Public Engagement describes the ways in which higher education and research can be shared with the public. It is a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit. In this blog category, you will find out about the different ways in which the Faculty engages with the public through events, projects and training opportunities.

The John Rylands Library was the backdrop for the fifth annual Irene Manton Lecture, hosted in partnership with the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health and The Linnean Society of London. The lecture celebrates the significant contribution made by women to the Natural Sciences and is named after British botanist Irene Manton who, as well as being the first female president of The Linnean Society, studied for her PhD at The University of Manchester.

This year’s guest speaker was Jan Bradley, Professor of Parasitology from the University of Nottingham, who delivered her lecture entitled ‘From Man to Mouse’ in the historic setting of the library’s reading room.

Jan’s presentation featured highlights and lessons learnt from her field work and research into the parasites of humans and of mice. She discussed her passion for pursuing further knowledge in how our modern environment could be shaping our immunity to parasites and hoped that her talk would inspire the next generation of scientists to “be resilient and never give up.”

The evening was a huge success with a varied audience of 100 attendees, including Linnean Society members, University colleagues, sixth form students from local schools and members of the public. It was particularly pleasing to see so many local students, as the lecture aims to inspire and inform those interested in a career in the Natural Sciences. Feedback from the event was very positive and attendees described the evening as “informative”, “inspirational” and “interesting”.

Professor Mahesh Nirmalan, Faculty Vice Dean for Social Responsibility and Public Engagement commented “For the last five years, we have hosted the Irene Manton Lecture to commemorate particularly the role that women have played in contributing to the development of natural sciences. The content is always stimulating, and the highlight is the number of young people and school children who attend, take part and are fascinated by the science that is being presented to them which is evident by the intelligent questions they ask.”

The Faculty plans to continue holding the annual Irene Manton lecture as part of its Social Responsibility and Public Engagement programme which contributes to the Faculty’s Social Responsibility strategic goal. We are already looking forward to next year! If you are interested in attending the lecture and would like to be contacted when the booking is open for the 2020 event please contact srbmh@manchester.ac.uk.

To read about our 2018, 2017, 2016 events, please click the links.

For more information about other PPIE events, training and funding opportunities, you can sign up to our monthly digest, visit our website, follow us on twitter or email srbmh@manchester.ac.uk. For further PPIE resources, visit the Faculty’s PPIE Toolkit.

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