Scotland's Rural College

Why we've signed the Manifesto

"We believe we have a responsibility to communicate our science as widely as possible, in fact, the translation and transfer of knowledge is a key part of SRUC’s mission.

Engaging the public with science not only helps inform their decision making on incredibly important issues such as new genetic technologies, animal welfare and greenhouse gas emissions, it also allows us to learn from them and find out how future research can address their queries and concerns.

Signing the Manifesto of Public Engagement is a significant step on our journey to becoming a fully engaged institution."

Professor Geoff Simm, Vice Principal Research

How we approach public engagement

SRUC have long supported knowledge exchange, transferring research to the most relevant people through open meetings and events. In the past this tended to be key stakeholders in our work, such as farmers, vets, agribusiness and policy makers, but we have now significantly broadened our approach to include the general public, schools and others.

We reach out to communities and groups across Scotland to engage them with our research in a range of ways. Our scientists run workshops and speak at science festivals including the Dundee Science Festival, Midlothian Science Festival and the Edinburgh International Science Festival and in recent years we have also coordinated our own programme of events including Here Come the Girls, a lecture series aimed at encouraging more women into science, and Animals in Art, an art competition run in conjunction with Edinburgh College of Art which showcased our animal welfare work.

We continue to look for new and exciting ways to highlight our work to an array of audiences and will be encouraging more researchers to do so by embedding and reward the practice of public engagement.