Tag Archives: PER Catalyst

How to lose publics and alienate people • 1 Comment

Emily Dawson • October 23, 2013

Social exclusion in public engagement with science

On Monday last week I gave a presentation as part of the ‘Engaging Research’ seminar series being run at the Open University (as you might have guessed since this is their blog!) The seminar series runs in conjunction with two RCUK-funded projects: 'An open research university'; and 'Engaging opportunities'.

My research interests are around who ‘counts’ as a public for so called ‘public’ engagement and how do engagement practices contribute to the exclusion of certain groups.

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An open research university

Richard Holliman • July 17, 2013

Dr Richard Holliman, The Open University’s Champion for Public Engagement with Research

Research with people at the centre

Champion’s blog; star date 2013.07.17. This is the blog of the OU's RCUK-funded Catalyst, 'An open research university'. But our mission isn’t to boldly go. Rather, our three-year mission is to embed the principles, values and reflective practices of public engagement within the research culture of Open University researchers. This requires all OU researchers to think more strategically about how we plan our research.

This requires us to think (yet again, I know) about culture change...

"If you're the University's Champion for Public Engagement with Research can you tell me how many people it takes to change a university's research culture?"

I guess the obvious answer is, "I don’t know at the moment, but I do know that those involved really have to want to change."

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