NCCPE Blogging Guidelines

We usually ask for 600-800 words, though there is scope for shorter and longer pieces  depending on the topic and type of content (interviews, opinion pieces, infographics, guides). Blogs should include an image, which should be landscape orientation and between 100KB and 5GB.

Please include a sentence about who you are and what you are blogging about. We are delighted when a post stimulates some discussion so please try to end with a question or call to action, to keep the conversation going. For example, opportunities to get involved, related events, or ways to explore the work and topics further. 

Guest blog posts should be in the author’s tone of voice, but they need to be in-keeping with the NCCPE editorial guidelines: plain-speaking, respectful, passionate, informal, welcoming and open-minded. Blogs are intended to be reflective rather than promotional pieces, and new resources, events, or opportunities that you want to highlight should be used to illustrate the piece rather than being central to the narrative.

Readers of the blog are likely to be academics, researchers and public engagement professionals from universities across the UK and beyond, as well as funders, policy makers and people from community and voluntary organisations. While our core audience is generally well informed about the higher education and engagement sectors, we also have an audience who are newer to, and less familiar with, the sector. This includes the language and terminology used, and the context in which we operate. Therefore, posts should be accessible, and avoid acronyms and jargon where possible. We do recognise that some posts will be targeted at very specific audiences and that the language and tone  will sometimes need to reflect this. We also ask authors to help promote their blog post to their own networks where possible,  for example via their social media or organisational newsletters, and to respond to comments made on the post if they can.

Please include an accompanying image to be published with your blog. Please also:

1. Provide descriptive/ALT text alongside this.

2. Include details of who holds the copyright on the image (which could be you) and that the copyright holder has given you permission to use the image (for example by licensing it under an appropriate Creative Commons license)

3. If you are sending us an image that contains images of people, please supply documentation that shows they have given their consent for the image to be used on our website and social media channels.

4. If you are using a stock photo or illustration, please supply details that show you have met the license or sharing conditions of the image.

The editing process is generally light touch – the NCCPE will do a quick edit and send it to you for final sign-off before promotion. However, where a blog may not be in keeping with NCCPE’s guidelines and values, we may need to do more comprehensive editing. We will add subheadings throughout the blog post where appropriate. 

Please submit your blog to our comms lead, laura.densem@uwe.ac.uk, who will check you are happy with how the blog looks on our website/in our newsletter before sharing.