Making Connections: You create impact together, by Maaike Muller

You can only create impact by working together. This has been the firm standpoint of the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health (AJSPH) since the very start. Policy-makers, insurers, healthcare professionals, students, researchers; they all work together with the aim of creating more healthy years and fewer health inequalities. Shortly after AJSPH started, I was given the task of involving the general public in our work. I do this now in my role as Public Engagement programme manager at AJSPH and co-lead of the Public Engagement pillar of the UG’s Open Science Programme.

We started by making places where people could meet: in community centres, the Kardinge sports centre, the Floriade, and on the market. Every year, together with four Schools, we organize the European Researchers’ Night, a science festival in Forum Groningen for researchers and other interested Groningen locals. We have also launched a citizen science project called CurioUs with three enthusiasts from Science LinX, Forum Groningen, and AJSPH. Biblionet Groningen has now joined our ranks and we’re heading for our eighth ‘Meet-o-theek’ (measuring instrument lending library) in and around the city of Groningen. Residents can borrow measuring instruments, including to measure blood pressure, air quality, and noise. Or they help with citizen scientist research into heat stress, for example, soil quality, or microplastics in clothing.

Connections with other ‘public engagement professionals’ are enormously valuable when making connections with the general public. The UG runs several initiatives designed to bring the public into contact with science. Within the Open Science programme, the Public Engagement Team has built up a lively community in which we exchange knowledge and expertise, and work hard to generate the support, recognition, and appreciation needed for researchers trying to reach out to the public. We are doing this through an incentive fund, a toolkit, and by setting up a citizen science hub with NHL Stenden UAS and Hanze UAS.

Researchers often claim that listening to non-academic northerners enhances their research and helps to create the social impact currently required by so many grant providers. But all too frequently, it is something they do ‘on the side’, on their days off. This despite the fact that the cuts we are currently facing makes it even more important to invest in connections with the public. Knowing how science works and recognizing its worth will give people more reason to lend support. Perhaps with a banner on the Grote Markt, or — preferably — in the voting booth.