Centre for Public Engagement Practice in Arts and Humanities

The Centre for Public Engagement Practice in Arts and Humanities will be a transformative addition to the UK public engagement landscape, creating benefits and opportunities for researchers, engagement practitioners, and a wide range of research, cultural and community organisations. Most importantly, it will stimulate innovation and enable new and exciting ways for the public to engage with research, building and broadening audiences and participation. The Centre will deliver significant and substantial benefits. It will: Create enhanced networks for researchers, engagement practitioners, and senior leaders, collectively positioned to shape the future of public engagement across the sector; these will be practice-based and tightly focused networks with their own programmes of work. Build engagement practice skills and competencies through responsive and tailored advice and development services, dynamic open-access training and resources; these will be developed with experts in digital learning and development approaches. Develop new platforms and partnerships so that there are better spaces for documentation, evaluation and promotion of public engagement work, and more opportunities to make connections with stakeholders outside the higher education sector. Drive innovation by working in novel and imaginative ways, challenging participants to devise collaborative activities which go well beyond the traditional methods and approaches, working with people they have not worked with before, across disciplinary and sectoral boundaries. By doing these things, the Centre will generate valuable outcomes and impacts addressing key challenges in the public engagement landscape for arts, humanities, social science, and their connections to other disciplines. It will create new knowledge and understanding of how public engagement practice can be effectively developed and supported, and will share that knowledge amongst a wide range of beneficiaries. The Centre is a significant UKRI investment in public engagement, and will align to key UKRI and AHRC strategies. The UKRI strategy 'Transforming tomorrow together' makes engagement one of its key principles for change and sets out ambitions to strengthen public engagement across the whole research and innovation system. We will contribute to this by providing UKRI with functions to promote collaboration and shared endeavour in engagement, providing AHRC with a means of implementing key engagement initiatives outlined in its Strategic Delivery Plan, and reinforcing investments it has made as a long-term funding partner in the Being Human Festival.