Outer edge of science

IF Oxford develops long-term cultural projects for diverse audiences to explore complexity, wonder and learning opportunities across arts and science. Its projects create meaningful engagement to build science, social and cultural capital across its stakeholders (ie. audiences, scientists and local organisations) leading to a science and ideas Festival in October.

This proposal builds on a previous award (not an extension) as it represents a second attempt at delivering a project significantly modified during the Covid pandemic.

We anticipate activities in 2022 to be a hybrid of face-to-face and digital events and will be flexible as we adapt to the ongoing Covid situation.

IF Oxford operates across Oxford, with a significant strand of activity in south-east Oxford that has the highest 20% Indices of Multiple Depravation (IMD). Activities will connect adults, families and young people with researchers in creative ways, with a focus on people who believe "science is not for me" and helps them rethink their views while developing enjoyable skills.

We will co-create and co-develop a collection of community projects to positively shift self-identity towards fundamental and applied scientific research, highlight STEM stories and role models, and help people explore futures in science inspired by STFC-related research and innovation.

Building on the success of Glow Your Own, a creative coding project which captured the imagination of local audiences and STEM organisations, new work would incorporate mobile robotics and remote control (building and coding from scratch) devices to stimulate conversations about careers and professional uses of coding, automation and remote operation technologies.

Projects like this offer opportunities to explore STFC science, eg:

- Robotic Space Exploration and potential to design, build and test rovers and drones at RAL Space or the Boulby Underground Laboratory for planetary exploration;
- Remote handling at ISIS, building and using robotic arms to manipulate the ISIS target;
- Coding to control a virtual or prototype hexapod to align and position a target for laser experiments.

We will empower and equip people to present their coding and robotics projects to public audiences as part of the Festival alongside researchers, helping better engagement across new audiences. For example, the youngest IF Oxford presenters are five years old (Poetry of Science project for ages 5-16) and young people could present their robotics projects, or create and share entirely new activities that interest them.

Building on past successes, IF Oxford plans to deliver 80 live activities in October 2022, working with 35 academic teams, 30 industry groups and 70 teams representing local charities, communities or individuals. Some events come from long-term projects which have aims are to:

- create engagement opportunities for people underrepresented in science;
- generate activities for new audiences by helping these people and scientists conceive and develop activities together;
- encourage a broader demographic to value how science knowledge and culture is created, and is relevant to them and others in their community;
- encourage Festival 'audience' members to become 'contributors', building confidence and skills;
- create pathways for underrepresented people to join local, regional and inter/national science and cultural organisations; and
- rebalance the power structures in culture, careers and society.

The activities in areas of high IMD and low science capital will include:
- BLAST, Blackbird Leys Astronomy, Science and Technology day at Leys Community Centre (400 people)
- Science at the Shops at Templars Square shopping centre (260 people)
- Glow Your Own online (x6) and in-person coding workshops and digital interactive artwork in Leys (200 + 6 x 60 people)

We produce 30,000 printed copies of the IF Oxford magazine and will post news items and press releases / blogs about how special community events are co-created. Past Festivals have reached over 1m social media accounts and created 35,000 authentic engagements with STEM topics, which we intend to emulate in 2022 and beyond.

Public resources, online videos and documentation will be downloadable for free, eg. lesson guides and recordings for all six sessions that formed part of IF Oxford 2021 are available now: https://if-oxford.com/events/?_search=glow%20weekly.

A companion project to Glow Your Own demonstrated a larger-scale coding and crafting example, forming part of the Oxford 2021 Lights Festival. A short video of the 2021 Glow Your Own installation, Circuit of Life, shows an example of controlling LEDs with Arduinos in a neighbourhood community setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaNG7KV5y0&feature=youtu.be. Outputs from this were communicated across Oxford City Council, with interest in IF Oxford supporting a more permanent of the temporary Glow Your Own lights installation, co-designed with youth in future projects (such as this one.)

We produce an annual report highlighting outputs and outcomes of IF Oxford, which is available to anyone via www.if-oxford.com - the most recent included within this proposal.

We will present findings at the UK Science Festival Network Conference and at British Interactive Group (BIG) meetings, the NCCPE Engage conference, or at locally / nationally / internationally organised conferences. We will share project developments and findings at our regular planning meetings in Oxford for subsequent science festivals. We will be happy to respond positively to requests to share learning with any other organisation that is interested in developing a comparable initiative.