Dr Sinéad Rhodes awarded Public Engagement prize

Dec 2017: Congratulations to Dr Sinéad Rhodes, who was awarded the Royal Society of Edinburgh Innovator’s Public Engagement Prize 2017.

The prize was awarded on 30th November by Professor Stuart Monro FRSE.

Dr Rhodes was awarded the prize for her substantial and innovative work with the RSE Young Academy of Scotland on the “Research the Headlines” project. 

Dr. Sinéad Rhodes is a Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the The SMC Research Centre for  Learning Difficulties, based in CCBS and Child Life and Health.

She has been an active researcher in the area of child development for the last 20 years. Her research focus concerns understanding and resolving developmental disorders such as autism and ADHD in children and young people.

Research the Headlines

Sinéad is very active in public engagement activities. In 2013, she set up a working group within the Young Academy of Scotland that developed the ‘Research the Headlines’ project. This project involves a successful multi-disciplinary blog that focuses on engaging the public about understanding research as discussed in the media. The group have engaged a variety of organisations with the blog and the NHS have chosen the project as one of their ‘Editor’s pick of the blogs’ on the NHS Choices webpages. The blog was also nominated to the ‘top ten’ blogs in the 2017 UK blog awards in the Education category.

Schools engagement

The group also run related public engagement activities in the community. During 2015-2016 the group ran a highly successful school and University competition ‘Rewrite the Headlines’ engaging children in 100 schools with their ‘top tip’ of ‘Don’t stop at the headline’ in workshops run by members of the group. Their work endeavours to equip the public with basic skills to understand research evidence they read in the media that impacts their lives. 

Related links

Dr Sinead Rhodes Principal Investigator profile