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Short abstract:

Aligning with international calls for participatory science to enhance the voices of various publics across science, technology, and knowledge-production, this talk presents a case study exploring how engaged research is enacted to maximise societal and environmental change.

Long abstract:

Aligning with international calls for participatory science to enhance the voices of various publics across science, technology, and knowledge-production, this talk presents a case study exploring how engaged research is perceived and enacted to maximise societal and environmental change within research projects on materials innovation. As a means of revealing historically silenced perspectives, within engaged research refers to a broad range of approaches and methodologies which encompass transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral partnerships. It is a flexible way to tackle epistemic injustice, which holds particular importance within the spheres of sustainable development. This talk will platform research projects that work with emerging technologies, those which have the power to radically reshape the increasingly industrialised spaces we inhabit.

This talk will discuss the hierarchical structure within higher level research and how, even as scientists shape our technological future through extracellular matrix components and spintronics, a silence permeates the procedures and practices of the studied projects that runs counter to the ever-growing funding calls for engaged research. This work will outline the key impacts, challenges, and drivers of forming inclusive and effective cross-sectoral relationships. It will illustrate the potential for overcoming oppressive epistemic injustice through the careful inclusion of publics to meaningfully co-create research; acting on collaborative goals to address societal challenges and participate in research from ideation through evaluation and dissemination.