Why Engage?
Public engagement is a vital tool needed to achieve strategic Institute growth. The goal of effective public engagement is generating mutual benefits through a two-way process of listening and responding. The NCCPE defines public engagement as “the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public.” Public engagement can enrich and animate CIMR’s relevance, accountability, trust, responsiveness, values and purpose [NCCPE].
While mutual benefits of public engagement are varied, these can include personal and professional benefits to internal staff and students; be it from increasing confidence, tailoring educational content to certain audience groups, developing leadership and project management skills, considering ethical implications and policy around research, to enhancing commercial impact of work. These benefits can also be applied to external groups. This is done by making it accessible; opening and sharing our unique research and research processes to different groups of people.
The NCCPE and National STEM forum recognises three core aims from analysis of numerous external funding bodies for undertaking public engagement programmes:
- Inspiring the next generation
- Improving science literacy of the general population
- Improving social equity outcomes arising from engagement
When asked at the annual CIMR retreat in 2020, CIMR staff and students were keen to inspire and empower the next generation, as well as enhance the social, research, and commercial impact of their work.