Public Engagement and Impact of Research event

27 July 2010

By Web Admin

Posted on behalf of Kathleen Dorelli, Vitae London Hub Manager

Public Engagement and Impact of Research
Natural History Museum, 23 March 2010

The event began with lunch followed by a welcome from Fiona Denney who thanked the Natural History Museum for hosting the afternoon and handed over to Eileen Cox, Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Museum.  She informed the audience that 80-90 postgraduate researchers were associated with the Museum in some way as well as approximately 30 postdoctoral researchers.

The first speaker, Steve Cross (Head of Public Engagement, University College London (UCL)) explained that the Beacons are a four year initiative until July 2011 and are funded by HEFCE, the Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust.  There are 5 other Beacons across the UK and the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has been established in Bristol.

He started his presentation with varying definitions of Public Engagement (PE), explaining that Public Engagement is all about communication and involves bringing universities and the public together, encouraging a culture of two way conversation which generates mutual benefit. He felt the NCCPE definition (which follows) would probably become the definitive explanation for this.

“Public engagement brings universities and the public together, and generates mutual benefit: inspiring, enriching and empowering everyone who gets involved.  Managed effectively, it makes universities more welcoming and accessible, and increases their relevance and impact on society”

PE is not something that could be tacked on because it has to be done.  For this to work for researchers it has to be something that results in mutual benefit.

Different levels of engagement with PE range from the very basic telling public groups about research, right the way through to creating knowledge in collaboration with communities and interest groups outside the University. To leave behind the basic one sided model of engagement and to reach the more mutually beneficial levels of PE involves a complete change of culture within universities and the Beacons are attempting to bring this about.

They are not involved in putting on big events   but as well as culture change are involved in capacity building by getting those not involved already to be involved, and by helping those who are involved already to become more engaged.  They aim to embed PE at strategic level, to create networks and join up people doing PE and also to look at what works and what doesn’t through sharing experience and evaluation.  They are able to remove barriers to those who work with PE with strategic funding and training, by generating projects and by working with management to get rid of any residual culture and also by building rewards and recognition for public engagement.  He pointed out that at UCL public engagement activity was now taken into account for promotion.  He also described “BrightClub” a project at UCL which encouraged researchers to write and perform stand-up comedy about their research.

With regard to why researchers should be involved in PE, the enjoyment factor plays a big part on the personal side as well as the development of a new skill.  There is a moral case for those in receipt of public funds to give something back by showing their research to be publicly relevant.  On the academic side it allows researchers to think of new questions and new angles for their research.

Each university has a different culture and one size doesn’t fit all.  Change is slow and could take at least 10 years, but there is a strong business case for universities to be involved in public engagement and there is enthusiasm at all levels.

Visit http:www.ucl.ac.uk/public-engagement  or http://www.brightclub.org  to find out more of what goes on at UCL

Mark Miodownik from King’s College London spoke of his experiences in public engagement and how he had always wanted to be involved as well as how much he enjoyed that involvement.  The Materials Library that he set up involves much more than just science, since use of materials cuts right across all disciplines including the Arts.  As well as himself, the Materials Library staff includes the Curator, Zoe Laughlin, who is an arts graduate and Martin Conreen, who is a designer.  They put on events on different topics in interesting venues such as museums and galleries which attract a wide variety of people from all sorts of backgrounds and with different interests.  He showed some films from two of these events, one on flesh held at the Wellcome Collection and one on ceramics held at the V&A. The Library now has some funding to do this internally.

PE and knowledge exchange interface with all aspects of his job.  He described how someone would approach the Library to find a material that could be suitable for a particular use and that needed some specific properties.  If the exact match was not available then this could produce a research project and even lead to funding.

To find out more about the Materials Library visit http://www.materialslibrary.org.uk 

Stephen Roberts from the Natural History Museum spoke about Nature Live who are a small part of the PE group at the Museum.  They act as an interface between researchers and the public and put on some 500 events a year for lots of different types of audiences to explore, discover and discuss the natural world, with over 130 research staff taking part. A link to a live event taking place in the Attenborough studios at the Museum was broadcast as an example.  Science Communicators facilitate these events and make them enjoyable. Stephen introduced Aoife Glass who explained her role as a science communicator and Nick Higgs a PhD student who was involved with the events as a researcher.  As a direct result of this PE work Nick had been contacted by someone working in a different field with whom he is now involved in a research collaboration.

The Director of Science for the Museum, Richard Lane, also highlighted that having dialogue with the public was useful for scientific staff in getting them to articulate what they do and to see that their research is relevant.  He also spoke about the different ways they could engage with the public, for example writing content for the museum website or developing content for exhibits.  Interaction is beneficial to their own survival and the science communicators are able to act as an interface to enable them to do this effectively.

Eileen Cox spoke of other Museum activities including as the new Darwin Centre and its state of the art interactive exhibits.

After the tea break Graeme Rosenberg from HEFCE spoke of impact and the Research Excellence Framework (REF).  He pointed out that there had been substantial increases in public funding for research in the past ten years and this period may come to be seen as the golden age for HEI funding. The UK Research base was second only to the US in international success, with high quality research and output.  Assessing impact enables benefits to be demonstrated and strengthens any case for future investment.

The previous RAE had been criticised for focussing on academic research achievement but the new REF will include other things in order to produce a level playing field.

The REF consultation has produced proposals to assess impact through expert review and a pilot study is now underway using the case study method.

There was broad support for ‘historical’ impact, subject to the development of a robust method and weighting.  Objections reflected concerns about ‘predicting’ impact.

There would be continued dialogue and decisions on weighting and method for impact would be after the conclusion of the pilot (Autumn 2010)

With regard to types of impact there would be a wide definition and the parameters for assessing impact would include only impacts that have occurred during the REF period, underpinned by research over a longer timeframe.  Impact of the unit as a whole would be measured not every output for every researcher, just the best exemplars.  Research of all types would be included.  Assessment would be through expert review within panel with case studies including narrative backed up by some indicators.  Each subject area panel would develop indicators as appropriate to that discipline, and would include input from external audiences, users and beneficiaries of research as well as from academics.  It was intended that there would be the minimum burden necessary to enable robust assessment.

The current pilot exercise involved 29 UK HEIs measuring impact during 2005-09, underpinned by research since 1993 and the panels were:

¨       Medicine
¨       Physics
¨       earth systems and environmental science
¨       social work and social policy
¨       english language and literature

Each submission would include an overview statement, one case study per 10 research staff

The panels would look at three questions

¨       what are the social or economic benefits?
¨       What ‘underpinning’ research was done and how did it contribute to the benefit?
¨       What evidence is there to support the above?

There would be a common template of 1500 words and examples and feedback from the pilot exercise would be published.  There would be no differentiation between local/national/international impact etc. as this did not depend on territory.

Graeme also gave details of the make up of pilot panel membership.  Details of panel members will be published.

The website  http:/www.hefce.ac.uk/ref gives guidance for pilot institutions on how to make a submission and further information would be announced later in the year.

Michael Metelits, Director of Business Development from Goldsmiths, University of London also spoke on impact.  He was pleased to see from the previous speaker that there was a shift in the way in which impact would be looked at, producing a level playing field and was happy that ‘narrative’ had been moved up the scale.  He felt that the research process or practice base as well as the outcome creates an impact and interaction between people was equally as important as what comes out of the interaction. Viewing impact as separate from the project doesn’t work for practice based research.  A demonstrable effect that transforms projects and also the researcher is the only way to account for interdisciplinary approach.  Basic investigative/curiosity-driven research is incredibly important as well as problem based industrial research.

With regard to composition of the panels he suggested PE professionals would make a good addition.

With enormous pressure on public funding public engagement becomes more important to account for research to non-specialists and impact has to be taken seriously, because showing benefits can sell intangibles.

Points from the panel discussion and question session, which followed the presentations, included:

¨       There did appear sometimes to be a difference in appetite for PE but capacity building i.e. finding interested people and working to demonstrate success does then raise interest in colleagues.
¨       When researchers say “no one is interested in my area” looking at drawing up an impact plan can show a variety of possible interested audiences and give a PE window.
¨       Getting students at an early enough stage to learn how to present at the level of their audience would help.
¨       So many undergraduates are not passionate and modules on public presentation at this stage would increase efficiency later.
¨       The age where supervisors stop PE is gradually coming to an end because of increased pressure to engage with the public coming from multiple directions.
¨       PE is not separate in art and design and is fundamental to its agendas

¨       An intervention by a science communicator is not an imposition but is intended to help researchers articulate to external people who are going to judge what they are doing and helps researchers to tell their own stories, rather than taking their stories away to be retold
¨       Communicating between disciplines helps to learn about each other
¨       Newer Universities tend to be more engaged with communities than older universities
¨       Universities still tend to see the PE field as “how to deal with the press”

The event closed with a networking drinks reception

Vitae would like to thank the author for contributing this article. Vitae would like to remind readers that the information and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Vitae or CRAC: The career development organisation.

This article has been published as part of Vitae's Public engagement online activity in July 2010.  To view other articles on this theme please visit www.vitae.ac.uk/publicengagement