First broadcast on the 25th June 2012 I recorded a so-called ‘Predictor Podcast’ for the IdeasLab at the University of Birmingham, which can be found here: http://www.ideaslab.bham.ac.uk/ideaslab_podcast_page_3.htm (about half way down currently) and is also available through iTunes and AudioBoo. As a final year PhD student at the time, I found the process extremely rewarding. I highly recommend anyone in research to undertake something similar as a means of practicising how to communicate your work to a wider and potentially non-scientific audience. Here is the blurb about the project from the Ideas Lab website

‘Audiences in Britain and beyond have an appetite for documentaries and factual series rooted in the very latest research and produced in collaboration with world-class experts. Meanwhile funding bodies are realising the importance of disseminating knowledge gathered through research using public money.

Ideas Lab is an innovative new project funded through the Higher Education Innovation Fund. We help TV, radio and multimedia producers find and use the latest research, facilities and expertise in their programmes and web sites. And we provide academics with the contacts and know-how they need to reach audiences with the fruits of their research.’

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity, as a consequence I now have firm links with the Birmingham Thinktank which has opened up a valuable window for public engagement activities.