IMSR recently hosted it’s Away Day off campus with the vast majority of staff and students linked to IMSR attending and many giving presentations about their research and roles. This highlighted just how diverse and exciting the research within the institute is.
Also invited to present was IMSR’s Community and Public Engagement Manager, Caroline Gillett, who gave an overview of some of her work as well as events coordinated by the IMSR Community Action Team (CAT) over the past year including:
- Webinars – our public talks and discussions open to anyone, such as our PCOS & Pill event for International Women’s Day and our Pregnancy in Covid expert panels and Q&As
- Festivals – including our representation at CoCoMad Festival and the Mela Festival where we ran several family friendly activities linked to our research
- Schools – our exciting research-inspired outreach activities involving teachers and young people studying in areas of our city that often have high rates of social and economic deprivation
- Awareness Raising – events such as talks and seizure first-aid training for epilepsy awareness ‘Purple Day’ and patient and families days for Cushing’s Disease Awareness
- Exhibitions – SMQB’s recent art and science exhibition Lore + (Dis)order hosted off-campus in Digbeth’s cultural quarter
- Lived Experience Voices – such as SMQB’s AMIGO Allies in Advocacy 2-day collaboration workshop and PPIE activities, GLOW Conference’s PPIE workshop session and the Dame Hilda Lloyd Network’s launch event that featured a panel of lived experience voices
Most of all the talk was an opportunity to thank all the researchers and staff who have helped support, coordinate and deliver these activities, including CAT but far beyond this too. IMSR Leadership were pleased to issue certificates of gratitude out to all those involved in delivering our annual We Are IMSR activities, this year at CoCoMad. This was a multi-team effort from across all our research themes, so well done all involved.
CAT are looking to recruit new IMSR members too… so watch this space for some fresh faces next year!