Morning Session: Reward and Recognition for Public Engagement
The opening plenary was designed to provide context for the day, and to help frame the table discussions on the theme of reward and recognition.
Paul Manners, director of the NCCPE, introduced the topic of reward and recognition, acknowledging the crucial role that this plays in demonstrating to staff and students that their institution genuinely values public engagement. He introduced a set of self-assessment tools the NCCPE is developing, to help universities think through the critical challenges to embedding public engagement.
Context: reward and recognition through a PVC’s eyes
Erinma Ochu, director of the Manchester Beacon then interviewed two of the PVCs directly responsible for the Beacon project in Manchester about their approaches to rewarding and recognising public engagement:
- Gerry Kelleher (Deputy Vice Chancellor, Strategic Planning), MMU
- Keith Barnes (Pro Vice Chancellor Strategic Partnerships) University of Salford
Challenges
Delegates were then set two challenges
Challenge 1: What do we know about academic promotions criteria for third stream activities?
This challenge was described by one by Heather Squires, Learning and Research Manager at the NCCPE, who provided a brief summary of the key learning emerging from a literature review, co-commissioned by the NCCPE and ESRC. The review, by Fumi Kitagawa, examined ‘What is known about the criteria for academic promotions in UK HEIs in relation to 3rd stream activity: KT, PE and leadership/management?’
Challenge 2: How one organisation has committed to supporting staff engagement through volunteering
The second challenge was provided by Caroline Ward, Partnership Manager for the Connect and Create project at the BBC in Manchester, then gave a brief presentation about how the BBC reward and recognise staff for engaging with the public.
Challenges – Burning thoughts and questions
Following the plenary session, a number of questions / challenges were recorded by delegates.
Summary of questions and challenges
All photographs on this page copyright David Oates
