Introduction

Public Engagement with Research activities can be resourced through various grant schemes.

This can vary from small grants (a few hundred to thousands of pounds) offered internally by your institution, such as Warwick’s Public Engagement Seed Fund or the Learned Societies; to medium-sized grants offered by the likes of the National Academies; to those that are tens of thousands of pounds or more from major funders such as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Research Councils, the Wellcome Trust and the European Commission.

This guide provides some top tips for applying for Public Engagement with Research funding.

Contents

• Public Engagement Funding
• Planning Public Engagement with Research Activity
• Proposal Checklist
• Example Public Engagement with Research Costs
• FAQs
• Let us know how you found this resource

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Public Engagement Funding

The below summarises some of the key ways you can resource Public Engagement with Research activity through grant funding:

• You can include Public Engagement with Research activity in research grant applications via:
  • The Case for Support where public engagement is part of the research process; or where the call for funding requires outcomes in terms of research impact - public engagement is a recognised and valid route to research impact.
  • As a Work Package of a larger grant, such as a programme grant.

For Example: UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund

• Some funders offer the opportunity to apply for follow-on public engagement funding which is directly related to an existing research grant:

For Example: Wellcome Trust Research Enrichment Funding - Public Engagement; some Impact Acceleration Account Funds (the latter are devolved funding schemes, funded by the Research Councils and developed and administered by the Higher Education Institution).

• There are also grant schemes that are specific to Public Engagement with Research:

For Example: UKRI’s Place-based Partnerships in Public Engagement and UKRI Citizen Science Exploration grants; Science with and for Society funding via the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

• Internal public engagement funding is available through the University of Warwick’s Public Engagement Fund and the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Subscribe to the WIE Network to be notified when internal calls open.
• A full list of external funding opportunities is available from the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement: www.publicengagement.ac.uk/do-engagement/funding

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Planning Public Engagement with Research Activity

This template will help you think through some of the key questions to ask yourself and your co-applicants to develop fundable outcomes-focused engagement that has the potential to benefit you, your research and the engaged publics.

Public Engagement with Research Planning Template 

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Proposal Checklist

Use this downloadable checklist to review your proposal and consider whether the appropriate information has been provided to enable the reviewers and panel members to judge the quality of your engagement activities. Whether the information below should be included will depend on the scheme aims; the extent that your engagement activities form part of the whole project and the allowable number of words for the Case for Support.

Public Engagement with Research Funding Checklist

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Example Public Engagement with Research Costs

The list below provides examples of some of the public engagement costs that could be requested, depending on the scheme details and eligible costs allowed. PLEASE NOTE – these costs are approximate ranges and this is an INDICATIVE GUIDE ONLY. Resource requirements and costs will need to be thought about carefully and be very specific to your plans.

1. Interactive stall at an event such as a festival: £100 - £1,000*

Costs may include: purchasing stall space; staff time to develop activities; consumables; travel, accommodation and subsistence.

* Large interactive exhibits that also require very high-quality production, such as those for the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, can be £10,000+.

2. Show, talk or panel debate at an event such as a festival: £100 to £2,000

Costs may include: festival/programming fees; developing ‘demos’; speaker travel, accommodation and subsistence; speaker fees.

3. Show, talk or panel debate – self-organised: £200 to £2,000

Costs may include: venue hire; marketing; refreshments; developing ‘demos’; staff time to organise logistics; speaker travel, accommodation and subsistence; speaker fees.

4. Public Engagement Consultants (freelance): £350 to £600 per day
5. Evaluation consultancy (freelance): £350 to £600 per day
6. High-quality podcast working with a media company: £1,000
7. High-quality 5 minute film or animation working with an external company: £4,000 - £10,000

8. Focus groups or public dialogue workshops (approx. 8 to 16 people) with an external company: £2000 - £10,000

Costs may include: external consultancy or facilitator fees; venue hire; recruitment; refreshments; developing stimulus materials; transcribing, synthesis and analysis of the results; speaker travel and subsistence.

9. Small, high-quality exhibition at a museum: from £50,000 (large exhibitions can be in excess of £250k):

Costs may include: development of materials; consumables; copywriting; staff-time.

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FAQs

What type of activities qualify as Public Engagement with Research?

Public Engagement with Research describes the many ways that members of the public can be involved in the design, conduct and sharing of research. Engagement is a two-way process involving interaction and listening with the goal of generating mutual benefit.

The format of the activities will depend on the purpose of the engagement:

• To inform and inspire the public: e.g. festivals; talks and shows; digital engagement.
• To consult and listen to public views: e.g.: public debates; panels and focus-groups.
• To collaborate with the public: e.g. citizen science; co-production of knowledge; Patient and Public Involvement.

Public engagement can take place at any point in the research cycle, depending on the purpose of your engagement: for example at the beginning of the research process to shape research questions; as part of the research process, or towards the end of a research project.

Likewise impact that results from public engagement can be at any point in the research cycle, not just at the end.

What happened to UKRI Research Councils Pathways to Impact?

While the sections labelled Pathways to Impact and Impact Summaries in research proposals (as of March 2020) are no longer required, as noted by UKRI:

“The impact agenda remains incredibly important. UK Research and Innovation exists to fund the researchers who generate the knowledge that society needs, and the innovators who can turn this knowledge into public benefit. This change embeds impact more centrally within our application and assessment processes”

There are still many ways to build in and resource impactful Public Engagement into Research applications by embedding this into your Case for Support for a variety of UKRI and Research Council grant schemes and programmes.

What does impact that arises from public engagement ‘look like’?

Public Engagement with Research can result in a variety of economic, health, environmental, policy, academic, cultural and societal outcomes and impacts. Direct impacts on the public participating in the engagement, which are all valid routes to research impact, include:

- Increase in knowledge and understanding

- Changes in perceptions or attitudes and values and/or behaviour

- Empowerment, enrichment, inspiration and aspiration

- Gaining new skills

If I want to apply for funds for public engagement as a route to research impact – how can I predict what the outcomes and impacts will be?

At the proposal stage, applicants are not expected to predict guaranteed impacts that will be achieved, especially as the whole nature of engaged research is that we do not know the answers to those questions just yet.

The aim of thinking about impacts at the grant application stage is to encourage applicants to explore and articulate the potential short-, medium- and longer-term benefits and outcomes that you hope to achieve to enable your research to connect with others. This will enable your plans to be developed so that these outcomes can be realised and you have the resources in place from the outset to allow you to take opportunities as they arise.

Can I get support for applying for Public Engagement with Research funds?

Yes. Warwick’s Institute of Engagement can provide support to help shape your public engagement plans and review grant applications that include engagement activity. If you would like to set up a meeting please email wie@warwick.ac.uk to arrange a chat at the team’s weekly drop-in session on a Wednesday afternoon 1pm - 3pm. It is recommended that you contact the team as early in the grant planning process as possible.

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Resource produced: 1 May 2020 by Dr Lesley Paterson for the University of Warwick Public Engagement Team