A Network for the North-West

Ahhhh yes… That happened to us too. I thought it was just our university.

When we started the North West Public Engagement Professional network (that’s the NW-PEP network, as we love a good acronym), hearing this at our coffee meet-ups was the Objective. Another Objective was hearing this: 

 Ooooooh, that’s how you get through that process. We have to do this instead.

We wanted to create a space for us to drink tea or coffee, have cake, and be able to share the day to day of being a PEP. The small annoyances, the big boulder that is bringing you down this week, the simple solutions we create, the epic story of how you won that colleague over. 

And laugh. Laugh together over some of the more ridiculous and crazy parts of the role that are never on the official Job Descriptions.  

Conferences feel big, we are setting directions for our sector, there are Vice Chancellors in the room, and our learning must be formalised and professional.  

This network complemented that. It’s about half formed reflections, that colleagues can help you complete. Or getting a gentle challenge on a burgeoning relationship that will help you down the line.  

The coffee meetups aren’t formal, we are on a sofa away from the stilted language of our deans. There isn’t an agenda, instead we think about what has been happening.  

“Did you hear about this funding? I can’t seem to find who it went to at my institution.” 

After a few coffee meet-ups, we thought we’d try something different. We had gotten to know each other and realised there was a lot of varied experience in the room. There were PEPs who had been in the industry for a decade or more, folks who were newer but had amazing experiences in other sectors, and PEPs who were part of national organisations but based in the North West. Let’s put some focus and look at our practice with some depth.  

We planned our first skills sharing day to look at one of the classic pillars of PE practice, running funding rounds. Twelve of us got together and looked at our practice, honestly, and critically. We broke down the practice and rebuilt it with a pragmatic but hopeful eye; each of us taking a direction or learning for our personal practice that we could put into place.  

We should be working at the speed of trust.

Not changing the sector with one unrealistic revolutionary rebuild, but many smaller achievable workarounds. There were ideas for new funding rounds, changes to existing ones, approaches to how the community is brought in equitably, how do we sell it to the senior management in their language? 

Bentley and I didn’t want the day to dissipate, so we wrote up a report that both helped remind those who were there on the discussions, but also gave a flavour to those that couldn’t make it. 

So what’s next for the network? We are holding coffee mornings across the region visiting Jess in Lancaster next. There are two more Skills Days in the planning, one that will reflect on Liverpool’s hosting of the British Science Festival, and the role festivals have in the current PE landscape. The other Skills Day will look at how us PEPs are navigating and mapping ethics within our institutions, especially as the scope for PE is including more engaged research practices.  

If you are a PEP, or PE adjacent professional, living or working in the North West, please do join us! We have a mailing list, so do join and say hi.