The beacon gets its name from a Celtic festival that unites the whole community - it will be drawing on the experience of researchers across disciplines including medicine, science, engineering, social sciences and the arts in its public engagement work. It will enable researchers to share their ideas with the public, with policy makers and between themselves. The partnership consists of 19 organisations across Scotland.
As the external evaluators, we are using a mixed methods approach to measure the project's impact both quantitatively (through activity audits and electronic surveys) and qualitatively through face-to-face interviews and case studies.