Faye Watson

FAYE WATSON

Engagement, Involvement & Communications Consultant

Breaking down barriers in research and innovation to drive change for the benefit of society.

Who am I?

Hello! I’m Faye Watson, a passionate engagement professional with a drive to make research impactful and equitable for all. I do this by breaking down barriers and building relationships to bring people together to drive long-lasting social change.

I put people at the heart of what I do, ensuring personal motivations and goals are intertwined in project delivery whether this be on a small 1-2-1 basis, or for large organisations in the Higher Education sector.

I ensure that the voice of each stakeholder is heard, valued and acted upon creating equitable impact for all parties.

NEWS: I have recently been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to strengthen services in Scotland for people living with HIV, especially for those from African communities. Find out more by clicking here.

What I Offer

Consultancy
Engagement, Involvement & Communications
- Strategy development
- Stakeholder analysis & mapping
- Evaluation frameworks
- Programme development
- Funding model development
- Crisis communications
Facilitation
- Workshop / focus group facilitation
- Large event organisation and facilitation
- Small scale consultations
- Content creation and distribution
Training
- Getting started in Engagement
- Evaluation
- Strategy development
- Communications (incl. crisis comms)
- Grant writing and pitching
- Networking
- Stakeholder analysis
Mentoring
- For early career Engagement Professionals
- For early career researchers including PhD students
- 1-2-1 or group facilitated

What people say about me

"Faye is one of the most competent engagement professionals I know. Importantly for us, she is also a lovely person to work with. I (and the team at FoSho) are lucky enough to have been invited to work on a number of projects with Faye and this has provided me with the opportunity to see Faye work with a wide variety of individuals and organisations tackling complex and challenging subjects. Importantly, she is kind, thoughtful and incredibly capable, always striving to build on successes and solve challenges."

Fynn Elkington, Managing Director (FoSho Studios)
"At every stage of the process, Faye has consistently shown unwavering commitment to not only the smooth running of the project, but crucially, a dedicated approach to ensure our service users are fully included. Faye has gone to exceptional lengths to be fully inclusive and avoid stigmatising content which demonstrates not just her determination, but a keen sense of detail and awareness of the difficulties faced by people living with a blood-borne virus."

Peer Support Scotland Team, Terrence Higgins Trust
"In an almost 10 year career in Science Communication, I can count on one hand the number of people who are dedicated to creating true positive impact on audiences, colleagues and institutions. Faye is on that list. In the time we have worked together, it has been a true breath of fresh air to see her approach to people management, to community engagement, to ensuring that research is improved through public engagement and that public audiences benefit from academic research."

Sam Langford, Freelance Science Communicator
Scientific engagement, involvement and communication work takes many forms, and many people are skilled in different aspects of it. Faye stands out for being ‘the complete package.’ She has extensive experience of designing, delivering and evaluating activities, events, communications and training in multiple formats, and she combines this with a strategic understanding of funding and impact, and a deep and considered commitment to supporting and developing the people around her to produce effective communication teams. On all the occasions I have worked with her she has not only helped to deliver the plan I had in mind, but has shown how this could be used in ways that were wider, more impactful and more ambitious than I could have anticipated.

Dr Ed Hutchinson, Senior Lecturer (University of Glasgow)
"Faye has an exceptional talent for bringing together different groups of people and creating a relaxed but productive environment for all to contribute to the goal of the project."

Cassandra Hugill - Public Engagement Manager (Department of Imaging Neurosciences, UCL)
"Faye’s drive and determination, coupled with her knowledge of public engagement practice has led to two very fruitful funding applications. My interactions with Faye have always resulted in exciting developments and opportunities for public engagement and increasingly diverse ways to promote our work to an ever-increasing audience, in person and online including local and national media."

Dr Ben Brennan, Principal Investigator and Wellcome Trust/ Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow (MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research).
"In early 2021, I undertook a PhD internship supervised by Faye. Faye has an incredible capacity for building strong relationships with her colleagues. She is open and attentive, and actively seeks feedback and opportunities to grow. For this reason, Faye remains a key mentor of mine. She supported me in searching for a career outside of academia and helped me adapt my academic CV to one suited a professional services role. Her support in applying for jobs helped me secure an incredible role that aligns exactly with my career goals"

Dr Tia Salter, Training & Registers Officer (Royal Society of Biology)
"More than the technical opportunities I was provided with, Faye has created an amazing atmosphere within the Engagement and Communications Team that allows us all to learn from one another and gain the most out of our work that we can. My time with Faye and her team has made me a more engaged and effective communicator, and has let me grow as a scientist, and I am very grateful to her and all of the extra work she put in to make the project an unforgettable experience.”

Sarah Walsh, PhD Researcher (BBSRC SWBio DTP, University of Exeter)

Lets work together

Not what you’re looking for?

If I am not quite what you are looking for, I work with a load of other wonderful freelancers & companies who might be a better fit, or we could come as a pair!