Successful Research Engagement with Community, Industry, Government and Practitioners needs planning. This video from Oxford University highlights how planning communication, parterships, collaboration and consultation leads to highly effective research for the benefit of society.

Visit the website for a more detailed overview of the process.

Reference:

Oxford University. (2021). How to Engage: Planning. Oxford University. https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/public-engagement/how-engage

After you have planned, and successfully conducted your research in collaboration with your community, you should be keeping good records of your Engagement and Impact.

The Australian Government Research Engagement and Impact Assessment ran in 2018 alongside the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA).  The Engagement and Impact (EI) framework is intended to assess the engagement of researchers with end-users, and show how universities are translating their research into economic, social, environmental and other impacts.

In anticipation of this, CRO can be used to record your research and impact and engagement with a variety of new forms to record your activities, prizes and awards, and social impacts, to support potential EI Assessment in the future.

Use the CRO Activities forms to record membership of professional or institutional boards, editorial roles, invited speaker, hosting or visiting academic roles or Examination activities. You can use the Impact form to document how your research has influenced policy, industry or society.

CSU Researchers who have been involved in recent EI Assessments have their Research Impact and Engagement case studies available online.

There are a variety of forms available to suit different Activities. Each form will provide different options for you to provide the correct information needed to describe your Activities, and your role in those.

Planning for Engagement and Impact

The UK Economic and Social Research Council have a range of guides and tool kits for researchers planning their Engagement, Impact and Collaboration with community, industry or Government.

Fast Track Impact: this source of evidence based resources and training for researchers is based on the UK Research Excellence Framework, and promotes engaging with The Conversation

See the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014 and 2021) United Kingdom for examples of Case Studies of engagement and impact.