Part 1: Who do you want to engage and why?
Before you consider how to engage the public and partners with your research, you should consider who you want to engage and for what purpose.
A useful tool to help you identify the audiences you want to engage is the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s framework for quality public engagement:
This framework has four key elements to consider when planning your public engagement activities:
- Purpose: Why are you doing the engagement?
- People: Who is involved in the project as participants, partners, or deliverers of the project? How have you considered their needs and interests in developing your approach?
- Process: Is the process appropriate to the purpose and people you are engaging with?
- Evaluation: Have you considered how to use evaluation to both inform your approach, and to assess its value?
The majority of this toolkit will focus on considering the needs and interests of the people you wish to engage and processes for engaging them. There are further areas of the skills festival it may also be useful to explore:
- Our Finding Your AudienceLink opens in a new window toolkit can help you to identify the people you wish to engage.
- Our EvaluationLink opens in a new window toolkit can help you measure the success of your project and understand the experience of your audiences and partners