BU Research Blog

Enabling meaningful engagement with stakeholders

Research is more likely to lead to impact if there is engagement with beneficiaries and research users from the outset. To help foster the development of our research at BU, improving quality, bid success and leading to greater impact, we are setting up a pilot seed fund scheme in the new year.

The aim is to embed public engagement with research in order to:

• improve the quality of funding bids
• support engaged research delivery
• accelerate the translation of research findings into impact

The fund will operate on a rolling basis and provide small amounts of money to kickstart or further develop engagement. It could be used, for example, to cover travel costs for meeting prospective partners or hosting a stakeholder networking event.

Applicants will be expected to outline how the funding will lead to further engagement and how that engagement will be used to enhance external bidding or impact acceleration.

Full details of the funding and how to apply will follow early in the new year. In the meantime, if you are interested in applying, the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has a wealth of free resources available.

For informal enquiries about the fund, please email Amanda Edwards, Impact Manager.