Between 15-18 July 2024, members of the LBO team took part in the ‘Best Practice in Engagement and Culture’ symposium, organised by the Wellcome Trust, which took place in the Watershed Arts Centre in Bristol. The event brought together the eight Wellcome-funded RDA projects (from Malaysia, South Africa, Finland, and the UK) to discuss and share the work they had undertaken over the course of the awards; the projects focus on bioethics networks, human reproduction, natality and kinship, disability and community research, the ethics of new and emerging technologies, and human-microbial relations. Facilitated by Studio Susegard the symposium also included staff from the Wellcome Trust’s Research Environment team.
Dan O’Connor, Wellcome’s Head of Research Environment, and Jack Harrington, formerly at Wellcome and now Head of Research Partnerships at Chatham House, gave a keynote discussion outlining the origins of the RDA scheme, especially its commitment to openness, exploration and the idea of doing research differently. Across the four days, the attendees gave poster presentations and exchanged experiences across sessions that focused on a variety of topics, including: achievements and challenges, Open Research, global perspectives in research, decentralised organisation, storytelling, social responsibility and nurturing innovation.
The LBO team ran a session on our ways of working and defining values in research, showcasing our methods in developing these, and using the Blueberry Academy and Bhopal Medical Appeal residencies as examples of our values and ways of working in action.
Overall, the opportunity to see how other research teams have interpreted the invitation of the RDA scheme was enjoyable, enlightening and productive. Being able to speak about LBO to a community that shares our commitment to innovative research and having the chance to feed back our experience to Wellcome made for a memorable event.