Guide: Planning an engagement activity

Before getting started there are lots of things you need to think about. Here are four important areas that you may want to consider to make your public engagement successful.

1. What's the purpose
2. Audience,
3. Activity
4. Assessing impact.

1. What’s the purpose?

Before you start planning it is important to think about why you want to engage with the public. This can be challenging but it is often hard to make a wise decision about the approach without knowing why you are doing it in the first place.

Here are just a few of the possible purposes for engaging with the public:

• to inspire school children, adults or families to take an interest in your subject area or discipline
• to disseminate the results of your research
• to involve the public in helping formulate a research question or project
• to consult the public on their views about your area of research
• to encourage people to help you do your research.

We have categorised purposes into three groups. 

Informing: Inspiring, informing and educating the public, making the work of higher education more accessible

Consulting: Actively listening to the publics views, concerns and insights

Collaborating: Working in partnership with the public to solve problems together, drawing on each others expertise.

It is fair to say that many engagement activities have more than one purpose - and that these may cross each of the three groups. However being clear about your purpose really helps you to plan an appropriate activity.

Find out more about the purposes of public engagement.

2. Who do you want to engage with? 

Once you have thought about the ‘why’ – it is important to think about the ‘who’. Who are you going to engage with? A common answer to this question is the ‘public’ – but who are the public and how can you ensure that you engage with them effectively?

The Public

The ‘public’ is everyone: your family and friends, your line manager, a school pupil, potential future funders or members of your local community. This wide ranging group is often broken down into different types based on categories such as age, gender, ethnicity, location and interests.

Examples include:

• schools and colleges (primary,secondary and further education)
• families and children
• young people (aged 18-25)
• adults
• local communities, community groups
• business and industry
• government and policy makers.

Understanding your audience

Once you have identified your audience, take time understanding their interests and lifestyles. Why might they be interested in taking part in your public engagement activity? The more you understand your audience the more successful your public engagement activity is likely to be.

Check out our Understanding Audiences Guide.

3. Activity

Once you have worked our your purpose and who you would like to engage with, it is much easier to work out the most appropriate activity. There are lots of ways of engaging with the public - here are some examples - with links to more information.

Purpose: Informing

Aim: To find effective ways of informing the public about your research, and to increase its accessibility.

Activities:

• Delivering engaging presentations
• Podcasting
• Writing for non specialist audiences
• Communicating through the media

Purpose: Consulting

Aim: To make sure that you get better informed about the public’s views and concerns about your research, and more sensitive to the social and ethical issues that relate to it. It’s also an opportunity to hear fresh perspectives and insights which can fundamentally challenge and help to develop your own thinking and lines of enquiry.

Activities:

• Panels and user groups
• Online consultation
• Deliberation and upstream engagement

Purpose: Collaborating

Aim: To encourage public participation in your research by involving people as researchers for your project or develop collaborative research projects.

Activities:

• Brokerage eg Helpdesks
• Communities of Practice
• Engaging the Public as Researchers
• Participating in a Public Engagement Scheme
• Participatory Research Partnerships (Co-enquiry)

4. Assessing Impact

How will you know if your engagement activity will be successful? How will you know whether it is appropriate to the needs of your audiences. How will you measure it's impact?

One of the first things you should consider is the evaluation of your project. Evaluation can take place at teh start, during and after your project - and it can be used in different ways to inform your current work, and provide opportunities to reflect on it.

Our Introduction to Evaluation Guide details how to get started.

Top ten tips

Once you decide to run a public engagement activity there is lots to think about. Here are our top ten tips!

	Audience Make sure that the activity is targeted appropriately. If  you aren't sure, then talk through your plans with an audience champion eg a teacher or community leader. You could also check our our understanding audiences guide.
	Planning It takes time to organise activities- particularly event based ones. Write a realistic project plan and add in some contingency time. Check our our guide to project management to find helpful tips.
	Venue Whilst is may be convenient and cheap to use a university/research institute venue for your event, a community venue can sometimes be more welcoming for your audience. Is the venue easily accessible and free to enter? is it a location people visit on a regular basis?
	Comfort Toilets, refreshments, heating...sounds obvious but easy to overlook.
	Access From wheelchair access to parking - it's important to enusre that people can easily engage with your event. You may have have an access officer at the university/research institute who might be able to give you some advice.
	Barriers Are there specific barriers for your target audience to engage with your activity? Have you done everything you can to make it accessible? For example, if you are undertaking co-inquiry research with a public group, could you reimburse their expenses as an acknowledgement of their time?
	Marketing It's difficult to get people to come to a one-off event. Offering a session to a group who are already meeting regularly is a great way to start. They have already sorted out the practicalities, leaving you able to concentrate your energy on creating a great event. Check our our marketing guide for some top tips.
	Attitude Whilst it can be nerve wracking participating in a new type of activity, try to rememebr that people have chosen to come and so they want you to do well.
	Listening There has been a tradition of university staff setting themselves up as the expert and the audience as the recipients of this expert knowledge. However, effective engagement is not framed this way. More important than being able to talk is being able to listen.
	Content What type of activity are you going to do and how are you going to ensure that it is relevant to your chosen audience? Remember that your audience will involve people with different learning styles so try to ensure you use alternative ways to present the content like using audio and films, images and getting people actively involved.

What next

Look through our other resources to find out more about how you can develop your engagement activities. Or contact us with your questions or comments.

Authors

This content was adapted from The Engaging Researcher, written by Sophie Duncan from the NCCPE and Suzanne Spicer from the Manchester Beacon.