b'RESEARCH IN FOCUS BLOG SERIES Public EnagementRAISING AWARENESS OF BIOFILMS IN THE UK AND BEYONDPublic Engagement for NBIC consists of dialoguing with the public about our research and raising science aspirations of children. These are extremely important activities to maximise the impact of NBIC, and for society to gain an understanding of what biofilms are and how they relate to daily life. In particular, we want to reach the public with an active interest in biofilms related topics, such as home, hygiene and healthcare. We also strive to inspire the younger generation. Our Public Engagement Officer supports members of the NBIC network in their engagement activities and we regularly develop appropriate resources for wider use to lead and inspire projects.Our ongoing #BiofilmAware campaign is all about helping people to understand what biofilms are and why biofilm research is so important. We want to be pioneers in educating the UK on biofilms and how they can be harnessed to tackle a number of global challenges. Our annual #BiofilmWeek takes place in line with World AMR Awareness Week each year from 18-24 November across social media to further promote the impact that biofilms have on our world, as well as highlight research taking place to prevent, detect, manage and engineer biofilms.In 2023, the engagement with the awareness week was high. Downloads of NBIC resources saw an across the month prior and during the campaign, with 6672 downloads in total. Content from participants across the world included news articles, video content, photography and art. The hashtag #BiofilmWeek was used over 300 times leading up to, and during the campaign. Throughout the week, NBIC highlighted interesting and exciting biofilm research being undertaken across our partner research institutions and our biofilm network, in the form of 6 Research in Focus blogs and video interviews, and 6 new NBIC case studies. #Biofilmweek44'