Academics who take to heart ¡°the rhetoric of policy¡± and dedicate significant amounts of their time to public engagement are ¡°virtually sacrificing [their] academic career¡±.

This is the view of 40 academics known for public engagement who were interviewed for a paper by Richard Watermeyer, associate professor in the sociology of education at the University of Warwick.

According to , ¡°Lost in the ¡®third space¡¯: the impact of public engagement in higher education on academic identity, research practice and career progression¡±, published last month in the European Journal of Higher Education, the ¡°dominant prescription¡± is that academics should carry out public engagement because it is inherently ¡°a good thing¡± and ¡°reveals academics to be publicly interested, involved, responsive and transparent knowledge workers¡±.

However, respondents typically reported that their own public engagement was ¡°inhibitive and deleterious to [their] research identities and careers¡± because career progression is ¡°tied almost exclusively to¡± research prowess.

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Senior managers¡¯ estimations of public engagement ¡°were felt to be near universally abject and characterized by declamations of [it] as parasitic¡±.

One manager said that colleagues saw public engagement as ¡°academic profligacy¡± that should only be done outside contracted hours: ¡°It is when eyes begin to roll ¨C especially at a [vice-chancellor] level, [illustrating] a sense that, ¡®we don¡¯t want the enthusiasts to take over¡¯.¡±

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The potential for public engagement to take up research time is a particular peril for junior scholars, who can ¨C as one respondent put it ¨C ¡°get brought into [public engagement] projects as cheap labour¡±.

Respondents dismissed the idea that the research excellence framework has improved matters, since public engagement is still seen as ¡°a ¡®soft¡¯ and less easily measured version of ¡®stakeholder¡¯ engagement ¨C the latter synonymous with knowledge translation, exploitation and commercialization¡±.

One interviewee said that a peer-reviewed assessment of public engagement could help raise its status: ¡°I don¡¯t know whether we want to go along that route but ultimately evaluation¡­results in credentials,¡± she said.

paul.jump@tesglobal.com