* Showcasing of cutting-edge engineering.
* Encourage a broader audience to consider Engineering as a career.
* Help address the relative invisibility of Engineering in society and schools.

E) Public engagement practitioners: Knowledge of impact through published evaluation of project activities.

F) Engineering industry
* Help address the shortfall in graduate engineers and technicians.
* Increase business innovation through more diversity in engineering.
* Increase UK competitiveness by encouraging a highly-skilled value-adding career.

G) Creative industries: developing new practice through Inventive Engineering stories.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description Engineering is full of stories. It's about people facing challenges and digging deep to overcome them. Unlike conventional action heroes, however, it is not how far they can jump or climb that saves the day. It's how they apply complex scientific knowledge and practical expertise. Unfortunately, the technical depth that lets engineers achieve what they do, is also a barrier to public appreciation and understanding. The Inventive Podcast used storytelling to overcome this barrier and encourage its audience to dream about Engineering and what they could do. It was a co-creation between engineers, fiction writers and award-winning radio producers. We mixed fact and fiction to create engaging stories but with real engineers at their heart. The project delivered: 1. A series of 12 podcasts with a novel format of mixing fact and fiction. 2. Career resources for schools. 3. Events for the Edinburgh Science Festival and the National Literacy Trust. The impact on the engineers and fiction writers was evaluated in detail and published. The podcast's premise of pairing creative and technical partners was viewed very positively and many hoped there would be more opportunity for this sort of direct collaboration building bridges between arts and science. The evaluation of the career resources is on-going.
First Year Of Impact 2021
Sector Other
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description Article in Classroom Physics 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Article in Classroom Physics (IoP publication) describing the Inventive Podcast and publicising the NUSTEM curriculum materials. Impact from this schools work is sill being undertaken.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://spark.iop.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/Classroom_Physics_March_2022_DIGITAL_0.pdf
 
Description Edinburgh Festival 2021 online evets 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Two online events for Edinburgh Science Festival: Engineers and Writers Mixing Fact and Fiction; and Superstar Engineers - Here We Go! Both featuring extracts from the Inventive Podcast. The first was exploring the way Engineering tells its story and the second aimed at putting across three inspiring and diverse engineers. Both followed by online Q&A. Reach Engineers and Writers Mixing Fact and Fiction: 71. Superstar Engineers - Here We Go!: 92. Awaiting evaluation from Edinburgh to gauge impact.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRuo-0QAvDJxQLKyDYC8og
 
Description Inventive English teaching resources 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact English teaching resources based on the stories and engineers in six of the podcasts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://nustem.uk/inventive/
 
Description Inventive KS2 guided reading activity 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Inventive Guided Reading worksheet
A worksheet which contained biographical information about six of the engineers included in the podcast.
This was aimed at KS2 children and was differentiated for different attainment levels.
The activity was downloaded 190 times from three different teacher resource websites. The total number of pupils who used the resource will be several times larger than this, because it is used with whole classes (10 - 30 pupils) by the teacher who has downloaded it.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://nustem.uk/inventive/
 
Description Inventive Podcast 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Engineering is full of stories. It's about people facing challenges and digging deep to overcome them. Unlike conventional action heroes, however, it is not how far they can jump or climb that saves the day. It's how they apply scientific knowledge and practical expertise. Unfortunately, the technical depth that lets engineers achieve what they do, is also a barrier to public appreciation. The Inventive Podcast will use storytelling to overcome this barrier and encourage listeners to dream about Engineering and what they do.

The challenge we set ourselves is to create a podcast that reaches beyond those already interested in engineering. This is why in Inventive we explore different narrative approaches. We interweave factual interviews with engineers who have great stories to tell, with pieces of fiction that we commission. For example, what superpower does a particular engineer wish they had to make their job easier, and what engaging fictionalisation could build on that premise? This allows us to explore in a fun way something that is central to engineering practice: finding ingenious ways to get around limitations.

Evaluation of the podcast is still being undertaken, hence the "not aware of any impact" at this moment,
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://hub.salford.ac.uk/inventivepodcast/
 
Description Inventive Podcast Media Reach 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Review of Inventive Podcast in New Scientist (circulation 120,000). Difficult to evaluate quality of engagement for this type of article.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133490-300-inventive-podcast-reviewed-packed-with-barrier-b...
 
Description Inventive career posters 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Careers Posters
Each engineer that was featured in the inventive podcast had a poster created which included a memorable quote from the podcast and identified which employability attributes they used as part of their work.
The total number of downloads from three different teacher resources sites was 1780. In addition physical copies of the posters were distributed at the National Literacy Trust Conference following Professor Trevor Cox's talk at the conference.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://nustem.uk/inventive/
 
Description National Literacy Trust Secondary English Teachers Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Attendance at the NLT Secondary English Conference. Four separate activities took place. Trevor Cox gave a keynote speech about his work and inventive. Carol Davenport ran 3 workshops about the Inventive classroom materials, Adam Fowler ran 3 workshops on creating podcasts. There was also a stall where resources were shared with teachers attending. This included copies of the Engineer posters (100 given out).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description STEM School worksheets 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact STEM classroom worksheets.
For each episode of the podcast we created a STEM worksheet which was linked to the National Curriculum in England at KS3. There were 11 worksheets developed in total. The numbers reported are for downloads from three different teacher resource websites - there were a total of 1861 downloads of these resources. The number of pupils that used the worksheets is likely to be greater by about 25 to 30 times because each teacher will work with a class of students with a class size typically between 25 and 30 in mainstream education.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL https://nustem.uk/inventive/