Written by Dr Sharon Watson, Research and Innovation Development and Support Officer at Birmingham City University.
I never win competitions! So, imagine how lucky I felt to win an Advocate ticket to attend the PraxisAuril Conference. What a great opportunity, and one that I think will be pivotal in directing my future ambitions.
I work in the Research and Innovation Gateway team at Birmingham City University, supporting grant-funding applications. Over the last year I have worked alongside colleagues in Business Development Management and Commercialisation to help improve the support we offer to AHSS research-led commercialisation. A large part of this involves supporting equitable collaborations between researchers and external organisations. To increase my skills and knowledge, I signed up to attend the new Community of Practice for Arts, Humanities and Social Science Commercialisation/Social Venture Building webinars which were coordinated by Arnie King - participating in these has been an invaluable development opportunity for me…and provided the unexpected bonus of being eligible to apply for an Advocate ticket.
What I loved about the conference was the chance to meet people working in all kinds of knowledge exchange and research translation roles, and how open and friendly the community felt. The conference attracted an energetic, engaged audience and I learnt much from the questions to presenters as the presentations/workshops themselves.
I was especially looking forward to having conversations about the importance of SHAPE disciplines to knowledge exchange, to inspire and inform closer collaboration between our academics and BCU STEAMhouse, our flagship centre for multi-disciplinary innovation. I attended three of the sessions in the SHAPE pathway, ‘How we took Social Sciences to market’, ‘Commercialisation for sustainable impact: SHAPE perspectives and tools’ and ‘The Meaningful Metrics of KE in Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities: Purpose, Contextuality, Causality, Robustness and Transparency’. All three provided plenty to dig into following the conference. I was only tempted away from the SHAPE pathway to see ‘Igniting transdisciplinary projects and new initiatives’ which was a really enjoyable, interactive session. One key takeaway has been deepening my understanding the role language plays framing knowledge exchange activity, and what works for AHSS researchers.
I feel I have developed professionally by attending the conference. I’m at an early stage in building my knowledge exchange practice but listening and speaking to others at the conference I’ve learnt that I want to be part of this dynamic community. The outward looking focus of knowledge exchange is inspiring and important. It brings about valuable connections between university research and non-academic partners. I look forward to learning more.
Dr Sharon Watson
Research and Innovation Development and Support Officer at Birmingham City University