There are a range of ways to get involved with the activities of the Crick Centre.
Public Member – ‘Friend of the Crick Centre’
Student Placements and Internships
Undergraduates, Graduate Students and Post-docs
Creative Residencies (art, music, theatre, etc.)
Members of the Public [of any political persuasion from anywhere in the world]
Register as a ‘Friend of the Crick Centre’ by emailing your name and contact details to [email protected] We can then keep you informed about activities, lectures and events that you might like to come along to. You can also write to us with ideas for events or to ask for a member of the Crick Centre staff to come along and talk to your organisation, group or school. In many ways the degree to which the Crick Centre reaches out to sections of the public within and beyond the United Kingdom depends to a great extent on the nature of the audience and the context or focus of the event. There are no ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ answers in terms of creative public engagement apart from the baseline fact that academics need to get better at talking to ‘multiple publics in multiple ways’. If you have ideas for events or competitions or new forms of engagement – on-line or off-line – then please do get in touch. Just like democratic politics, we ‘can’t make everybody happy all of the time’ but we will try our best and if we can’t help we may be able to direct you to an organisation that has more capacity or expertise in terms of responding to your requests.
Academics [from any discipline, at any level, from anywhere in the world]
The Crick Centre is forged on the notion of trespassing across boundaries, be they disciplinary, geographical or any other type. In order to reflect this and draw-upon the energy and creativity of everyone with an interest in the dynamics of social change (be it economic, political, sociological, etc.) the Crick Centre offers a number of options. The first is simply signing-up as a ‘Friend’ of the Crick Centre and staying abreast of the activities of the centre and possibly attending some events or on-line activities. Another option would be that you could apply to become an ‘Associate Fellow’ of the Crick Centre and through this access the resources of the Crick Centre and contribute and lead your own projects under the auspices of the centre. Associate Fellows do not need to be based in the United Kingdom and we are keen to develop a diverse global network of fellows in order to forge new links and develop new partnership activities. The final option is that you could apply to come to the Crick Centre as a Visiting Fellow or Visiting Professor in order to play a direct and leading role in the development of the Centre. This would normally involve being resident in Sheffield for anything between one and six months but, once again, we are always willing to be flexible and to consider applications on a case-by-case basis. The Crick Centre has funding to appoint two Visiting Professors/Fellows a year but the expectation is that the applicant would exploit external funding opportunities before applying for core centre funding. However, once again, we appreciate the need to support new entrants to the profession or those undertaking research that at first glance might not be attractive to external funding. The Crick Centre is about being creative and taking risks and we will reflect this ambition in the distribution of funding.
Teachers and Students [An area where we have a lot to offer!]
The Crick Centre is committed to promoting the public understanding of politics. It is not committed to promoting any one single vision of politics or to any one policy or party. If you are a teacher who wants support and assistance with teaching citizenship or politics at any level then please do get in touch. The Crick Centre has a super relationship with a number of outreach and political engagement organisations (from the House of Commons Outreach Department to ‘Art in the Park’ and from the Political Studies Association to ‘Bite the Ballot’) who are all committed to educating and empowering young people. The Political Studies Association, the Citizenship Foundation and a host of other organisations offer teaching resources and downloads; the BBC offers a massive range of podcasts and videos that explore critical issues in an informative and engaging manner; while University Centres like the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights at the University of Sydney also offer a great range of lectures and videos that can be used to bring teaching alive. This is all before we even get to the global network of organisations that we work with that are always willing to go in and speak in schools and colleges about what their organisation does and why it matters (and the challenges they face). If there is a member of the Crick Centre team that you would like to invite to your school or college then please just email us at [email protected]
Undergraduates, Graduate Students and Post-docs [The dynamic and energetic life of any department or centre!]
If you are a university student or graduate student or if you have recently completed a Ph.D and would like to get involved with the work of the Crick Centre then we have a number of options for you. For undergraduate students we have a number of annual placements and internships within the centre that generally run from two to six weeks. (If you are not based in the United Kingdom but would like to somehow develop a project that relates to the broad aims and ambitions of the Crick Centre then please do get in touch and we’ll do our best to either facilitate a remote relationship or to hook you up with a partner organisations.) If you are doing a Ph.D then the Crick Centre can offer Visiting Fellowships to allow you to undertake research in the United Kingdom or to simply come and experience academic life in a new and dynamic institutional setting. Most of these doctoral fellowships are between one and three months in length and you would work with a nominated academic within the core Crick Centre team. The Crick Centre is particularly keen to recruit a constant through-put of the world’s very best post-docs. They might be working in computer science, human embryology or governance and regulation but the key to their work has to be a commitment to engaged scholarship and a focus on how their specific research ‘hook’ has wide-ranging social implications that need to be understood and discussed. Once again the Crick Centre has core funding to bring a limited number of doctoral and post-doctoral fellows to the University of Sheffield each year but competition for these positions is fierce and it is expected that candidates will explore all possible external funding opportunities in order to support their visit.
Partner Organisations [Whatever your size, focus or location]
The Crick Centre is a small strategic organisation that punches above its weight in terms of visibility and impact by working with a number of partner organisations all around the world. The breadth and variety of these organisations is great, as is the variety of relationships that the Crick Centre maintains. In a large number of cases we have a ‘light touch’ relationship with organisations and we may only come into contact or co-operate with each other around a specific project or request from the public; in some cases we might actually have a closer working relationship that involves co-hosting events or engagement activities or seeks to apply for research funding on the basis of pooled funds. In other cases external organisations may actually commission the Crick Centre to undertake research projects or to play an advisory role in relation to specific events or challenges. Over time we would hope to cultivate a number of relationships that fund specific studentships or post-doctoral fellowships within the Crick Centre. In the spirit of complete openness it is true to say that the Crick Centre is in its infancy as an institution and it is learning to take its first initial steps as an organisation that sits at the intersection of higher education, the public sphere and the political sphere. Like all infants the Crick Centre is likely to fall – or at the very least stumble – from-time-to-time and we will learn from our mistakes but in this immediate first opening phase we are keen to establish working relationships with organisations from across the public, private and third sectors that share a commitment to the intellectual and social values of the Crick Centre at two levels. The first level is simply to generate a list of partner organisations who are willing to be formally recognised as a ‘partner institution’ in the simple sense that we would publicise each others existence and communicate information on events, activities and mutually beneficial opportunities. It is hoped that some of these first-level relationships would then evolve into a deeper (second stage) partnership involving (amongst other things) potential funding streams or in-kind contributions, the creation of international networks based around promoting the findings of original research, the develop of new activities that might utilise the Crick Centre’s various residencies or offer the Crick Centre team new challenges. Where a decision is made to enter into a deeper and more formalised relationship with an external partner the Crick Centre will not be drawn into explicitly partisan party politics and nor will it allow its academic integrity or independence to be compromised. Where external funding (donations, endowments, etc.) is involved the University of Sheffield will ensure that all contributions are approved by the existing ethical approval framework. Full details of all Crick Centre projects and funding streams will be clearly highlighted in the website.
If you are interested in becoming a partner organisation of the Crick Centre (whatever your size, focus or location) then please get in touch via [email protected]
Creative Residencies (Thinking differently via art, music, theatre or any other form about political issues)
How do we speak to ‘multiple publics in multiple ways’ especially when those communities might speak a different language or simply not want to listen? How can we explore new forms of engagement and activism in a way that strengthens our scholarship and the standing of our teaching? What does creative public engagement actually mean and how do we do it? In order to engage with some of these questions and to bolster the institutional capacity of the Crick Centre we have created a range of creative residencies that seek to explore new forms of speech and communication. We have an Artist in Residence and a Philosopher in Residence and we’ll shortly be launching a national competition for a ‘Lyricist in Residence’ and the role of all these residencies is really to support academics in explaining to the public why their research matters and (at a broader level) explaining to the public why politics matters. The idea is that the Crick Centre will host a rolling series of three-year residencies and the nature and focus of those positions will vary and change as the centre evolves. The residencies are formally recognised by the University of Sheffield and the post-holder will therefore enjoy an institutional affiliation through which they can apply to a great range of funding bodies. The positions bring a small honorarium and travel budget and the expectations in terms of the contribution each post holder makes to the various projects or activities of the Crick Centre is very flexible. We do not expect the Artist in Residence or Philosopher in Residence – maybe even a Comedian or Playwright or Novelist in Residence – or any other future post-holder to live in Sheffield or to be physically based in the Crick Centre and therefore these positions are global in terms of their scope and reach. If you have an idea for a residency or would like to apply for a residency from 2014 onwards then please get in touch via [email protected]