Edinburgh Beltane Training Course for Social Scientists

Dialogue Techniques for Public Engagement

2 day course

Day 1 : Monday 9 May 2011, 9:30am - 5pm

Day 2 : Thursday 12 May 2011, 9:30am - 5pm

Almost by definition, empirical research in the social sciences demands that you engage with wider publics. In addition, social scientists often want to engage in conversations with specific stakeholder or other social groups in order to explore how their findings may be useful in policy or practice, to gain inputs to shaping future research directions, and so on. ‘Dialogue’ offers a powerful approach to communication in all sorts of collaborative interactions including public engagement.

What will the course give you?

This course has been specifically designed for social science researchers. It will:

• Introduce you to the principles and practice of ‘dialogue’
• Address how dialogic approaches may enhance your public engagement efforts
• Give you practice in some of the techniques used to nurture dialogue.
• Build your skills in facilitating dialogue and in designing public engagement activities using dialogic approaches and techniques
• Provide space for you to reflect on your public engagement agendas and practices.

The programme comprises four sessions over two days:

1.      Scene setting: What is dialogue and when is it useful in public engagement?

2.      Facilitations skills: How to nurture dialogue

3.      Choosing specific techniques: What techniques to use for what purposes and groups

4.      Process planning: How to design dialogic public engagement activities

The training approach will give you hands-on experience of practical techniques plus orientation and reflection on dialogic approaches to public engagement.

When and where?

Sessions 1&2: Monday 9 May at David Hume Conference Room, George Square

Sessions 3&4: Thursday 12 May 2011 at Heriot-Watt Post-Graduate Centre, 2.01

Both days: 9:30 to 17:00

Who should attend?

This offering of the course is open to all social science research and teaching staff in the Edinburgh Beltane network. The full 2-day programme is strongly recommended if you plan to conduct any form of public engagement in the near future or if you are already doing public engagement and wish to improve your capability in this direction. If you are simply curious about 'public engagement' and 'dialogue', you are encouraged to take the first day of the programme only, with the option of coming back next year for the second day of the programme. (Since the content of the programme is progressive, participants in the second day must have attended the first.)

Places on both days are limited so do register promptly to avoid disappointment! Those who attend will have the opportunity to apply for funds to run one of two dialogic public engagement events.

We are targeting this offering of the programme at staff doing research in the social sciences in the belief that this will encourage the sharing and diffusion of good practice around public engagement – and so strengthen the wider impact and visibility of social science research.  To this end, we encourage you to attend the course with at least one other person from your research group or subject area, so as to maximise the benefits of the course for your team’s research and, potentially, for that of colleagues in your research community.

Cost:  Free             

Providers:

The course has been developed and will be delivered by Wendy Faulkner, in collaboration with Heather Rea and Oliver Escobar.

Wendy recently retired from the University of Edinburgh where (amongst other things) she was latterly involved in a three year project doing and researching public engagement around stem cell research. She has also herself undergone three relevant training courses: on Stakeholder Dialogue (by Dialogue Matters), on Dialogue Theory and Practice (by Queen Margaret University), and on Planning, Techniques and Communication for Public Participation (by the International Association for Public Participation: IAP2).

Heather is the project manager and network coordinator of the Edinburgh Beltane Beacon for Public Engagement.  Formerly a researcher in Knowledge Management in Manufacturing Engineering, Heather has been involved in public engagement with research activities since 2005. She has also attend two courses on dialogic approaches: IAP2's Planning for Public Participation course and a Dialogue course at Queen Margaret University.

Oliver is the Project Officer of the Public Policy Network and a PhD student in Politics at the University of Edinburgh. He was a researcher on dialogic communication at Queen Margaret University, and has experience in facilitating dialogic processes, particularly in policy contexts. He ran the Dialogue Course at Queen Margaret University as part of his Edinburgh Beltane Public Engagement Fellowship.