What kind of activities does public engagement involve?

The three key purposes for public engagement – informing, consulting or collaborating - can make an important contribution to all aspects of a university’s or research institute’s activity.

Public engagement can be much richer when it is not seen as an end in itself, or a separate and new strand of activity to be initiated from scratch, but as a way of enhancing and increasing the impact of your many existing activities. 

Young scientist participating in the Web of Life experiment. University of Bristol

Mapping engagement activity

This diagram demonstrates some of the ways in which engaging with the public can enhance research, teaching and learning, knowledge exchange and social responsibility. As you would expect, different institutions tend to emphasise different areas, reflecting their distinctive missions and contexts.

What next?

You can find a host of guides and case studies of public engagement in practice in our How to do it section.

In the next section we explore the skills and attributes involved in public engagement.