Dr Nick Mahony

What happens if we put ‘the public’ at the centre of our efforts to conceptualise, conduct and evaluate publicly engaged research?

Written by Dr. Nick Mahony, a new Open University pamphlet outlines a public-centric approach to engagement you can make use of in your own settings.

‘Designing public-centric forms of public engagement with research’ by Dr. Nick Mahony is available for free download, under a Creative Commons licence.

Drawing on insights from recent empirical research and key strands of the theoretical literature on the public the pamphlet foregrounds a set of questions you can ask at key stages of the engagement process to help you make choices about how you will engage.

Designing ‘public-centric’ forms of public engagement with research. Cover Design: Peter Devine

The public-centric approach is designed to support researchers working across all disciplines that are involved in publicly engaged research projects.

By helping to make sense of the public in public engagement, the pamphlet also sets out to contribute to wider on-going debates and developments concerned with improving the effectiveness of public engagement with research.

This pamphlet is one outcome of the Open University’s RCUK-funded Public Engagement with Research Catalyst, ‘An open research university‘. Nick was a Co-investigator on this project, leading the work package that explored the publics of engaged research.

Dr. Nick Mahony is an independent researcher and visiting Research Fellow at the Open University (nick.mahony@open.ac.uk); he blogs at Creating Publics.