Research Café

Research Café offers an informal space to share research, innovative ideas, methods and concepts for the enhancement of knowledge and enrichment of the academy and the society in which it serves.

Coffee meeting

The Research Café enables students, staff and the public to meet and discuss the research work happening at the University of Edinburgh in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. Cafés take place throughout the year and we hope to cover as broad an array of research topics as possible.

We are always keen to take suggestions, theme requests, or volunteers to run a café and share their work with a wider audience.

Check back here for future events and news, and view reports on past events.

What is a Research Café?

Research Cafes are events that allow researchers and students from across all fields to come together and discuss their outputs, methods, and interests in an informal and welcoming setting. They share a common format – very short lightning talks (approximately three minutes), followed by a chance for chatting over tea and coffee (with facilitators in the room helping nudge things along) and ending with a final call to action to close the café.

The cafes offer the opportunity for attendees to learn about new areas of research, chat through ideas, and to meet new colleagues and form new connections. We will also highlight the various ways in which the Library can support the research on display, and encourage interactions with our various teams.

Key Information

Attendance: 10-30 is a suitable number of attendees, but can work well with fewer. Ideally, we would be keen to also advertise the cafés to non-conference attendees (with priority space given to conference attendees).

Venue: The Library can host a research café at the conference venue (if a sufficiently large space that allows catering is permitted), or can work with the organisers to find a suitable space nearby. The Library can also host a café in the Main Library.

Timings: Café’s last between 40-60 minutes. We recommend incorporating these into a lunch break, or at the end of a day as a break for attendees (though they can slot in anywhere).

Themes: We would suggest aligning the café to themes of the conference; selecting a specific challenge, hot topic, or method that would be of interest to all potential attendees.

Format: Talks should be short, engaging, and relevant to the themes of the café (usually chosen to align with the research of the conference). They can incorporate some kind of activity but should not rely on Powerpoint or notes. We can offer guidance to help speakers prepare suitable presentations.

Speakers: Speakers can come from the conference, or be recruited independently with the support of the Library. We recommend two or three speakers.

Past Events

Café theme: Research methodologies and research well-being (26 Feb 2025, 14:10-15:40, 1.07 Main Library)

Research Café presenters:

Dr Iona Beange: Depression Detectives: An Online Citizen Science Project
Depression Detectives was an online, citizen science project, where people with lived experience of depression and data scientists co-produced a small research project. They found that most people who self-report depression, have no mention of it in their GP records. This has implications for data scientists, doctors and policymakers.

Dr Iona Beange is a Patient and Pubic Involvement Co-ordinator at the University of Edinburgh. She has worked in science communication and public engagement for over 20 years and is passionate about two-way engagement and letting voices be heard. She enjoys being creative and brings that into both her work and home life.
Dr Iona Beange (University of Edinburgh Staff Profile).

 

Frankie Vale: Empowered Journeys: A Co-Curated Exploration of Breast Cancer Surgery
Frankie Vale is a final year PhD student in History of Art, whose work considers representations of the body after breast cancer surgery in art and curation, and how they intersect with ideas about gender, care, and forms of knowledge production. Her project, Empowered Journeys, is co-curated with members of the breast cancer community, using creative workshops and exhibition-making as a platform for people existing in post-surgery bodies to regain control over their narrative and representation.

 

Jimmy Turner: The Ripple Past, Present and Future: Crafting community knowledges through art
‘The Ripple Project: Past, Present and Future’ project gathered together a team of Ripple Project staff, volunteers and members; Binks Hub researchers and students; and freelance artists. Collectively they worked through a variety of workshops, art-making sessions, and fun activities to create four artworks which explored the experiences, dreams and demands of communities who live in Restalrig and Lochend, and which have been exhibited publicly at both the Ripple and the Dovecot Studios.

Jimmy is an anthropologist and artist working for the Binks Hub, which specialises in conducting participatory social research in partnership with marginalised communities. As a team they bring together established social research methods with artistic and creative methods and practices in order to collaboratively craft otherwise seldom-reached knowledges.

 

Dr Alice Austin: Web archives for information activism: participatory collections as resource and methodology

As the University’s Web Archivist, Dr Alice Austin’s role is focused on securing a record of the University’s published web content. Her other research interests include contemporary and ‘rapid response’ collecting practices in heritage institutions, the ethical implications of collection development, and the relationships between heritage and identity.


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