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Abstract
The past decades in the UK have witnessed renewed interest by policymakers, research
funders and research institutions in the engagement of non-academic individuals, groups
and organizations with research processes and products. There has been a broad consensus
that better engagement
leads to better impact, as well as significant learning around understanding engagement
and improving practice. However, this sits in tension to a parallel trend in British
higher education policy that reduces the field to a narrow definition of quantitatively
measured impacts attributed to
individual researchers, projects and institutions. In response, this article argues
for the mobilization of an emerging field of 'research engagement studies' that brings
together an extensive and diverse existing literature around understandings and experiences
of engagement, and has the
potential to contribute both strategically and conceptually to the broader impact
debate. However, to inform this, some stocktaking is needed to trace the different
traditions back to their conceptual roots and chart out a common set of themes, approaches
and framings across the literature.
In response, this article maps the literature by developing a genealogy of understandings
of research engagement within five UK-based domains of policy and practice: higher
education; science and technology; public policy (health, social care and education);
international development; and
community development. After identifying patterns and trends within and across these
clusters, the article concludes by proposing a framework for comparing understandings
of engagement, and uses this framework to highlight trends, gaps and ways forward
for the emerging field.