Cross-Institutional Collaboration

The aim of this initiative was to help establish effective support for public engagement activities across the Edinburgh Beltane partnership. It was aimed at members of the Training and Staff Development Group, who cover a wide range of disciplines and
institutions – they are public engagement training developers, early stage
career researchers, senior academic staff with an interest in public
engagement, and directors of staff development programmes, representing institutions across the Beltane Beacon.

Background

Members of the Beltane partnership joined The Training and Staff Development Group, whose inaugural meeting took place in December 2008, chaired by the Edinburgh Beltane Project Manager (the Edinburgh Beltane's Administrator has the role of secretary to this and the four other Working Groups in the project). 

This inaugural meeting provided an opportunity for members to meet and introduce themselves, to discuss the remit of the group, the type of training the Beltane should offer, possible programme ideas for the Beltane, and the membership of the group.

Subsequent meetings took place approximately every two months.  By the third meeting, the remit had been defined, and since then, the members have worked collaboratively to:

• Pilot a Learning Lunch on the Value of Public Engagement and the Edinburgh Beltane for Heads of School at the University of Edinburgh as part of the staff development programme.
• Develop the concept of a Beltane Certificate for Public Engagement training, which will enable the partners to share training resources, identify and highlight core skills and competencies for different engagement activities through case studies, and provide recognition for staff who show commitment by seeking out relevant training. The key concept of the certificate is that training is linked with opportunities and experience.
• Run a Trainers Event to gauge the value of a Beltane Certificate for the partner institutions and raise awareness of public engagement amongst trainers. The outcome indicated that the value of the certificate would be to raise awareness amongst staff and trainers, ensure effective and consistent evaluation of the training on offer, and create a record of the training that is available and sharing resources amongst the partnership.
• Prepare and submit a proposal to the Vitae Innovate call for researcher development activities, based on the concept of placement within public engagement institutions.

This initiative was entirely driven by the Edinburgh Beltane project, and made good use of its extensive partnerships and their collective
experience in public engagement skills training.

Partners

The Group members represent the following institutions: The University of Edinburgh, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh College of Art and Vitae.

Barriers

Initially the actions decided by all the five working groups fell to the project manager, which was too high a workload. After having established this, project funds were then identified to cover the cost of a part-time Training Officer - however, the appointment process for this role took longer then anticipated. Nevertheless, a part-time Training Officer was eventually appointed for 12 months.