GREC one of nine projects to receive funding from Research Data Scotland’s Public Engagement Fund

GREC one of nine projects to receive funding from Research Data Scotland’s Public Engagement Fund

GREC’s “How Fair is North East Scotland?” project is one of nine projects to receive funding from Research Data Scotland (RDS) to support public engagement in data research.

Receiving £4551, the project will include a series of workshops with minority ethnic community groups in Aberdeen, where we will share our current approach to developing an evidence-based approach (see our existing resource here); facilitate discussions with participants around attitudes to data research generally and the implications of this for policy making; and explore how communities can be actively involved in further building an evidence base around inequalities in North East Scotland.  We are also keen to explore how lived experience can effectively sit alongside research data to inform the work of policy makers. 

The funding comes from RDS’s Public Engagement Fund, which supports projects in Scotland that engage with people on data research, empowering them to discover how their data is used and to have a voice in data science.

Announced in January 2023, the Public Engagement fund aims to:

  • Promote the public understanding of data research in Scotland
  • Provide balanced information on data research
  • Widen participation by involving and engaging members of the public who may not usually interact with science to take an interest and have a voice in data science
  • Achieve clear and measurable impact

Katie Oldfield, RDS Public Engagement Manager, said: “We were delighted with the response to our Public Engagement Fund and are excited to be funding these nine projects. Innovative public engagement is key to empowering the public to have a voice in how their data is used, and each of these projects will reach audiences across Scotland and engage the public in varied and creative ways.”

“After we initially announced £40,000 of available funding, we were overwhelmed with high quality applications and were pleased to be able to increase the total funding to just over £56,000. We received over 30 applications from organisations across Scotland and wish to thank everyone who applied to the fund.”

Other recipients of RDS’s Public Engagement Fund include:

CodeClan: Demystifying Data

Codeclan is an Edinburgh-based digital skills academy on a mission to help bridge the digital skills gap. They receive funding of £7,500 to create a free self-directed learning course on the topic of demystifying data, including videos, quizzes, discussion forums and mini-projects.

People Know How: Digital Citizen Research Project

People Know How, a Scottish social innovation charity, aim to widen participation in data science by carrying out engagement activities with underrepresented communities. They receive funding of £5,390 to engage participants from high Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) areas of Edinburgh to take part in training in the use of data in research.

University of Dundee: Drug Harm Prevention Research

The project will receive funding of £9,997 to carry out focus groups with people who use drugs to explore perceptions of the use of administrative data in research. Follow-up workshops will be carried out to produce a stop-motion animation and resources to be shared through the wider community.