Engaged Practice Learning Exchange

Engaged Practice Learning Exchange (EPLE)s are an opportunity for those engaged in practices and programming around public engagement and other forms of community-university activity to have some time and space to stimulate innovation in what they do.

Developed by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) with CBR Canada, we aim to cultivate this through providing workshops at international conferences that focus on public engagement and community-university engagement, aiming to:

  • Share knowledge: drawing on both practical and theoretical dimensions of engagement
  • Develop our practice: considering what skills and methods will enhance practice
  • Network and connect: linking up to discuss the ways and means engaged practice is developed in different local and global contexts

Who is the EPLE for?

The EPLE is for you if:

  • You are an engagement practitioner from inside or outside higher education
  • You have several years of experience of engaged practice
  • You are keen to reflect on how other perspectives and knowledges might influence your own practice
  • You are keen to share and reflect on your own work

Stimulating innovation in engaged practice

We know anecdotally that people working in public and community engagement roles, particularly those who have several years of experience, are keen to have some specific time set aside to consider their practice. Engaged scholarship and practice continues to develop and be acted on in diverse ways; we would like to mobilise some of this knowledge base as a point of connection for people coming from a range of disciplines and contexts.

We want to see whether the EPLE can become a useful and purposeful addition to the work we all do. The exchange is a committed but informal space, with a real emphasis on sharing. It is aimed at and will be facilitated at different times by both university and community based practitioners.

How do I get involved?

EPLEs are run as events alongside major conferences where those interested in engagement congregate, such as the CuExpo in Canada or NCCPE’s Engage Conference in the UK.

The next EPLE will take place on 28th November 2018 in Edinburgh, in the lead up to the NCCPE's Engage 2018 conference. Book your place for the 2018 EPLE.

For information about future EPLE events, please contact Heather.Lusardi@uwe.ac.uk.