Engagement assessed as an impact in new Research Excellence Framework

It is only recently that public engagement has begun to be seen as more than an additional extra in academia. In an exciting new move, the Higher Education Funding Council for England has recommended that engagement be included in impact assessment as part of the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) which will come into effect from 2014. The recommendation came in the November report of the impact pilot exercise, conducted with 27 research institutions over 2009/2010.

Importantly, the report clearly acknowledges the distinctions between communication and engagement, and states that engagement must ‘go beyond showing how the research was disseminated,’ and for the highest scores ‘there must be some form of ongoing engagement with the issues, whereby the department has an active, operationalised public engagement activity.’

Another important inclusion was to ‘make a case for the benefits arising from the public engagement activity,’ rather than merely stating that it took place. This requirement poses a real challenge to academics to show evidence for their results. Sciencewise recently ran a workshop exploring how this can be done in practice, and the results should be out soon.
The new REF has the potential to significantly move forward the process of embedding engagement in academia. Not only could it challenge academics new to the area to consider engaging the public more fully, but it could also provide some much needed formal rewards for those champions of engagement in research institutions across the country.