The following resources will help you get the most out of your engagement activities.
Although some have been produced by individual Research Councils, they contain lots
of good advice for anyone involved in science communication.
Doing Public Dialogue 
: This guide is for research council staff who are involved, will be involved, or are interested in designing and delivering public dialogues. These dialogues could be for research programmes, the conduct of research, or in governance and regulation of a research programme.
The Engaging Researcher:
This Vitae and National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement publication
highlights some of the many ways researchers can engage the public, offers practical
tips for getting started and explores how public engagement can benefit researchers
and the public.
RCUK Public Engagement with Research Strategy:
This formal
document outlines the full RCUK Public Engagement with Research strategy and future
developments and targets under each of the three aims.
What's in it for me? The benefits of public engagement for researchers:
This RCUK publication includes a selection of some of the highlights and first hand
experiences of a range of researchers across the UK of the positive benefits arising
from engaging with the public.
Engaging Young People with Cutting Edge Research:
A guide for researchers
and teachers:
A brochure providing helpful signposts and opportunities to both researchers and
teachers on how to get started working together.
Resources for Schools:
A brochure detailing Research Councils UK classroom resources for teachers and their
students.
Dialogue with the Public:
An RCUK publication intended primarily for those relatively new to communicating
science or who are making the first steps to move from a monologue approach to a
dialogue style. It covers the issues that any activity organiser might expect to
encounter, including setting objectives; understanding audiences; attracting audiences;
encouraging dialogue within traditional formats; identifying appropriate techniques
to facilitate dialogue; and evaluation.
Evaluation:
The RCUK Evaluation Guide gives practical advice for anyone wanting to evaluate
Public Engagement projects.
Online Resources
Impact toolkit:
The impact toolkit includes information on developing an impact strategy, promoting knowledge exchange, public engagement and communicating effectively with your key stakeholders.
Communicating Your Ideas:
This online NERC resource is a guide for successful communication. It also contains
details of training courses open to NERC researchers.
The PPA Good Practice Guide:
This guide is intended to help all those considering participating in public engagement activities and it contains a wealth of information about how to plan an effective public awareness project. Also discussed are: reasons to get involve in public awareness activity; possible audiences and techniques for projects; a collection of case studies of previous activities; and how to avoid such notorious pitfalls as problems with publicity and evaluation.
Auditing, Benchmarking and Evaluating Public Engagement:
This paper explores the roles of auditing, benchmarking and evaluating university
public engagement. It brings a multitude of different approaches together into one
framework that seeks to capture the variety of public engagement under seven broad
dimensions. There is no single tool to effectively evaluate all forms of university
public engagement; however, the paper identifies a number of existing tools that
may be effective for different types or dimensions of engagement.