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Research for All
How a fresh take on academic journals can pave the way for more informed and active public engagement.
16 May 2019
By Jason Ilagan.
鈥淎s academics, you tend to believe the smartest people are in academia鈥�, German scientist Sebastian Thrun once suggested. This notion has led to many an assertion that those in higher education occupy a space, loftily placed above the publics their knowledge and research is intended to reach. You probably know them better as 鈥渋vory towers鈥�.
Not for want of trying, institutions the world over carry out concerted public engagement efforts through dedicated units working with researchers to inform discourse and enhance societal impact.
鈥淎fter decades of experience of engagement (or 鈥榠nvolvement鈥� as it鈥檚 more often called in health research), I still felt a complete novice when I encountered engagement with the arts and humanities,鈥� says Professor Sandy Oliver of IOE.
Sophie Duncan, Deputy Director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) adds, 鈥淧ublic engagement was not recognised or valued as a key part of the research landscape, and sites of great practice were situated within disciplinary spaces with little connection and learning across them.鈥�
Oliver says that the struggles 鈥淏ecame obvious when I saw how academics who shared strong principles about involving non-academic partners in their research tried to discuss their ideas about engagement across disciplinary boundaries.鈥�
A lot of really interesting engagement work was taking place, says Duncan, 鈥淏ut it was often regarded as an added extra rather than a rigorous part of the research, worthy of the same standards of practice. It engendered a clear desire for more critical reflection on what the processes of engaged research could or should look like, and a wish to see a stronger evidence base for it.鈥�
This led Oliver and Duncan, in collaboration with 香港六合彩中特网 IOE Press (now merged with 香港六合彩中特网 Press), to co-found Research for All in 2017: a free, open-access, peer-reviewed journal focusing on collaborative research, allowing for the exploration of a textured landscape in which engagement with research goes so much further than participation in it. Institutional support came from both IOE and the NCCPE.听
- Investigating the relationship between theory and practice
- Analysis of the thinking around an aspect of engaged research
- Commentary offering views about thinking, practices and debates in engaged research
- Personal reflections on key features of a book, paper or person, and how they influenced their thought and practice
- Reviews of publications, events and resources relevant to engaged research
In order to encourage and support researchers to participate in engaged research we need to use a currency that means something to them.
Since 2017, over 70 articles have been published in Research for All and downloaded over 11,000 times. The editors are also receiving a steady stream of unsolicited contributions, and according to Gordon-Smith, 鈥淚t鈥檚 grabbed this sceptical publishing professional and forced me to work on the practicalities of how to address so many possible readerships in one place.鈥�