Scaffolding change: 17 years of coordinating public engagement in UK higher education

Since 2008, the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has worked to build a higher education culture in which high-quality, inclusive engagement is valued, supported and woven into the fabric of research and teaching. We began as a small team of four, funded as part of the UK's £10 m Beacons for Public Engagement initiative, with a deceptively simple brief: to help change the cultures of universities so that engagement could flourish (NCCPE, n.d.-a). Seventeen years on, the challenge remains urgent. The sector has shifted towards participatory approaches, while grappling with how to balance scholarly heritage and societal expectations.

This is not a UK-only story. Wherever you are in the world, an engaged approach to research adds value—strengthening ethics, responsibility and trust, inspiring the next generation, and ensuring research delivers meaningful impact. Across contexts, we see common challenges: engagement treated as a hobby, academic value measured narrowly through publications, and persistent gaps existing between research and public expectations.

This article frames the UK experience through three themes—traditions, transitions and tensions—offering insights that resonate internationally and inviting shared learning about how to build research cultures that are ethical, inclusive and publicly accountable.

1. Traditions: Shifting paradigms

When the NCCPE was founded, the dominant paradigm for science–society relations in the UK was the ‘public understanding of science’ model (Millar and Wynne, 1988). Rooted in deficit assumptions, it imagined the public primarily as recipients of expert knowledge—an approach increasingly at odds with democratic expectations and with the public's lived experience of science in everyday life.

The early 2000s highlighted these fault lines starkly. Public controversies around genetically modified crops, stem-cell research and nanotechnology exposed widening gaps between scientific institutions and public values. An influential report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology urged a shift from one-way communication to sustained dialogue:

We recommend that direct dialogue with the public should move from being an optional add-on to science-based policy-making and to the activities of research organisations and learned institutions, and should become a normal and integral part of the process. (House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, 2000)

The Royal Society’s (2006) influential Survey of Factors Affecting Science Communication by Scientists and Engineers report identified a powerful mix of institutional traditions that were inhibiting effective engagement: competitive academic cultures, incentives overwhelmingly focused on publications, and a tacit discouragement of researchers—especially early-career ones—from spending time with publics.

These traditions ran deep. Engagement was often perceived as a hobby, not a craft; a pleasant add-on rather than a legitimate form of scholarship. Meanwhile, methods and epistemologies that valued co-creation, participation and shared inquiry—from Freirean pedagogy to community-based research and participatory action research—sat uneasily alongside the dominant ‘knowledge hierarchy’ of Mode 1 science, with its emphasis on disciplinary purity and objectivity (Carayannis and Campbell, 2009; Gibbons et al., 1994).

Yet the UK was also rich in traditions of engagement outside academia: community arts, museum practice, youth work, public-sector participation and science centres all had deeply developed professional crafts. These traditions had much to teach universities—but were rarely recognized as sources of expertise.

It was into this landscape that the Beacons for Public Engagement were launched (Duncan and Manners, 2012). Their ambition was systemic: to develop cultures, not just programmes. This required not only supporting researchers, but reshaping institutional incentives, leadership narratives, partnership models and professional practices. The Manchester Beacon, for instance, brought together three universities, the regional development agency and local councils around a shared commitment to ‘connecting knowledge, people and place’—an unusually civic framing for the time.

From the beginning, the NCCPE's role was to make this work visible and valued: to celebrate the craft of engagement, foreground the expertise already present across the UK, and help institutions recognize that engagement required expertise, strategy and infrastructure—not simply goodwill or individual enthusiasm. We also sought to demonstrate that engagement is not an optional extra, but a cornerstone of ethical, responsible research—a practice that strengthens integrity, builds trust and ensures research delivers meaningful impact for society (Duncan and Manners, 2025).

2. Transitions: Navigating change

These traditions created an environment in which engagement work was dispersed, fragile and often undervalued. To shift a system this entrenched, it was clear that we needed to work not only with people, but with the policy, strategy and culture that shaped their everyday realities. Engagement had to become part of how the system worked, not something that lived on its margins.

To provide a shared foundation, we adopted a broad working definition of engagement, grounded in mutual benefit:

Public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and 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. (NCCPE, n.d.-b)

Planning system change as a small team was daunting; we had to be focused and transparent. We developed a theory of change to make our assumptions explicit and to root our strategy in the realities of UK higher education. The theory identified three essential conditions for change, informed by wider literature about organizational and cultural change:

• a supportive policy environment

• institutional commitment and strategy

• capability among researchers and professional staff.

Where any one of these was absent, engagement struggled to thrive. These three pillars became the organizing logic for our work and the touchstone for the next phase of the journey.

Our early work focused on convening—creating spaces where practitioners could meet, learn from one another and contribute to a shared agenda for change. We also sought to raise the status of engaged research. In 2017, and in partnership with IOE Press, we launched Research for All (Duncan and Oliver, 2017), an open-access journal enabling researchers, publics and partners to publish together, bringing visibility and recognition to engaged scholarship (Research for All, n.d.).

Across the UK, we found islands of excellent practice: school outreach that profoundly influenced young people; collaborative research that shifted policy; co-designed cultural programmes; and long-term community partnerships generating new insights and social change. Yet these examples were often isolated, and dependent on individual champions and fragile funding.

A major moment of transition came with the introduction of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2012, which for the first time assessed research impact. This legitimized engagement in unprecedented ways, elevating it from ‘nice to have’ to a recognized dimension of research quality. Yet REF also introduced new tensions: an emphasis on measurable impact sometimes marginalized slower, more relational forms of engagement. Still, REF played a critical role in altering institutional narratives about the value of engagement, and the NCCPE made it a priority to contribute to the shaping of REF guidance and its interpretation, recognizing the significant influence the exercise exerts on institutional culture (NCCPE, n.d.-c).

As NCCPE's work evolved, we distilled our learning into the EDGE tool, a practical framework describing four levels of maturity—embryonic, developing, gripping and embedding—across three dimensions: purpose, people and process (NCCPE, n.d.-d). EDGE helped institutions assess their cultures honestly and plan strategically. Notably, leadership teams often scored themselves higher than professional services, researchers or community partners—revealing important disconnects between rhetoric and experience.

EDGE became widely used across the UK and internationally, and now underpins our Watermark process, a robust assessment and accreditation system that helps UK institutions evidence and strengthen their engagement cultures over time (NCCPE, n.d.-e).

While REF changed the external environment, EDGE helped institutions examine the internal culture that shaped how engagement was understood and practised. By the late 2010s, the sector was moving—slowly, unevenly, but undeniably—towards recognizing engagement as a strategic priority. Yet the traditions of the academy remained powerful, and the pressures on the system were mounting.

3. Tensions: Responding to a changing world

Over the past decade, societal turbulence has reshaped the higher education landscape in profound ways. Brexit, the Black Lives Matter movement, the climate emergency, COVID-19 and growing public distrust of institutions have all exposed inequalities, challenged authority and highlighted the need for more equitable, dialogic and participatory forms of knowledge making.

Universities have increasingly been called to act as civic anchors, partners in place and contributors to local and global challenges. The emergence of Civic University Agreements exemplifies a broader recognition of the relational responsibilities of higher education institutions (UPP Foundation, 2019).

Yet even as the need for engagement has grown, the infrastructure supporting it has come under pressure. Financial constraints, restructuring and rising workloads have led to the erosion of engagement teams and the loss of skilled practitioners across the UK higher education sector. This paradox—growing demand but shrinking capacity—has intensified existing tensions.

It was against this backdrop that the NCCPE launched Engaged Futures in 2024, a national foresight exercise using the Three Horizons approach (Sharpe et al., 2016). More than 400 participants—researchers, students, community partners, funders, policymakers—co-created visions for an engaged future of higher education.

4. Engaged Futures: A north star for change

The Three Horizons model offers a compelling way to understand the moment UK higher education is living through. Horizon 1 represents the dominant system—the inherited structures, incentives and traditions that shape the daily reality of universities. Horizon 2 is the space of experimentation, where new practices are emerging in response to pressure, crisis and opportunity. Horizon 3 represents the futures we aspire to create: futures grounded in equity, collaboration and meaningful public purpose.

Through the Engaged Futures programme, people from across the sector and partners who work alongside universities articulated what these tensions feel like in practice (NCCPE, n.d.-f). Six values contrasts (Table 1) emerged, which help explain why the current system feels under strain, and the shifts needed to create a more engaged future.

Table 1.

Engaged Futures: 6 values contrasts.

CULTURE: exclusive → belonging From cultures of exclusion to institutions where belonging is a shared condition, not an initiative.

RELATIONSHIPS: Transactional → Relational Move beyond outputs and KPIs to trust, care and reciprocity as core infrastructure.

INCENTIVES: Competitive → Collaborative Shift from rewarding competition to aligning incentives with collective success and public value.

PURPOSE: Canonical → Integrative Replace rigid knowledge hierarchies with integrative approaches blending disciplinary, lived experience and indigenous perspectives.

POWER: Validator → Connector Transition from validating expertise to brokering partnerships and sharing power.

STRUCTURE: Tanker → Flotilla Exchange bureaucratic inertia for agile, networked systems aligned with values.

Together, these contrasts crystallize the lived reality of Horizon 1—the pressures, contradictions and patterns that shape daily life for students, staff and communities. They also illuminate why many Horizon 2 innovations struggle to scale or sustain: they swim against powerful institutional currents.

Crucially, the contrasts also offer the design criteria for Horizon 3. They create a shared framework for imagining different futures and a powerful bridge between reflection and action. They invite people working within and alongside universities—researchers, professional staff, students, leaders, partners and civic actors—not simply to ‘improve engagement’ but to confront the deeper structural and cultural shifts needed to build a higher education system genuinely aligned with societal needs. They also reflect how engagement practice has moved beyond two-way dialogue towards more polyvocal approaches that value diverse knowledge traditions and more distributed forms of participation.

5. Conclusion: Towards Engaged Futures

Seventeen years of NCCPE's work have shown that culture change is possible—but it is slow, relational and requires sustained commitment. Progress has not been linear. Times of resource constraint have often been the moments when engagement infrastructures are most vulnerable. Yet the craft, creativity and resilience of engaged practitioners across the UK have continually pushed the system towards greater openness, responsiveness and public value.

As we look ahead, the question is not whether universities should be engaged, but how they will enact their public purpose in an era defined by ecological crisis, political polarization and technological transformation.

Engagement offers a powerful compass:

It connects research to real-world challenges.

It builds trust through reciprocity and care.

It strengthens democracy by widening participation in knowledge.

It supports innovation through collaboration and diversity.

It helps institutions remain relevant, ethical and inclusive.

Above all, 17 years of experience suggest that public engagement is not an adjunct to academic excellence but a constitutive feature of research cultures capable of responding to contemporary societal challenges. The work of the NCCPE demonstrates that culture change is achievable, but requires sustained attention to incentives, leadership, professional capability and institutional memory.

While engagement has gained visibility and legitimacy, persistent gaps between institutional aspiration and lived practice remain. Addressing these gaps will require universities to move beyond episodic initiatives towards structural alignment, embedding engagement within governance, reward systems and everyday academic practice.

Good intentions are not enough. Where engagement is proclaimed but not supported, or celebrated but not resourced, credibility quickly erodes. We therefore invite colleagues across contexts and countries to learn with us: to share practices, challenge assumptions and build the conditions in which engaged ways of working can endure. The futures our societies need will not be delivered by universities acting alone, but by institutions willing to listen, to change and to create knowledge with the publics they serve.