Community Connections with Research: Open Space

We are inviting community groups and University of Oxford researchers & public engagement colleagues to come together at our Community Connections with Research Open Space.

You're invited to bring along topics or projects you’d like to discuss. Our theme is “What opportunities do we have to collaborate on research projects?”

An Open Space is a gathering where people come together on a broad theme (in our case, research collaborations). In an Open Space everyone contributes to shaping the agenda, you may be:

• from a community group and wanting to connect with researchers on a programme you’re running
• a researcher who is trying to learn how best to get communities involved with your research
• a public engagement facilitator who wants to connect with community groups
• working on a new or existing project which could benefit from collaboration

Everyone is welcome to bring along topics which speak to our central theme of community collaboration on research. You may even have more questions! All of this is very welcome at the event.

Poster Exhibition
We will be running a poster exhibition during the lunchtime slot, if you’d like to submit a poster about a community engaged research project, please let us know on your sign-up form (or send us an email – publicengagement@admin.ox.ac.uk)

Please sign up as we have a limited number of spaces

Please select a ticket most relevant to your role. Due to a limited number of places, we would recommend that one person per research project team attendees. We reserve the right to close registration and to put registered attendees on a waiting list in order to make sure we have a good mixture of people in the room.

Bursary for Community members

The event is free to attend. However, we recognise that participating in an in-person event can incur further expenses for attendees – and not everyone will have access to funding to cover these costs. We have some budget to support those for whom there may be a financial barrier to attend – please see our Community Connections Event Bursary Policy below.

Community Connections with Research Event: Bursary Policy

We are committed to making sure this event is accessible. The event is free to attend. However, we recognise that participating in an in-person event can incur further expenses for attendees – and not everyone will have access to funding to cover these costs. We are therefore offering a limited number of bursaries to support the attendance of community members or representatives of community-based organisations.

Eligibility

To be eligible to be compensated for their time, claimants must be taking part in the event outside of their paid work obligations. This includes lost earnings (where your employer will not pay for your time and where attendance does not support other freelance activities). If you are coming from a small organisation where there is a financial barrier to attendance, we also may be able to offer a bursary.

To be eligible for travel expenses, the claimant must not have their travel expenses covered by their employer. Claimants must also be travelling specifically to the event, outside of their regular community journey. We can only cover travel expenses within Oxfordshire.

What and how to claim

Please refer to the university guidelines on travel reasonable claim amounts. We can also cover childcare costs in accordance with the university's expenses policy. We can support the cost of a carer’s time and travel.

We will be providing a meal so we will not be offering expenses for subsistence. As the event is half a day, we will also not be providing accommodation expenses.

Payments to cover eligible contributors’ time will be paid at the following amounts:

• Half a day of travel time and attendance = £75

If you are claiming travel or childcare expenses, you will need to submit an expense form after the event, found on the Oxford University website: How to claim expenses: claimants external to the University | Finance Division (ox.ac.uk) (Please note receipts will need to be kept).

All payments will go through the university's payment processes, which can take up to 6-8 weeks.

Action required and deadline

If you need to claim expenses or compensation for your time, please email the Public and Community Engagement with Research team in advance at publicengagement@admin.ox.ac.uk, Ideally, by 23 June 2025, including:

• why money is a barrier for you to attend and

• how the bursary will mean that you can attend.

If you have questions about this document, please contact publicengagement@admin.ox.ac.uk