Pathways to Impact, Grand Challenges and more…
In addition to external grants dedicated to public engagement specifically (as well as some modest internal financial support), our team would also strongly recommend you look to embed public engagement activity directly into your research grants where this is appropriate. This might include doing some thinking around public engagement when writing your Pathways to Impact statement or planning how you might use public engagement within a major Grand Challenges bid.
Either way you’ll need to think about what your aims are and what you can realistically commit time to, as well as whether the activities you propose meet the needs of your target audience – that is a group or groups who are relevant in some way to your research topic (e.g. end users, patients, young people etc.). Framing things around the ‘general public’ is not always helpful, as it can be difficult to track the change or impact your engagement has had within such a broad group.
You absolutely can cost public engagement into research grants and many funders encourage this. However, having a clear plan with measurable aims is key. Don’t copy-and-paste ideas from previous projects or peers – your engagement should work for you and be centred around your research.
We are always happy to chat and provide suggestions based on your research, your interests and your level of realistic commitment, so don’t leave it to the last minute to come talk to us face-to-face at Breakfast Brainstorm or drop us an email engage@contacts.bham.ac.uk if you’d like to arrange a meeting.
