Come celebrate your public engagement achievements and participate in the Vice-Chancellor's Engage Awards 2023!

The Vice-Chancellor's Engage Awards 2023

Established in 2013, the Vice-Chancellor's Engage Awards aims to recognise and reward the outstanding achievements of colleagues who engage people beyond the University with their research. Four categories of the Engage Awards focus on public engagement with research - Informing, Listening, Working Together and Leadership. Following the category's success in 2021, we've added a fifth award category - Local and Civic Engagement.

The Engage Awards are open to all staff from the Education and Research (including doctoral students) and Technical and Experimental job families. We also welcome submissions from staff in the Management Specialist and Administration job family who support and input into research. The Local and Civic Engagement Award category is open to all staff.

Informing, Listening and Working Together Award categories

Public engagement with research can be broadly defined into three categories: activities that inform people about research, activities that listen and respond to people's concerns and needs and activities that involve working with people outside the University to engage others with research. For us at the University of Bath, public engagement must enhance and enrich your research and not be a core or essential part. The Engage Awards uses the following definition of public engagement as a guide:

The ways in which the activity and benefits of research can be shared with the public. Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit.

If your engagement work fits within this definition and meets our engagement criteria, it's eligible for consideration for an Engage Award. Get applying! Examples of projects that fit within these categories include (but are not limited to):

Informing - broadcasting, exhibitions, radio, blogs, social media activities, public lectures or research-related outreach activities.

Listening - roundtable discussions, citizen science or stakeholder panels.

Working Together - carrying out research collaboratively with community partners, collaborating with local artists groups to run an exhibition based on your research or working with research stakeholders to create tools based on your research.

You can apply as an individual or as a team. Check out the full criteria on the Engage Awards nomination guide. Feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions.

Leadership Award category

This Engage Awards category will recognise an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the culture of public engagement within their research centre / institute/ department / broader research community. Here's the winner of the 2019 Leadership Engage Award, Dr Janet Bultitude:

The person awarded this Engage Award will have shown a solid commitment to public engagement and will have enabled and supported their colleagues to develop their skills and expertise in engaging public groups with their research. Check out the full criteria on the Engage Awards nomination guide. Feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions.

Local and Civic Engagement Award category

University staff engage with local communities from the City and region through various work covering the University’s operations, teaching, learning and research. This Award aims to recognise the outstanding contributions of staff who engage locally and make a civic contribution on behalf of the University.

We're not being too prescriptive with our criteria for this Award; we encourage colleagues to read the Local and Civic Engagement Award category guidance and submit nominations that you feel are relevant to this Award and encourage you to drop us a line if you have any questions. Check out the full criteria on the Engage Awards nomination guide.

This Award is open to staff from all job families at the University (Education and Research, Management Specialist and Administration, Technical and Experimental and Operational and Facilities Support).

Apply now

The deadline for all Engage Award categories is Friday 12 May 2023, at 5pm. Once received, a judging panel of engagement experts from the University and beyond will assess the nominations before announcing the shortlist. The winners will be revealed during a Public Engagement Showcase event on Wednesday 28 June 2023. We're currently finalising the details, but mark it in your calendar!

Dean Veall is Deputy Head of Public Engagement at the University of Bath