Who is behind Ignite Your Mind?

We are three doctoral students in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Bath. Ioannis Costas belongs to the Dept. of Education, Renske Visser forms part of the Dept. of Social & Policy Sciences, and Rhiannon Edwards is in the Dept. of Psychology.

The idea behind Ignite Your Mind is simple: we wanted to organise an event where fellow doctoral students from our faculty could share their research with a non-academic audience. Simultaneously, we wanted to build on the work of previous events by continuing to bridge the gap between academic research and the wider community. In short, we hope Ignite Your Mind enables both the speakers and the audience to learn something new whilst they all enjoy themselves.

For the speakers and audience to enjoy themselves, the presentation format had to be fun. We certainly didn’t want to host hour long lectures! That’s when we thought about the ignite format: 5 minute talks, featuring 20 slides, which auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Having decided the format, we wanted to make the night informal. We needed a place where people naturally go to talk and wind down. A place that is treated like a second home. It had to be the pub. After visiting a few pubs, we chose the Ring O Bells. The cosiness of their function room and the support of the owner, Ash, made it a no brainer.

Though the three of us have invested a lot of our time to organise Ignite Your Mind, we could not have done it without help. The Public Engagement unit at the University of Bath awarded us a small pot of money to fund the event. The advice they offered us has proven to be invaluable, particularly because they pointed us in the direction of Being Human, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities.

Being Human have provided a strong foundation to help us organise and market Ignite Your Mind, yet they have done so in a hands-off way. Being new to managing an event like Ignite Your Mind, their backing gave us a framework to follow. It’s exciting to contribute to a national festival, and hopefully this is not the last time the University of Bath are involved with Being Human!

Ignite Your Mind also received support from the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Bath. They recognised the importance of offering a space for doctoral students to communicate their research to a non-academic audience. With the Graduate School’s backing, Ignite Your Mind should become an annual fixture.

Translating academic research into a clear and concise 5 minute talk is no easy task. It is even harder when you only have 15 seconds per slide! To help our speakers with this challenge, they will work with Ed Drewitt. His expertise in presenting is bound to enhance the quality of the talks on the night.

Now that you know who we are, and how Ignite Your Mind was put together, we hope you are interested in coming along! We’re sure you’ll take some ‘pub ammunition’ away with you – interesting facts and knowledge you can call upon during future pub visits.

To register (for free!), follow this link: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ignite-your-mind-research-at-the-pub-tickets-18736705992