Engaging Research

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

Managing ecosystems: research impact through engagement

Posted on Wednesday, 23 April 2014 by Emma Rothero

Emma Rothero, The Open University

An award-winning, externally-facing partnership with research at the core
I don’t think of myself as an academic. Before I took on my current role as an Outreach Coordinator within the award-winning Floodplain Meadows research team at the Open University I’d worked for 12 years for the Environment Agency, delivering policy, legislation and proactive conservation projects ‘on the ground’ in Dorset, Wiltshire and a little bit of Hampshire. I’d worked with a wide range of conservation and community partners, occasionally getting cross with flood defence engineers. In short, I came to this job for a change!

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Engaging research and the ‘Our Story App’

Posted on Friday, 4 April 2014 by Natalia Kucirkova

Natalia Kucirkova, The Open University

I recently won one the the OU’s first ever Engaging Research Awards. When I heard about the engaging research awards, I thought ‘hmn…How can there be an award for something which ought to be integral to any good piece of research? Isn’t engagement with publics the defining characteristic underlying all research endeavours? And how can one judge a piece of research to be more engaged than another?’

The more I thought about it, the more I realised how engagement with publics has been an underlying principle of the Our Story project. The story-making tablet/smartphone app (called “Our Story”) was developed in parallel with my PhD research and has led to a number of projects integral to my doctoral work but also expanding it to other areas, research institutions and publics.

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