The Postgraduate Conference at the University of Lincoln, inspired me to write a blog post related to the conference theme. This year’s conference, organised by the University’s Graduate School, was devoted to public engagement. So far public engagement has been a loaded term to me, a concept that I did not quite capture. I often saw it as an ‘umbrella’ to refer to communicating your research to the public, but without really having pinned down what it was all about. It is hard not to notice the increasing importance that both government and funding organisations are attaching to public engagement. It led to attending some workshops in ‘engaging the public in your research’, but I could not help myself wondering about what exactly it means and, sometimes even more difficult, what it does not mean.

In the preparation of my presentation for the conference I took a more detailed look at definitions and descriptions of public engagement. Using the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) as a starting point, I came across a first definition that did not just sound like vague words to me. Their definition caught my eye and especially the sentence “Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit” got my interest.

Based on the NCCPE definition as well as the talks during the conference, I started to get a clearer image of the concept. Even more important, I began to understand that, it really is something of relevance to all of us in academia. Regardless of the research or the field in which we are working, public engagement is possible and often necessary! Some fields might lend themselves easier to strategies for engaging with the public or it might be more straightforward, but all fields probably should and definitely can do it. The latter was proven to me at the conference. Various examples of public engagement, taking place at the University of Lincoln and across disciplines, were displayed.

Public engagement to me moved over the last couple days from a daunting task, to something to be excited about, something with rewarding features to the public, the research and the researcher. It goes beyond communicating with those you ‘might’ impact; it goes further than sharing with and informing the general public about your research. Interacting with the public can be a way to coproduce research, to design and develop research in such a way that it becomes meaningful beyond the boundaries of the academic environment, outside the walls of the University.

Besides these insights, the conference provided me with a more concrete set of ideas to increase public engagement in my research. Based on the keynote from Sophie Duncan (Deputy Director of the NCCPE) I started to develop a clearer understanding of: why, who and how to engage.
– Purposes of public engagement can range from informing and consulting all the way through to collaborating. In relation to my PhD this made me think of the need to distinguish three main groups. There is a group (older adults with multiple chronic conditions) for which my main purpose of public engagement is collaboration. Listening and interacting with them is essential to my research project as they are to provide me with the information I need. A second group is the ‘general public’; sharing the research, informing them about the process and outcomes to disseminate the research. A third group are ‘stakeholders’, people who are or might be interested in this research from a non-academic point of view (e.g., practitioners, industry).
– The process by which I can collaborate with a specific subgroup of the public, share with a wider audience and inform stakeholders. Ideas around engaging with informants in the study and stakeholders are part of my research protocol. The ‘general public’ however, was less present in this initial plan. A big part of me finds this the most difficult aspect of public engagement. It scares me in a way, being unsure how and what to communicate with this unknown audience. It raises questions such as ‘what if they are not interested?’ and makes me feel insecure in a way.
But, Lincoln provides some safe and friendly environments that can be a sounding board before going into the wider public. One of these options is Pubhd, an initiative I did not completely value up until now. Presenting your PhD in a pub can be a first trial, knowing that the people who are there are likely to have some level of interest in what you are doing.

Maybe it is time to face my fears and start sharing!