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Hello David,

Am 11.12.2010 08:41, schrieb David Waldock:
> There's a series of case studies within the context of health
> research available from
> http://www.invo.org.uk/pdfs/Involve_Exploring_Impactfinal28.10.09.pdf
> which I think meet that criteria.

Thank you, that is interesting and useful. It would be great to get more 
examples from other fields too.

These case studies are all medical and mostly fit the general pattern 
"some medical problem is being investigated, and people affected by it 
influenced research in a way that the results were more meaningful for 
their personal situation".

While this is certainly positive, it is also a very special case in 
science. The kinds of medical research described here have, by their 
very nature, a clear and immediate direct impact on clearly defined 
groups. Also, medicine generally works directly with people, so it isn't 
clear in all these case studies how much of it is a specific science 
engagement activity, and how much is (should be) just part of a doctor's 
job anyway: talking to their patients.

A similar situation would be in engineering, where the design of some 
product - a new mobile phone, for example - is influenced by focus 
groups of users etc. That's quite standard, but would that count as 
public engagement? I would assume that most of us are thinking of 
something different when we think of public engagement.

It would be interesting to have case studies from other fields, where 
there isn't such a direct link between population group and research, 
for example particle physics, astronomy or mathematics. Any examples 
where involvement of the public has shaped research projects in astronomy?

In biological research, I know a number of cases where ecological 
research projects rely on local knowledge in the population of some area 
to find interesting field sites and get ideas for particular ecological 
connections within that area.

Cheers
Stephan

-- 
Stephan Matthiesen
http://www.stephan-matthiesen.de
Neu auf www.science-texts.de: Abgegrast - Muster 12/2010

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