Beyond activities in
schools
we engage with the wider public in a number of ways to illustrate the research that we do and to offer
comment on current animal health issues. You can read more about the practical value of our research in the
Economic and Social Impact section.
We host meetings of farmers organisations, including on
our farm. In
addition to providing facilities and refreshments for their business meetings, we show them around the
Institute, and our farm managers and scientists explain what they are doing and answer questions. On other
occasions our staff go to farmers meetings around the country. Most recently this has been to discuss
bluetongue with
livestock farmers.
Local politicians have visited both our Pirbright and Compton campuses on a number of occasions, as have
journalists from both local and national media - newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. You can see our recent
press releases
here. We have
issued many press releases about the disease bluetongue, which first occurred in neighbouring countries in
2006 and which came to part of the UK in 2007. Our scientists and technicians who work on
bluetongue have given lots of their time to help journalists inform the country at large, and farmers in
particular, about this disease. Avian influenza is another topic that we have commented on via the media.