This film is one of the outcomes of the project Research in Translation: Public Engagement through Exhibition Displays. But what was Research in Translation exactly? What were its aims? It was a collaborative international effort, which saw the School of Museum Studies (University of Leicester), UCL Qatar (University College London), the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (University of Birmingham), Birmingham Museums, and two design consultancies, Land Design Studio and Metaphor, join forces to share expertise and skills in the field of creative exhibition-making and knowledge translation.
The project provided an exciting opportunity for 12 Early Career Researchers (ECRs) representing 7 UK universities and a variety of disciplines across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, to develop the skills and confidence to ‘translate’ their research into a collaborative exhibition that sought to engage their scholarly research with a wider and more diverse audience.
In an effort to question rigid disciplinary boundaries and favour fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations, participants collaborated with a number of museum researchers, practitioners and design professionals. They were invited and supported to take risks and think creatively about how to communicate their scholarly research to a wider, non-specialised audience, and move beyond disseminating their work within their own specialised academic communities.
The main result of this pioneering collaboration is the exhibition Research in Translation, on display in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester until February 2016. ‘Research in Translation’ was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)’s Collaborative Skills Development call, Early Career Researcher (ECR)-led strand, 2013.The exhibition and the overall project were led and curated by Dr Ceri Jones, University of Leicester (cj36@leicester.ac.uk; @CeriatLeicester), and Dr Serena Iervolino, UCL Qatar, Doha (s.iervolino@ucl.ac.uk; @SerenaIervolino).
This film was produced by Mutual Shoots and was funded by UCL Qatar (University College London). Its aim is to provide some insights on the project, its rationale, its leaders’ goals and ambitions, and the experience of the 12 participants. We hope it will be of interest and inspire anyone interested in public engagement, knowledge dissemination and, more broadly, in transforming the ‘Ivory Tower’.
Here is a short Exhibition Guide for those of you who will not be able to see the exhibition in Leicester.
Research in Translation 