CHASE series: Organic Systems  Workshop 3: Ecologies of Gender Report by Dr Sean O'Brien (Birkbeck, University of London) After a brief introduction and recap of previous sessions, in which Dr Joseph Brooker (Birkbeck, University of London) discussed the increasing awareness of ecology as a critical issue and noted the emerging interest in SF as a critical field with certain capacities for addressing pressing ecological questions and concerns, the group considered a set of questions posed by Dr Caroline Edwards (Birkbeck, University of London) that were designed to help incorporate feminist thinking and gender politics into the discussion of SF and ecology. These questions included: ‘How is feminist thinking valuable for thinking about the environmental and issues of ecological equality and futurity?’ ‘What happens if we ignore gendered experiences of when thinking about environmental issues like climate change?’, and ‘Can SF function as a method, rather than a literary or cultural mode of production [that could] help us address ecological issues?’ Dr Edwards then ran a PhD training session on ‘Public Engagement: Communicating SF Research to the General Public’. Dr Edwards began by problematizing the term ‘general public’, noting that the public is not only more accurately described as publics plural but also, and perhaps more importantly, is a space characterized by divergent backgrounds and a multiplicity of knowledges. Dr Edwards has spoken at a wide variety of public eventshosted by venues such as The Wellcome Trust, Deptford Cinema and Radio 4, and her work has appeared in a number of public outlets, including The Guardian and SFX. She has also staged public exhibitions, including Imagined Futures at the Museum of London, which was recognized in Birkbeck’s Public Engagement Awards, 2018. Over the course of her career, Dr Edwards discovered that her academic interests don’t always translate well for a mixed audience. The research forthcoming in her monograph, Utopia and the Contemporary British Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2019), develops cutting edge conceptual methods from Science Fiction Studies and Utopian Studies for reading a number of lesser-known contemporary British authors. This work has not been picked up by public media as has her work on Mars, the deep sea, the work of H. G. Wells and J. G. Ballard, or various topics she has placed in conversation with Science Fiction. The task then for researchers keen to disseminate their work to the public is to contextualize their research interests using broader topics of public interest, especially thematic and historic contexts. Dr Edwards emphasized that the timelines for public appearances tend to be rather tight, and so it’s important to think about how to use your time wisely and make the work you do for public engagement a means to develop your research. Another point of emphasis was to disseminate the work publicly whenever possible, as public engagement tends to beget further requests for public engagement. Communicating your work publicly sometimes involves speaking on topics somewhat tangential to your own research interests, and Dr Edwards is often asked to speak on issues at a degree of remove from her own work. The group was keen to discuss remuneration for public engagement work, particularly as work has become increasingly flexible and precarious, and many researchers are self-employed. Practical advice was offered on negotiating fees, expenses and invoicing. The increasing importance of public engagement in the contemporary neoliberal university, as Dr Edwards noted, results in part from funding cuts to university budgets that necessitate researchers find external sources of funding. This is what Dr Edwards described as the ‘problematic backstory’, exemplified perhaps most pointedly in the Knowledge Excellency Framework, the latest evaluative tool designed to regulate funding to post-secondary education. Nonetheless, public engagement offers...