What is Public Engagement?

“Public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public.

Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit.”

How we engage

Our activities are designed to encourage the next generation of plant scientists, engage the public with our research and inspire a love of plants in everyone. From family-friendly festivals to school visits, behind-the-scenes tours to citizen science projects, there’s something for all ages.

Families

Our family activities are designed to help children to explore nature and to learn about plants, whether that’s at home, in their local park or at our Botanic Garden. Whilst our festivals provide fun for the all the family, with craft activities, food stalls and live music.

Schools

We offer a wide range of public engagement activities for school groups, including learning visits to our Botanic Garden, hands-on classroom activities and app-based tasks pupils can do at home. In addition to these, we also have learning resources for teachers and parents.

Post 16 and higher education

Tailored for sixth form and university students, our post 16 and higher education workshops and resources are designed to help students develop their lab and study skills. Whilst our talks programme introduces students to topics such as food security and sustainable agriculture.

Adults

We offer a wide range of activities, including behind-the-scenes tours, festivals, arts and crafts activities and talks by world-leading researchers on the most pressing issues of our day. In addition to this, our Herbarium has a number of citizen science projects to get involved with.

Previous events

Plant Defence Outreach

Rucha Karnik and her lab have been awarded the Royal Society Public Engagement Fund 2019 for this project.

The project will be developed in collaboration with Dr Abhijit Karnik, Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Lancaster and Dr Mathis Riehle, Cell Engineer and Doodle artist, University of Glasgow. Find out more.

If you are interested to volunteer to participate in these activities this summer, contact Dr Karnik.

Botanical Gardens Bicentenary Event

Karnik lab displayed ‘acid growth and cell expansion’ through a fun activity with water beads mixed with a bit of jewellery making fun at the Botanical Gardens Bicentenary event in Glasgow on 20th May 2017.

Glimpses into the Minds

Book concept, design and editing for Plant Scientists ‘Glimpses into the Minds’, a unique book with doodle art from Dr Mathis Riehle showcasing research interests of the Plant Science Group.

Café Scientifique event at the Royal Society

The Royal Society held a Café Scientifique event at London which promoted importance of research in plant science. Dr Rucha Karnik, was the invited speaker at this event. Plants represent an astounding diversity amongst eukaryotes. Rucha’s talk highlighted the how research to unravel the mechanisms underlying plant growth and responses of the plants to their environment define the complex networks of molecular interactions. All this scientific knowledge feeds into research for creating more efficient and resilient food crops. The event was open to all members of the public and included an informal question and answer session.