Valuing publicly engaged research - EuroScientist Webzine

"Earlier this year, two related research papers on public engagement with research — which represent an increasingly prevalent aspect of academic scholarship — were published (they are available here and here). The papers document evidence from interviews with 40 UK academics, exploring the degree to which they feel that public engagement is valued within their respective universities as an equivalent activity when compared to teaching and research. A number of issues are addressed in the two papers, including: academic identity, motivation, resourcing, support mechanisms and processes of recognition. The results and interpretations in the papers present a bleak picture, reflecting low levels of meaningful upstream engagement with relevant publics and other stakeholders. And they provide no obvious solutions of how to address these issues ..."