Inventive: A podcast of Engineering Stories with associated live events and career resources

工程学充满了故事。它是关于人们面对挑战并深入挖掘以克服它们。然而，与传统的动作英雄不同，他们能跳多远或爬多远并不是拯救世界的关键。这是他们如何应用复杂的科学知识和实用的专业知识。不幸的是，让工程师实现他们所做的事情的技术深度，也是公众欣赏和理解的障碍。“发明播客”将通过讲故事来克服这一障碍，并鼓励观众梦想工程学，以及他们能做些什么。它将通过工程师、小说作家和获奖电台制作人的共同创作来实现这一目标。我们将把事实和虚构混合起来，创造出适合播客的引人入胜的故事，但以真正的工程师为核心。这也是一个机会，在2018年工程年的基础上，消除对工程的刻板印象。我们将通过挑选有精彩故事的杰出工程师来实现这一目标。它将以具有包容性的榜样为特色，以对抗白人男性在许多工程领域的主导地位。我们将与其他领域的影响者合作，瞄准难以接触到的受众。播客已经成为主流，现在有数百万人收听《科学星期五》、《RadioLab》和《你应该知道的东西》等节目。不幸的是，在这个以小众播客为主的不断增长的市场中，工程技术仍然相对不为人所知。当提到工程时，它通常被贴上“科学”的标签，从而失去了教育公众有关工程的机会。因此，我们将利用目前播客市场的空间，创建一个展示工程的播客。通过这一点，我们将激发社会对工程的贡献。我们面临的挑战是创建一个播客，让那些对工程感兴趣的人都能听到。不幸的是，媒体在工程方面使用的叙事方法往往是有限的。历史叙事很常见，但这可能会强化这样一种观点，即主题是关于过去时代的重型工程；它忽视了正在改变我们现代世界的工程师们。把注意力集中在最大、最长、最高的物体上讲故事是很常见的——这有点像“男孩玩具”——但这种方法的吸引力有限。另一种常见的策略是设置一些令人难以置信的危险，居高临下地对待观众，忽视了工程就是设计出风险和失败的事实。为了获得更广泛的受众，工程学需要以人为中心讲述更好的故事。它还需要内容能吸引不同听众的兴趣和关注。因此，播客将探索不同的叙事方法。我们将对那些有精彩故事的工程师进行真实的采访，并将其与我们特别委托的小说片段相结合。例如，某个工程师希望拥有什么样的超能力，让他们的工作更轻松？在这个前提下，可以建立什么样的引人入胜的小说？这将使我们能够以一种有趣的方式探索工程实践的核心：找到绕过限制的巧妙方法。围绕播客还有另外两项面向公众的活动。第一个是现场录音，它为与公众对话创造了机会，例如在工程伦理问题上。第二是在学校中开发丰富的职业咨询媒体资源，利用工程师的引人入胜的故事来激励下一代工程师。为了实现上述目标，我们在广播、动画、社交媒体推广和职业/课程开发方面组建了一支专家团队。为了塑造项目并最大限度地发挥影响，我们有一个小型顾问委员会，他们带来了科学传播、小说和非小说写作方面的专业知识。

Engineering is full of stories. It's about people facing challenges and digging deep to overcome them. Unlike conventional action heroes, however, it is not how far they can jump or climb that saves the day. It's how they apply complex scientific knowledge and practical expertise. Unfortunately, the technical depth that lets engineers achieve what they do, is also a barrier to public appreciation and understanding. The Inventive Podcast will use storytelling to overcome this barrier and encourage its audience to dream about Engineering and what they could do. It will achieve this through a co-creation between engineers, fiction writers and award-winning radio producers. We will mix fact and fiction to create engaging stories that work for podcasts, but with real engineers at their heart.This is also an opportunity to build on the legacy of the 2018 Year of Engineering to counter engineering stereotypes. We will do this by casting brilliant engineers who have fascinating stories to tell. It will feature great inclusive role models, to counter the dominance of white males in many areas of Engineering. We will work with influencers from other spheres to target hard-to-reach audiences.Podcasting has gone mainstream, with millions now tuning into shows such as Science Friday, RadioLab and Stuff You Should Know. Unfortunately engineering remain relatively invisible in this growing market with mostly small-scale niche podcasts. When Engineering is mentioned, it is usually badged as 'Science', thereby missing the opportunity to educate the public about engineering. Consequently, we will create a podcast that showcases engineering, exploiting the current space in the podcast market. Through this, we will inspire society about the contribution engineering makes.The challenge is to create a podcast that reaches beyond those already interested in engineering. Unfortunately, the narrative approaches that the media uses for engineering are too often limiting. Historic narratives are common, but that risks reinforcing the idea that the subject is about heavy engineering from a bygone era; it ignores the current engineers who are transforming our modern world. Story-telling focusing on the biggest, longest, tallest is common - a sort of 'boys toys' approach to the subject - but this has a limited appeal. Another common tactic is to set-up some unconvincing jeopardy, patronising the audience and overlooking the fact that engineering is all about designing out risks and failure. To reach a broader audience, engineering needs to tell better stories with people at the centre. It also needs content that engages with the interests and concerns of a diverse listenership.Consequently, the podcast will explore different narrative approaches. We will interweave factual interviews with engineers who have great stories to tell, with pieces of fiction that we'll especially commission. For example, what superpower does a particular engineer wish they had to make their job easier, and what engaging fictionalisation could build on that premise? This would allow us to explore in a fun way something that is central to engineering practice: finding ingenious ways to get around limitations.Two other public-facing activities have been built around the podcast. The first is live recording, which creates opportunities for dialogues with the public, for example over ethical issues in engineering. The second is the development of media-rich resources for careers advice in schools, drawing on the compelling stories of the engineers to inspire the next generation of engineers.To achieve the above, we have assembled a team of experts in radio, animation, social-media promotion and career/curriculum development. To shape the project and maximise impact, we have a small advisory board who bring expertise in science communication and writing fiction and non-fiction.