Grants awarded: People Awards

Project summaries of Wellcome grants awarded under the scheme ‘People Awards’. People Awards have been replaced by the Public Engagement Fund.

Previously, People Awards supported public engagement projects that encouraged the public to consider and debate issues raised by health and wellbeing research. 

2015-16 

During the financial year 2015-16, the People Awards received 251 applications. 41 of those applications were funded, giving an overall funding rate of 16% that year.

Ngunan Adamu

Independent

Exploring women’s health using radio as a tool

£15,055

Using radio as a storytelling tool, the women involved in this project will explore different forms of mental health among black and minority ethnic (BME) women. This will include the possible causes of and treatments for mental health problems, the stigma surrounding mental health and the effects of medication.

Ashtar Al Khirsan

Resource Productions

Abdullah and Leilah

£40,000

Our film aims to give the family, friends and carers of people who have dementia, and who speak English as their second language (ESL), an insight into the science behind the condition.

Abdullah and Leilah tells the story of an elderly Iraqi man who has lived in England for many years, but who finds himself living in a care home after being diagnosed with dementia. Abdullah’s memory of English, a language he has spoken for 50 years, has disappeared, and he has reverted to speaking his first language, Arabic. This is common among those with ESL and dementia. Abdullah’s loss of English leaves him isolated from his daughter, the other care home residents and the carers who look after him.

Sarah Allan

The Involve Foundation

MH:2K – a youth-led approach to exploring mental health 

£38,661

MH:2K aims to help tackle some of the issues surrounding young people’s mental health. The project will empower young people to identify the mental health issues that they see as most important and to engage their peers in discussing and exploring these topics. The findings will be shared with key decision-makers and researchers.

Bobby Baker

Daily Life Ltd

Roving Diagnostic Unit

£36,776

Daily Life Ltd are developing and testing the Roving Diagnostic Unit, which aims to trigger and cultivate public interest, fascination and debate around mental health, its diagnosis and its treatment.

Through the project, people with experience of mental distress will co-produce participatory adventures to 'diagnose' local cultural centres.

Imre Bard

Hack the Senses!

£39,230

Hack the Senses! involves a series of inspiring talks and workshops, followed by a weekend hackathon to explore how we can broaden our perceptual universe. We will bring together people from a variety of backgrounds and provide them with the space, facilities and tools to prototype new ideas that enhance, expand and augment the senses. 

Iain Barr

University of York

Science is for Parents Too: making a national impact

£39,310

Science is for Parents Too aims to engage parents with the Key Stage 2 and 3 curricula. This final addition to the initiative offers an insight into the newly-revised science GCSE. 

Seeking to make science education a topic for everyday dinner table conversation, the project informs parents about the wide array of study and career options available, and develops children’s aspirations in the process. The project also lays the foundation for wider national roll-out.

Berry Billingsley

University of Reading

Evolution on Rural Tour

£19,983

The Evolution on Rural Tour aims to transform biology education in rural primary schools.

The Evolution Bus will tour rural primary schools, providing targeted professional development for teachers and exciting learning experiences for students. Throughout the project, research-based evaluation will be shared with stakeholders and used to guide planning and approaches.

Kathrin Böhm

Company Drinks CIC

Molecular Fizz: biochemistry in a bottle 

£33,030

Molecular Fizz is an interdisciplinary and participatory action-research and drinks-nutrition project. It empowers young people to be fully involved in the whole lifecycle of the drinks production chain, from understanding nutritional elements and developing recipes, to manufacturing processes and branding.

The 14-month pilot phase takes place across schools, training colleges and youth clubs in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It is linked to the ongoing Company Drinks project.

Will Bourdillon

Conker Theatre

Gutted 

£5,000

Gutted is a theatre production that offers a shared physical space for people to reflect on the impact chronic illness can have on the lives of sufferers and those caring for them. 

An autobiographical one-woman-show, it draws on the experiences of performer Liz Richardson, who herself suffers from ulcerative colitis. Through humour, sensitivity and a bold contemporary theatre style, the production investigates the boundaries that cause us to feel shame. 

Ellen Byrne

The Festival of Curiosity

Urban Escape 

£38,148 

Urban Escape is a participative experience which explores how our choices, actions and physical activity affect our neurological, biological and emotional states. It includes an immersive exhibition, an event programme and a series of secret tours which examine the impact of daily activities on the brain. 

Urban Escape will give a practical introduction to how consumer EEG sensors can be used to capture brainwave data, while exploring connections between the brain, body and mind.

Liz Carr

Independent

Assisted Suicide: The Musical

£30,000

Assisted suicide is when a terminally ill or disabled person is assisted, usually by a doctor, to end their life. Consistently in UK opinion polls, the majority of the population support legalising this 'right'. But many disabled people find it a worrying prospect and their voices are not always heard. 

This will be remedied in Assisted Suicide: The Musical, where comedy, cabaret and glitz will provide the backdrop for issues such as the right to die, choice, quality of life, the role of the state and the impact of legalising death.

Kate Castleden

The Oxford Trust

Living Well Oxford

£33,857

Living Well Oxford is a collaborative partnership between Science Oxford, the Oxford Academic Health Service Network and the Oxford Health Experiences Institute. We will develop the ‘Ageing: from birth and beyond’ pop-up shop, including interactive exhibits and activities. The opening of the shop in May 2017 will tie in with Dementia Awareness Week. 

We will work closely with local community groups and health researchers to develop the content for the shop, before hosting it in Templars Square shopping centre, which serves some of Oxford’s most socio-economically disadvantaged groups.

Ailin Conant

Theatre Témoin Limited

The Marked: UK theatre and homeless sector tour

£39,985

The Marked is a vivid mask theatre piece about a young man sleeping rough in London. It examines the effect of childhood trauma on adult psychology. 

We will tour The Marked between March 2016 and June 2017, and expect to reach 4,150 people nationwide – including 600 people experiencing homelessness. 

Emma Frankland

Independent

The Gender Roadshow Pilot 

£39,997 

The Gender Roadshow is a pilot scheme which is trialling a new audience-driven model of touring and presenting performance about transgender bodies and the science surrounding them. 

The roadshow will engage with the local transgender community through workshops, informal groups, panel discussions and performances.

Allegra Galvin

The Creative Foundation

Normal? Festival of the Brain

£31,034

Normal? Festival of the Brain brings together science and art to explore the brain. It looks at topics ranging from anxiety and addiction to development and dementia, asking whether there is such a thing as normal. 

The festival encourages people to wonder at the brain and its complexities through debates, daily mindfulness sessions, theatre, dance, music and visual art. It is based at Folkestone Quarterhouse from 26 to 29 May 2016. 

Nicola Gibson

Stillbirth Stories: oral history archive project

£39,991

Stillbirth Stories is an online, oral history archive documenting the experience of stillbirth from the perspective of parents and clinicians. 

The personal and professional testimonies – people talking in their own words, about their own experiences – will create a unique online resource for those directly affected by the experience of stillbirth. The archive will also work as a platform for professional learning, support and dialogue. 

Kate Gilbert

Polymyalgia Rheumatica and Giant Cell Arteritis UK

3 Rs: Rheuma Research Roadshows

£23,186

The 3 Rs: Rheuma Research Roadshow will showcase current research into two related medical conditions: polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis. It aims to facilitate a dialogue between rheumatology researchers, patients, carers, GPs and members of the public.

Andy Glynne

Mosaic Films

Shattered Minds

£37,500

Shattered Minds is a series of richly evocative animated documentary films containing first-person testimonies from World War One and Two, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The testimony of each individual is brought to life using animation, providing a unique and powerful visual perspective on the internal and external struggles that characterise trauma. Using a wealth of source materials, including letters, diaries and oral interviews, the films look at causes for trauma, how treatments have changed over time, and journeys to recovery.

Tania Harrison

Festival Republic

Latitude Festival 2016: Love thy neighbour 

£40,000

At Latitude Festival 2016 we will programme a strand of events designed to engage the public with biomedical and neuroscientific exploration. Under the thematic title 'Love thy neighbour', the programme will include talks, performances and workshops.

Lewis Hou

Science Ceilidh

Ceilidh in the Brain: Science Ceilidh resources and tour

£39,085

Ceilidh on the Brain explores the science behind music through traditional Scottish dance. It will tour rural parts of Scotland, working with schools and community groups to develop dances around the theme of the brain. The dances will be shared at the community Science Ceilidh, where everyone can do the Canadian Brain Dance or Orcadian Strip the Helix.

Resources and videos will also be developed, so that the dances can be taught and used in classrooms and dance halls everywhere.

Helen Hughes

Polka Children's Theatre

Polka Festival of Childhood: The Brain

£39,900

Led by our interest in child brain development, we’re running a science-themed festival to engage familiar audiences in new ways and bring a new public to Polka.

We’re aiming to share current scientific research around child brain development and provoke exploration, excitement, debate and learning. 

George Ikediashi

Independent

Black

£35,000

Featuring a repertoire ranging from Wagner and Purcell, to Nina Simone and Whitney Houston, Black is an intimate and confessional portrait of Nigerian singer Le Gateau Chocolat’s life: his hopes, his fears and his battle with depression. 

Working with a team of expert collaborators, Le Gateau Chocolat will develop a series of activities, including a new publication, to open up public platforms for discussions on mental health within black, asian and minority ethnic communities. 

Colin Inglis

York and North Yorkshire Microbiology STEM Hub

£39,860

This project will create a hub of schools in York and North Yorkshire where students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in STEM careers, can experience real scientific research. The research will take place in extracurricular clubs, supported by ‘STEM Ambassadors’ who are researchers in their field. 

By getting involved in these activities, students will gain a better understanding of what it means to be a scientific researcher, and experience the excitement of discovering new knowledge and solving problems. 

Kate Kennedy

Orleans House Gallery

From the Outside In

£35,578

From the Outside In will be an interdisciplinary collaboration between artists and scientists to develop a series of workshops for members of the Octagon Club and Transitions Art Group. The evening art clubs at Orleans House Gallery are for children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and special educational needs. 

Projects will engage participants with biomedical science through hands-on creative activities. Workshops will be led by artists Morgan Sinton-Hewitt, Anna Dumitriu, Elizabeth Murton and Heather Barnett, and science communicator Dr Sarah Bearchell.

Caroline Leek

Fruit Fly Collective

When Cells Misbehave: teaching children about cancer

£34,104

When Cells Misbehave is a pilot project to educate children aged 8-11 about cancer. It will increase their understanding, reduce irrational fears, and help to increase communication about cancer within schools and communities. 

A collaborative group of artists, science communicators from Fruit Fly Collective and the Centre of the Cell, and cancer scientists and clinicians from Barts Healthcare Trust and University College London Hospitals, will develop an interactive show with resources for children and teachers. The project will be delivered in primary schools, hospitals, and at a science festival.

Jane Levi

Foundling Museum

Feeding the 400: food, charity and childhood 

£40,000

Feeding the 400 presents new research into the impact that food and eating regimes had on children at the Foundling Hospital from 1740 to 1950. The exhibition and learning programme is being held at the Foundling Museum from 23 September 2016 to 8 January 2017. 

Focusing on the highly regulated institutional diet, it reveals the profound psychological and sociological impacts of food and eating on child development, using objects, artworks, film and sound to bring the foundlings' experience to life.

John Martin

University College London

Cartoonist-in-residence

£15,900

Through the snapshot form of the cartoon, this project will portray the revealing and humorous experiences of staff and patients at University College London Hospitals. 

Illustrator and cartoonist Ros Asquith will spend one day a week for a minimum of a year, observing meetings, presentations, the Grand Round and the wards. She will listen to doctors, nurses, research scientists, students, managers and administrative staff, with the aim of capturing the key experiences of each visit in cartoons. 

Elsa Montgomery

King's College London

Lightening the shadow of abuse: supporting survivors approaching childbirth

£39,998

One in five women worldwide have experienced some form of childhood sexual abuse. This project involves the co-design of an online resource to help prepare survivors of abuse for pregnancy and birth, which can be a particularly traumatic time. It will also help maternity care professionals to understand the needs of survivors in their care.

Jude Munden

Independent

Spillikin post show ‘Meet the robot’ Q&A

£13,200

Spillikin (a love story) is a critically acclaimed play, the cast of which includes a humanoid robot. Raymond, a roboticist, has died and left a perfected robotic version of himself to be a companion to Sally, his wife of 55 years, as she loses her mind to dementia. 

This funding will support the development and delivery of a post-show ‘Meet the robot’ Q&A. Remotely embodied by robot maker, Will Jackson, and writer, Jon Welch, the robot will respond in real-time. The audience will also be asked questions which will inform wider academic research projects.

Naomi Mwasambili

Chanua Ltd

Neuro Champion Programme: young leaders

£39,974

The ‘Neuro Champs’ project will help young people to understand mental health through an experiential programme which connects the world of neurology, physiology and behaviour. 

Our project is aimed at socially disadvantaged young people and young people from black, asian and minority ethnic groups (aged 11-19) in Merseyside. The project consists of a series of workshops, and the production of five educational videos by the young people which will be disseminated through social media channels. 

Toby Peach

Independent

The Eulogy of Toby Peach

£11,529

The Eulogy of Toby Peach is an award-winning theatre show reflecting on a young man's personal experiences of cancer. The inspiring show explores a true story and an important and difficult subject in a refreshing, insightful and humorous way.

In addition to the national tour, funding will be used to hold workshops for patients and school groups to look at how biomedical advancements and research are supporting cancer patients and inspiring hope.

Mark Reid

British Film Institute

Orlando: a journey through gender

£40,000

BFI and Cinelive are bringing the world of Orlando (1992) to life in a cross-disciplinary project that interrogates the intricate biology behind our understanding of sex and gender. It is launching at the BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 2017. 

An immersive production and expert workshops will allow schools and the general public to explore the role our hormones play in forming sex and gender. This project is the third of its kind and learnings will be presented at ‘Immersed in Science’, a workshop hosted at BFI Southbank.

Mhairi Stewart

University of St Andrews

Cell Block Science

£32,664

This project will deliver a programme of activities to support public engagement with science in the prison learning centres of HMP YOI Cornton Vale and HMP Shotts. 

Activities will be designed and delivered by scientists from the Biomedical Sciences Research Centre at St Andrews University, and public engagement officer, Mhairi Stewart. The programme will launch with the establishment of science libraries in the centres. 

Tennexa-Freeman-Young

Independent

Baby Blues: The Bad Mind 

£10,000

Baby Blues: The Bad Mind is a community engagement project involving research into postnatal depression. It is specifically aimed at second and third generation African Caribbean men and women living in Birmingham. 

We hope to encourage open discussion about mental health within African Caribbean communities by delivering a series of arts clinic workshops and story-telling performances in hair salons, barbershops, food shops and churches.

Ellen Townsend

University of Nottingham

Café Connect: public engagement throughout the lifecycle of health-related research

£36,963

Café Connect aims to engage the public in all stages of the research lifecycle, not just dissemination. Based in Nottingham Contemporary café, a relaxed environment in the heart of the community, we will invite the public to contemplate, discuss and react to issues in health-related research. 

We will run one large flagship café event for the general public, followed by three smaller events focusing on self-harm, older adult drinking and emotions in food choice behaviour.

Gabby Vautier

Echo Presents

The Quiet House and Fertility Fest 

£36,600

A unique project looking at art, infertility, assisted conception and alternative routes to parenthood. The Quiet House, written by Gareth Farr and directed by Tessa Walker, is a new play that unflinchingly reveals the world of IVF and infertility in response to the writer's experience of this imperfect but spectacular science. 

Fertility Fest is an interdisciplinary festival running alongside the production, curated by Jessica Hepburn in collaboration with the London Women’s Clinic. It explores the emotional impact of infertility through visual arts, film, live performance, discussion and debate.

Nerina Villa

Light House Media Centre

The Average Human

£39,847

The Average Human is a multi-sensory installation which aims to bring science to life in a busy city centre cinema and exhibition complex. 

Through the installation, visitors will find out more about the daily nutrition, sleep and exercise habits of the average Briton. Five multi-sensory zones will explore cutting edge biomedical science and the unexpected links between our everyday habits and wellbeing. 

Short films will be shown in the cinema, while Science Meets Cookery workshops will be held in the café.

Lois Weaver

YouTube channel for seniors

£40,000

Artists Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw will engage the public to redefine narratives about ageing in positive ways. 

As senior artists themselves, they will create a YouTube Channel and an online community where older people are central to all processes. Working with gerontologist Dr Ali Mears, they will create spaces where people can learn about issues effecting older people, including health and lifestyle.

Rosie Wellesley

Independent

Bringing eczema to children's picture books

£6,869

Eczema affects a fifth of children in developed countries and its prevalence is increasing. 

Managing and understanding eczema takes time and can be stressful for both parents and children. Picture books are often used to help children understand an issue, for example the arrival of a new sibling or toilet training. With input from children with eczema and their carers, I will produce a high-quality picture book featuring eczema in the story. 

Miranda Wolpert

Anna Freud Centre

Talking Mental Health

£39,364

There aren’t many resources to support young people in communicating with others if they are facing mental health issues.

Talking Mental Health involves collaborating with young people to co-produce an accessible and engaging six minute animation for 9-11 year olds on how to talk about mental health. The animation will share the experiences of a range of young people, to help other children understand that they are not alone, to help them make informed decisions about whether to talk to someone, and to decide who to talk to.

The project will also involve producing a series of support materials for Key Stage 2 teachers, such as lesson plans.

Rosalind Wynn

Gecko Theatre Limited

Gecko: touring Institute and ancillary programme exploring mental health 

£35,225

Ipswich-based physical theatre company Gecko will be taking their acclaimed production of ‘Institute’ on tour to Manchester, Southampton and Liverpool in autumn 2016. 

Amit Lahav, artistic director, will work with Ezra Hewing, mental health education specialist at Suffolk Mind, to develop a programme of supplementary activities for audiences around the themes of care and mental health. This will include a workshop exploring emotion through physicality, panel discussions with local experts and a specially created resource pack. 

2014-15 

Awarded July 2015

Charis Charles

Phoenix Dance Theatre

Science in Motion: Enhancing science literacy using dance in tandem with innovative technology

£39,773

The Science in Motion project aims to develop an innovative, cross-disciplinary approach to improving primary and secondary pupils’ engagement with the science curriculum. Dance professionals, science teachers, science experts, digital technologists and pupils will be involved in the project. Video resources will be created using the following dance pieces which explore scientific themes: Repetition of Change (examines the human genetic code); TearFall (explores the structure and function of the enzyme, lysozyme in tears) and Melt (demonstrates the difference between fire and ice and their mutable states when they collide).

Bethany Clayton

Boomshalaka Productions Ltd

My Beautiful Black Dog: Workshop Tour

£6,915

My Beautiful Black Dog is a musical by Brigitte Aphrodite about depression – in which gig meets theatre, poetry meets laughter, and depression meets a tidal wave of glitter. The MBBD team will deliver a series of workshops in schools in three areas: Hackney in London, Margate and Rochdale, which will run alongside a development tour of the show in summer and autumn 2015. My Beautiful Black Dog fuses music, new writing, live performance, poetry and dance, and with groups of young people aged 13-16. We will use all these elements in an inspiring series of workshops to unpick and challenge the stigma around mental health.

Ivvet Modinou

British Science Association

Science Live 2.0

£36,300

The British Science Association is committed to supporting, growing and diversifying the community of people who are interested in science. An important way to achieve this is through live events, which bring people together to discuss, discover and debate new ideas. The Science Live website will diversify the pool of event organisers and develop their capabilities to deliver more events, and support event organisers by giving them access to scientists, connecting them with local volunteers and ensuring their events reach the right audiences.

Roderick Macpherson Murray

An Lanntair

Faclan: The Hebridean Book Festival

£4,000

Faclan: The Hebridean Book Festival takes place annually (28-31 October) in Stornoway at the time of the Celtic festival of Samhainn. The 2015 theme is ‘blood’ and incorporates medical and forensic science, psychology, symbolism, crime and family. Headlining are neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, psychologist Stephen Grosz and GP Gavin Francis.

Simon Watt

Level Up Human

£39,975

Level Up Human is an entertainment podcast recorded in front of a live audience about advances in biomedical science and technology. With the help of our guests and audience, we’re seeking a design spec for the next step of human evolution. Each event will be produced and hosted by science presented Simon Watt and feature two to three guests from the world of science and comedy. The results will be made into a podcast series produced by Rachel Wheeley.

Susan Rodrigues

Liverpool Hope University

Designing Illustrations for Visually Impaired Students (DIfVIS)

£31,004

Much of our experience and culture relies on vision. Incidental learning is continuously bolstered by what we see around us. In schools, biology lessons often involve the use of illustrations, drawings and diagrams (IDD). This puts pupils with a visual impairment at a disadvantage as their limited sight may prevent them from absorbing all the information communicated through IDD encountered in lessons. If we want to stimulate sight-impaired pupil interest and debate about biology science then we need to focus on how we can help visually impaired students make better sense of IDD used in biology topics.

Awarded April 2015

Valerie Morse

Darwin Centre for Biology & Medicine

Discovering Living Light

£39,998

In Milford Haven Waterway in Wales there are many marine creatures which are bioluminescent and fluorescent. This marine discovery workshops project enables post-16 students to examine, record and identify local marine species using microscopes. The team is also holding research days for smaller groups, several glow-worm hunts and two celebration events to share the workshop outcomes.

Grace Boyle

Shuffle

Movement/Migration/Place

£33,820

This year, Arts and Science festival Shuffle is taking a multi-sensory, multi-faceted look at Movement, Migration and Place. What does it mean to be a human in London in 2015? Where did you come from, where are you now and how do you interact with others around you? And where will you go after this?

Sile Lane

Sense About Science

Resources and training to build on the successes of AskForEvidence.org

£36,800

Sense About Science is building on the momentum of its ‘Ask for Evidence’ initiative – working with early and mid-career researchers across the UK – to engage new sectors of society, including WI groups, local allotment societies and cycling clubs. This award provides investment for face-to-face interactions and to develop the AskforEvidence.org website, to enable it to become the best place online to get practical help with questions about science and evidence in everyday life.

Lois Weaver

What Tammy needs to know about getting old and having sex

£38,800

Tammy WhyNot, performance persona of Lois Weaver, claims to be a trailer park survivor who ditched a career in Nashville to become a lesbian performance artist and embark on a late-in-life quest for knowledge. Now 65, Tammy is exploring sex and ageing in her latest show. The performance, which collaborates with the audience through interviews, interventions, workshops and public presentations, is touring to connect with older people around the UK.

Lawrence Illsley

Sparkle and Darks Travelling Players

Rehearsal and tour of ‘I AM BEAST’ by Sparkle and Dark Theatre Company

£36,500

I AM BEAST is a new play by Sparkle and Dark about what happens when the wilder and darker parts of our mind take control and transform our realities. Where do we draw the line between a socially acceptable relationship with our inner world and mental illness? And how are personal relationships affected by grief and loss? The play, involving puppetry, is touring to London, Buxton and Edinburgh alongside a variety of compelling public engagement events designed to ignite conversation.

Claudia Lasta

The Arts Catalyst

Talking dirty

£29,183

This project aims to provide participants and audiences with the information and research skills to explore relationships between their natural and cultural environment, and nutrition in the food they eat. Through public foraging, cooking and eating workshops in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, the team are creating culinary experiments that explore processes of environmental change. Led by artist Fran Gallardo and environmental chemist and food scientist Mark Scrimshaw, this participatory investigation involving fishermen, wildlife enthusiasts and berry pickers, will culminate in a published 'recipe book'.

Carla MacKinnon

Rich Pickings

(Individual) Rich

Pickings: Inside out

£6,975

Rich Pickings: Inside Out is a programme of film and discussion events exploring elements of the human experience through science. The series includes eight events in partnership with high-profile festivals across the UK and Ireland, including London Comedy and Cork Film Festivals. Each event includes a programme of short film and moving image artwork curated around a single theme. This is punctuated by discussion from filmmakers and researchers who can offer a scientific perspective on the theme.

Tania Harrison

Festival Republic

For Richer, For Poorer, For Better, For Worse

£40,000

This award is supporting the expansion of the science programme across Latitude Festival, making it an integral part of the festival’s cultural offer. From talks in the Literary Arena, to interactive workshops in the Faraway Forest and new work in the Theatre and the Little House, all explore this year’s theme ‘For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse’. This includes topics such as the science behind our impulses and needs, medical care, mental health and diet, as well as superfoods and food poverty.

Awarded January 2015

Sylvia Wroblewska

International Documentary Festival Sheffield

DocFest

£29,992

Doc/Fest Ideas & Science is a major programming strand within the UKs biggest Documentary Festival: Sheffield Doc/Fest. It is an inspirational programme of knowledge, ideas, forgotten archives, collections and curiosities. It is a seedbed of great stories and an exploration of compelling films. The programme includes live pitches, animated panel sessions, film screenings with Q&A, plus fantastic opportunities to network with some of the country’s leading thinkers.

Sharon-Marie Weldon

Imperial College

The Time Travelling Operating Theatre

£29,811

The Time Travelling Operating Theatre constructs three simulations from different eras of surgery;1884, 1984 and 2014 - during one audience viewing (a sequential simulation). Each two-hour event comprises a comparable re-enactment of surgery from each of these three dates, performed by medical professionals from our wide range of contacts. In-between each performance there are opportunities for discussion between the audience, the performers and a small panel of experts, including historians, ethicists and medical professionals.

Amy MacLaren

British Science Association

Scientists and the consumer press - Media Fellowships pilot

£28,186

This is a pilot extension project to the British Science Association's established and successful Media Fellowships programme, which sees scientists undertaking placements at the heart of mainstream consumer media outlets. The programme has traditionally placed Fellows at national media outlets to work alongside science and environment correspondents and editors, or with specialist titles. This pilot project seeks to expand the reach and broaden the impact of the programme, increasing and improving the amount of biomedical content in consumer media outlets, by giving non-science journalists access to scientific expertise and thinking.

Felix Levinson

James Films Ltd

Why You’ll Never Catch Smallpox – JAMES film primary school outreach

£29,999

A unique and innovative project to create a free package of teaching materials for primary schools to accompany JAMES, a short drama film funded by the Wellcome Trust, based on Edward Jenner's discovery of the smallpox vaccination. Led by the film's producers and the Association for Science Education (ASE), the project brings together an exciting combination of organisations and individuals including filmmakers, science education professionals, pharmaceutical scientists, and museums to develop and trial a package of engaging teaching resources for Key Stage 2.

Matthew Austin

MAYK Theatre

Mayfest 2015: Developing Compassionate Communities - Death, Dying and Palliative Care

£28,500

The Fourth Annual Public Health and Palliative Care Conference (http://www.phpci.info/#!about1/c1f7j (opens in a new tab)) takes place in Bristol in May 2015 with the theme Community Resilience in Practice, involving up to 600 international delegates. MAYK leads a group of arts organisations in the city to present a cultural programme alongside the conference. Mayfest 2015 presents a series of performative and participatory artworks that engage the public and interrogate the social, biological and cultural aspects of death and dying. These artworks form part of the festival programme and are open to conference delegates and the general public.

Ailin Naomi Conant

Theatre Témoin Limited

Nobody's Home - UK Theatre and Military Veteran community tour

£28,320

'Nobody's Home' is a theatre production developed by Theatre Témoin in response to soldiers' homecomings and reintegration after combat. The piece was developed through consultations with Dr Edgar Jones alongside 4 American Vietnam war veterans who participated in forum -style scripting workshops as part of its first US tour. 'Nobody's Home' has been critically acclaimed for its imaginative staging and nuanced exploration of reintegration in both the USA and UK, and commended by military veterans for its sensitive and accurate treatment of the subject. Working with Salisbury Playhouse, we'll redevelop 'Nobody's Home' for a national tour, focusing on areas with high military and ex-military populations.

Lisa Graves

Bristol Museums Development Trust

Science of Death

£29,435

The 'Science of Death' theme forms a key part of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery's 'Death' exhibition 'Science of Death' focuses on topical debates in bio-medical ethics relating to death and dying. The assisted dying debate is uniquely explored through the re-creation of a room from the DIGNITAS house in Switzerland. Backed up with a lively public events and schools programme, 'Science of Death' delivers an investigative approach, which helps to reveal the complexities around these important issues.

Kevin Malone

University College Dublin

Suicide and Stigma in an Indigenous Ethnic Minority: Engaging Irish Travellers with Lived Lives

£29,302

Suicide is a significant public health concern, associated with stigma. Young men, mental illness sufferers, prisoners and indigenous ethnic minorities bear an increased suicide risk. Irish Travellers are an indigenous ethnic minority with social and cultural parallels with similar groups internationally (Inuits, Aboriginals, Maoris, etc). The Lived Lives exhibition, with artist and scientist, co-curated by communities, has facilitated dialogue and response, described as transformative. Outputs will include an interactive exhibition and learning materials about suicide and its aftermath among indigenous ethnic minorities such as Travellers.

Elizabeth Sharp

Folkestone Senior Academy

Get On

£29,849

Get On discusses the scientific world around them with young people from deprived areas aged from 5 to 15, and uses the medium of radio to record and broadcast their experiences. The project works in age-appropriate ways with groups of children and on an individual basis, to encourage them to question why things happen in the world around them , with particular focus on biomedical topics. Group work includes children creating art works inspired by images from the Wellcome Collection and they record discussing their creations, the inspiration, and why they think the organism is important to our world.

Rory Duncan

Heriott Watt

EnLightenment: build it, see it, show it

£10,000

2015 is the UN International Year of Light, promoting the beauty, science, application and understanding of photonics. To mark this and build on our existing activities, EnLightenment designs, manufactures and supplies 'phone camera microscope (PCM)' kits to a wide audience of schools, alongside a national image competition, CPD teacher training and extensive public engagement.

Rebecca Smith

Taking a turn: mental health history of hospital gardens

£30,000

'Taking a Turn' explores the mental health history of hospital gardens from 1800 to contemporary times, using historical archives as well as historical and contemporary patient narratives. The project engages and stimulates the public through a thought-provoking garden installation and public talks at the Chelsea Fringe festival, and raises awareness in children through a touring schools workshop programme. Taking a Turn brings together medicine, history and horticulture in a fresh approach to facilitate learning and debate in new audiences about a little-known medical history.

Sophia Collins

Nappy Science Gang

£21,454

A genuinely user-led citizen science project, with a group not traditionally engaged with science - parents using reusable nappies. Volunteers choose questions they want to answer. Research questions to find out what is already known. Design their own experimental protocols, and then run the experiments. All of this is discussed and co-ordinated in a Facebook group.

Awarded October 2014

Dr Tomas Rawlings

Bristol Games Hub, Auroch Digital

Dark Future: mass market gaming with embedded science

£28,045

Auroch Digital is working with Games Workshop to reboot ‘Dark Future’ as a PC-based game. The game, originally from the 1980s, was a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk vehicle battling strategy game set against a backdrop of a world ravaged by environmental destruction yet which had still developed technologically. The grant will allow the formation of a group of advisers who are experts in appropriate science and medical topics alongside an experienced games writer, versed in using science to inspire game narrative. These advisers and the games writer will work closely with the developers to shape the core gameplay and story throughout its development. The People Award will allow detailed engagement with biomedical sciences and related issues, such as synthetic biology and the health implications of climate change, and share this more widely with the sector.

Emma O’Brien

Dublin City University

Bio-boxes: an engaging biomedical science and health programme for children in hospital

£29,706

The Biomedical Diagnostics Institute, Dublin City University, in partnership with Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Dublin, will design and deliver Bio-boxes for children in hospital with chronic conditions. Bio- boxes facilitate practical investigation and e-learning and stimulate discussion. Children in the 10-12 and 13-15 age ranges will participate in the project, with boxes tailored for both groups. The programme will not only educate and inform, but also provide a medium through which students can reach a greater understanding of the workings of the human body, thus helping them make sense of their condition/current situation. The hospital setting provides an opportunity to involve parents in the learning process and collaborative child-parent interactions will be encouraged. It will also provide flexibility for the activities to be carried out in workshops in the school room and at patients’ bedsides if illness doesn’t allow them to join the workshops.

Professor Mike Stubbs

Foundation for Art and Creative Technology

(FACT) Madlove

£29,870

‘Madlove’ forms part of FACT’s 2015 spring exhibition exploring mental health through the work of contemporary artists. ‘Madlove’ invites the public to help imagine a designer asylum, and asks the question: If you could design your own psychiatric hospital what would it be like? It considers the current social and medical perception of mental health in the context of an exciting participatory installation created by disabled artist The Vacuum Cleaner. As part of the process, The Vacuum Cleaner’s team is currently holding participatory workshops across the UK with both patients and professionals. The stories, ideas and knowledge collected will be used to develop a blueprint for the creation of a temporary asylum in Liverpool at FACT – a pilot for a future larger- scale intervention. During the exhibition, the team will activate the space with talks and workshops led by patients, neurologists, nurses, psychologists, doctors and thinkers from across the fields of psychology, health and society.

Nicholas Andrew Taussig

The Greatest Ironman

£30,000

‘The Greatest Ironman’ is a film following the impacts of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) on a father and son. Alex Smith intends to complete an Ironman triathlon, well known as the toughest single-day challenge you can undertake. But not only that: Alex will also be carrying his 35kg disabled son, Harrison, the whole way. Harrison suffers from DMD. Ambitious in scale, narrative and meaning, the film will have three strands: Harrison’s story (the first eight years of his life, the realization for his parents that he had DMD, his life today, and the prognosis for him); Alex’s story (in critical situations, human beings react/try to cope in different ways – Alex’s solution is both constructive and dramatic; and the DMD story (which will be told by Professor Kay Davies – determined to find a treatment and/or cure before she retires, her current work seems promising).

Alison Bowyer

Hayward Gallery

‘Britain Can Make It’ at Hayward Gallery curated by Dr Cliff Lauson: Roger Hiorn’s section – a creative exploration of BSE and vCJD

£29,900

‘Britain Can Make It’ is a thought-provoking artist-curated exhibition at the Hayward Gallery that will reflect on a series of pivotal events and episodes to affect British life since the end of World War II. As part of the exhibition, Turner Prize nominee Roger Hiorns will curate a section exploring the biological and social impact of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human corollary, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCLD). Working alongside leading scientific experts in the field, Hiorns will undertake a serious investigation of BSE and vCJD, its social and cultural impact, and related developments in agriculture, animal husbandry, food production and consumption. The results will be presented in a visually exciting, multi-layered display containing art works, scientific research, cultural artefacts and newly created work and will be supported by a public programme.

Victoria Burton

The Old Vic

AGES

£30,000

The Old Vic’s pioneering community programme engages thousands of people annually and offers the opportunity to participate in high-quality theatre projects. The programme provides a creative outlet and a chance to connect with people from different backgrounds, and empowers participants to tackle social issues through theatre. This project, AGES, will take a multifaceted approach to the theme of ageing. AGES presents an innovative platform to consider the economic, political and societal impact of our ageing population and encourage public discourse about what it means to be elderly and living in London. The project will incorporate current scientific thinking by examining the biological and psychological impact on the individual and challenge preconceptions about the elderly through a programme of workshops, research sessions, one-to-one interviews, a debate-style event, a post-show discussion, two pop-up performances, all culminating in public performances of the resulting large-scale community production.

Professor Andrew Chamberlain

University of Manchester

Gifts for the Gods: Animal mummies in ancient Egypt

£29,168

‘Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt’ is the first UK touring exhibition focusing on votive animal mummification in ancient Egypt. The discovery, excavation, subsequent curation and recent biomedical study of mummies will be showcased; and the exhibition, as well as an accompanying programme of public events, will investigate the practice using biomedical techniques, to place the mummies in their ancient context. The project, an 18-month touring exhibition and events programme, launches at the Manchester Museum in September 2015, before touring to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, and World Museum, Liverpool.

Dr Berry Billingsley

University of Reading

Creating strategies for primary teachers to teach evolutionary science and its applications

£27,903

This project brings together primary teachers, science teacher educators and biologists to provide support in teaching evolution, which will become part of the primary-school science curriculum from 2015. It aims to help teachers identify and overcome their concerns and to provide them and their pupils with exciting learning experiences which address common misconceptions, help them understand biological adaptation, and inform them about applications they will encounter in their everyday lives. This will be achieved through a number of mechanisms and will include professional development workshops for primary-school teachers, and the development of a website that provides free materials for teachers. This year will act as a pilot to determine how support is best delivered to teachers in time for the curriculum changes.

Amanda Tyndall

Edinburgh International Science Festival

Carnival of the Brain

£29,990

Edinburgh International Science Festival plan to develop and deliver a brand new immersive workshop, Carnival of the Brain, to be staged in their flagship family venue, City Art Centre, in April 2015. Carnival of the Brain will transform a section of City Art Centre into a journey through the brain, themed around a retro carnival setting. Audiences of children, families and independent adults will step through a visually exciting entrance to the gateway of the mind, and follow carnival-style signposts that direct them to drop-in workshop activities that use traditional carnival activities to explore areas of the brain. These will run alongside other activities, such as wall-based illusions and communicator-led challenges and puzzles.

2013-14 

Awarded October 2013

Henry Scowcroft

Cancer Research UK

Wikipedian in Residence

£25,469

Wikipedia is the world’s 6th most popular website, and one of the top destinations for people seeking medical information. The site consistently ranks near the top of Google search results for medical search terms. It’s vital that the information available on these pages is accurate and easy to understand. CRUK's Wikipedian in Residence - a six-month position at CRUK's London office – aims to foster collaboration across the charity, the Wikimedia community and the UK cancer research community - with the aim of improving Wikipedia’s cancer-related content for the benefit of all, while establishing a robust case-study for other organisations.

Dr Emil C Toescu

University of Birmingham

Flatpack Festival 2014: Cafe Neuro

£24,900

In 2014, Flatpack Festival asks: what is cinema doing to our brains? Cafe Neuro aims to be a fizzing, fertile space where films collide with ideas and visitors can explore the internal mechanics of the mind through drop-in activities, short film screenings, talks and discussions. A fascinating lineup of academics, filmmakers and artists will gather to talk about the neuroscience of film, and also how film can help to chart our inner world. Additional attractions will include a first glimpse of the 360 NeuroDome project, an exploration of the science behind lie-detector tests, and a chance to see Birmingham University's brain imaging unit in action.

Sarah Norcross

Progress Educational Trust

Breast Cancer: Genetics, Chances and Choices

£20,978

When actress Angelina Jolie wrote about the reasons for her mastectomy in an open editorial in the New York Times, breast cancer hit the headlines around the world. To what extent is Jolie's situation representative? To what extent was her response proportionate? The 'Breast Cancer: Chances, Choices and Genetics' project will use this high level of public interest as a starting point to explore breast cancer, genetics and risk through a series of public events, podcasts, an online poll and a variety of related materials.

Alison Neighbour

Bread & Goose

The Incurable Imagination of Anthony Jones

£17,000

The Incurable Imagination of Anthony Jones is a theatre production about the possibilities of scientific discovery and the inevitability of loss. It explores the experience of dementia and the meaning of memory through the relationship between Anthony Jones, a neuropsychiatrist, and Edna, a dementia sufferer. The performance aims to engage the audience by making them part of the story, asking them to contribute their own memories and build a “collective brain” through interactive demonstration. The show will tour to venues across England & Wales during Spring 2014.

Dr Ashok Roy

The National Gallery

New Light on Old Art: The Science of Seeing in Colour

£30,000

'New Light on Old Art' will bring the science of human visual perception into a new exhibition on 'Colour' at the National Gallery, to explain how the biology of colour vision influences the meaning and appearance of Old Master paintings. The project includes an interactive installation and mass experiment, developed through multi-disciplinary collaboration, featuring state-of-the-art illumination technology in an immersive viewing context, as well as digital media and educational programmes. It will engage participants in debate on how and why people see colours differently, and demonstrate the relevance of scientific research to the appreciation and understanding of outstanding art works.

Professor Lois Weaver

Peggy Shaw's Public Service Announcement

£30,000

In 2011, US performance artist Peggy Shaw had a stroke and since then has not only been recovering from this life changing experience but also transforming her methods of making performance work. In this touring residency of “Peggy Shaw’s Public Service Announcement”, Peggy alongside her collaborator Lois Weaver, explore this transformation and open up debates around stroke, ageing, illness and imagination to the public. At each short residency, their production ‘RUFF’ will be followed by post-show Q&As as well as a ‘Green Screening’ workshop where participants can explore the themes further.

Sophie Robinson

My Beautiful Broken Brain

£30,000

My Beautiful Broken Brain is a feature documentary about aphasia and life after a stroke, following the journey of 34 year old Lotje Sodderland. This is a story about a life changing in the blink of an eye following a life threatening stroke and a personal voyage into the complexity, fragility and wonder of the last biological frontier, the human brain. It's a film, not just about starting again but about pioneering medical and scientific research to see if a young woman's brain might restore some of its previous functions – with outcomes that no one could have predicted.

Amanda Tyndall

Edinburgh International Science Festival

GastroFest

£30,000

A flagship project of the 2014 Edinburgh International Science Festival, GastroFest is a mini festival of the science of food and drink. Aimed at reaching new audiences traditionally not engaged with science, GastroFest will bring together researchers and key figures from the world of cuisine, arts and cultural sectors on a carefully curated programme of events exploring the science behind our culinary experiences. From hard-hitting discussions and debates, to theatrical dining experiences, and a science farmers' market, GastroFest will reveal the fascinating science about some of our favourite foodstuffs.

Andy Glynne

Mosaic Films

Animated Minds: Post Natal Expression

£30,000

Animated Minds: Stories of Post-Natal Expression is a continuation of the award-winning Animated Minds project (www.animatedminds.com (opens in a new tab)), and will consist of five short animated documentaries using real testimonies of people who have experienced, or who are close to someone suffering from postnatal depression. These films aim to help dispel myths and misconceptions about PND by giving a voice to those who experience these various difficulties first hand. The films will be available on NHS Choices and will be accompanied by supporting material as well being distributed through news outlets, film festivals and conferences.

Ellen Dowell

Imperial College London

The Heart & Lung Repair Shops

£20,000

The Heart & Lung Repair Shops will take science directly to the high streets and shopping centres of London. This project aims to engage audiences with biomedical research through the creation of pop-up shops, temporarily transforming empty retail units into vibrant hubs for creative and playful science engagement. Academics and researchers from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London will collaborate with artists, designers, craftspeople and performers to design visually captivating spaces and interactive multisensory experiences that engage audiences with topics including respiratory physiology, vascular science, cardiac biophysics, medical imaging, gene therapy, stem cell biology and tissue engineering.

Dr Tim Harrison

The Basement

SICK! Festival 2014

£30,000

Building on the success of the pilot event in 2013, SICK! 2014 is an ambitious, cross-art form festival that seeks out new ways of talking about physical, mental and social problems and well-being. Presenting a programme of performance, theatre, dance, film, visual art and digital media, across many venues and public spaces in Brighton, SICK! will focus on the themes of adolescence and identity, mental illness and wellbeing in society, ageing and dementia, and death & euthanasia. The programme brings together an artistic programme with experts from healthcare services, academia and charity organisations.

Awarded January 2014

Shane McCracken

Gallomanor Communications Ltd

I’m a (Biological) Engineer, Get me out of here!

£28,620

I'm an Engineer is an engineering enrichment and engagement activity where Science, Maths & D&T school students talk to biomedical engineers for 2 weeks, online at www.imanengineer.org.uk (opens in a new tab). It's an X Factor-style competition where students are the judges. Students ASK the engineers questions, have live text CHATs with them and VOTE for one engineer to win £500 for further engagement work. Biomedical engineers introduce students to an area of engineering they may not have heard of, and show them that their preconceptions are wrong; engineering is not just about Maths and Physics. Biology and Chemistry play a very large part too.

Lucy Emmerson

National Children's Bureau

Prepared for Puberty

£29,992

Many children grow up learning little about puberty before they experience it. The Sex Education Forum will support a team of teachers to assess their pupils learning needs and to engage with parents. A residential workshop bringing together experts with sociological, nursing, psychological and cultural perspectives on puberty and a visual artist will inspire the teachers to design participatory projects that enable pupils to express puberty concepts visually. Each school will exhibit their work to parents, thus inviting conversations with the wider school communication about puberty. A special edition e-magazine for primary teachers will ensure project learning is shared nationally.

Dr Shaun Pattinson

Durham Law School and Durham CELLS

University of Durham Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research Through the Medium of Law

£29,961

A Durham University team is collaborating with scientists from Newcastle University to engage 16-18 year old students in learning about two exciting areas of biomedical science. Streams of events are planned on stem cell research in 2014 and on human cloning in 2015. Students will take part in law-in-action workshops to show how our society debates controversial issues. A mock parliamentary debate will focus discussion of stem cell research and a mock court case will focus discussion of human cloning. Events for educationalists in schools and higher education are planned in 2016 to help disseminate the experiences to wider audiences.

Hailey Phillips

The maze of food allergy

Start here... an online school-based workshop to improve awareness and understanding of food allergy

£30,000

Food allergy is a bit of a maze. A puzzle scientists are still trying to solve today. Allergy Adventures will take children (aged 5-11 years) on a journey through an online maze. From START to FINISH they'll work their way through a series of educational videos, challenges and classroom activities that improve the understanding and awareness of food allergy. The workshop will explain the immune system, what happens inside the body when a reaction occurs, how to avoid accidental reactions and what medicine we need to treat them to complete the workshop and successfully reach the finish.

Dr Síle Lane

Sense About Science

Helping People Ask for Evidence

£29,400

This project will expand the publicity and support of the Ask for Evidence campaign. We hear daily claims about what is good for our health, bad for the environment, how to improve education or cut crime. Some are based on reliable evidence and scientific rigour. Many are not. So how can we make companies, politicians, commentators and official bodies accountable for the claims they make? If they want us to vote for them, believe them or buy their products, then we should ask them for evidence, as consumers, patients, voters and citizens.

Simon Mckeown

School of Computing, University of Teesside

Seal Boy

£29,885

Seal Boy creates a wonderful iPhone experience, to encapsulate and explore many of the issues around society's dependency on complex bioscience. Using Thalidomide as a central element, the game revolves around the main character filling in the gaps of his mothers’ scrapbook. Finding this unfinished journal sparks an interest in him to discover more about his own past. Intriguingly we also experience first-hand his physicality and disability through game play. Thalidomide raises complex ethical issues that affect commerce, science, health, morality and choice as well as raising an on-going historical narrative, key elements of which are addressed.

Julia Alison

Irchester Community Primary School

Dirty Stinky Children

£25,113

Lab_13 is an innovative and exciting model for primary school science teaching that centres around a physical lab space, staffed by a qualified scientist-in-residence, whose work is managed by a committee of children. Irchester and Gillespie Primary schools propose to use the Lab_13 approach to stage a biomedical science intervention in two very different schools at different stages of the Lab_13 journey. Through a series of hands-on investigations, children will develop important scientific skills as they explore three biomedical science questions: What causes diseases?; How is disease spread?; How do human bodies defend themselves?

Heather Barnett

University of Westminster

Broad Vision: Engaging the public through art/science collaboration

£9,998

The nature of what it means to be human is constantly shifting, in how we understand our own bodies, how we interface with technologies, and how we generate, consume and share knowledge. This project will critically and creatively explore the latest developments in synthetic biology, biotechnology and medicine through art/science collaboration. Pertinent biomedical research will be used as a stimulus for interdisciplinary inquiry for undergraduate students from the arts and sciences to work together to grapple with complex issues and their implications. Their responses will be shared publicly through exhibitions and participatory activities, engaging others with the subjects under scrutiny.

Nick Barley

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Conversations with Ourselves

£25,010

The Edinburgh International Book Festival will present a strand of 8 events entitled 'Conversations With Ourselves' during the 2014 Festival. These events will explore the experience of voice-hearing from different perspectives with an inter-disciplinary team of writers, health professionals, academics,artists and Voice Hearers. These events will marry the latest research from Durham University with the creative innovation of The Moth, the highly-respected storytelling organisation from New York.

Awarded April 2014

Natasha McEnroe

Florence Nightingale Museum

The Kiss of Light: Nursing and Light Therapy in 20th-Century Britain

£29,504

The exhibition, 'The Kiss of Light: Nursing and Light Therapy in 20th-Century Britain' at the Florence Nightingale Museum illustrates how perceptions of light have changed over time and been shaped by both enthusiasm and fear. The once-popular sunlight therapy and artificial light therapy shows the role of nurses as key agents and children as vulnerable patients in this forgotten part of our medical history. Discover the healing, or damaging, powers of light, and question whether light is vital to wellbeing, beauty and health - or dangerous.

Stephanie Chapman

Foundling Museum

Dr Mead: physician, philanthropist, collector

£26,145

‘Dr Mead: physician, philanthropist, collector’ is an exhibition at London's Foundling Museum, that explores the life and work of the outstanding eighteenth-century physician, Dr Richard Mead. The exhibition brings Dr Mead and his place in the history of medicine out of the shadows, highlighting his medical achievements and his cultural appetite. Dr Mead was key in promoting smallpox inoculation and was an early writer on public health. The exhibition is complimented by a programme of events including a family workshop exploring an eighteenth-century apothecary’s shop, two nursery workshops for the under 5s and a downloadable teacher’s resource.

Katrina Mansoor

Animal Monday Ltd

Ida's Diary

£30,000

At the end of 2010, Indie Film received a package in the mail. The package contained an unedited video diary from a young girl living in a small town in Southern Norway. She told them that she wanted someone to tell her story. ‘Ida's Diary’ is a feature documentary that gives a unique and personal view into the complex phenomenon labeled Deliberate Self-Harm (DSH). The film documents seven years of Ida’s video diary and creatively explores her experience of suffering from Borderline Personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder as well her DSH. Inspired by Ida, the film will be shared with as many at risk young people as possible, to let them know they're not alone and there is always hope.

Bobby Baker

Daily Life Ltd

The Artful Experts Season

£30,000

Curated by East London-based arts and mental health charity Daily Life Ltd, the Artful Experts Season will bring together a team of expert collaborators from the fields of mental health, digital media and the arts to explore methods of public engagement. The project involves a programme of exhibitions, music, events and live performance by people with lived experience of mental distress, culminating in an artist-led symposium.

Tania Harrison

Festival Republic

Latitude Festival 2014, Secrets and Lies: What Is Your Truth?

£29,000

The arts programme at Latitude Festival 2014 aims to explore a broad theme of ‘Secrets and Lies: What is Your Truth?’ The project will incorporate a broad range of scientific thinking on the theme of secrets to a mass market festival, though a series of activities, talks and performances that will explore topics such as identity, medical privacy and neuroscience. The events aim to inspire the audience to consider the science behind the theme encouraging them to engage with contemporary research and to look closely at the way in which secrecy has an impact on the human brain, body and consequently our lives.

Sam Guglani

Medicine Unboxed

£30,000

Medicine Unboxed inspires debate and change in modern medicine - this exists at a time of extraordinary scientific knowledge and therapeutic potential, but also faces extraordinary ethical, political and social challenges. Recent widely-publicised failures in care reveal a growing gap in understanding and trust between patient and doctor. Medicine Unboxed engages both lay and professional audiences with a view of medicine that recognises human understanding, ethical judgment and political debate alongside the scientific treatment of disease. The project will use the arts to illuminate an understanding of the experience of illness, and to foster dialogue around medicine's goals and society's values.

Awarded July 2014

Grace Boyle

Shuffle Festival

Shuffle 2014: NATURE / SURVIVAL + DEATH

£27,900

This combined arts and science festival in London's East End brings you summer intrigues, experiments, and artistic unravellings of scientific and cultural pursuits. It takes the cinema, the theatre, the kitchen and the laboratory outdoors into London's most urban woodland, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, to explore nature, survival and death. The programme includes weird and wonderful workshops, theatrical performances, school summer camps, film screenings and unique dining experiences to die for... shufflefestival.com

Ruth Murray

At-Bristol

Brain Lab: Thinking tissue

£29,760

At-Bristol are working with the world famous neuroscience centre at Frenchay Hospital and the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol to create an immersive, dialogue-led workshop that models as closely as possible the work done in the diagnosis of brain tumour tissue during brain surgery. The workshop provides hands-on opportunities for At-Bristol visitors to investigate real human and animal brain tissue, and aims to stimulate discussion about the social, ethical and legal issues around neuroscience and neuroscience research.

Mark Reid

British Film Institute (BFI)

The Midwich Experiment: An immersive neuroscience project

£30,000

In the Midwich Experiment, the Wellcome Trust, the BFI and CINELIVE bring film, cognitive neuroscience and education together in a series of revolutionary immersive events engaging over 600 young people at five locations across the UK. The events are set in the fictional world of the 1960 classic 'The Village of the Damned', and are populated by young performers and scientists exploring ideas around brain capacity, enhanced cognition and cognitive acceleration. The events combine immersive theatre, creative science workshops and a screening of the film.

Adam Kucharski

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Social Mixing and the Scientific Method: Bringing research into schools

£29,244

Conducting scientific research is a rewarding experience, but one that is rarely accessible outside of universities. This project bridges this gap, enabling school pupils to work on a real research project. Through a series of videoconferences and school visits, we help school pupils design and conduct a research project investigating the dynamics of social networks. Understanding social behaviour is an important part of biomedical science, from the spread of epidemics to the clustering of lifestyle choices. By researching this topic, pupils engage with disciplines including mathematics, sociology and medicine, gaining unique insight into the scientific method.

Nicholas J Hillier

Academy of Medical Sciences

Health, Lies and Videotape: Exploring the health of the public in 2040

£20,109

This project uses archive public health films from the Wellcome Library to stimulate public discussion and debate about the past, present and future of health research, and how it translates into public health messages. A series of events and workshops explore people's hopes, concerns and priorities around future public health issues. The views gathered from members of the public at these events feed into an Academy of Medical Sciences policy study, 'Health of the public in 2040', which explores the opportunities and challenges around public health over the next 25-30 years.

Gillian Ann Lewando Hundt

University of Warwick

Promoting understanding of the complexities and dilemmas of first episode psychosis through the ethnodrama 'Cracked' in workshops, performances and cafes scientifiques

£30,000

'Cracked' is a play about psychosis and how people from different ethnicities seek help, capturing the experiences of cared-for young adults and the impact of their condition on their carers using poetry and verbatim theatre framed by neurological imagery. The play, developed from interviews, will include young adults from community theatre groups in each venue, who will take part in a workshop, rehearsal, performance and a cafe scientifique. It will appeal to a young adult/youth audience, touring theatres in the Midlands, Glasgow and London. A film of the play will widen the audience reach and stimulate debate and informal learning.

Daniel Charles Richardson

University College London

Exploring the group mind with mass participation experiments

£29,600

Which is more fundamental: the fact that you are a unique individual, or your relationship to others in your social group, family or society? Audience members at our events explore this issue via mass participation experiments. Through an application on their phones connected to a large screen, they play video games together, make music, take difficult decisions, and experience whether they perform better as individuals or as a group. These experiences show how science can give insight into how we vote in elections, riot on the streets, experience a concert or support a football team.

Helen Medland

The Basement

SICK! Festival 2015 (Brighton and Manchester)

£26,100

SICK! Festival confronts the physical, mental and social challenges of life and death, combining an outstanding international cross-art form programme with commissioned texts, debates and talks presenting perspectives from academic and clinical research, frontline care, public health and the charity sector. SICK! 2015 explores how social and personal experiences lead to clinical, healthcare and psychological conditions. It considers the responsibilities implicit in emotional, physical, sexual and professional relationships and reflects on what happens when boundaries are crossed. Within this investigation, the festival focuses on interlocking themes of abuse, suicide, mental health, sex and medical responsibility.

Marc Goodchild

ElderberryPost Ltd

ElderberryPost: Medical Detectives Mission

£29,920

Calling all grandparents! Sign up for our free 'Medical Detectives Mission' on elderberrypost.com and teach your grandkids how one of the greatest medical mysteries of the 19th century was cracked using a map, pencil and spanner. Elderberrypost.com is a new digital service that enables you and your grandchildren to keep in touch remotely and securely using a tablet or desktop computer. Just log on, select a topic 'mission' you want to share with your grandchildren and we'll connect you. Our first Wellcome Trust 'mission' presents the amazing true story of epidemiologist John Snow - for you to pass on.

Lindsay Keith

Refinery Productions Ltd

Uberfest: An alternative science festival for kids, families and grown-ups

£27,915

Uberfest is the world's first 'un-science' festival, putting entertainment, comedy, music, theatre, films and the arts at the core of its programme. It aims to engage hard-to-reach audiences through a glorious mash-up of arts, science and otherwise entertaining events. In its pilot year, Uberfest explores what could happen if London suddenly finds itself on collision course with a massive asteroid...

Lorna W Harries

University of Exeter

Death by Rubber Duck: A community project to determine the effects of removing bisphenol A (BPA) from the diet of schoolchildren

£30,000

This project offers a local community in Exeter the opportunity to design, take part in and communicate the results of a real research project based at the University of Exeter. Exposure to chemicals found in commonly used plastics might cause changes to how some of our genes are switched on. This project will help the local community to design and carry out a series of experiments to examine the effect of changes in our diet on levels of these chemicals in our urine and on the genes in question.

2012-13 

Awarded October 2012

Dean Paton

Big Heritage

The Archaeology of Medicine Roadshow

£28,650

The Archaeology of Medicine Roadshow explores the history and archaeology of medicine and medical practices in Britain from 43 CE to 1066 through interactive educational experience for Key Stage 3 pupils in 15 schools across Cheshire and Merseyside. The project has been developed in partnership with educational experts, archaeologists and osteoarchaeologists in order to explore the historical impact of biomedical science, considering ideas and attitudes towards health, medicine and the human body in Roman and Anglo-Saxon society.

Sandra Ross

Arts Catalyst

Lab Easy

£5642

Arts Catalyst has invited MadLab, a community space for the grassroots arts, technical and scientific communities in Manchester, to do a two-week residency. For their residency, MadLab will focus on their cutting-edge work in the emerging field of 'DIYBio' and transform Arts Catalyst's large warehouse space into a 'Lab Easy', offering participants low-fi DIY alternatives to standard lab protocols through a series of open labs. In addition, one Lab Easy workshop will be an off-site market pitch, offering local residents hand-on demonstrations in DNA barcoding various food produce.

Ian Simmons

International Centre for Life

UK Maker Faire Biomedical Maker Zone

£28,500

Generations of amateurs have participated in electronics, rocketry, astronomy, engineering and other disciplines. Until recently, working with biomedical science and technology has not been an amateur pursuit. Now, as knowledge spreads and digital technologies expand what is possible, a new breed of amateurs working in this area is beginning to appear, demystifying research that used to be restricted to labs. This project will pilot a biomedical science and technology zone at the 2013 Faire with a view to having larger biomedical zones for future UK Maker Faires. The zone will include five stands for international groups of biomedical Makers, an interactive art installation, and a mass participation community project.

Prof Judith Glynn

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Cartographies of Life and Death: John Snow and disease mapping

£29,985

'Cartographies of Life and Death' is an exhibition planned to mark the bicentenary of John Snow's birth. The exhibition will be held at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and will explore the significance of Snow's work, the field of disease mapping and its implications for society today in terms of public health. The exhibition will display historical objects alongside existing and newly commissioned contemporary artworks. The contemporary component will draw both on historical sources and current epidemiological research and enhance today's relevance of Snow's findings and methods. This will include off-site participatory events that will draw in a wider audience.

Sarah Kemp

Théâtre Sans Frontières

Louis Pasteur and the Devastating Germs

£29,860

'Louis Pasteur and the Devastating Germs' is a participatory workshop day for 12-to-14-year-olds from North East England and Glasgow, based on the life and work of 19th-century French scientist Louis Pasteur. Students will engage in science and arts activities, some of which will be led in French, to explore Pasteur's life and legacy. They will meet Pasteur and British scientist Joseph Lister 'in person' and interact with them through a series of drama activities and discussion opportunities. They will make scientific observations and carry out microbiological experiments, reporting on these in French to reflect the communication challenges involved in international scientific collaboration. The students will create their own drama scenes to reflect key moments from Pasteur's life. On return to school, the students will participate in follow-up activities with broad curriculum links.

Sara Cropley

Wowbagger Productions

Angels and Ghosts

£30,000

'Angels and Ghosts' is a cross-platform project centred around a short animated film with a website, exhibition, social media and a series of panel discussions to accompany it. The project aims to explore the biomedical questions raised by individuals who have a family member affected by schizophrenia. The story is based on the real experiences of one girl who has two brothers both of whom have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The aim is to use the popular Hollywood narrative of good over evil, coupled with a well-known actress playing the main protagonist, in order to bring a general audience to the story.

Martha Crawford

AXNS Collective

Affecting Perception

£29,958

The AXNS Collective (Art X Neuroscience) will mount an exhibition and seminar series in Oxford to highlight the influence of neurological conditions on art. The exhibition, 'Affecting Perception', will display art influenced by neurological change and will be accompanied by a series of discussion events on neuroscience and 'neurological art', and workshops in Oxford schools to explore themes around neurology and neuroscience.

Awarded January 2013

Amanda Tyndall

Edinburgh International Science Festival

Street Wise

£29,420

Edinburgh International Science Festival will adapt six of its life science workshops to be suitable for adults and then become a centrepiece to a Science Festival Late. It will also devise a suite of busks based around life sciences that will be performed on the streets of Edinburgh and at a range of cultural festivals across Scotland.

Robin Ali

University College London

Retina patient days - engaging patients with gene and cell therapy research

£29,950

This project puts patients and the public at the heart of UCL's programme of research into gene and cell therapies for sight loss, which includes the world's first gene therapy trial for inherited blindness (Leber congenital amaurosis caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene) and Europe's first safety trial of retinal stem cell transplantation for macular degeneration (Stargardt disease). This ambitious series of participatory events will engage patients and the public with research through presentations, interdisciplinary science and design workshops as well as face-to-face meetings with scientific researchers. All participants and advisers will help to shape future research.

Tim Harrison

The Basement

Sick! Festival

£30,000

'Sick!' is an ambitious, international, cross-art form festival that seeks out new ways of talking about and dealing with the experience of sickness of all kinds: physical, mental, ethical and spiritual. The diverse and accessible programme of performance, dance, film and digital art will be framed by presentations from leading medical practitioners and academics. It will include a series of debates bringing together artists, health professionals and people for whom sickness is an urgent, present reality. 'Sick!' will invite audiences and participants to reconsider illness humanely, critically and with an irreverent humour.

Gregory Watson

Children's Radio UK Ltd

Professor Hallux… In Time

£20,000

'Professor Hallux… In Time' will help demystify medicine, its history and scientific development through a live stage show where children will be able to get hands-on with medicine. They will also contribute speech content for a new interactive learning tool, and pose questions for a new series of Hallux radio adventures. Working collaboratively, Fun Kids and Chickenshed Theatre will bring the subjects to life by developing characters and material suitable for a live theatre and radio audience. The overriding artistic approach is to demystify what is often perceived as a scary subject and difficult to understand.

Ian Edwards

Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh

500 Years of Plants, People and Medicine in Edinburgh

£29,950

'500 Years of Plants, People and Medicine in Edinburgh' will use the facility of a historic 18th-century botanic cottage, which is due to be rebuilt at RBGE, to enthuse people about the history and close connections between medicine and science in Scotland over the past 500 years. The project will develop a range of communication vehicles, including: a film depicting the role of science and medicine during the Enlightenment; a heritage trail around Edinburgh linking significant sites in the story of medicine, gardens and plants; and innovative interpretative displays.

Kevin O'Dell

University of Glasgow

Building Superheroes: The Science of Superpowers

£9288

'Building Superheroes: The Science of Superpowers' is a live experiment show drawing from the latest research in life sciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects. Bringing together academics and students from across the sciences, the project will produce a show and discussion session, targeting over 10 000 school pupils in the west of Scotland from disadvantaged backgrounds, where take-up of STEM subjects is low. This project is a collaboration between the Schools of Life Science, Engineering and Chemistry at University of Glasgow and science communication consultancy Time-Tastical Productions.

Awarded April 2013

Ella Romanos

Remode Ltd

Campy Command: Nowhere to Run

£29,806

Originally conceived for the Wellcome Trust Gamify your PhD event in 2012 this online game explores our understanding of the pathogenic bacteria campylobacter jejuni. Players navigate Campy through the human gut collecting nutrients and avoiding the immune system.

Game Synopsis: Life for little Campy was simple. There's not much to do when you're happily living in a chicken's gut. The chickens don’t mind, it's business as usual for those guys. But something's not right. The usual flow of succulent amino acids has stopped, as has the flow of dangerous glucose, and Campy starts to suspect that the chicken might not be okay. Then the world as Campy knows it dissolves, revealing a harsh and hostile environment. This isn't right, this is a human gut, your gut. There's only one way out of this, and you're not going to like it…

Lawrence Illsley

Sparkle and Dark’s Travelling Players

Killing Roger

£24,209

This play explores the sensitive ethical issues around terminal illness and ‘the right to die’ debate using puppetry and a live soundscape. Sparkle and Dark’s Travelling Players will work with clinicians and medical legal experts to redevelop their play, Killing Roger, which premièred in March at Little Angel Theatre and take it to the Bedfringe and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals in 2013.

Synopsis: "Could you kill someone Billy? I mean really, could you? What if they asked you to?"Billy, a conscientious, opinionated teenager, recounts his weekly visits to Roger, a chain smoking, chair-ridden, sharp tongued old man. An unlikely friendship forms and soon young Billy must decide what it means to truly care about someone. Rapidly, levels of reality distort and shift as we delve through Rogers’s memories and Billy’s troubled mind.

Dr Cathy Southworth

University of Edinburgh Regenerate!

£30,000

Regenerate will deliver secondary school workshops, teacher CPD and resources to support the teaching of stem cell science, reaching geographically remote communities in Scotland. They will use a partnership approach working with the project “Hope beyond Hype: Scottish Stem Cell Stories” which is delivering user led events to patient groups and community groups in the same remote areas.

Timandra Harkness

Brainsex

£30,000

Timandra has always been told she thinks like a man. This solo comedy show will use neuroscience to discover whether men and women really have different brains. If so, why? and does it matter? If not, why are we so keen to think we do? This performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013 uses neuroscience, identity and human subjectivity explored through comedy, music, filmed experiments and interviews with scientists, and audience participation. The show will be accompanied by an interactive website for further exploration of the science and the related social, political and ethical dilemmas.

Felix Levinson

The Jenner Trust James - Short Film

£29,920

A short drama film about the first vaccination by Edward Jenner in 1796, seen through the eyes of James Phipps - the eight year old son of a farm labourer upon whom Jenner carried out the experiment. This engaging and informative film will give a fresh perspective on one of the most important episodes in the history of medicine. The film will be available on the Jenner Museum website and will be distributed as a teaching aid for primary and secondary school students.

Betsy Lewis-Holmes

Orleans House Gallery

Madge Gill: Medium and Visionary

£21,100

With no training and no aspirations to fame, outsider artist and visionary Madge Gill (1882 - 1961) produced thousands of secretive ink drawings during her lifetime. Her work remains an enigma: Why did she feel she was inspired by an ethereal spirit guide? Was her art-making a form of self-therapy? This exhibition of Gill’s work at the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, and accompanying book created by a team of psychologists, mental health service users, art psychotherapists, art critics and curators explores these ideas and offers new perspectives on psychology, mental wellbeing and creativity.

Brian Woods

True Vision Productions

Cancer Care

£30,000

Multi-BAFTA winning production company True Vision is making a documentary for Channel Four exploring the cutting edge of cancer care at UCL Cancer Institute and Cancer Hospital. The film follows several patients embarking on clinical trials. This award supports the production by funding CGI that will take the viewers inside the patients’ bodies and down to the organ, cellular and molecular level to understand the extraordinary biomedical science underlying the patients’ cancer treatments, and to explore the scientific frontiers of the battle against cancer.

Katia T.C. Smith-Litière

Cambridge Science Centre

Altered Perceptions - Cambridge Science Centre

£21,650

The Cambridge Science Centre, in collaboration with researchers and medical consultants based in Cambridge and Norwich, will develop a series of hands-on events for adults, and interactive shows and workshops for families and schools. These will be delivered during its exhibition on perception running from July to December 2013. The programme will raise public awareness of the importance of our senses to our physical and emotional state and of the challenges faced by individuals with altered senses and perception in their day-to-day life. It will improve public appreciation of local, world class research into senses and perception.

Ade Thomas

Green.TV Media Ltd

Evolution Online

£29,500

Evolution Online brings alive, to a young audience, the story of evolution in two animations following the evolutionary story of the whale and the horse. The films will be aimed at an audience of 5 to 11 year olds at Key Stages 1 and 2. They will be produced by combining scientific expertise with strong storytelling and creativity to contribute to science education.

Awarded July 2013

Annette Hurst

Bollington Festival

50 years of scientific discovery

£29,472

The Bollington Festival aims to be a celebration of music, drama, literature, photography, art, sport, science and more. During the Festival in 2014 audiences of all ages will be treated to themed events based on 50 years of biomedical science discoveries. Scarecrow scenes depicting major biomedical discoveries will be explored by a podcast-guided walking trail through the village and surroundings. The discoveries will also be represented through costume, mixed media arts and dance at the opening carnival. A pop-up laboratory will also allow the public to perform biomedical and physiological experiments themselves.

Bryan Sitch

University of Manchester

Fragmentary Ancestors? Figurines and Archaeology from Koma Land, Ghana

£15,948

Fragmentary Ancestors? Figurines and Archaeology from Koma Land, Ghana. The project will form the first public outputs of recent archaeological excavation of medicine shrines in Koma Land, dating from the 6th to 14th centuries AD, in which numerous clay figurines – commonly depicting stylised humans and animals and which were often deliberately broken - were recovered. A major exhibition and accompanying programme of public events at Manchester Museum will examine the evidence provided by the figurines to explore their links with ancient religious, healing and medicine practices.

Marieke Navin

Museum of Science and Industry

Dark Matters - a new adult programme inspired by Brains: The Mind as Matter as part of Manchester Science Festival 2013

£16,491

"Dark Matters" will form the core of a high profile Brains strand of the seventh Manchester Science Festival which will complement the "Brains: The Mind as Matter exhibition" from the Wellcome Collection, which is to be hosted at the Museum of Science Industry in Manchester from July 2013 to January 2014 . Combining the excitement of high calibre speakers and the chance to get close to real brains, the experiences will create memorable engagement opportunities relating to complex and relevant scientific and cultural concepts for young adult visitors.

Muriel Grenon

National University of Ireland, Galway

Cell EXPLORERS a model for sustainable public engagement by third level institutions

£29,589

Cell EXPLORERS is a novel science education and outreach programme in the West of Ireland that promotes biological and biomedical sciences through practical discovery driven by volunteer students and researchers. In collaboration with the Discipline of Biochemistry in the School of Natural Sciences at NUI Galway, Cells EXPLORERS will develop a model for sustainable public engagement in Biomedical Science by involving undergraduate students as part of their degree and inspiring the future generation of science ambassadors and educators. In collaboration with the Galway Education Centre, the programme will also develop a teachers training programme applicable at national scale.

Trisha Lee

Makebelieve Arts

Journey to the Centre of the Brain

£30,000

Journey to the Centre of the Brain is an exploration of the brain in epic proportions. MakeBelieve Arts will replicate the workings of a human brain in the unlikely environment of the primary school hall, discovering its potential, and finding out what makes it tick. The show will incorporate actors, design, puppetry, music and lots of imagination, and will offer primary schools, across five regions, the opportunity to uncover the amazing truth about the human brain. Let's go on an adventure with a neuron and discover how much work is needed to keep the body moving.

Martin Brown

Primary BioSciences

£27,500

Primary BioScience is a programme to help schools achieve relevant aims of the Northern Ireland Curriculum at Key Stage 2, by developing pupils capabilities related to personal understanding and health, and in the science and technology area of The World Around Us, specifically in the biomedical sciences and bioengineering. University and industry bioscientists provide expertise, and work with teachers and educational advisers, to help develop pupils appreciation and understanding of bioscience applications in the world around them, and to act as inspiring role models to young people, and help identify potential careers in the biosciences.

Kerry Hogarth

3D Printshow

3D Printed Hospital

£29,900

3D printing is the catalyst that's behind incredible advances in 21st century medical science. From growing replacement organs to printing new skin directly onto wounds, manufacturing your own medicines to developing prosthetics (that fit to within .01 of a millimeter), 3D printing is fundamentally altering the landscape of modern medicine. Set within 3D Printshow London 2013 ,the 3D Printed Hospital is one of this year's most jaw-dropping show features. From 7-9 November, members of the public will be able to experience these incredible innovations in an interactive environment featuring live prints, incredible presentations, live talks, debates and much more.

Sarah Chaney

King's College London

Mansions in the Orchard: Space, Architecture and Asylum in the 'Care in the Community' Era

£23,010

The Mansions in the Orchard project reveals the largely undocumented twentieth-century history of inpatient mental health care. Focusing on the original Art Deco architecture of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, the project will use the building to bring twentieth-century experiences to life. Combining academic research with individual oral histories and photography, this project will bring together historians and mental health staff and service users to create two temporary exhibitions and a permanent local history archive. These resources will contribute to the destigmatisation of mental illness, by addressing the ongoing reality of inpatient treatment in the 'care in the community' era.

2011-12 

Awarded October 2011

Dr Charlotte Haigh

University of Leeds

The physiology and pharmacology of performance enhancement in sport

£29,904

In the run-up to the Olympic Games and during the Games themselves, public awareness of and interest in sport and sporting performance will heighten. This project will take advantage of this to engage the public with the science and ethics of sporting performance enhancement. The aim is to provide the public with an understanding of exercise physiology and pharmacology and to promote debate on the ethical issues which arise when this knowledge is utilised to enhance sporting performance. The project will result in two events and an exhibition. The first event will provide an opportunity for young people to act as scientists in a mock drug-testing laboratory and then debate whether performance enhancement, whether physiological or pharmacological, is acceptable. The second event, for adults who provide sporting opportunities for young people, will be a debate focusing on the ethical issues surrounding performance enhancement, including examination of the roles and responsibilities of individuals. Finally, an exhibition and demonstrations will examine the physiology and pharmacology of performance enhancement.

Dr David Harradine

Fevered Sleep

'Stilled' - revival and UK presentations

£29,509

'Stilled' is a dance/photography project inspired by X-ray crystallography, in which pinhole cameras create long-exposure photographs of a durational dance performance. The photographs are then displayed as part of the event. Just as X-ray crystallography creates images of the atomic structure of crystallised materials, 'Stilled' uses pinhole photography to visualise the three-dimensional movements of dance. The photographs are abstract representations of movement, mimicking the visual patterns generated by X-ray crystallography. 'Stilled' explores structure and perception by drawing on a scientific process of visualisation whose history is already notable for its connections to creative practice through the 1951 Festival Patterns Group.

Sam Impey

105.9 Academy FM Folkestone

Scientists and Broadcasters of Tomorrow

£25,895

In this project, community radio station 105.9 Academy FM Folkestone is training up the science broadcasters and scientists of tomorrow by teaching Year 9 to 11 students how to research, record and present interviews with local scientists. These interviews will be broadcast on the radio station, and will be available on its website, promoting science to a wide audience and providing careers advice to young people. The project will also include science days for the community of Folkestone, promoting science by involving local medical professionals, research scientists and commercial scientific companies.

Chris Johnston

Fluxx

Future Delivery

£22,590

'Future Delivery' uses an interactive drama experience to engage the public in ethical dilemmas around science, birth and disability. In the performance, a mother-to-be is confronted with choices which could have profound consequences for her and her family in the future, and the decisions she makes are influenced by interactions with the audience. The project will pilot this piece in six venues around England.

Hannah Wyatt

Mentorn Media

Katie: I Want To See Again

£10,000

This project is to support the science content for a Channel 4 documentary following acid-attack victim Katie Piper as she undergoes stem cell therapy to try to restore the vision in one of her eyes. The film will follow Katie's journey as she undergoes this cutting-edge treatment to restore her sight after her horrific attack, and will follow a wider story on the future of stem cell treatment.

Steven Winter

The Old Vic

Epidemic

£30,000

'Epidemic' is a newly commissioned musical created by the award-winning Old Vic New Voices. The musical explores the pressing public-health issues of mental illness and the recent dramatic rise in obesity. This large-scale production will engage 100 members of the London community as participants and 2500 people attending for free in March 2012. A scaled-down version will tour schools and community centres later that year, reaching a combined audience of 5500 people. The production, coupled with resources and support work, will highlight the biomedical science behind the conditions, raise debate and challenge traditional perceptions of these afflictions. The R&D stage for this project was funded through a Small Arts Award.

Awarded January 2012

Dr Simon Gage

Edinburgh International Science Festival

InMotion

£28,560

As part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival in April 2012, 'InMotion' comprises an interactive exhibition, live performances and associated events at the National Museum of Scotland. 'InMotion' brings various aspects of biomedical science alive, in relation to human movement and sporting performance. Interactive zones allow visitors to explore fitness, perception, motion capture, dance, biomechanics, prosthetics and human enhancement, and promote discussion of associated social and ethical questions.

Dr Andrew N Holding

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

ThinkOutreach podcasts

£1,558

The ThinkOutreach podcasts aim to bring critical thinking to new audiences through content from three live event series in Cambridge, 'Skeptics in the Pub', 'Bright Club' and 'ThinkCon'. 'Skeptics in the Pub' aims to separate fact and fiction in everyday life through monthly evening events involving a talk on a contentious or otherwise interesting topic. 'Bright Club' Cambridge, the thinking person's variety club, features a series of stand-up comedy performances from academic researchers. 'ThinkCon' is an annual popular lecture programme.

Felicia Smith

Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust

A Matter of Life and Death: The history of medicine in Bristol, past and present

£29,997

'A Matter of Life and Death' will build on existing research of the medical history at Arnos Vale Cemetery, to build a public programme of activity around historical and contemporary themes of disease and mortality, public health and sanitation, and medical pioneers. Activities and resources developed will include a visitor trail, medical discovery boxes, a schools learning programme and a medical history education pack. The project will involve collaboration between Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust, medical practitioners, medical historians and medical students from the University of Bristol, and science and history teachers and pupils from Ashton Park Secondary School.

Richard T Jones

Utter! spoken word

Richard Tyrone Jones has a Big Heart 2012

£29,964

How do you fight back when your own heart tries to kill you? Richard Tyrone Jones engages the help of poetry and science to tell how, aged 30, he battled his way back, from near-death by heart failure, to near-health via pacemaker, drugs and NHS expertise. This bionic spoken-word show, augmented by animations, soundtrack and Q&As, will visit the Edinburgh Fringe, 12 theatres and three schools around the UK in 2012, to stimulate excitement about how our hearts work, how they sometimes don't, and whether drugs, operations and implants can really fix you.

Dr Paula Baraitser

Academic Dept HIV/GUM, Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine

Sexual Health Science: From lab to clinic to home

£26,885

Young people enjoy science when it links to real-world situations. This project offers 100 Year 12 students from five secondary schools the chance to see science in action and to engage in a real research project. Sexual health, an issue highly relevant to young people, will be the starting-point. Many young people visit clinics for sexual-health testing but technologies will soon enable testing at home. This project will explore the science underpinning these new technologies and their consequences by debating the ethical implications, supporting young people to collect and analyse data on acceptability and presenting their results to service planners.

Nick Barley

Edinburgh International Book Festival

When Science Meets Fiction

£21,127

Scientists and writers are linked by the question 'What if?' It is the question that drives a novelist to write an epoch-defining novel and a scientist to discover a new medicine. The Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012 will host a series of discussions investigating the relationship between science and literature. Consisting of a strand of five events across the adult and children's programme, the series will bring together world-class authors to share the stage with some of our foremost scientists to discuss the relationship between fact and fiction, and scientific and literary exploration and experimentation.

Alice Keens-Soper

Oxford Scientific Films

Stonehenge: Bringing back the dead

£30,000

This 90-minute film for Channel 4 reveals the social history of the Stonehenge people. Brand new scientific analysis of Neolithic human remains found in and around Stonehenge will reveal what daily life was like when Stonehenge was in its heyday. Biomedical research, computer graphics, dramatic reconstruction and modern-day excavations transport the viewer back in time to reveal the daily lives of the Stonehenge people; where they came from, how they lived and died, what they ate and drank, and many other previously unknown details.

Dr Hana Ros

University College London

Neurocomic

£21,855

'Neurocomic' will be a six-volume series of comic books engaging audiences with historical and contemporary ideas in neuroscience. The books will be distributed at science centres, science festivals and comic festivals. The project will also include 'The Mad Scientist's Tea Party', an illustration workshop with comic artist Matteo Farinella at which members of the public will meet and engage with real neuroscientists, talk about different themes in neuroscience, and create their own comics as a result of their discussions and interactions. These will be exhibited at 'Your Brain Redrawn', an exhibition at the Prince's Drawing School in London, together with a screening of a 15-minute documentary film by Richard Wyllie, 'DocComic', that documents the making of 'Neurocomic'.

Prof Andrew Whiten

University of St Andrews

Living Links to Human Biology and Medicine: extensions and outreach

£29,196

Recent support by the Wellcome Trust has facilitated the development of numerous activities at the University of St Andrews’ ‘Living Links to Human Evolution’ primate research centre in Edinburgh Zoo. These illustrate to visitors the evolutionary continuities between humans and our close animal relatives that underlie so much biomedical science. The present programme builds on these foundations, extending the central evolutionary theme to new activities as well as to the Budongo chimpanzee centre, and developing a suite of outreach projects covering human and non-human primate genomes, natural medicines, behaviour and learning and cognition, to engage youngsters in schools right across Scotland.

Dr Marjet Elemans

Imperial College London

Beautiful Science

£9,652

'Beautiful Science' offers an exciting peek into the hidden world of scientists. Imperial College scientists participating in this project will showcase images of basic data, normally only published in specialist circles, to the general public. They have worked together with artists to discuss and showcase similarities and differences in their creative thought. The result of these collaborations will be shown in an exhibition and the public is invited to enter a two-way dialogue about the role of science and art during events accompanying the exhibition.

Lucie Fitton

Museum of London

Body Beyond Death

£20,000

Young adults will create a film with the Museum of London to explore debates about organ donation for live transplant and full-body donation for dissection as part of medical research. How do we feel about what happens to our bodies after death? What are the different cultural, religious and social factors affecting our views? Issues relating to dissection and the Anatomy Act of the 19th century will provide a historical context for reflection on current debates. The film will feature in the Museum's 'Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men' exhibition and bring contemporary voices to the exhibition themes.

Professor Karim Brohi

Queen Mary, University of London

Trauma Surgery: The science of the bleeding obvious!

£24,770

Traumatic injury is the number one cause of death worldwide among children and young adults. It kills over 18 000 people each year in the UK, and almost half of these deaths are the result of uncontrolled bleeding. The 'Trauma Surgery: The science of the bleeding obvious!' exhibition will explain what happens to the body when it sustains a traumatic injury, with the help of interactive models and video, and also demonstrate how lives can be saved with specialist surgical skills and innovative resuscitation procedures.

Awarded April 2012

Mike Paterson

Pfilm

94 Elements - The Mix Lab

£25,740

94 Elements is a global cross-media project, exploring our lives through the lens of the elements. A major feature of the website is the ‘Mix Lab’, where users interact with the elements by combining them to create compounds, linking them to their own films that involve those compounds. Other users crack the compound formulae to discover the films. This grant is specifically to fund the development of the interactive Mix Lab feature of the website. The website also features a range of visualisations using live and statistical data about how we use the elements in our daily lives.

Sophie Scott

University College London

LOL! The science and art of laughter

£19,000

This project will plan and build an exhibit for the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, which will incorporate an opportunity for people to explore the neuroscience of how and why we laugh and to be part of a comedy audience. The aim is to create an exhibit that not only discusses and explores different facets of laughter, but also generates a lot of laughter itself. There will be a competition, the Laughter Challenge, in which people can see how long they can be exposed to infectious laughter before they start to laugh. The aim will be to show how contagious laughter is, and how it can be primed socially.

Caroline Harding

Jeans for Genes

Bringing the Textbooks to Life: Educational resources for engaging GCSE students with cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease

£29,484

The ‘Bringing the Textbooks to Life project’ features two teenagers who are living with the daily challenges of cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. Two films and accompanying resources, tailored to the GCSE curriculum, will be created with the aim of promoting an understanding of how each disorder manifests, what treatments (if any) are available, and the basic principles of inheritance. They will explore the social, historical, cultural and ethical impact of genetic technologies and how these open up new possibilities for families affected by genetic disorders.

Patrick Hayes

Journalism Education Ltd

Biomedical Issues and the Media strand at the Young Journalists' Academy 2012

£9,946

The ‘Biomedical Issues and the Media' strand of workshops at the Young Journalists' Academy 2012 encourages aspiring young journalists to consider the part that writers on biomedical issues play in informing the public and policy makers about issues ranging from public health to reproductive choice. High-profile journalists and individuals working in the field of biomedicine will run inspiring seminars and discussions with an emphasis on the importance of accurate yet engaging reporting, and students will grapple with the issues discussed through practical tasks. In addition, a teaching pack, including an edited film, will be created and disseminated to journalism and media teachers.

Sarah Norcross

Progress Education

Trust When It Takes More Than Two

£17,382

Donor conception is an important part of fertility treatment. In 2008, there were 6391 treatment cycles using donated sperm, eggs and embryos in the UK. The 'When It Takes More Than Two' project will clarify public and professional understanding of donor conception, particularly in relation to identity, parenthood, genetics, donor information and screening. The project will disentangle what the term 'parent' means in various scientific and social contexts, and improve understanding of the relevant genetics. This is crucial, because donors are often marketed on the basis of characteristics whose heritability is complex or even non-existent. The Progress Educational Trust will organise three public events; source and write case studies, a heredity factsheet and key definitions; conduct an online poll; and publish and disseminate a variety of related materials.

Matthew Piper

University College London

Living Healthier for Longer: Research to enhance lifelong health

£8,000

Ageing and age-related diseases impose a serious social and economic burden on society. Recent research indicates that age-related diseases are symptoms of an underlying disease: ageing itself. Thus by treating ageing, we could simultaneously treat all diseases of ageing. Remarkably, scientists have recently discovered ways to extend healthy lifespans in laboratory organisms, and the data indicate these interventions could potentially benefit human ageing. This project will exhibit this research from the UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing at the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

Jody M Mason

University of Essex

Using Digital Art to Raise Awareness of Alzheimer's Disease

£30,000

This project aims to create an interactive game to convey Alzheimer's disease pathology at the cellular level, as well as potential therapeutic intervention approaches. With an ageing population and the number of people with dementia set to double every 25 years, it is clear that without better therapies young people of today will become the carers of those with Alzheimer's disease tomorrow. Through an informal and unconventional approach, this game will seek to engage players with an understanding of the mechanisms of the disease progression and the drugs and methodologies being researched to try to halt it.

Matthew Hurley

University of Nottingham

CF-unlocked - an online conference breaking down barriers of cystic fibrosis

£29,623

CF-unlocked aims to facilitate the dissemination of information and engender collaboration between researchers and people with cystic fibrosis (CF). The project will narrow the gap between individuals with CF and the wider scientific community caused by patient segregation. By their mid-teens, the majority of people with CF will have lung infections with bacteria that are transmissible to others with the condition. For this reason, people with CF are strongly discouraged from meeting in person, and so are actively excluded from meetings that are held. This project will provide online events for researchers and patients, bypassing the infection control concerns and enhancing the positive aspects of patient/scientific conferences. Research leaders will present the results of recently completed clinical trials and basic science studies including novel therapeutic strategies. The audience will be able to contribute in real-time with questions and comments and, in so doing, influence the design and content of future events. For those unable to attend the live events, a recording will be accessible online with a paired forum for later discussion.

Alice Edwards

MakeBelieve Arts

Giant Tours

£29,980

Giant Tours previously received a People Award from the Wellcome Trust in 2011 to create and pilot a participatorythe workshop. This second People Award will support MakeBelieve Arts to deliver the workshop to primary school pupils in disadvantaged communities to help them engage with biology. This award will enable MakeBelieve Arts to explore ways in which they can make the content and learning of the 'new and improved' Giant Tours interactive science show accessible and sustainable, by investing time to evaluate and reflect on the project with teachers.

Jennifer Wong

Guerilla Science

Guerilla Science in partnership with Secret Cinema

£29,998

Guerilla Science will partner with Future Cinema to deliver their unique blend of science, art, music and play within a Secret Cinema event: a cultural exploration and subsequent exhibition of an undisclosed film. Audiences become protagonists of a curated performative environment, which allows them to determine their own level of involvement. A run of 42 shows will offer audiences an opportunity to inhabit, play, and emote with actors, participating scientists and artists in novel ways and engage more deeply with the biomedical science linked to the film. Guerilla Science will pioneer new methods for public engagement, embedding science into culture, provoking, intriguing and promoting audience-driven exploration of biomedical content.

Ms Rachel Parish

Firehouse Creative Productions

The Superjohn Project

£30,000

'Superjohn' is an original play for family audiences (7+) that deals with the psychological and medical issues surrounding childhood cancer. Seen through the eyes of two children, John (who has acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) and his big sister Star, 'Superjohn' mixes fantasy and reality through visual and text-based storytelling. The play will feature original music, and will be premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before a ten-venue tour. 'Superjohn' is being developed in conjunction with medical professionals at the Whittington and Great Ormond Street Hospitals and has had support from the Unicorn Theatre and Arts Council England. It is based on real-life stories collected through a series of workshops and interviews with doctors, nurses, play workers, and childhood cancer patients and their families.

Al Garthwaite

South Leeds Community Radio

Biomedical Science Across the Airwaves - A community finds out

£14,000

South Leeds Community Radio will record programmes, in a variety of audience-friendly formats, that are made with the community and feature enthusiastic female scientists. Additional community events, including 'come dine with me' evenings and 'question time' discussions, will encourage interactivity and provide further programme material. By reaching a deprived community, the project aims to create a model that works to be shared internationally through community media.

Tom Isaacs

The Cure Parkinson's Trust

Contemporary issues in Parkinson's: A patient targeted webinar series

£29,826

The project is a series of 12 webinars that will form part of an educational platform for people with Parkinson's. This platform aims to enable an increased understanding of the mechanics of Parkinson's and facilitate communication between patients, physicians and scientists. The webinars will allow patients to communicate their healthcare needs to those involved in their personal healthcare provision. It will encourage dialogue between patients, scientists and physicians, leading to more coherent healthcare provision and providing the foundations to empower patients to influence the wider healthcare sector via healthcare trusts and, ultimately, research advisory boards in academia and industry.

Awarded July 2012

Iain Barr

University of York

Science is for Parents Too

£29,878

This project promotes adult engagement with biomedical sciences through a sustained learning programme for parents of primary-school children. As a result, parents will be better able to support their children's education and career options in the sciences. Broadly aligned to the Key Stage 2 science curriculum, the programme will focus primarily on biomedical science, with elements of chemistry, physics and maths through a biomedical lens to demonstrate the relationships between the sciences. This pilot will develop a sustainable teaching resource that could be deployed elsewhere. It will be delivered in partnership with the National Science Learning Centre, which will host taught sessions.

Stuart Farrimond

Guru Magazine

Free digital Science Magazine for Mobile Technologies

£12,000

'Guru Magazine' is a free two-monthly digital science-lifestyle magazine with accompanying online content, which was launched in June 2011. The magazine provides opportunities for new, emerging and passionate communicators to publish high-quality content, accessible to all. It has featured the writing of prominent scientists and achieved an estimated 50 000 magazine downloads. This project will develop a free mobile app for smartphones and tablets that will be promoted and published via mainstream digital outlets and integrated with social media.

Simon Jago

Techniquest

Cutting Edge

£20,485

This project will raise both public and school audiences' awareness and understanding of cutting-edge medical practices. Working in partnership with the Welsh Institute for Minimal Access Therapy, an interactive exhibit will be developed to replicate the training model used to teach medical professionals how to perform keyhole surgery. This will be supported by informative graphic panels and a mounted display that shows surgery taking place. The exhibit will be placed at the following locations across Wales: Techniquest, Techniquest Glyndwr and Wales National Eisteddfod.

Freddie Yauner

Northumbria University

Research.ms stage 2

£29,939

This second People Award builds on the success of the first. The Research.ms vision is to engage with researchers and people with MS across the globe, using innovative, interactive online platforms. Research.ms stage 2 will expand partnerships to other MS research centres across the UK and to Northumbria Design School. This is an exciting opportunity to ensure the public engage with world-leading research, and that the project outputs are professionally designed. The project will continue producing compelling online content across a broad spectrum of biomedical research, allowing researchers and people with MS to communicate directly. It will also train the research teams in key communication skills, with and for the MS community.

Wendy Lee

BEANii BEANii

Bodyscience Children's Theatre Show: 1837 vs 2012

£28,565

This project is a series of creative learning workshops leading to presentations for families and teachers of participating children (aged eight to ten), and culminating in a public show. The project will increase children's understanding of nutrition, exercise and psychology, and extend the content, reach and capacity of an existing programme for schools and communities in South Westminster. Phase 1 will develop and deliver two school workshops with 60 children to explore how diets, lifestyle and psychology affected childhood growth in 1837. The workshops will support curriculum learning in science and history, leading to presentations for families and teachers. Phase 2 will develop and deliver 12 community workshops for 30 children, leading to a children's theatre show. The show will ask the audience to decide whether early intervention could have saved the life of Charles Dickens's sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, who died of heart failure in 1837, aged 17.

Jay Stewart

Gendered Intelligence

Drawing Gender, Drawing Sex, Drawing Bodies

£30,000

This project will feature life drawing workshops where the life models and the participants identify as transgender and intersex, thereby enabling people to learn about anatomy and physiology, as well as contributing to a contemporary documenting of the physiology of sex and gender variance. The project draws on popular interest in transgender and intersex topics, in particular the medicalisation, social change and equality discourses held within these identities, while maintaining a focus on biomedical science in relation to the lived experience of trans and intersex minority groups.

James Piercy

Science Made Simple

What's Going on in His Head?

£9,702

Just what is in your head? James Piercy discovered when he suffered minor brain damage after a traffic accident in January 2011. During an at times emotional journey, he will ask audiences to explore his brain and the science which allowed him the chance to share his experiences. The project will engage audiences with contemporary neurological science in a real-world context. James will develop a presentation exploring brain structure and function based on his experience of injury and recovery. The show will include references to the structure of the brain, MRI, monitoring and the effects of trauma.

2010-11 

Danielle Nicholson

National University of Ireland, Galway

Debating Science Issues

£25,772

Debating Science Issues is a cross-border competition where young people are invited to engage in debate on the cultural, societal and ethical implications of advances in biomedical science. Irish Second Level students (15–18 years) partake in one of a series of three-hour workshops teaching the fundamentals of nanotechnology, stem cell research, GM foods, immunisations, or self-testing diagnostic kits. Harnessing the enthusiasm gained, a debate series ensues throughout all four provinces. Fine-tuned through reflection on past practice and evaluation, co-hosted by seven Irish research centres and W5 and Queen’s University Belfast.

Christine Watkins

The Centre for Performance Research

The Tide Tables Tour

£29,732

The Tide Tables Tour will extend the reach of a performance work premiered in 2009, making it available to more venues and a wider audience. Originally written in consultation with Professor of Endocrinology Saffron Whitehead, The Tide Tables engages the audience in an exploration of the midlife climacteric phase (‘change of life’) from a combined biomedical and narrative perspective, including the physiology of menopause and the history and nature of HRT. The work combines original music (a capella choral, sung solo and violin) by composers Sianed Jones and Mary Keith and spoken blank verse text by writer-performer Christine Watkins.

Professor Andrew Whiten

University of St Andrews

Living Links to Human Biology and Medicine

£29,995

In 2011 a suite of activities designed to encourage visitors to think about human biology and medical science from a new angle will take place at ‘Living Links’, a primate research centre built in the heart of Edinburgh Zoo. Through this project an estimated 400 000 visitors will be able to directly witness and engage with ongoing research and related activities through three strands of activity. ‘Living Links to Our Past’ will address what our fellow primates share with us in terms of basic biology and psychology. The second, ‘Evolutionary Medicine’, will explore the light an evolutionary perspective throws on illness and medicine, with illustrations from both human and non-human primates. The third will focus on the evolutionary roots of HIV and AIDS in monkeys and apes.

Richard Robinson

Brighton Science Festival

Of All the Nerve

£16,085

The audience becomes the brain during this celebration of the neuron on the last day of the Brighton Science Festival – ‘Big Science Sunday’. Six talks will illustrate the life of a neuron with audience participation used to demonstrate some of the scientific principles. The audience will recreate the transmission of a nerve impulse, including the synaptic junction; they will see what happens when you stub your toe, and why it takes seconds to feel the pain; they will discover what makes adolescents tick; and they will be wired up to become a neural computer, able to perform simple calculations as if they were a section of the brain. The events will also be delivered in schools as part of the festival outreach plan and will then tour to other science festivals and events.

Marissa Buckingham

Centre for Life

BrainWave

£29,952

For the first time the Centre for Life is partnering with The Sage Gateshead and the Institute of Neuroscience to deliver a programme of talks, interactive experiments and performance, exploring brain computer technology as part of the 2011 Newcastle Science Festival. Discussions will focus on the medical aspects of brain interface technology with real-life examples. In addition to the talks, there will be an interactive hands-on area for adults to explore – BrainLab.

Daryl Folkard

Bankcider Productions

Whose Blood: A tale of desire and despair set in a 19th Century operating Theatre

£30,000

Whose Blood is an original play that brings to life surgery and medical ethics from the Victorian era. The play will be performed in the Old Operating Theatre in London and is being developed under the guidance of Professor Emeritus William Bynum drawing on the historical collections of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Wellcome Library. Whose Blood is a tale of two African immigrants, one of whom falls ill in London in 1846 and must make difficult medical choices at a moment when surgery was transforming from a practice based on humors and spirits to a modern-day science.

Nigel Townsend

Y Touring Theatre Company

Theatre of Debate® Programme: Mind The Gap

£30,000

Y Touring, in partnership with the Royal Albert Hall’s Learning & Participation Department and the Association of Medical Research Charities will revive and deliver ‘Mind the Gap’, a Theatre of Debate® project (consisting of a play, debate featuring electronic voting, and online resources on www.theatreofdebate.com (opens in a new tab) and www.royalalberthall.com (opens in a new tab)) exploring the ethical issues arising from advances in brain science and aspects of ageing through an exploration of the impact of Alzheimer’s disease. The production will take place for a week long residency at the Royal Albert Hall during National Science and Engineering Week 2011.

Dr Suzanna Lipscomb

University of East Anglia

All the King’s Fools: re-thinking mental health through learning-disabled performance at Hampton Court Palace

£29,994

All the King’s Fools is a public engagement project designed to explore cultural attitudes and medical responses to the Tudor period’s ‘natural fools’, who were what doctors today would describe as ‘learning disabled’. This collaboration between medical and social historians and ‘The Misfits’, a company of learning-disabled actors directed by professional jester Peet Cooper, will result in entertaining, challenging and historically credible performances at Hampton Court Palace. These vivid re-enactments will give insight into lives of disabled people at the Tudor court, but also challenge public perceptions and stimulate debate about today’s treatment of learning disabilities.

Dr Sarah Bailie

Royal Veterinary College

Building the Body: Sense and Simulation in BioMedical Science

£29,990

Building the Body is a series of workshops for Key Stage 3 school students run by the Royal Veterinary College. Students will experience using their hands inside 'haptic' simulators, a technology that allows a human-computer interaction via the sense of touch and enables virtual reality objects to be felt. Students will be able to ‘feel like a vet’ while palpating the Haptic Cow and learn about body systems' structure, function and disease processes. Using special prototyping software students will be able to build their own body. Additionally, students will identify innovative uses of the technology in education and beyond.

Julia Hyland

University of Birmingham

Bringing medical and disease history to life using moulage and medical effects simulations

£29,220

By using the medium of Moulage/medical effects make-up, Julia Hyland will realistically recreate and represent a variety of medical conditions. In this way, audiences are able to explore a particular condition 'live' and assume the physical and emotional characteristics associated with trauma and disease. This approach provides participants with the chance to interpret and visualise the effects of a particular ailment and develop empathy with both sufferers and different historical eras. The project aims to generate interest, as well as achieve a better understanding of medical history for those with little or no knowledge of the subject.

Dr Martyn Amos

Manchester Metropolitan University

Manchester DIYBio

£29,705

The project will support the creation of a DIY biology group and open laboratory for adult ‘Citizen Scientists’ at Madlab, a community technology and arts space in Manchester. Monthly sessions will foster a community of amateur scientists to engage with researchers and to contribute to their work. There will also be two symposia and an Open Lab event at Manchester Science Festival. The monthly workshops will involve scientific presentations and members of the public undertaking practical laboratory research work, guided by a team of scientists.

Dr Roger L Kneebone

Imperial College London

Your heart in their hands or your hands in their heart – exploring perspectives through simulation

£29,120

Heart disease is a major killer, but new technology can save lives. Coronary angiography is an advanced procedure where a flexible wire (inserted into a groin artery under local anaesthetic) is used to image the heart’s arteries and treat any blockage. This interactive performance allows the audience to experience coronary angiography from two different perspectives – as a member of the team performing it, and as a patient undergoing it. A realistic simulation presents this closed world through a performance that brings together the latest in simulation technology with the artistic eye of a theatre director.

Hugh Hartford

Banyak Films

Ping Pong – A Sports Movie about Old Age

£29, 851

Ping Pong follows pensioners from across the planet as they compete in the World over-80s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia. From retirement, care homes, mental and physical health to death and loneliness; 8 players from 4 continents, with 703 years between them; show us what it's really like to grow old and be a world class athlete. Ultimately the film challenges what we expect from old age. Through intimate and candid portraits, Ping Pong is a cross-cultural exploration of the physical, social, ethical and psychological issues we face as we grow old.

Alice Edwards

MakeBelieve Arts

Looking After a Giant

£29,067

The Looking after a Giant programme will offer primary schools a menu of workshops for Key Stage 1 and 2 that link to learning targets of the Life Processes and Living Things curriculum. Each workshop will focus on a different area of biomedical science. They will explore human biology: anatomy, nutrition and medicine. The workshops will involve creative activities to excite and engage pupils in their exploration of a Giant body, and therefore their own. For example, this might involve crawling into his ear and going on an adventure through his blood stream to find out exactly what is going on in there. On their journey pupils will be making discoveries about how their bodies work, including how we fight diseases and infections and how medicine can help.

Christopher Hird

Dartmouth Films

After the Apocalypse: a nationwide cinema premiere

£29,750

This award is to support the nationwide public premiere, followed by an interactive satellite discussion, of the documentary film After the Apocalypse. The film tells the story, in Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, of the battle between the boss of the city's maternity clinic – Dr Tolemkhan Nurmagambetov – and a pregnant local woman, Bibigul Balargazinova. The area has a higher than average level of birth defects – which the local people attribute to the fact that it was a nuclear test site in the 1950s. Dr Nurmagambetov believes these defects should be bred out of the population by the introduction of a “genetic passport”. He urges Bibigul, who appears to have some genetic condition, to have an abortion. She refuses. The film raises important issues about genetics and biomedical ethics.

Kat Mansoor

Animal Monday

Lost and Sound

£30,000

Lost & Sound is a documentary about the great human love affair with music. It weaves the science of music and the brain with hearing research, and follows three individuals as they journey deep into sound, through a prism of deafness, to discover how music acts on their brains and bodies. Can they have the musical futures they hope for? Part scientific odyssey, part moving adventure into sound and silence, this creative documentary by a partially deaf filmmaker tackles questions relevant to anyone who's ever listened to music, and gives a provocative glimpse of what our own future might look like as the population ages, the world gets louder and the likelihood of experiencing deafness increases.

Dr Tamaryn Menneer

University of Southampton

Guns, Knives, and Bombs: How do airport staff spot weapons in baggage X-rays?

£12,811

This exhibition will present topical research on eye movement and cognitive processing and their applications in airport security screening. It will be part of the 2011 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition and will showcase the collaboration between the Centre for Visual Cognition’s Eye Movement Laboratory at the University of Southampton and the Visualization Laboratory at the University of Durham. The exhibition demonstrates how eye movements can change when searching for different kinds of objects in X-ray images of bags, and will look at whether 3D displays can facilitate interpretation of cluttered images of bags and could therefore be used to improve the effectiveness of baggage security screening.

Sarah McCarthy

Pulse Films

The Dark Matter of Love

£30,000

‘The Dark Matter of Love’ is a documentary feature film that tells the story of a US family adopting three Russian orphans and the role attachment theory has to play in helping them learn to love their adopted mother. The adoption will be overseen by neuroscientist Dr Robert Marvin. The film will link the contemporary story to the history of research into mother–child love. As the children learn how to form human relationships, the film explores the experiments that have taught us the little we know about the dark matter of love.

Emily Jost

House of Illustration

Illustrating Science

£30,000

Illustration has historically assisted the dissemination of complex scientific ideas and now could have a role to play in bioscience learning through comic strips, graphics and biological diagrams. Illustrating Science aims to enliven primary school bioscience teaching practice with high-quality illustration. Biomedical scientists in partnership with a professional illustrator and The House of Illustration will work with teachers in London primary schools to deliver in-depth illustration workshops, supporting and enhancing bioscience teaching and learning at Key Stage 2.

Ellen Dowell

The Green Man Festival

Science at Play

£19,037

Science at Play is a programme of stalls, workshops, performances and installations that will engage audiences in Einstein’s Garden at the Green Man Festival with fun and playful approaches to biomedical science. Activities will be based round four themes: perception, anatomy, injury and healing, and physical performance.

Ceri Dingle

WORLDwrite

WORLDbytes – The School of Citizen TV Science Strand

£26,000

The charity WORLDwrite’s award-winning and pioneering online Citizen TV channel WORLDbytes will work with 30 disadvantaged young volunteers aged 16–25 to develop an understanding of biomedical issues and an accessible science strand on the channel starting with the creation of a filmed series of six programmes. Reflecting young volunteers’ interests and concerns, programmes will explore with scientists and experts why biomedical science matters, animal experimentation, sports and drugs, the price of life, donating your organs, and science in comedy form.

Sara-Jayne Parsons

The Bluecoat

Gina Czarnecki: a survey exhibition

£29,926

Gina Czarnecki’s career to date encompasses film and installation, with an emphasis on human relationships to disease, evolution, genetic research and image production. Her work confronts issues surrounding the convergence of biology, technology and art, raising relevant questions about developments in the ‘life’ sciences and changes in culture, society and language. An exhibition of Czarnecki’s work at the Bluecoat brings together new and existing works by the artist, including ‘Wasted’, a series of sculptural commissions. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of live events (dance, sound art and live art) and bespoke workshops for children focusing on biomedical themes.

Kate Spicer

Mission Films

Mission to Lars

£20,000

Mission to Lars is a documentary feature film about Tom Spicer, who has Fragile X Syndrome, his brother William, sister Kate, and the journey they take to find Tom's hero, Lars Ulrich, the drummer with Metallica. In trying to help their profoundly learning disabled brother achieve his oft-stated and obsessional dream, Will and Kate end up learning about Fragile X Syndrome, about the effect of the fragile X (FMR1) gene on their brother and, more widely, on their family.

Professor Joanna Geyer-Kordesch

University of Glasgow

Patient’s Narratives/Doctor’s Cases

£15,970

‘Patient’s Narratives/Doctor’s Cases’ explores contemporary experiences of illness by tapping into medical history. Patient narratives derived from 18th-century consultation letters, autobiographies and clinical cases will be presented on stage at informal performances in the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. The project aims to give people opportunities to discuss medical care and coping with illness. The performances explore mental illness, institutionalisation, chronic disease, disability and caring for the sick, with a focus on patient’s perceptions and their interaction with medical science.

Vikram Jayanti

VIXPIX Films Ltd

Monkey Mayhem: The ecology of inter-species habitat competition in Delhi

£30,000

‘Monkey Mayhem’ is a feature documentary film exploring the current crisis-level collision between macaque monkeys and the human residents of Delhi. Underlying the film’s surface levity are serious issues such as zoonotic disease transfer, cultural and environmental health vectors, primate cognition processes, social adaptivity, and even evolutionary neuroscience. The film incorporates cutting-edge primatology to give a wide audience an appreciation of the biomedical issues underlying Delhi’s Monkey Mayhem.

Dr John W Dickinson

Liverpool John Moores University

Face to Face with Sports Science

£30,000

The Research Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences (RISES) at Liverpool John Moores University has partnered with National Museums Liverpool (NML) and the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) to provide a series of interactive sports science events to engage and inspire the general public. The project aims to engage members of the general public in a challenging, exciting and interactive manner by hosting exhibits at the museums, whilst also running targeted workshops for secondary schools students. Interactive pods, created for the events, across the sports science disciplines of physiology, motor control, biomechanics, performance analysis and psychology will enhance knowledge by providing experiential insight into the translation of theory into practice.

Gregory Watson

Children's Radio UK Ltd

Professor Hallux's Map of Medicine

£29,650

Professor Hallux’s Map of Medicine is a series of audio features to introduce children to a variety of everyday medical conditions and professions which they may come across, to demystify each and help children not be worried about a visit to the doctor. The series, which will be presented by Professor Hallux and Nurse Nanobot, will be broadcast on Fun Kids, the UK’s only radio station for children and their families. Online material and an interactive game, providing additional information will complement the series.

Professor Cyril Hilsum

Rank Prize Funds

A pupil's view of vision

£30,000

This project aims to support classroom teaching of the science underlying the sense of vision to pupils in the 11-13 age range. Through interactive experiments using kits supplied to schools it communicates the properties of the eye, its pathologies and their consequences worldwide. The theme of vision forms part of an initiative that covers optoelectronics generally, and it attracts pupil interest by them seeing its connection with things they use daily, such as TV, mobile phones, and CD players. It aims to encourage the children to consider careers in science, medicine, engineering and technology.

Lulie Biggs

ActionDog Ltd

Flavour SenseNation

£30,000

Flavour SenseNation will be a touring exhibition aiming to engage people with our sensory experience of flavour. ActionDog are working with food scientists to develop a travelling ‘multi-sensory’ exhibition, which will contain different ‘booths’ of activities and experiments that explore taste, texture, temperature, smell, sound and appearance and their effects on our ability to identify and experience flavours. The activities will aim to ‘translate’ the sensory story behind gastronomy, disseminating the information in a format that will engage audiences from school children, their parents and families, restaurateurs and those within the catering business, to teachers and science professionals.

Lisa Appignanesi

King’s College London

The Brain and the Mind

£30,000

Over the past two decades neuroscience has developed to a point where basic psychological functions are now widely understood in biological terms. How robust is this neurological account of the mind? The Brain and the Mind will consist of six panel events bringing together neuroscientists and psychologists including Simon Baron-Cohen, Peter Hobson and Steven Rose, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, novelists AS Byatt, Ian McEwan and Ali Smith and other artists to attempt to answer this question by exploring the inner life, empathy, autism, gender and memory. In three of the discussions audiences will have a chance to see the scientists at work, watching footage filmed in their labs.

Greg Foot

Science Junkie

Science Junkie: The Science of London 2012

£30,000

Science Junkie: The Science of London 2012 is a high adrenaline, fast paced science show to bring alive the role that the biomedical sciences will play in the London 2012 games. A unique collaboration between the Royal Institution and Science Junkie, the show will feature daring demonstrations, full audience interaction and specially filmed clips to bring difficult to grasp concepts to life. The specially filmed clips will also appear on Ri Online, a new free online channel.

Christine M Twardzicki

The Home Front - engaging the armed forces on mental illness

£10,936

This project is a pilot to evaluate the effectiveness of using comedy and the arts as a way of engaging armed forces personnel in the biomedical area of mental health: exploring attitudes and providing informal learning opportunities, through discussion groups and show performances. The prevalence of mental health and alcohol issues is high among both serving and ex armed service personnel, yet due to the surrounding misperceptions and stigma, there is considerable reluctance to engaging with and discussing these issues.

Shane McCracken

Gallomanor Communications Ltd

I'm a Scientist, Decipher my Data: Flu!

£29,522

I’m a Scientist, Decipher My Data (DMD) provides an online way to make data real for secondary school science students. It allows them to become real scientists working on a real experiment where the result is not known. Not known by them, by their teacher, by anyone. Why? Because they are taking part in a cutting edge experiment that is being run by a leading academic team. In the Flu experiment, the first of a series of DMD projects, students from 100 schools will correlate illness absenteeism at their school with the proportion of positive influenza samples taken by sentinel General Practices.