I joined Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) as Public Engagement and Communications Manager back in May. This makes it almost 6 months since I was tasked with continuing the team’s efforts of exploring how science festivals could help us to engage different audiences with health data research across the UK’s four nations.

Hitting the ground running was something I’d been expecting – in fact in my interview I’d been tasked with coming up with an event plan for Orkney International Science Festival in September. Having been out of the science festival scene for the last 2 years (I’d worked on the British Science Festival before that), I was excited to get stuck back into the highs (and, yes, even the lows) of in-person public engagement events.

By the time I joined, the team had already attended Humber Science Festival and Northern Ireland Science Festival. My role was to keep momentum going and develop relevant content for the upcoming festival in Orkney and identify an appropriate festival in Wales for us to attend – which ended up being Broadlands Fun Day, a lovely community festival based in Bridgend.

Northern Ireland Science Festival in Belfast was the second festival HDR UK attended, involving local researchers from Queens University Belfast and public contributors as well as HDR UK colleagues

Making health data accessible (and sparkle)

Thanks to my predecessor, Rachel Edwards (who is now involved in some great public engagement work over at Research Data Scotland), our Public Advisory Board and HDR UK Voices contributors, table-top activities had already been developed to make health data research more accessible for family audiences.

The beauty of these activities is that they can really be adapted to any kind of data science engagement and research and are cheap and easy to run. We will eventually make these activities readily available for anyone to adapt and use, but in the meantime, get in touch if you’d like to find out more about them:

Speed lego data sorting: Participants have to race against the clock to sort lego pieces that represent different data points. This activity aims to show how data is de-identified, sorted, and analysed in a 3-step game, by highlighting, on a small scale, what researchers do with millions of individual data points on a daily basis.

Hook-a-data-duck: Participants are invited to hook 5 ducks to identify the data they will use for their research. If they hook a duck with ‘duplicate’ data, they win a prize. They’re then asked to think about what experiment they would do with the data they’re given. This activity helps to start conversations about how researchers decide which data they are going to use for research in the real-world.

What does health data look like?: Audiences cut, stick or draw what they think health data looks like. People’s drawings are collected and displayed throughout the event. While simple, this served as a good opportunity to spark conversations around the issues of trust and health data – plus who doesn’t love the opportunity to get creative!

Audiences try their luck at hook-a-data-duck and lego data sorting at Broadlands Fun Day guided by (from left to right) DARE UK Communications and Engagement Manager Westley Igbo, HDR UK PPIE Officer Tara Dowd and Public Advisory Board member Munisa Hashimi. Not pictured are HDR UK Wales researcher Rachel Davies build a dragon crafts which engaged audiences with the Born in Wales research project.

In addition to the activities, we made sparkly stickers to giveaway with “My voice matters” on them which, while simple, was a joyful way to celebrate the role the public can play shaping health data science. In Bridgend, we also translated these into Welsh, as well as our banners, which was appreciated by the local audience.

Who doesn’t love a glittery sticker? Our stickers served as a conversation starter about the role of the public in shaping health data research. They were so popular that we will continue using them at future events.

Trying different approaches

In Orkney and Bridgend, we trialed a few new things: An ‘in-conversation’ style event, aimed at an adult audience, at Orkney Theatre with former HDR UK Chief Scientist, Professor Cathie Sudlow and public contributor Chris Monk, and introducing some new audience evaluation questions to understand more about who we were reaching through our activities.

I (right on stage) was fortunate to chair our ‘in conversation’ with Professor Cathie Sudlow (left on stage) and public contributor Chris Monk (middle on stage) on the role of integrity, transparency and public trust in using health data in research at the Orkney International Science Festival. We had lots of thoughtful questions from the audience

New evaluation additions included using the British Science Association’s audience model to understand more about people’s levels of engagement with science generally, asking questions about awareness and trust of health data research and some demographic questions.

To my delight, “Fun” was the word that was most used by audiences to describe our table-top activities which goes to show that while health data topics can be serious, they don’t always need to be dry.

A team effort

At all festivals we’ve attended, HDR UK colleagues, public contributors, local researchers and regional HDR UK hubs (like HDR UK Scotland and Wales) have supported the activities. As with any public engagement programme, this pilot has been a true team effort and I am so grateful to everyone – past and present – for the role they had to play, including the festival organisers themselves.

(from left to right) HDR UK PPIE Manager Amy Hodgkinson, DARE UK Communications and Engagement Manager Westley Igbo, public contributor Nicola Monk and PPIE Manager Ester Bellavia ready to speak with audiences at the Orkney International Science Festival Family Day.

On the horizon

HDR UK started the pilot science festival journey back in 2023 to cover a science festival in all four UK nations to reach new audiences, develop activities that made health data research accessible and involve public contributors and regional researchers in the process. I can safely say that this has been achieved! While I didn’t start this journey, I am glad I was able to be there to see it through.

With this chapter drawing to a close, the PPIE team will use the learnings from this programme as we embark on our soon to be published 2024-2028 PPIE strategy. I feel lucky to have been able to contribute to the development of this strategy in my short time here and am excited about the possibilities there are to make health data research accessible, equitable, trustworthy and, dare I say, fun?

If you’re interested in finding out more about our public engagement plans, I’m always up for a chat – just reach out at anna.woolman@hdruk.ac.uk. You can also contact the wider PPIE team at involvement@hdruk.ac.uk.

Finally, do check out the Public Engagement in Data Research Initiative (PEDRI), a network HDR UK coordinate for anyone interested in any aspect of public engagement with data. There’s a new website (and branding) coming soon.