The free movement of people and ideas

Posted on Friday, 29 March 2019 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

Just over two weeks ago, I delivered my inaugural lecture on ‘Fairness in knowing’. It was such an honour to be part of this 50th anniversary programme of lectures.

Fairness in knowing: How should we engage with the sciences?

If you’d like to watch a replay of the lecture, it’s available here: Fairness in knowing.

A sub-titled version of the lecture will be made available in due course.

I’m also planning to write up the key ideas from the lecture for publication.

I argued in the lecture that a key part of ‘fairness in knowing’ is recognising how ideas are generated and developed.

This is one of the really exciting things for me about being an academic; to see how knowledge and ideas travel across both national and cultural borders, and how they morph and adapt as they’re applied in a new context.

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Fairness in knowing: How should we engage with the sciences?

Posted on Wednesday, 20 February 2019 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

This year, The Open University celebrates its 50th anniversary. Happy birthday to us!

As part of this celebration, the university is hosting an exciting programme of events and activities.

Yesterday I watched my colleague Martin Weller discuss the ongoing (and increasing influence) of openness in education. (You can access a recording of Martin’s lecture from the link in the previous sentence. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch the recording.)

It seems fitting, given the complementary nature of our work, that I was scheduled to deliver my inaugural lecture in this programme shortly after Martin.

Watching the lecture
If you’d like to attend the lecture on 12th March (6-7pm GMT) in person, select How to register. (It’s free to attend, but you need a ticket.)

From 5pm on the day, colleagues will be demonstrating various examples of engagement outside the lecture theatre.

To watch the lecture online, select Watch the webinar. The link will become live shortly before the start of the event. You can submit questions via email or Twitter from the same page.

The lecture will be recorded and made freely available after 12 March.

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Navigating engagement in a (mainly) UK context

Posted on Monday, 3 December 2018 by Richard Holliman

Professor Richard Holliman, The Open University.

‘Navigating change as we face the future’ was the core theme of the UK’s NCCPE-organised conference in Edinburgh, Scotland last week. For those reading this post from without or without the UK, it’s an appropriate theme. (To that end, we were joined at the conference by colleagues from Thailand, Korea, Canada, South Africa and India.)

Politically as a nation (and nations), the UK is obviously facing unprecedented change at the moment. That, thankfully, is for another day. Rather, the discussions at the Engage Conference focused on the challenges of navigating change to further improve mutually beneficial relations between universities and wider society.

Why focus on change? One of the key reasons is that it is 10 years since the introduction of the NCCPE. If you organise the conference, it seems reasonable that you have a primary role in deciding the theme. After eight national conferences exploring the theme of engagement, this was an opportunity to take stock, set priorities and plan the next steps.

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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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Engaging Research

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

Category Archives: Leadership

The free movement of people and ideas

Fairness in knowing: How should we engage with the sciences?

Navigating engagement in a (mainly) UK context

Is the elephant in the room working or volunteering?