Professor Anna Davies wins ERC Public Engagement with Research Award for social media outreach

Posted on: 07 July 2020

Anna Davies, Professor of Geography, Environment and Society in Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, has won an inaugural European Research Council (ERC) Public Engagement with Research Award for social media-led engagement around the ShareCity project.

Professor Anna Davies wins ERC Public Engagement with Research Award for social media outreach

The team is transforming cities onto more sustainable pathways by developing deeper theoretical understanding of contemporary food sharing; generating comparative international data about food sharing activities within cities; assessing the impact of food sharing activities; and exploring how food sharing in cities might evolve in the future. 

Professor Anna Davies said:

“Public engagement has been crucial to the SHARECITY project and it has been a team effort throughout our research. It has enriched our findings significantly and I would encourage all researchers to explore opportunities to enhance their public engagement and create science for the public good.”

The ERC Public Engagement with Research Awards recognise and celebrate ERC grantees who have demonstrated excellence in public engagement and outreach.

As part of their public engagement with research effort, the SHARECITY team engaged with a range of online and social media platforms, networks and initiatives, in order to collaborate, crowdsource experiences and disseminate their findings. This visibly enriched their research and was particularly important when crowdsourcing data for the first publicly accessible and searchable empirical database about food sharing activities within cities.

The Jury commended the high quality of the team’s public engagement with research effort, which was global in scope, supported by a clear strategy, and which animated a real online community.

To read more about SharecCity, see: www.sharecity.ie

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Thomas Deane, Media Relations Officer | deaneth@tcd.ie | +353 1 896 4685