SEMINAR Evaluating Impact: NLab, Amplified Leicester, and creative innovation via social media 4pm 8th June, IOCT Lab

I'm pleased to announce this forthcoming seminar by Dr Souvik Mukherjee, Impact Research Fellow, Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University

Evaluating Impact: NLab, Amplified Leicester, and creative innovation via social media
Wednesday 8th June 2011, 4pm at the Institute of Creative Technologies De Montfort University, Leicester, UK . Coffee and refreshments. All Welcome

Since 2005, DMU has initiated a series of projects which share a common focus of exploring social media as a means of stimulating creative innovation in business, non-profit, and community life in and around Leicester. They include NLab and CreativeCoffee Club (funded by HEIF, the Higher Education Innovation Fund) and Amplified Leicester (funded by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). Professor Sue Thomas has devised and directed these activities across the Faculty of Humanities and the Institute of Creative Technologies.

Emergence has been a dominant feature of all the projects and, despite being driven by different agendas, each has informed the shaping of the others. An important element has been the creation and evolution of spaces, both physical and intellectual, which support:

• the application of academic research to real-life problems
• the connection of cutting-edge research into social media innovation with local creative businesses
• the creation of a network linking De Montfort University with small businesses, non-profits, and local agencies

Dr Souvik Mukherjee has evaluated the impact of these projects both in relation to their importance for the Research Excellence Framework and with regard to indications of future developments building on current achievements. In the process, he has also gleaned valuable insights into the REF Impact agenda which will be of interest to colleagues in a wide range of disciplines.

Dr Mukherjee is a Research fellow in the Department of Media, Film and Journalism in the Faculty of Humanities. He is currently involved in analysing the impact of social media projects on communities, especially in relation to business innovation and transliteracy. Having completed his PhD on storytelling in New Media, especially focusing on videogame narratives, Souvik has published and presented papers on a range of related topics. Besides New Media, he also takes a keen interest in e-learning and has been involved in analysing online media and virtual learning network usage in higher education. After completing his project at DMU, Souvik intends to return home to India to develop New Media research networks there. Research blog: Reading Games and Playing Books