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Research staff and public engagement: a UK study

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Abstract

Public engagement plays an important role in the contemporary UK academy, and is promoted through initiatives such as Beacons of Public Engagement and research grant ‘Pathways to Impact’. Relatively little is known, however, about academic experiences of such engagement activities. This study focuses on one staff group, contract researchers, to explore the perceived challenges and opportunities of public engagement. Qualitative and quantitative data—from a web-based survey and three focus groups—are used to show that, while engagement activities are often seen as rewarding, the challenges involved in participating in them are profound. While researchers report practical needs, such as for logistical support or communication training, key barriers relate to the conditions of contract research more generally, and specifically to job insecurity, transiency, and lack of autonomy.

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Notes

  1. This article focuses on the UK context—widely seen as an international leader in the support and innovative development of public engagement with research (see, for instance, Bowman and Hodge 2007)—though similar developments are occurring across Europe and the US (McCallie et al. 2009; Rask et al. 2012).

  2. STEM Ambassadors are volunteers with STEM backgrounds—for instance those working in scientific research—who act as”inspiring role models for young people”. See: http://www.stemnet.org.uk/content/ambassadors.

  3. See http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/kei/impacts/Pages/home.aspx.

  4. http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/what. The definition was accessed from the NCCPE website in February 2011.

  5. I can find only one brief exploration of research staff attitudes to public engagement in the literature, in which ‘public understanding of science’ appears as a transferable skill within a survey measuring researcher’s perceptions of their skill sets (Lee et al. 2010). The authors note that “communication skills scored in the bottom half of the rankings with the promoting the public understanding of science ranked lowest overall” (ibid, 273).

  6. Even the exact number of contract researchers is unclear: the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency has reported 38,000 across the UK, but this figure relies on self-reporting by institutions, many of whom may use differing definitions of research staff (Mellors-Bourne and Metcalfe 2009).

  7. Vitae is the “UK organisation championing the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff in higher education institutions and research institutes” and is funded by RCUK. See www.vitae.ac.uk.

  8. It is impossible to say, then, how many individuals were reached through this sampling technique—though, given that organisations such as the NCCPE have email lists of several hundred individuals, and that there were over 450 initial respondants to the survey (not all of whom were research staff), it is likely that it numbers in the thousands.

  9. Thus of the 340 respondants who started the survey and identified themselves as research staff, 80% of this number—273 individuals—fully completed the survey. In addition, 124 other respondants started the survey, but identified themselves through other job titles or roles. These responses have been filtered out of this data.

  10. Though it seems likely that the focus on public engagement attracted slightly more women (65 % compared to 55 % of respondents) and researchers working in social studies (22 % compared to 10 %) to participate (cf Mellors-Bourne and Metcalfe 2009).

  11. The three universities included two 1994 Group institutions and a smaller, non-affiliated specialist institution. The groups were organised and recruited through a combination of personal contacts (for example, through contacts made at the 2010 Vitae Researcher Development Conference) and those identified as interested in follow-up activities within the survey.

  12. This list was developed in collaboration with the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE; see http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk) in order to provide a realistic spread of the kinds of activities academics have opportunities to participate in.

  13. See http://about.imascientist.org.uk.

  14. The other values were 66.7 % (Social Sciences), 69 % (Biological Sciences) and 90.9 % (Arts and Humanities) of respondants answering ‘Yes’ to the question: Have you ever been involved in any form of public engagement activity? The categorisation of disciplines is taken from the 2009 Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS; Mellors-Bourne and Metcalfe 2009), the only substantial existing analysis of UK research staff demographics and experiences.

  15. As noted in the introduction, there has been some discussion of what models of communication should be drawn upon by those who carry out public engagement with research: are ‘public understanding of science’ models, in which information is understood as being straightforwardly passed from academics to lay audiences, patronising and outdated, and, if so, how far should ‘dialogue’ models be taken (should, for instance, publics have a say in defining the aims and directions of research)? While many institutions—such as the NCCPE—have come down on the side of simply emphasising the need for diversity in the practice of public engagement, the debate remains a live one. For an overview see Bell 2009; Holliman et al. 2009.

  16. All participant names have been anonymised.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Vitae Innovate 2010 grant. I am grateful to all of those who gave up their time to advise on, participate in, or comment on this research. In particular I would like to thank Sophie Duncan and Tennie Videler, as well as Higher Education’s reviewers, for their comments on earlier versions of this text.

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  1. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Sarah R. Davies

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Davies, S.R. Research staff and public engagement: a UK study. High Educ 66, 725–739 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9631-y

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