On the 15-16th October, the PRESTIGE-AF team from Imperial College London travelled to Liverpool, England to deliver the PRESTIGE-AF Escape Room and a public engagement workshop to members of the Horizon Europe funded TARGET project.
The idea for the event came from Prof. Deirdre Lane, who leads Work Package 10: Patient-Centred Approaches in the PRESTIGE-AF project and also leads a WP in the TARGET project. Prof Lane approached Communications Manager for PRESTIGE-AF Harry Jenkins with the exciting opportunity for a cross-project clustering workshop.
The workshop kicked off at 10am as a group of postdocs and PhD students from the TARGET project arrived at Liverpool John Moores University Student Life building. After introductions, the group got to try their luck at the ‘Escape the Clinic’ Escape Room, which has become known as the flagship engagement activity for PRESTIGE-AF.
After completing the Escape Room with four minutes to spare, the group transitioned into the ‘Creative Public Engagement’ workshop part of the day. This workshop aimed to; 1. Explore what is meant by public engagement and why it’s important, 2. Provide tools on how to begin developing a public engagement activity and 3. Get ideas flowing for an activity at the British Science Festival which will take place in Liverpool next year.
At the conclusion of the workshop, the group enjoyed a lovely lunch together before wrapping up for the day. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity for PRESTIGE-AF to connect with members from other EU-funded projects and share insights from the Escape Room, which has proven to be a highly effective tool for engaging the public with the project.
