Introducing Public Engagement

Public engagement describes the many ways organisations seek to involve the public in their work. For universities this covers a range of types of engagement, for instance 'civic' or 'community' engagement, which are part of the same family.  

Public engagement emerged in the HE sector in the early 2000s. At a time when public understanding of science was the prevailing orthodoxy, public engagement sought to involve people and communities more actively, as a mutually beneficial activity. 

This has led to the development of a range of techniques, such as public dialogues and consultation (which provide opportunities for university staff and students to listen and take account of public views and values) or collaborative and participatory practices (which actively involve people in discovery and learning). 

In 2008, when the NCCPE as established, there was a widespread concern about how universities were failing to value or support high quality public engagement. Since then, more incentives have been built into funding and policy, and many universities have developed programmes and strategic initiatives, creating a body of evidence about ‘what works’.  

So what might the future hold? Three trends seem important to us: 

Public engagement – an embedded rather than ‘bolted on’ approach: Increasingly, funders and universities are expecting the people they fund to build meaningful public engagement into the design of research and knowledge exchange – rather than treating it as a separate activity to be ‘bolted on’, often at the end of a project. Wellcome’s new focus on ‘Engaged Research’ foregrounds this expectation, as they move away from funding discrete public engagement interventions. UKRI’s new strategy outlines a similar expectation. 

Public engagement expertise – distributed across institutions: The last 15 years has seen the rise of a cadre of highly skilled ‘Public Engagement Professionals’ (PEPs). As engagement is increasingly recognised as a core part of the HE landscape, PEP roles have diversified, with engaged researchers, research associates, impact teams, community engagement teams, civic teams and others playing a significant role in building capacity for effective engagement work. These roles will make an increasingly important contribution to the research ecosystem.  

People-centred, inclusive culture and practice on the rise: A host of ‘shocks’ to the HE system – including Covid19, widening inequality and the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter – have exacerbated the pressures on universities to engage better with society. There is a new urgency to embedding support for high quality engagement.