In 2021 we called on the engagement community to join us in shaping ideas for change, helping us to reframe the role of public engagement in the future of higher education and society. The Engage Unconference was a plethora of activities and exhibits, bringing our community together in the weeks leading up to Engage to workshop ideas for change and share practice.
The Engage Unconference invited delegates to suggest and explore a set of themes that spoke to the needs of the sector.
How can the work of engagement be funded effectively? We need to consider funding for community organizations, researchers, and anyone who is contributing to the work. Currently so much of this work is 'volunteering' of time - which necessarily privileges some people. how do we address the cultural, funding, and attitudinal challenges that means we don't currently fund this work fairly. How can we usefully come together to agree some actions that will lead to change?
Where are the accounts of public engagement that didn't work? Big ambitions that fell to earth, experiences that people have learned from, the honest (and often sink-or-swim) details we leave out of shiny presentations. How can we create processes for these honest reflections to be shared?
How is our collective practice supporting EDI. How could we work collectively to understand who were are currently engaging with, and who we are not? How might that influence our work, and the ways that funders fund?
Despite the aims of public engagement, the structures and governance that underpins and enables it really hasn't been built to be accessible, transparent, or equitable. Instead of trying to integrate public/communities into what we do, is it time for us to go back to the drawing board and build systems collaboratively to facilitate engagement with equity at the heart of it? How can we identifying the potential areas within our systems that we could target this work, and how we could facilitate this happening?
We have often spoken about the ethics of engagement, and the importance of taking this into account in our work. Is it about time we had an ethical framework, perhaps drawing on the NCCPE's work in this space? Inclusive online engagement: As we move to running more online and blended engagement, how can we ensure that the approach we take is inclusive? What other sectors can we learn from?
Spurred on by the Movement for Black Lives and the international decolonising agenda, Universities are now talking and thinking about racial justice and decolonisation, but often the community sector's thought and practice is more advanced. What lessons can and should universities take on board?
In addition to our main conference themes listed above, we also gave contributors the opportunity to explore any of the other themes suggested by the sector.