This half-day course provides an overview of the purpose and value of public and community engagement within the research context. It will help you to think through why you may want to engage with public audiences/groups, what's involved, and how to get started.
By the end of this session you will be able to:
- Define public engagement and its significance in the research context.
- Appreciate the range of motivations for engaging and how these are applicable to your context.
- Explain the public engagement ‘life-cycle’ and what’s needed for high quality engagement.
- Identify appropriate audiences/publics to engage with in your context.
- Demonstrate knowledge of different activities/approaches that might be effective when engaging with different audiences/publics.
- Consider ways to evaluate the success of your engagement.
- Access additional tools, resources and support.
Who is this session for?
The session has been designed primarily for postdoctoral (early career) researchers who have little or no experience of public engagement.
Others are welcome to attend, but experienced engagers may not gain so much from the content.
Format
This will be a half-day session running across three hours, with scheduled breaks. The format will be interactive, conversational and reflective in style.
During COVID restrictions the session has been delivered online, but capacity to run it in person may resume during 2022/23.
What others have said about this session
'The discussion was very insightful and interesting. Different staff with different research background and interests and area of expertise made the session very enjoyable and interesting. Case studies were also very useful' (Jan 2021)
[It helped me to] 'Recognise the pros/cons of engagement at each scale ... If we want deep, two-way engagement, we should do that with smaller groups. Plus, build in evaluation right from the start.' (Jan 2021)
Facilitators
Professor David Read (Chemistry and Centre for Higher Education Practice)
Jo James (Public Engagement with Research unit)
Dates
not yet available for 2022/23 - Southampton staff and students can get updates via our Sharepoint training pages.