Our activity

Learn about the activities of the public engagement team
Our activity

The public engagement team can support researchers in developing their public engagement plans within research proposals. We can advise on new approaches to engagement, best practice, staffing and resourcing, monitoring and evaluation plans.

Please contact the team at publicengagement@plymouth.ac.uk to discuss this further.

Public Engagement Funding

We support researchers with a mix of both internal and external funding opportunities to try out new public engagement methods and approaches and to embed it within their research proposals.

The public engagement team support researchers who are developing their own public engagement plans. The public engagement team apply for public engagement funding from research funders. These funds may have an institution-wide approach or focus on embedding engagement with research culture. For example, the University of Plymouth receives funding from the European Commission to deliver the FUTURES festival of discovery, a European public engagement event as part of a Higher Education consortium led by the University of Bristol.

We apply to national and international funding bodies who support public engagement activity with research. The funding is used to implement new public engagement projects and events delivered by our team, or to offer funding opportunities to community partners, who are actively looking to work with our researchers to solve a problem or understand their communities better.

There are a number of opportunities for researchers to get involved in public engagement and to try new ways of working.

2022 Get Involved Awards

Do you have a local issue that needs researching? Have you got a problem in your community that you want to resolve, or an idea to help the city? You can get involved in community research with us!

Community groups, charities and social enterprises can apply to work with University of Plymouth’s researchers, to better understand a problem in their local area and to gain valuable insights. By developing new projects, we aim to build a network of community groups working with academics to exchange ideas and respond to real community challenges for our city in 2022.

Find out how to get involved

<p>2022 Get Involved Awards<br></p>

Small Awards

Due to an overwhelming response the Small Awards are closed whilst we allocate funding. The awards may open at a later date, so please keep checking back or keep an eye out in the Staff Bulletin.
Need a small amount of funding to enrich your existing public engagement plans? Could a small amount of funding make a difference to people’s experience of your engagement plans or your ability to make the most of it?
The Public Engagement Small Awards are here to do just that. Funding of up to £500 is available for researchers who have existing public engagement plans.
What can you apply for?
If you’re interested in applying for a public engagement small award, you can use the funding in the following ways:
  • travel and subsistence
  • branded items such as t-shirts, banners, fliers
  • consumables – stationery, marketing materials etc
  • the creation of new materials, physical and/or digital which will enhance the engagement 
  • photography or any other methods of evidence collation for public engagement.
You can’t use the funding for:
  • pure dissemination activities without substantial two-way engagement
  • research costs (e.g. transcription)
  • alcohol
  • pre-conference dinners
  • first class travel
  • business engagement.
Who do you mean by ‘the public’ and ‘public engagement’?
The awards are to support public engagement with research. By this, we mean the different ways in which researchers can actively involve the public in research activity. It’s two-way in nature, with mutual benefit and its heart. The fund does not support pure research dissemination activities.
There is no deadline, you can submit your application via this online form.
<p>A young girl talking to a woman at an exhibition stand, which displays the sign 'How do plants cope without rain?'.</p>

Explore Awards

The Explore Awards aim to support researchers, with priority for Early Career Researchers, in a range of ways to support their public engagement with research. This may include, but is not limited to:
  • pre-proposal activity focusing on developing partnerships
  • piloting new ways of working with non-academic partners, namely community groups and members of the public
  • research proposal workshops with non-academic partners (e.g. research prioritisation)
  • evaluating existing partnerships
  • creating case studies and collating evidence
  • developing new resources to support public engagement practice across the University.
Awards of between £3,000 – £6,000 are available. The call closes on Friday 6 January 2023.
<p>Futures2021 festival of discovery.<br>Held as part of European Researchers Night, a range of events featuring academics from the University of Plymouth.<br>Seas the Day (National Marine Aquarium) – world-leading experts from University of Plymouth’s Marine Institute will explore one of the global challenges facing our planet – how to protect our seas – through a range of talks and family activities.<br></p>

External funding opportunities

To discover the most current range of public engagement funding opportunities, please visit the Research Professional using your institutional log in.

Up to date information on External Funding opportunities is available on the NCCPE website.

<p>Abstract People network</p>