Towards a Knowledge Base for University-Public Engagement

This paper summarises the findings and recommendations from an AHRC project, ‘Researching the Engaged University’ . It is based on a literature review of research into university-public engagement and consultation with over 90 researchers and professionals in the field.

It makes the case that there are important reasons why we would want to research university-public engagement, which include:

• To enhance the ability of those already involved in engagement activities to reflect upon and develop their practice and enable more effective engagement;
• To provide a more robust basis for making decisions about what sorts of engagement activity are likely to achieve different goals and for understanding the different contexts and conditions within which this is possible;
• To produce insights needed to inform the public debate on how universities can best contribute to the public good.