Innovative engagement practice
The first NCCPE Seminar was focused on innovative engagement practice from across the UK. We heard from recent NCCPE case study contributors on a diverse range of projects. Seminar attendees had the opportunity to ask questions, and they obliged!
Here, our contributors address some of the questions and comments raised in the Q&A.
Watch the recording of the first NCCPE Seminar
Q. How did you approach learning about what participants/communities need from you? How did you make provisions and create a space, and how did you learn about them?
Joanne Thomas - OCD and the Brain, said:
For the OCD and the Brain project, we worked closely with charity partners and lived experience experts who were embedded within the OCD community. This was a really important starting point that enabled us to learn from their expertise and previous work about how to meet participants' needs and create safe spaces for this particular community. This was key to do right at the beginning of the project and throughout the planning and delivery. We also actively asked all participants about their needs and how we could support and empower them to take part in the project stages. Often one size doesn't fit all, so we aimed to be as flexible and responsive to specific needs as possible.
Q. Do you re-integrate the learnings from your engagement activities into subsequent activities? if so, how?
Aidan Tracey - Community Grant Scheme, said:
At the University of Edinburgh we are always keen to implement learnings to improve our Community Grant Scheme. We hold community grantee get togethers twice a year. The events aim to encourage engagement between community organisations and the University. It's also a great opportunity for grantees to learn from one another and forge meaningful relationships.
Traditionally we have held these events on our University campus. However, recently we piloted holding one of these at a grantees venue, Bridgend Farmhouse, as it felt far more in keeping with the aim of the grant scheme. It was very successful and the feedback from grantees was incredibly positive. As a result, we are now going to hold these events with our grantees going forward. This is far more meaningful for our grantees and, selfishly, gives us a lovely chance to visit our grantees and see the great work they're delivering.
Q. How do you report and show impact? What sort of impacts are they and do you find problems linking these impacts with funders expectations?
Arielle Bennett - The Alan Turing Institute, said:
The Turing Way takes a holistic approach to evaluating the impact of the project, incorporating different scales and utilising both quantitative and qualitative measures. We seek to demonstrate the many layers of impact that the project has, to help give funders and policy makers a rounded view of how effective the project is at achieving its overall goals.
At a globally quantitative scale, we track visits and use of the different guides to indicate the broad appeal of the content to researchers and students in general terms. We also use easily understandable metrics such as our 500+ contributors and 350+ chapters to indicate the popularity of the project.
At smaller scales, we examine the influence of the project on wider research culture and practices using a mixed approach. Metrics such as citations and policy references are tracked on a regular basis, while we also engage with other groups who use The Turing Way practices as inspiration for their own communities. Examples of this include NHS-R or the Environmental Data Science book.
At the individual level, we encourage contributors and users to share their own journeys with the Turing Way. Contributors can add their contributor biography to the repository where the project is hosted, explaining the skills they've developed and leadership roles they've taken in the project. We also recently solicited impact stories from users and collaborators through a social media and network call out. These tales of how the Turing Way has directly impacted research culture and practice are the strongest evidence we have! We will be using these to supplement case studies and grant applications for years to come, and we're so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to write one so far.
In terms of relating this back to funders, it is a case of knowing the culture and understanding what each organisation values in terms of impact. For some funders, our global reach demonstrated in access metrics is most impressive, while others are interested in the examples of direct culture change we can offer. However, we have tried to focus our information gathering on areas that align with the overall mission and aims of the project: bringing together a diverse constellation of researchers, research technical professionals, government, academia, and industry to collate resource which will help improve the way that research is conducted across the globe.
Q. What do you think the future of this kind of work will be in the current financial state of HE? How can you see your work changing?
Aidan Tracey - Community Grant Scheme, said:
This is such a challenging question and I don't think there is a clear answer.
Our Community Grant Scheme has run since 2017 and provided over £700,000 funds to communities across the Edinburgh City Region.
We have a Community Plan that commits us to deliver positive change locally and regionally. This commitment will not change and, therefore, we hope that our grant scheme will continue to run.
The reality may be that we can't grow or scale the scheme, in the short to medium term, and we may need to be more creative with our delivery to ensure funds go to the communities we serve.
