For research to create impact, it must permeate beyond its generators. There is a diversity of audiences for research, as well as different forms of communicating research to those audiences. The central vector for communicating research to audiences beyond academia is engagement.
To maximise on the strength of engagement, it is crucial to understand the aspects of your research you are trying to communicate, awareness of who you want to communicate with, and a direction/purpose for the engagement.
Engagement with research, understood as targeting non-academic stakeholders, reaches out to three main audiences: professionals, policy practitioners, and the general public. These aspects are complemented by outreach and industry engagement which can be supported by Outreach teams within Schools and St Andrews Innovation. See the tiles below for links to pages dedicated to these core forms of Engagement with Research:
These forms are not isolated from one another, and engagement activities may involve all three forms.
The University of St Andrews supports all three through various funding streams.
Why should I engage?
Engagement provides a pathway to impact: Non-academic impact plays an increasing role in successful grant proposal writing, as funders expect to see excellent research aiming to benefit academic advance as well as societal, economic or political change.
Engagement is beneficial to research: Knowledge exchange and collaboration with non-academic stakeholders is beneficial to these audiences and provides fresh insights and new perspectives, which can lead to innovative research ideas.
Engagement is part of the University’s societal responsibility: At St Andrews, we foster excellent teaching and world-class research; we are also deeply rooted in our local community and strongly encourage the engagement with public audiences as part of our social, and societal, responsibility.
To engage effectively, it helps to consider the user’s perspective:
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- Who are the potential users of your research?
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- What are their needs or expectations?
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- How will they access the research?
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- What mechanisms are best employed to deliver what is needed?
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- What are the barriers?
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- How can any resulting change or benefit be measured? i.e. What do we want to know and in how much detail?
We offer a range of in-house support for Engagement with Research:
If you have queries or engagement support needs, please contact the Head of Engagement with Research.