National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE)

6️⃣ Six ways your workplace can reduce its digital footprint Did you know every single thing that’s online (each document, email and photo) also exists physically somewhere?   Yup. In data centres all over the world that hold and deliver all the data required for everything on the cloud, streaming services, websites, and more.  So although it seems weightless, our online activity has a huge impact on the real world. Data centres require huge amounts of energy to run and loads of water to keep them cool.  What can we do about it? Your workplace could be a great place to make changes, because when applied across a team of hundreds of employees, or websites used by thousands of people, the impact is multiplied!  Here are six steps to help shrink your organisation’s digital footprint ➡️

With increased focus on #PublicEngagement for #REF2029, we wanted to understand the state of play of public engagement policies & practices in #physics & #engineering. Read the full report from National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) , STFC https://loom.ly/chWNPJ8

Today we’re announcing a groundbreaking public engagement investment in nine community research networks across the UK. The five-year £9 million programme will enable communities to set research agendas and develop the knowledge, skills and tools to act on issues that matter to them. The networks are led by community organisations and are deliberately cross-sector. Novel combinations of charities, local authorities and research organisations will work together to build capacity and capability for community-led research. UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said: "I am delighted to see the launch the second phase of UKRI’s Community Research Networks programme, in partnership with The Young Foundation. "At UKRI we strongly believe that R&I should be by everyone, for everyone, everywhere. This programme offers a step-change in the way UKRI funds R&I to reflect this priority. We are putting money into the hands of communities to tackle the issues that matter most to them." The Young Foundation, a not-for-profit conducting community research and driving social innovation, will support the networks to drive change, capture their learning and convene people from across the sector to support, champion and build on this work. Helen Goulden OBE, Chief Executive of The Young Foundation, said: “We know that local communities and citizens understand local needs best and are fundamental to tackling complex societal issues. Which is why the Community Research Networks programme is so important as we hope to actively contribute to a new and evolving national infrastructure to support community research across the UK. “This is core to The Young Foundation’s strategy, and as delivery partner we are proud and pleased to be working alongside UKRI to support this work over the next five years – and beyond.” The investment will reach all four nations of the UK and deliver on UKRI’s mission to transform tomorrow together by placing research and innovation at the heart of society and the economy. Visit our website for more, or see more details of the networks below.

Leaving sunny Birmingham full of gratitude for a day spent in the most thoughtful of company imagining what Engaged Futures could look like. So many takeaways but for me three things stood out: 💡 How much engagement practice in the UK has developed (thanks in great part to the wonderful National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) who commissioned this process and have been at the forefront of driving meaningful engagement practice in the UK across the last 15 years. 🧰 How the right tool and the right people can provide energy for transformational conversations, even in overwhelming times. We used the 3 horizons model to help us think about purposeful engagement in UK higher education, facilitated by Ioan Fazey. This gave us an enabling framework to help us reflect on the present and future from very diverse perspectives 👂 Lastly and most importantly there is an opportunity to have interesting conversations and draw on the perspectives of a much wider group of people about this process. Whilst NCCPE will be doing this formally of course, it’s also given me renewed energy to take a step up from the day to day work and have Big Picture conversations. 🐣 And as a special bonus, a great conversation with Sarah Rafferty about the work she and Kate Harper are doing as part of their Engagement Fellowship and hatching plans for collaboration. So much generosity in the room, sharing of knowledge and perspectives. Thrilled to be working with such an imaginative and ambitious group of people.

Just returning from a thought provoking day with the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and a range of amazing people from HEI and, importantly, outside HEI, which brought us together to think about the question: ‘How can the UK higher education sector betransformed so that it is purposefully engaged with, connected to, and inclusive of, the communities and society it serves, in a context of major social and environmental challenges and change?’ The ‘Engaged Futures group’ is just one of a suite of activities that the NCCPE are driving, as part of their ongoing mission to break down the barriers between universities and society. It was interesting to reflect on how far we have come since their inception in 2008, and equally how we are having the same conversation but with different buzzwords – ‘civic’, ‘community impact’, ‘participatory research’ – so many aligned agendas which, while may be different, all gather around the concept of social good. If we look back to how many universities were established, it was all about serving wider society. This value has been somewhat lost in the discourse around universities, particularly in the press where the focus is about value for money around tuition fees. Lost in this rhetoric is the value that universities provide in research – in creating knowledge. This was so evident during the pandemic but has gone back into the shadows again. But the climate emergency will bring this to the fore again, with interdisciplinary research key to finding just, equitable solutions.  More and more (as it should be), this research, the creation of knowledge, is co-created with those with lived expertise. With our communities. With patients, carers, the future workforce. With industry who need to skills pipeline for new jobs we can’t even imagine. But the current system makes such advancements overly bureaucratic, ineffective and in many cases impossible. Change is coming, whether we are comfortable with it or not. But if we can keep social purpose at the core of our decisions, then surely the changes can lead to a more engaged, equitable future.