Public engagement enhances university research; it helps researchers build their careers, it keeps them accountable to their communities, and it can broaden and alter their perspectives on the work they do. Collaborating with the public can be enormously rewarding, but it also comes with challenges. How do researchers balance the academic and applied portions of their work? How do they connect with the public, and what do those relationships look like?

“Ultimately, I’m guided by community engagement principles that are shaped by my own community, values, perspectives, and experiences. And this essentially means that I only do research that is wanted and desired by a community, because those are the people that it will ultimately impact.” Dr. Amy Hudson

As part of Memorial University’s Research Week, The Office of Public Engagement hosted a panel of researchers from Memorial’s St. John’s, Grenfell, Marine Institute, and Labrador Campuses to share their experiences of—and enthusiasm about—public engagement. The researchers, all at different stages of their faculty careers, discussed the pleasures, possibilities, and ethical considerations inherent in publicly engaged academic work. Panelists talked about public engagement as a way of honouring community values and norms, as a tool to resist the top-down imposition of solutions that might not actually serve the communities who have to live with them, and as a means of creating a robust network of diverse, interested, and invested public collaborators.

The panel was moderated by Dr. Margaret Steele, Dean of Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine and board chair of the Association of Faculties of Medicine Canada. The panelists were:

• Joe A. Daraio, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering https://www.mun.ca/engineering/civil/ at Memorial’s St. John’s campus and leader of Memorial’s Climate Change and Resilient Infrastructure ab https://www.engr.mun.ca/CCRI/
• Amy Hudson, assistant professor in the School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies, Labrador Campus of Memorial University https://www.mun.ca/labradorcampus/school-of-arctic-and-subarctic-studies/ and Chief Governance Officer with the NunatuKavut Community Council https://nunatukavut.ca/ (NCC) in Happy Valley-Goose Bay
• Rosemary Ricciardelli, Professor in the School of Maritime Studies https://www.mi.mun.ca/departments/schoolofmaritimestudies/ and Research Chair in Safety, Security, and Wellness at Memorial University’s Fisheries and Marine Institute.
• Peter Ride, Dean of the School of Fine Arts https://www.grenfell.mun.ca/academics-and-research/Pages/school-of-fine-arts.aspx at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University
• Sevtap Savas, Professor of Oncology and Genetics at Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine https://www.mun.ca/medicine/, and leader of the Public Interest Group on Cancer Research https://strength-in-community.ca/public-interest-group-on-cancer/

The panelists discussed their respective paths into public engagement and the responses their work has received from the individuals and community groups they’ve partnered with. They also talked about how public engagement has changed them as academics: what they’ve learned, how they’ve adapted, and what they’ve chosen to prioritize in their research.

“If I was putting hashtags on here, I'd say “impact,” “participation,” and “community” are the three really important hashtags because research, where it moves from working within the university into cultural organizations, is very much about notions why public engage, how public engage and what they do.” Dr. Peter Ride

Watch the complete video here:

 

 

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