The PEER Forum is for practising early-career scientists and engineers who have passion and ambition for carrying out excellent public engagement alongside, and complementary to, their career in science or engineering. We are seeking Forum members from across the breadth of STFC’s pure and applied science and technology remit.

The specific personal requirements of PEER Forum membership are that members:

• Have completed their highest level of academic qualification within the last ten years (not including any career breaks)
• Are employed at a Higher Education Institute, or a research-intensive Public Sector Research Organisation or Research Laboratory (including STFC’s own national laboratories)
• Work within a science and technology field in STFC’s remit, or with a strong inter-disciplinary connection to STFC’s remit, or use an STFC facility to enable their own research
• Clearly describe their track record of experience in their field, corresponding to the length of their career to date
• Clearly describe their track record of delivering and leading, or seeking the opportunity to lead, public engagement and/or outreach
• Can provide insight into their experiences in public engagement and/or outreach and also evidence one or more of
  • Inspiring others
  • Delivering impact
  • Demonstrating creativity
  • Introducing transformative ideas and/or inventions
  • Building and sustaining collaborations/networks
• Are keen communicators with a willingness to contribute to the success of a UK-wide network

The PEER Forum will meet twice a year to share learning and to participate in sessions that will strengthen the depth and breadth of their understanding of public engagement and outreach.

The programme of these sessions will largely be shaped and directed by the members of the forum. The meetings will be face to face and will consist of a mix of activities, such as interactive sessions with invited speakers from the world of public enagement. Recently speakers have included Olivia Keenan from SEPNet and Christian Diget, an STFC Leadership Fellow in Public Engagement

Forum members will have the opportunity to provide relevant insight and feedback to STFC from their local departments and/or engagement communities.

Forum members have the opportunity to identify and participate in projects with genuine relevance that will deleiver tangible outcomes and inform the STFC public engagement programme.

STFC is committed to a policy of equal opportunities, and appointments to the PEER Forum will be made on merit. We are keen to see diversity in the membership of the PEER Forum, reflected in the gender, race, and other protected characteristics of the Forum members. Gender diversity is particularly important at this point in time, and STFC has set a target for a minimum of 30% female representation on our boards, committees and networks: the PEER Forum has adopted this target. We will use diversity of membership as part of our selection criteria.

Appointments to the PEER Forum will be for an initial period of two years, beginning in September 2019. STFC may consider extension of membership for one additional year by mutual agreement, on a case by-case basis.

Forum members must be willing to actively participate, and contribute to, the Forum’s activities on a regular basis. It is expected that this participation will amount to 4-6 days of activity per year.

STFC will reimburse travel and subsistence expenses associated with attendance at Forum meetings in line with our normal policies and procedures.

Application to the PEER Forum is a single-stage process. An applicant must submit a total of three short documents as follows:

1. A short, tailored CV that outlines the applicant’s relevant qualifications, experience, and track record to date. Please refer to section 1.1 to guide you in this. This must be no longer than two sides of A4.
2. A letter of support from an applicant’s line manager, Head of Department or equivalent. This letter must outline the line manager’s support for application, confirm that the applicant will be supported to participate in the PEER Forum, and empower the applicant to disseminate their learning from the Forum within their institution.. This letter must be no longer than two sides of A4.
3. A document, no longer than two sides of A4, that provides responses to the following five assessment questions:
   • What is your motivation for applying to the join the PEER Forum?
   • What is your thinking process when developing effective public engagement or outreach based on your field of work?
   • How do you evaluate your public engagement and how have you implemented learning from that evaluation to influence subsequent activities?
   • How have you enabled your peers and colleagues to participate in public engagement, and/or improve the culture of public engagement in your institution/department?
   • How would you describe one specific challenging concept from your work to an eleven year old child?

Applications that do not conform to the specified page limits, or do not contain all three required documents, will not be considered for Forum membership.

All applications must be sent by email to STFCPublicEngagement@stfc.ac.uk by no later than 16:00 on Friday 6 September 2019. Applications should be clearly marked in the email title as, ‘Application for STFC PEER Forum: [Applicant Name]’.

All applications will be assessed by an independent peer review panel that will make recommendations on membership to STFC. The panel will use the following assessment criteria to arrive at their recommendations:

• Does the applicant meet the specific personal requirements for PEER Forum members?
• Taking into account the length of their career to date, has the applicant described their track record of experience in:
  1. Undertaking research in a contemporary topic within their field?
  2. Leading and/or delivering public engagement or outreach?
• Has the applicant effectively communicated their enthusiasm for doing public engagement/outreach and their motivation for joining the network?
• Has the applicant shown how they plan and/or generate new ideas for effective public engagement/outreach based on their work?
• Has the applicant described how they have used evaluation of past public engagement activities to influence subsequent work?
• Has the applicant described how they have helped to build the capacity for public engagement and/or outreach within their institution or department? (For example, have they helped embed public engagement within their institution, make the culture more supportive towards engagement, or demonstrably acted as a role model for good engagement?)
• Has the applicant described and contextualised a concept from their specific work and demonstrated its importance in such a way that an eleven year old child could understand?
• Is the application accompanied by a strong letter of support from the applicant’s line manager?

From applicants demonstrated to meet the criteria listed above, STFC aim to ensure Forum membership diversity across protected characteristics, institutions, and research disciplines. Particular attention will be paid to the gender diversity of Forum membership.

The decision of STFC in making invitations to join the PEER Forum is final.

w/c 22 July 2019	Call for PEER Forum membership opens
6 September 2019	Deadline for applications
mid September 2019	Assessment panel meeting
w/c 22 September 2019	Applicants informed of STFC decisions
15th & 16th October 2019	First meeting of the PEER Forum attended by new and current members