What is engagement?

Engagement (also referred to as public engagement) is a term that describes how people working and studying at universities interact with external publics/partners to share knowledge, research, and expertise; foster collaboration on new ideas; or collectively co-produce new research, or new ways of working. Its aim is to create spaces that enable curiosity, exploration and conversation for a broad cross section of society. Through these interactions everyone gains valuable insights, in turn contributing to societal development and progress.

What Warwick Institute of Engagement prioritises

The type of work Warwick Institute of Engagement supports is hugely varied. There are thousands of people working and studying at Warwick with a diverse range of expertise, whether they be researchers, students, teaching staff, technicians, or professional services staff. We enable everyone at Warwick to get involved in public engagement in a way that works for them and aim to offer the public different kinds of opportunities to engage with the University of Warwick to suit their own needs and interests.

To help clarify what we count as public engagement for the purposes of our funds and awards, we have agreed three key elements which must be satisfied to be in line with the above definition.

Where it starts: activity based around knowledge, expertise, or research

Public engagement often stems from a specific piece of research, but it does not always need to do so. It needs to either share or create knowledge in the public domain in one form or another. We very much count the expertise our partners and audiences can share with us as part of this.

How we do it: creating spaces that enable curiosity, exploration and conversation for a broad cross section of society

There are many ways to engage with people and different forms of engagement will work for different disciplines and different publics. WIE’s Ladder of Engagement (adapted from Arnstein’s 1969 Ladder of Citizen Participation) sets out the different forms engagement can take – from one way information sharing, right up to devolving power to set the shape and direction of research to the communities we’re working with. Across the portfolio of work WIE does we enable activity at all levels; however, certain funds will prioritise work at different levels to ensure that all areas are covered.

Ladder of Engagement Graphic

Plain Text Version

Ladder of Engagement

The ladder of engagement sets out 8 levels of engagement in a hierarchical ladder. These are then grouped in pairs with a further explanation of their meaning.

Setting agendas and taking charge	Devolve	Doing Themselves (Support)
	Empower
Collaborating and working together	Co-Design	Doing Together (Collaborate)
	Co-Produce
Getting involved and feeding back	Consult	Doing With (Listen, Actively Participate)
	Engage
Being enthused and inspired	Educate	Doing For (Communicate)
	Tell

Why we do it: creating a societal benefit

We support public engagement projects that enable work with public audiences, and/or partnerships with charitable organisations, artists, community groups, or other organisations/individuals, with an aim of enriching civil society.

What WIE doesn’t prioritise

Public engagement is often considered as being related to:

Community engagement - where more sustained working with a particular community will be expected
Civic engagement - where the focus is on working with the people living and working in a particular city
Business engagement – where the interaction may have a commercial focus
Policy engagement – where the focus is on influencing government policy and other kinds of policy formation
Schools outreach/ widening participation – where the focus is on general aspiration raising and in some cases recruitment

There are overlaps between public engagement and these areas; however, there are also distinct nuances. Warwick Institute of Engagement works closely with the teams across the university who are responsible for supporting this activity but does not directly work in these areas.Because of this we do not usually prioritise funding for one off activity with individual schools, events aimed solely at politicians, partnerships with business/industry, or partnerships with other universities.

Examples of Engagement

There are lots of different types of engagement - for example:

Collaborating on a piece of research/ solutions with community partners
Public talks
Advising policy makers
Working with artists on exhibitions/ installations
Visiting schools
Consulting patient groups on a clinical trial
Live events, social media, website, television, books

Explore more detailed examples on our Examples of Engagement Padlet. You can also look at the Case Studies section of the Skills Festival for in depth examples.

Who are the "Public"?

Warwick Institute of Engagement supports engagement with many different types of people. We always try to avoid thinking of just the "general public" and aim to be specific about who we want to engage with. Our Audience Development Toolkit is a good place to start if you want help mapping out your own potential public audience. The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) also produce this useful diagram which gives a good overview of the different types of people we might be thinking of when we say the "public"

Diagram showing audiences segmented into four categories. Follow the link for the NCCPE accessible version

From NCCPE: Who are the Public

The Engaged University

The NCCPE has a guide on what an Engaged University looks like. This diagram helps to summarise the different types of engagement that Warwick Institute of Engagement supports.

This diagram from the NCCPE shows 4 different categories of activity that an engaged university would do. Follow the linked source for access.

From NCCPE: What does an Engaged University Look Like?

Why does engagement matter?

For you

Why engagement matters to you will be individual to you and something you should reflect upon. However WIE believe there are many benefits to staff for getting involved with engagement, including:

Personal enrichment (many people enjoy their engagement work and find it very rewarding)
Stronger research and teaching more connected to society
Opportunity to develop new skills and set yourself new challenges
Chance to share what you're passionate about with more people
Influence more people and voices to be passionate about the subject your care about

Part of the role of WIE is to make sure staff are being recognised for this work. That's why our Promotion and Reward Learning Circle have done a review of the Academic Promotions Criteria to ensure Impact, Outreach and Engagement work is valued equally to other areas of academic work and there are clear examples of the evidence you can use for your case. See the "Engagement and your career" pages for more information on this. We have also championed Impact, Outreach and Engagement being given time for as part of the latest review of Academic Workload Models in every department. For non academic staff we'd encourage you to talk about this work as part of your annual PDR conversation, and make sure your line manager is aware of the impact it has for your role and how this is contributing to Warwick's Strategy.

We also run the Warwick Award for Public and Community Engagement, celebrating both academic and non academic staff, as well as students, for their engagement work.

For Warwick

Engagement is of huge value to the University of Warwick. It is central to much of the university strategy for both research and teaching and as such we've invested heavily in the launch of an Institute of Engagement (WIE), the hosting of the British Science Festival in 2019, and as part of City of Culture 2021. We have signed the NCCPE Manifesto for Public EngagementLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window and the Civic University AgreementLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window - publicly declaring our commitment to this work.

So what makes us see this work as so valuable?

Sir David Normington (chair of council) wrote the following upon the launch of the Institute, demonstrating the value he sees this work as having for the benefit of our institution.

"I’m thrilled to see the launch of the Warwick Institute of Engagement and want to offer my thanks and support to all the staff and students who get involved. The Institute supports the University’s 2030 strategy in a number of important ways.

It helps us play a regional and national leadership role as a modern university working with local communities to deliver place-based and people-focused results; it helps us drive innovation through maximising the exchange of knowledge between the university and society to enrich learning and innovation, stimulate innovation and partnerships; it gives us a stronger role in championing inclusion – through public discussion, knowledge curation and generation; It enhances the teaching experience we offer Warwick students, as well as contributing towards skills and employability; it informs our research and sharpens our impact, and it gives us a genuine platform for Warwick to play our part even more strongly in national and international debate, social, economic and policy development.

Working hand in hand with our communities is strategically critical for Warwick. Now, in 2020, it is more important than ever for universities to look to nurture future generations passionate about research and innovation, and to listen to public concerns and aspirations. I look forward to seeing much more from WIE and its foundation fellows."

For Society

Engagement work has many benefits for society that we're only just beginning to see recognised. The role of an engaged university is to support society through connection to the important work already going on here. Through this we can

Inspire the next generation
Keep research relevant and impactful
Include more voices in the important conversations that affect us all
Provide talented graduates with the skills and experience to embed engagement lessons throughout their careers

For more on this - see the NCCPE Case for Engagement

Watch: Why does engagement matter for Warwick staff?

Read: Public Engagement - when science meets society: What it is, why it matters, and why it's sometimes problematic

This blog was written by Vincent Gerwent as part of his assessed work for our UG Public Engagement module.

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