Home ยป Building an action plan

Building an action plan

Here are a number of useful questions to ponder which will help you to plan your public engagement activity, and to consider your motivations for doing public engagement in the first place:

What do you want to discuss?

Is there a particular element of your research that you want to communicate or a very specific key finding? Or something more general?

Who do you want to engage with?

'The public' is an unhelpfully broad term. Can you narrow down your audience? Who might be interested or have an opinion on your research? How many people do you want to engage? Are there partners you could work with? Find out more in the Beacons Guide to Understanding Audiences and the Beacons Guide to Working in Partnership

Why do you want to discuss your research with a particular audience?

Why are you engaging people? What will you get out of it? What will they get out of it? Are you making any assumptions about your audience? The Demos pamphlet on the Public Value of Science has some interesting perspectives on the purpose of engagement.

What is the best format to communicate your research to your audience?
Are there any activities or events that you are particularly interested in e.g. digital media ? What would appeal to the audience you are interested? How large are you expecting the audience to be? The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement has a series of resources on engagement methodswhich might be useful.

Does your public engagement activity link to your role?
Many different roles in an institution can involve public engagement. Can you plan your activity in a way that complements or adds to your role rather than detract from it? Will it help to develop transferable skills?

  • If you are an academic, a research grant or group may have a specific requirement to engage with a public audience
  • If you are an administrator your interest might be more on how to coordinate or manage public engagement activities,
  • If you are a communications or knowledge exchange professional, you might be interested in developing advanced skills in a particular area e.g. video editing.

Reflect on your experience in public engagement. How would you like to improve?

  • Are you completely new to public engagement?
  • Do you want to continue to develop your skills in a particular area? Perhaps working with schools?
  • Alternatively, are you keen to explore other areas of public engagement?
  • Are you looking to consolidate years of experience?

How much time do you have?

Planning events can be much more time consuming than you might expect and there might be external deadlines to consider. Find out more in the Beacons Guide to Activity Planning.

  • How much time can you realistically commit to public engagement each month?
  • Is your line manager or supervisor supportive?
  • Do you have deadlines for current public engagement projects?
  • Are there other events or opportunities you could link to e.g. festivals?

Do you have a budget?

What type of public engagement activity can you afford? Are there sources of funding you could apply for? Find out more in the the Beacons Guide to Funding

How will you measure success?

What does success look like for your project? How can you market and evaluate your activity? Find out more in the Beacons Guide to Marketing  and the Beacons Guide to Evaluation.

Taking things forward