Is the elephant in the room working or volunteering?

Posted on Tuesday, 20 March 2018 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

A recent report, published by an independent consultancy firm, discusses what they describe as the “hidden economic value of public engagement and knowledge exchange in UK universities” (Viewforth Consulting, 2018).

The quoted figures are certainly eye-catching. Based on extrapolating the data from 1093 university staff from three UK universities the authors of the report argue that, “UK university staff delivered 40 million hours of pro-bono public engagement and knowledge exchange in 2015-16”.

Boom!

Putting the calculation of the figures aside for one moment, the report invites a crucial question around the following sentence (my emphasis):

This evidence indicates that university staff, with the approval and encouragement of their host institutions, provide a large and economically significant volume of public service and knowledge exchange to UK society on a voluntary basis.
(Viewforth Consulting, 2018: 2)

On the face of it, this appears to be a contradiction. Can you work in a voluntary capacity with the approval and encouragement of your employer? And what does approval versus encouragement mean in this context? They’re clearly not the same thing.

Further, how much of this activity was funded, directly or indirectly through HEIF (and equivalent schemes in the nations), Pathways to Impact funding, or through QR funding as a result of REF 2014? How much of the support for Widening Participation has contributed to teaching income and/or the TEF?

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The need for engaged research leadership

Posted on Thursday, 1 March 2018 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

“Evidencing impact is hard. Doing public engagement is hard.”

How many times have I heard versions over these phrases over recent years? “Too many”, came the weary reply.

It’s an obvious thing to say, but anything is likely to be a challenge to do well for the first time if you don’t plan ahead. Given that this seems so obvious, what’s surprised me is how often I’ve heard versions of these negative takes on the impact and public engagement agenda in recent months.

I’ve attended a range of events in association with preparations for REF 2021. I’ve heard these types of statements there.

I’ve been working with funders to explore how grants are planned for, assessed, monitored and reported. I’ve heard statements like these made by an unhealthy proportion of researchers during the course of this work.

And I’ve reviewed a good number of proposals over recent months that seek to generate and evidence impact. Guess what? Yes, you’re right. These arguments surface in discussions with some (not all) of these researchers.

Did I mention that it is eight years (yes, eight years!) since pathways to impact planning was introduced by RCUK? It is four years since REF 2014. It is three years since the completion of the RCUK-funded Public Engagement with Research Catalysts (Duncan and Manners, 2016).

So why are we still having the same arguments about the need to produce high-quality planning for the generation and evidencing of research impact?

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Engaged research as a route to epistemic justice

Posted on Thursday, 14 December 2017 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

I’ve recently had a paper published as part of a collection that explores professionalisation in science communication (Trench, 2017). In the paper, I review the purposes, definitions and criteria designed to embed ‘engaged research’ as a strategic priority with universities, and explores some of the challenges of implementation (Holliman, 2017).

I argue that surveys of academics have shown various understandings of, and attitudes to, the practices of engaged research, but also impediments to realising the aspirations it expresses.

Drawing on my experience as the academic lead for engaged research at the Open University, I go on to explore questions of professionalisation, for example, through training, support mechanisms and measures of recognition for engaged research.

I conclude the paper by arguing that, if done well, engaged research can promote epistemic justice. So what is epistemic justice, and how can engaged research deliver what Medvecky (2017) calls ‘fairness in knowing’.

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How can you plan effectively for engaged research?

Posted on Thursday, 7 December 2017 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

How can you plan effectively for engaged research? What are some of the common pitfalls, and what counts as best practice?

Colleagues and I from the Open University and Denbigh School in Milton Keynes recently published a chapter in a new edited collection (Kucirkova and Quinlan, 2017) where we offer practical advice on how to respond to this important question in a pragmatic way (Holliman et al. 2017).

The framework has been designed to be applicable to any researcher and discipline, and to be adaptable to all forms of engaged research.
The chapter documents a worked example of the framework, involving an activity mediated via digital tools and technologies and involving scientists, an educational technologist, several teachers, 25 sixth-form students, and an evaluation researcher.

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Online citizen science: social technologies in use

Posted on Monday, 2 October 2017 by Richard Holliman

Vickie Curtis, Richard Holliman, Ann Jones and Eileen Scanlon

Colleagues and I have recently had a chapter published in an edited collection (Curtis et al., 2017).

Led by Dr Vickie Curtis, and reporting findings from her PhD thesis (Curtis, 2015), this chapter explores processes of learning within online citizen science projects.

In particular, the chapter presents evidence as to why citizen scientists register on projects, but also, crucially, what makes them stay and become productive members of a distributed research project.

Social technologies in use
In the chapter we argue that digital technologies are profoundly social in use. They are developed and defined by participants who learn through iterative processes of participation.

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Creative ways of working; a gift that keeps on giving

Posted on Wednesday, 20 September 2017 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Michael Francis.

Over the past four years (2013-2016) researchers at the Open University have been working in partnership with the Denbigh Teaching School Alliance in Milton Keynes.

Through our project, Engaging Opportunities, we sought to work collaboratively and cooperatively coordinating direct engagement between students, teachers, and university researchers in ways that were meaningful to participating stakeholders.

Anthony Steed from Denbigh School and I are putting together a version of the activity that’s described in more detail below for an NCCPE-coordinated event in London. Select SUPI Sharing Workshop if you’d like to download a copy of our slides from this event.

At this event the SUPIs will meet together with anyone interested in school-university engagement with research to share the learning from their respective partnerships with other schools and universities.

If you’d like more details about this event, select: Reimagining School-University Partnerships.

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Supporting Excellence in Engaged Research

Posted on Tuesday, 1 August 2017 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Credit: Michael Francis.

I’ve recently agreed to take on a new role at the Open University (OU) as the Academic Lead for Engaged Research. I’ll be based in the OU’s Research and Academic Strategy (RAS) Unit for half of my time from 1st August 2017.

A key objective for my work in this new role will be to align the principles and practices of engaged research with the OU’s recently-approved Academic Strategy for External Engagement, in particular addressing the following aim:

“We will create new knowledge through research, scholarship and professional practice that meets the needs of external stakeholders and extends the reach and impact of our research on society, culture, economy and governments across the UK and internationally.”

Through this work, the OU will also fulfil its commitment to the RCUK Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research, and the NCCPE Manifesto for Public Engagement (of which the OU is a signatory).

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Moving school-university engagement beyond the role of recruiting sergeant

Posted on Monday, 3 April 2017 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University. Photo: Michael Francis.

“The science faculty in your local university needs you!” could have been the headline on the recent Guardian article about the RCUK-funded School-University Partnership Initiative (SUPI).

There is much to commend in the article and in the activities fellow SUPIs have developed, delivered and assessed over the previous four years.

Is there a problem with the article?

I argue that this article is part of a wider discourse that limits how school-university engagement with research is planned for, enacted, represented and, ultimately, valued. But why should we care?

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Engaging Research: from trainee to trainer

Posted on Tuesday, 28 March 2017 by Richard Holliman

Lucy Garrett, University of Birmingham and Dr Kate Baker, University of Exeter

As participants of the first set of NERC-funded workshops on engaging research in 2015, we were delighted to hear that Richard Holliman and Clare Warren were repeating the workshops at the Open University and wanted us to return as trainers.

It was back in 2015 that we attended the course, learning how to communicate our research more effectively and how to engage stakeholders with our research. This included spending time experimenting with language and using metaphors to explain what our research was about and who could use it in outside of academia.

It was the first time that many of us spent quality time thinking about how our research could be engaged with other researchers, NGOs and industry; an exchange of knowledge that would improve our research quality and increase the impact of our work.

Week 1: l-r, Melanie Stone, Kate Newton, Eleni Wood, Richard Holliman, Rosalinde Nicholls, David Pettifer, Stacy Phillips, Clare Warren, Jasmine Wareham, Slawomir Michniewski, Lucy Garrett, Kate Baker, Janet Sumner, Gerard Giorgi-Coll and Chris Nedza. Photo: Gareth Davies.

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Developing productive partnerships with end-users

Posted on Wednesday, 1 February 2017 by Richard Holliman

Richard Holliman and Clare Warren, The Open University. Photo: Michael Francis.

We’ve just published an open access paper in a new journal called Research for all. (Scroll down for further details about the new journal.)

In the paper, we discuss how we supported future scholars of engaged research through a training programme that included some preparatory and follow-up activities, combined with a week-long residential element (Holliman and Warren, 2017).

In the paper we acknowledge that researchers in the UK are taking on new roles and responsibilities to meet the requirements of an expanded agenda for generating and evidencing social and economic impacts from research.

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Engaging Research

An Open Research University: Embedding public engagement within the research culture of the OU

Author Archives: Richard Holliman

Is the elephant in the room working or volunteering?

The need for engaged research leadership

Engaged research as a route to epistemic justice

How can you plan effectively for engaged research?

Online citizen science: social technologies in use

Creative ways of working; a gift that keeps on giving

Supporting Excellence in Engaged Research

Moving school-university engagement beyond the role of recruiting sergeant

Engaging Research: from trainee to trainer