PhD students' to help produce ‘Graphic Novel’ on Low Carbon Technologies

The Doctoral Training Centre in Low Carbon Technologies has received funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering for an outreach project involving all of its PhD students.

The project, which has been titled Dreams of a low carbon future, is part of the public engagement grant scheme, Ingenious. It will feature PhD Engineers working collaboratively with school children and professional artists to produce a comic that explores the children’s visions of a ‘sustainable low carbon future society’. The Engineers will be trained to mentor children through an informed process of exploration of potential future technologies and will include workshops where children have the opportunity to produce artwork of their visions supported by engineering input.

The comic will be published and circulated to schools and museums throughout the UK as well as being launched at the Leeds Science Festival.

Professor Sarah Spurgeon, Chair of the Ingenious funding panel said: "The Academy is passionate about engaging the public with engineering in all of its diverse forms and so we're very excited to be supporting this new round of projects. We hope they will not only give the public an opportunity to connect with engineering but also give engineers the skills to talk about their work."

Ingenious is the Royal Academy of Engineering's public engagement grants scheme for creative public engagement with engineering projects. The scheme is supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Further information on the scheme is at: www.raeng.org.uk/ingenious