Beltane on the Big Screen
Some of you may have seen some familiar faces on the Big Screen in Festival Square recently!
The BBC Big Screen is a unique opportunity to reach a whole spectrum of the public. We want to let people know that the culture change is happening, and that there has never been a better time to engage with the big research ideas developed in their community.
The video shows a cross-section of the Edinburgh Beltane partnership, and reveals a sample of our researchers who are happy for the public to get involved and ask questions. We think this will go some way to breaking down the “ivory tower’ image of higher education, and help people realise that universities are accessible, socially-relevant institutions.
Haven’t seen the real thing? Here’s a link to the video on YouTube!
Who’s who
| Bob Forsyth, Facilitator for the Scottish Youth Commission on Alcohol | Bob encourages people to engage and understand policy issues, in order to make informed and intelligent recommendations to policy makers |
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Duncan Shingleton, PhD Student, Edinburgh College of Art |
Duncan talks about the benefits of getting involved with cutting edge research, such as ECA’s work with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and electronic tagging, to take advantage of new technology and shape its future use |
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Professor John McClatchey, Environmental Research Institute (UHI Millennium Institute), Thurso |
John relates the enormous worldwide concept of climate change research to our very recent and very local white winter! |
| Dr. Stuart Lynne, Royal Observatory Edinburgh | Stuart is letting people know that the very biggest questions about the final frontier are being investigated in the heart of the Scottish capital! |
| Professor Antonella Sorace, University of Edinburgh, Bilingualism Matters |
Bilingualism Matters service is designed to help parents, teachers and policy makers understand there are life-long benefits of teaching children two languages and quash the common misconceptions surrounding the subject. |
| British Sign Language signer, EdSign34 (researcher collaboration: Heriot-Watt University; Queen Margaret University; The University of Edinburgh) | This group works to ensure that the deaf and hearing community can work together and hearing impairment is not a barrier to debating and engaging with policy issues. |
| Rosalyn Marshall, Vice Principal, Queen Margaret University |
Rosalyn demonstrates how many modern universities now have spaces, facilities and, in the case of QMU, whole campuses designed specifically for the local community to use. |
| Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, Edinburgh Napier University | Dan’s work on timber engineering is bought to live at the Botanic Gardens. Public facing Beltane partners are great places for showcasing science and engineering, and helping people relate it to the world around them. |
| Professor Mary Bownes, Vice Principal, The University of Edinburgh | Bringing it all together, Mary highlights the vast scale of new ideas coming out of Scottish universities and encourages input from people in all walks of life. |
