Culture Change Indicator Bank
How to… develop indicators and KPIs for your public engagement support programme.
How do you know that you really are embedding public engagement into your institution? When developing and implementing your Public Engagement Culture Change Strategy, you, your institution, and your funders will often want evidence that your programmes are succeeding. Evidencing culture change is notoriously tricky and there is a lot of potential evidence to choose from. This guide is designed to help you identify indicators of success and the evidence you could collect to show your progress.
The indicators here are grouped so that you can choose the most relevant and achievable indicators in each category. Your indicators should directly relate to your strategy and proposed implementation activities and enable you to show how these are succeeding. A balanced strategy would aim for at least one indicator within each group, with more indicators needed in areas where you are hoping to make the most change.
The indicators in the below were developed by the SEE-PER teams, and collated by the NCCPE and Mary Clare Hallworth. We have linked them to the categories in the EDGE tool. You are unlikely to want to use them all, and you will almost certainly have your own to add
People and Purpose
Strategy and Planning
| Indicators | Evidence |
An institutional strategy for PE is established PE written into already active institutional strategic plans PE written into other HEI strategies i.e. departmental strategies Implementation plan created based on the strategy and action observed Investment in PE and monitoring of activity Risk assessment in place for what happens if the PE strategy is not implemented | Documents such as:
Signed manifesto for PE Leadership committees/ meetings attendance and invited members |
Governance and Leadership
| Indicators | Evidence |
Establishment of a PE Steering Group/ Committee Commitments to PE systematically reviewed at other HEI committees Public engagement expertise integrated into leadership meetings and decision-making processes Leadership take decisions that commit resource, time or support for PE Public Engagement lead has appropriate responsibility to be effective in creating change Senior leaders take formal responsibility for PE Leaders at all levels take formal responsibility for PE Management and accountability arrangements in place i.e. leaders reporting into committees or regular meetings between PE professional services staff and senior leaders Membership of governance groups involve community and university representation; community organisations, students, academic and professional staff as well as senior university leaders | Reporting structures articulated i.e. committee terms of reference Demonstration of how KPIs are being reported on at which committees e.g. financial plans and number of researchers supported, trained and mentored Leadership commits internal (or core) funding to sustain PE outputs and structures Details of roles of PE leaders, JDs of public engagement champions and staff responsible for PE Participation of senior leaders in PE-related activities e.g. hosting awards, attending workshops or activities PIs and HODs support application and time out of office to attend PE training or activities CPD, PDR promotion criteria include PE in senior role titles and job descriptions
|
Communication
| Indicators | Evidence |
Leadership talk about the value of PE in communications and recognise achievement in PE
Leadership share PE strategy and plans
PE encouraged and supported in institutional communications
PE success stories shared via institutional media and/or profiled on websites
Successes of staff/student projects engaging the public in research are published and shared internally and externally | Communications data:
|
People and Process
Support
| Indicators | Evidence |
Investment is made in specialist PE support Consultancy and advice is available to colleagues when developing PE Public Engagement expertise is available for brokerage of collaborations and partnerships between researchers and publics Public Engagement expertise is available to advise on grant applications Public Engagement expertise is consulted for institutional reporting (such as REF, KEF, civic university partnerships programme) PE is supported with seed funding from the institution HEI systems ( e.g. finance) are set up to support PE | Business plan and reports on invested activity and expertise Description of institutional support structure, including job descriptions Support logs:
PE and PE expertise costed into funding applications Details of training on offer and how this fits in with other training opportunities |
Learning
| Indicators | Evidence |
Opportunities to develop PE skills through training are offered, including evaluation Opportunities to develop PE skills through activities are offered Training is integrated with HR and wider CPD offers including evaluation Peer-to-peer networks exist for staff to support each other’s PE practice Mentoring opportunities for PE are available to staff Staff and students have access to tools, guides and resources to support PE activity Evaluation is a standard practice as part of the engaged research process Specialist PE support is enabled to use evaluation to improve practice within the sector | Training/ CPD taken up, attendance numbers, feedback and evaluations Opportunities and initiatives run, numbers of participants and attendees Numbers of researchers who have done PE and are now contributing to sharing lessons and training with others Partnership mapping Staff surveys PE expertise in attendance at conferences such as Engage Case studies available, including case studies of public engagement activities supported by the team Journal articles written about PE or PE support Templates of promotion criteria/ PDR guidance |
Recognition
PE is recognised in formal reward and recognition processes
PE is written into promotion and PDR
PE is recognised in awards and prizes (internal and external)