Presenter: Richard Holliman (and a cast of thousands), Professor of Engaged Research at the Open University
Theme: Leadership in outreach and public engagement
Reporter: David Owen
One sentence summary: The session explored the essential qualities and challenges of Public Engagement (PE) leadership, highlighting that effective PE leadership involves enabling others, integrating inclusive approaches, and recognising the often-understated value of leadership in academic career development.
Description
The session explored the essential qualities of PE leadership, focusing on understanding what defines successful leadership within academic and research environments. The key questions running through the session were:
- What is PE leadership, and what are its attributes of success?
- What are your levels of comfort and confidence in leadership? What is holding you back?
- What attracted you to lead?
- What is the most significant change you can make in your context?
Participants reflected on their confidence and comfort with leadership, discussing barriers preventing them from stepping into more prominent roles. They also shared key motivations for pursuing leadership alongside insights into the most significant changes they could make within their respective contexts.
The presenter noted that the sector lacked a language for leadership in public engagement, and this is often reflected in Fellowship applications, where the focus put forward by applicants is often on activity as opposed to leading. The conversation emphasised the importance of explicitly integrating leadership into these frameworks and opportunities.
Leadership in public engagement is a lens through which existing skills, such as communication and knowledge dissemination, could be enhanced. The session utilised the Vitae Researcher Development Framework as a prompt for participants to reflect on their skills and experience across several domains. The presenter noted that leadership success should not just be measured by individual achievements, but also by enabling others to succeed, and driving positive institutional changes.
Several participants noted that PE is often sidelined in career development pathways, and the cost of leadership, both in time and emotional investment, was acknowledged, with the group reflecting on the need to access other forms of recognition beyond financial compensation.
Toward the end, discussions touched on broader issues such as structural inequalities, how people can overclaim what they intend to achieve, and the importance of focusing on what you can feasibly accomplish. The role of inclusive leadership was highlighted, with participants sharing experiences of how discomfort can be a sign of genuine inclusion and growth in leadership spaces.
Key messages
- STFC fellowship applications: Leadership is often underplayed in STFC fellowship applications, and the focus is often on activity as opposed to building and enabling others.
- Vitae Researcher Development Framework: This is an excellent tool to reflect on the leadership skills you have or want to develop.
- Know and respect your audience: Effective leadership in public engagement requires understanding your audience’s needs and respecting their perspectives. It was suggested that many people practising public engagement have these skills already; however, leadership is about applying a lens of influence to enhance these capabilities.
- Consider who you want to work with: Do you want to convince people that it is a good idea in the first place; or work on strengthening the work that is already underway?
- Academic leadership: Can be defined by enabling others to succeed and driving initiatives that lead to tangible changes. Identify the new ideas that need encouragement.
- Cost of leadership: Leadership often comes with costs that are not always compensated monetarily, so leaders need to seek out other forms of rewards and recognition.
- Know your limits: Quite often people overclaim what they will achieve in the leadership space (e.g. fixing poverty, tackling crime, addressing structural inequalities). Leadership should focus on using authentic language and achievable impacts rather than trying to overhaul entire systems. It was suggested you should focus on the ‘hardest thing you can feasibly do’. Choose battles that can be won effectively and meaningfully.
- Use the word excellent public engagement rather than high quality: It seems to pick up hearts and minds.
- Inclusive leadership: True inclusive leadership involves feeling discomfort as you unlearn and relearn behaviours, encouraging growth and change.
- Look for inspiration: Look for who you admire, build a picture board.
Resources
Collective work to create inclusive leadership for engagement requires: respect for diversity and different forms of expertise, knowledge starting points, power dynamics and esteem; a willingness to make connections across disciplines and sub-cultures, actively listening and (un)learning from different (knowledge) cultures; and a commitment to be respectful of hidden and manifest difference, exploring purpose and gaps in knowledge in more holistic ways. Available: https://doi.org/10.3389/esss.2024.10119.
Kotterman, J. (2006). Leadership versus Management: What’s the Difference? The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29, 13-17. available: https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=2524323
Lenses on the Vitae Researcher Development Framework, available: https://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers-professional-development/about-the-vitae-researcher-development-framework/lenses-on-the-vitae-researcher-development-framework
Assess your institutional culture: Introducing the EDGE tool, available: https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/resources/guide/assess-your-institutional-culture-introducing-edge-tool
Building the concept of research impact literacy, available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319646421_Building_the_concept_of_research_impact_literacy
Public Engagement: Attitudes, Culture and Ethos. Available: https://oro.open.ac.uk/57600/1/PEAttitudesCultureEthos.pdf
Rethinking professional development for public engagement with research: A way to improve uptake and impact of training? Available: https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/r4a/article/id/2268/
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