Funder: Wellcome Trust

I’m a Scientist is proud to be funded through a Society Award from the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest charity. Wellcome are dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. They support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities.

Wellcome’s public engagement grants are intended to promote interest, excitement and debate around science and society. So, of course, they fund our fantastic event, which does all three so superlatively! (Of course, I’m sure that all the other projects they fund are very good too).

Partner: National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE)

The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement [NCCPE] is part of the Beacons for Public Engagement project. Their role is to inspire a culture change in how universities engage with the public. They work with all the beacons to promote best practice in public engagement and provide a single point of contact for the whole higher education sector. They also work strategically with their key national partners to help develop work across the sector.

The NCCPE is keen to explore ways to get more scientists engaging with the public, developing their skills and seeing the value of Public Engagement. This is why they have partnered us, as they think we are a great way for scientists to dip their toes in the water and then start swimming! The London (UCL) and Wales (Cardiff) beacons in particular are working with us to recruit scientists. We have also been working closely with Sophie Duncan, Deputy Director of the NCCPE in shaping the project, particularly the evaluation and dissemination.

Supporter: National Science Learning Centres

The aim of the national network of Science Learning Centres is to promote excellent science teaching by reconnecting teachers with the frontiers of their subject and the latest techniques for teaching it. The National Science Learning Centre is the co-ordinating centre for this activity and is rapidly becoming the focus for all science education activity in the UK.

They believe that I’m a Scientist is an innovative and effective teaching tool which inspires and enthuses young people about science, develops their scientific literacy and ability to debate and discuss science issues.

Web Builder: Zed1.com

Mike Little of zed1.com did an amazing job building our new site. It’s an incredibly complex site ‘doing things with Wordpress that no-one has ever done before’. And Mike has never quailed. Or if he did, he didn’t show it. And he also made us laugh with his dummy text about Darth Vader.

Designer: Dot Design

Our creative guru has been designer Gareth Coxon, of Dot Design. Gareth has been our designer on the I’m a Scientist project since the beginnning and has designed everything from the logos and branding for the entire project, to the individual pages on the website. Also, he never complained, however contradictory, confusing, or downright stupid our briefs were.

Information Architecture  and Website Accessibility:  Communis

Communis are information architecture and website accessibility consultants. They brought this expertise to the project, working with us to design the information and transactional architecture to provide as rich and intuitive a user experience as possible. They brought clarity of thought and a ‘user’s eye view’ to designing the architecture of the site.