Public Engagement

Engaging with members of the public and key stakeholders can be a crucial part of research activity.  From the earliest stages of your research planning and throughout your project, being engaged with others can help shape and inform your research. Here we signpost you to further information on public engagement, engaged research, patient public involvement and industry engagement.

Public Engagement

According to the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (UK) "public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit."

Engagement is a fundamental tenet of reserach impact (visit the Reserach Impact Toolkit for more on this).

Our university has a long history of public engagement, bringing our research to communities and groups - and in turn learning and growing from those interactions. Click below to see some of the many public engagement projects at our university. Often, joining an existing project can be a great start. Also recommended is this article "Researchers-share-your-passion-for-science" by our colleague Dr Muriel Grenon and Dr Claire Concannon.

University of Galway's Threesis is our research communications and engagement training programme and competition. Coordinated by the Research Office in conjunction with a University-wide committee and team of supporters, the programme usually runs toward the end of semester 1.  Click on the link below to learn about this and many other publlic engagment projects led by colleagues, from Cell Explorerers, to Bright Club, to ReelLifeScience. 

 

Campus Engage
Campus Engage is a platform for the promotion of civic engagement activities in Irish higher education. It is an initiative funded by the Irish government, through the Higher Education Authority (HEA).  It supports the ongoing development of activities such as: service learning/community based learning, student volunteering, community-engaged research and knowledge exchange and sharing, in order to increase the number of courses, activities and levels of participation in these areas across Irish higher education.

Campus Engage is hosted by the Irish University Association (IUA), supported by University of Galway through the CKI and Dublin City University in partnership with all institutes of higher education in Ireland through Steering Committee Representation and Working Groups.

Community Engagement
The Community Knowledge Initiative's (CKI) aims to promote greater civic engagement through core academic. More info here https://www.universityofgalway.ie/cki/

Public Patient Involvement

Funded by the Health Research Board, the PPI Ignite @ University of Galway team works with researchers and the public and patients to ensure that the voice of the patient shapes and influences our health and social care research, enhancing the quality, relevance and impact of the research. There are many different ways in which the public, patients and patient/community organisations can partner with researchers, embedding PPI across research studies. Visit https://www.universityofgalway.ie/ppi/.

Industry Engagement

The Innovation Office is a great port of call for any queries on engaging with industry, whether that is a research collaboration or consultancy. Visit the sharepoint site for more.