What are we good for (not only what are we good at)?

This is (roughly) the transcript of a talk I gave at the PraxisAuril KE Matters conference in December 2020, which was focusing on how KE professionals have responded to the challenge of COVID-19.

When we are thinking about what our universities are for, what comes into our minds most of all?  What words do we use in our university strategies and visions?  Teaching?  Educating students is a prime focus for almost all universities, not just because of the importance of the pipeline into research and employment but frankly because student fees are the thing that is keeping most universities in the UK afloat nowadays.  We’ve seen recently how universities are doing everything they can to keep their student numbers up, simply because it’s the only way we can survive.  So what about research?  Universities, especially those that are research-intensive like Bristol, would also say that conducting world-class research is a major part of our mission and our identity.  It too brings in money (if not necessarily enough to cover costs) and funding for research whether from industry, the charitable sector, or government funders is a significant contributor to a University’s success (and bottom line).  In recent years, we KE professionals might be pleased to have noticed words like research outcomes, impact, and benefits to the economy and society creeping into our universities’ strategies.  We all know how these have been helped by initiatives such as the REF and the KEF which specifically tie university reputation (and money) to success in getting research beyond the university.

But what about the notion of being a civic university? For those of you who may be uncertain as to what being civic might entail, you’re not alone – pretty much everyone I work with has their own definition and understanding of what it might be.  But essentially, a civic university is one that listens to and works collaboratively with people, communities, and organisations in its local area; that behaves responsibly, aligning its interests with those of society; and that co-creates new possibilities and futures for its locality.  Even more succinctly, it’s about how we matter to our locality.  Many universities would claim to be civic in some form or other.  Bristol was actually founded as a university for the city as this cartoon from 1909 demonstrates – the city puts money into the university and expects a return in some form.  Over 100 years later, the civic university concept is becoming increasingly popular, with the rise of Civic University Agreements and its associated network for aspiring civic universities.  But how serious are we in what we do, as opposed to what we might say, in our strategies?  Compared to the combined carrot and stick of the REF and the KEF, these initiatives are barely a sticker and it’s not surprising that we might be promising much but delivering little.  

And then came Covid.  And all at once, despite this being a completely global pandemic, what suddenly became vitally important was what was happening in your locality.  How were people, how were communities, how were local businesses and healthcare providers coping in this strange new world?  And we, as a university, overnight had to critically examine what role we were playing, and wanted to play, in helping our city survive and recover from this global disaster.  Of course, there are many ways in which universities are supporting the global effort, not least on the search for a vaccine and ways to better treat those suffering from Covid.  But for me, it was interesting to see the effort that my university put into the little things that made an impact locally: our chemistry department making thousands of litres of hand sanitiser for distribution to key workers, our final year medical students graduating early and going straight into the front line of the local NHS instead of placements abroad, turning over our car parks and accommodation to the city so that key workers had a safe way to get to work or a place to stay without putting loved ones at risk.  And this effort is also where our KE professionals came in, by taking a lead role in supporting our university’s local response.  

As soon as the first lockdown was declared the University set up a civic response group to collate and coordinate our working with the city.  This group, which was managed by us KE professionals, with members across the entire university, sat alongside the group coordinating our research response and both reported equally to senior management.  Together we managed to create a whole portfolio of activities to help us work with the city on the challenges it was facing.  This included shifting sources of funding that we had access to so that they could focus on our civic response.  My team has a small funding scheme for civic engagement, and we coordinated a call for proposals with a Covid response element.  Thanks to that we have funded projects including #Medicineonthewalls which uses street art to share healthcare messages (something that actually became a collaboration with groups in Kenya, leading to messages across Bristol and Nairobi).  Another project has brought together organisations and people who have lost loved ones due to Covid through an online festival to share experiences and practical knowledge on grieving during these times.  Yet another is working with our City Office to explore how we might use the UN’s sustainable development goals to work with stakeholders across the city on what recovery from Covid can look like and how to advance social inclusion and environmental sustainability.  Beyond this scheme, my team and other KE professionals have been instrumental in delivering a research project to map the needs of our partners in the city and how we might work collaboratively over the next few years.  This research will underpin our relationships going forward with a whole range of partners in the city.

My key message here is how instrumental KE professionals such as ourselves have been in ensuring that we as a university have supported the city in dealing with this crisis.  But why is that?  I’d like to think it’s down to the following factors:

• We have a broad knowledge and understanding of the research that is going on across the university, not just individual researchers but the wider landscape and how things link together;
• We are adept at translating research into real life outcomes, at looking up and seeing the bigger picture.  We can readily take a piece of research and think about what the impact might be in the world beyond academia, and how we might achieve this.
• Having worked with a wide range of external partners, we can understand the needs of our stakeholders, how these might fit with research priorities and how to bridge the gap between the two.
• Many of us have existing relationships with groups in our city, whether it’s major businesses and employers, or SMEs, or charitable organisations, or local community groups and networks.  Many of these relationships have taken years to build and establish trust so they are more likely to want to work with us than if we just swooped in from our ivory tower on the hill.
• Finally, facilitating and bringing people together is what we do – it’s a major skill set for us all.  At a time when we’re all thinking about what we can offer to society, this is where we can make a real difference.  So KE professionals, now and into the future are going to play a key role in how universities respond to this global crisis.

Having told such a positive story, I’m loath to end this on a downer, but I do want to sound a note of caution.  There is every risk that, if and when the pandemic starts to recede and the world turns towards a longer-term future, that universities lose this sense of collective responsibility and involvement in their locality.  This could be because the sector has been thrown into such turmoil that every university has to spend its effort keeping itself financially viable, so everything that doesn’t instantly contribute to that agenda falls by the wayside.  It might be because the metrics by which universities are judged still fail to capture this sometimes unquantifiable vision and so we all resort to the crude figures by which we currently judge ourselves and stake our reputations on.  But perhaps we have planted a seed.  At Bristol we are planning our new strategy and for the first time our civic mission is explicitly referenced; not just that, but it has its own strategic pillar which puts it equal to research and teaching.  The proof of our intent will only come when we actually deliver things but it’s a start.  Would this have happened if there hadn’t been a pandemic?  We will never know, but if there’s one thing we can all take away from this year, it’s that we should make the most of every piece of good that has come out of these terrible times.  And, as KE professionals, we can be part of this drive for change and to help our universities think what are we good for.

Why being a working mum is an uncomfortable situation

"I'd be a fearless leader
I'd be an alpha type 
When everyone believes ya 
What's that like?" Taylor Swift (The Man)*

Now I've worked my way through the nicer bits, it's time to tackle the real challenge (I guess there's still a bit of procrastination left in me!). I've been doing more self reflection than is probably healthy, trying to unravel exactly why being a mum has been unsettling to me in a professional context. And I've put my finger on two issues, the first of which is confidence. Becoming a mum is hands down the most terrifying thing I have ever done and simultaneously the thing I've been least prepared for. Antenatal classes run you through the practicalities, from changing a nappy to bathing a newborn. There are endless books, resources and information on everything from how babies should sleep to the food they should eat (and how) and what stimulation they need. But nothing and no one can tell you how to be a good parent (although many parenting manuals do suggest that there is a 'right' way which merely enforces the idea that you are doing it wrong). So probably the most important challenge in my entire life is equally the one thing I cannot learn about in advance in order to not make mistakes. Trial and error is the only way, and I have a continual internal monologue of all the ways in which I fail on a daily basis. This picture so neatly sums up what goes on in my head all the time (although probably I'd substitute cheese for chips). And that toxic inner voice has worn me down so much that it's now bleeding into my professional life. How can I believe in myself as a expert practitioner and fearless leader (and ask others to) if I can't believe in me as a person?

Which brings me on to the other issue - not feeling valued by, or of value to, the university. This is mostly about being part time, although in my context I've only gone part time so that I can be there for my little girl. I'm not saying the university is a bad employer in this regard - in theory at least it is supportive and flexible (allowing me to even be part time can't be underestimated). But there are a few things that have hit me quite hard at a time when I'm feeling particularly vulnerable. The first is its strange approach to job sharing (at least as applied to me) which effectively means my job security would have been dependent on someone else. As a result it's been ten months before there has been any cover for the part of the role I'm not doing. The current solution, whilst it has positive aspects, is a complete fudge and has left me with the overwhelming impression that the university doesn't see what I do as that important. Secondly, there is the regular occurrence of what I can only term micro-aggressions. People continually disenfranchising part timers like me with inflexible meeting schedules and not enabling other forms of contribution (and no, always having to send a deputy isn't a solution). People bypassing me when there are questions or decisions that really need to be made by me but I'm not at my desk that minute. Colleagues answering my emails for me (often not how I would) as if it's impossible to wait a single day for me to respond. Before, if I happened to be on leave or simply busy, these things would have waited until I got around to them. Now I'm part time, there's the assumption that I can't or won't. Finally, being part time means that I'm missing out on opportunities. There are a number of meaty projects, one in particular, that I would love to get my teeth into and that I should be leading based on my role and expertise. But, because they need a chunk of time that I can't readily make available anymore, I've had to step back and watch others take them up. Having worked so hard to get to the top of my profession, it's frustrating to feel that my knowledge is being overlooked simply because I cannot make meetings at all hours or drop everything to respond to a particular task. It's especially galling because in general the University moves at a glacial pace so this need for urgency is artificially created. But the unspoken rewarding of presenteeism and focus on activity and seeming busy rather than the quality of outputs means that those of us who are part time will always be made to feel like second class employees. 

* I could do a whole other post (or possibly even a series) about other lines from this song.  Don't get me started...

Why being a mum has made me a better PE professional

In case of misunderstanding, I'm not suggesting that anyone who isn't a parent is somehow any less of a good PE professional. Several of those I most admire and respect are not parents (at least as far as I know, not everyone shares their personal lives). I'm simply describing how being a parent has had a positive impact on me and my professional practice.

Firstly, despite having lived in Bristol for eight years, and it feeling like my home, I never felt I knew much beyond some very discrete pockets of the city. Nowadays, these pockets have significantly expanded, thanks to everything from midwife appointments to the continual demands of entertaining and inspiring a mini person in all weathers and situations. And it's not just my geographic knowledge that has expanded (and my knowledge of every café and place with changing facilities). I've come across people from all over the city, from all different backgrounds and communities. I've participated in a range of activities run by entrepreneurs, by charities, by local neighbourhood groups. It may take me many more years to truly know Bristol but I'm starting to feel like I belong.

Secondly, I'm now part of a common shared experience. Every child is different but there are some pretty universal things that we all go through. And a whole raft of amusing, embarrassing and downright adorable stories that can be shared. I'm not saying only mums can engage with other mums; that's completely not the ethos that we work by. But it's handy that there is now this one extra life experience that I can directly relate to on a personal level.

Finally, I have even more to fight for. I've always done my job in the hope of, in some small way, making the world a better place. But now, it's not just for me, or even for wider society (hugely important but ultimately vague and faceless). It's for her. I will do anything to ensure that my daughter lives in a world that is safer, healthier, fairer and happier. And from now until the day I die, I will work to create this future, for her.

Why being a mum has made me a better employee

There are many things that I thought would be challenging about having a baby that have turned out not to be that big a deal (poo-splosions, no problem). And many things I thought I'd be able to handle that it turns out I completely suck at (like chronic sleep deprivation, there's a reason they use it as a torture device). But I honestly didn't think doing my job was going to be one of them. I'm in the same role from before maternity leave, doing the same things that I have the professional experience and knowledge to handle. So why am I finding it so hard? Why does it all feel disconcerting, like everything has shifted and isn't quite where I thought it was - like a supermarket where the stock keeps being moved around the aisles.

I've been trying, and failing miserably, to explain this to my new boss. But writing has an advantage over conversation in that I can simply delete the bits that aren't working and try afresh. So, Boss (if you're reading it), this one's for you. And I thought it might be helpful to start on a positive note with all the ways in which I'm actually a better employee now.

1) Multi-tasking. It's often said that women are naturally better at it anyway and the past months have really honed this skill. Most things with a toddler involve a combination of sharp eyed observation, keen listening, clarity of conversation and some kind of manual dexterity, possibly while running. Obviously the context at work is slightly different but practice makes perfect and I've had a lot of practice.

2) Decision making. I have always been a procrastinator or, as a former boss once said (much more kindly), I reflect on things. I like to have all the information to hand and work through the possibilities before settling on a course of action. Nowadays I don't have the luxury of time. Decisions need to be made quickly and they need to be right, because there's more at stake now I'm responsible for another life. So I still have to make the right decision, I just do it faster by cutting out any second guessing and needless worrying.

3) Prioritisation. When you're caught up in your work it's easy to believe that everything you're doing is mission critical and you can't bear to let anything slip. Taking some time away from it all is remarkable in that you start to regain some objectivity. Not to mention that this drastic change in my life has really made me re-evaluate what is genuinely important and what can, temporarily or otherwise, be placed on the back burner.

The best things in life are free?

The recent statement from UKRI about Pathways to Impact (PtI) has raised a fair few eyebrows and let to some speculation about the future of impact. What has most intrigued me has been the differing responses from within the impact family at my university. My colleagues working on knowledge exchange, business and policy engagement are generally quite indifferent to the removal of PtI - in the words of one of them "we have bigger fish to fry". But in public engagement, here and in the sector, there's been a certain amount of handwringing and nervousness.

Why? It's not like we're losing anything valuable. PtI was a flawed premise that was badly executed, as the authors of the STFC report so brilliantly and so diplomatically summed up. Its most immediate impact for my team is the loss of a good introduction to many of our academic community - for us it's often the first conversation that we'll have with individual researchers. But we're a resourceful bunch and there are plenty of other ways to get to know academic colleagues. No, where PtI really had value is that it did, albeit poorly, put an actual monetary value on engagement as a route to impact.

For me, this is why there's a difference between our attitude and that of the other engagement professionals. Great power may come with great responsibility, but with great money comes great influence. My knowledge exchange colleagues have control over devolved impact funds such as the IAAs, not to mention being the gatekeepers of a whole range of lucrative schemes aimed at working with businesses. My policy engagement colleagues have recently had to handle the distribution of a large amount of additional QR funding (uplift is such a good technical word for cash we found down the back of the proverbial sofa). They have gone from rags to riches overnight and suddenly everyone wants to know and listen to them. Money has never been plentiful in public engagement - it's handed out in tiny amounts at uneven intervals for a disproportionately significant amount of work. Many of us doing it, whether academics or practitioners, live a hand to mouth existence. It's understandable that we are jittery about the loss of a source of money, even one so vaguely articulated. We not only worry about the perceived loss of relevance and legitimacy but also about the loss of influence associated with cold hard cash. How can we be valued when funders and universities are literally not putting a value on us? And unless there is a sea change in the amount of money that funders put in to public engagement, we will continue to be marginalised, despite all the public engagement strategies and inclusion in promotion criteria. As the Beatles didn't exactly sing "The best things in life are free, but when it comes to valuing PE, just give me money".

Mind the gap

For someone whose role is all about sharing and inclusivity, I find myself thinking a lot about boundaries. The other day these were the boundaries between engagement theory and practice and, in correlation, the boundaries between researchers and practitioners of engagement. Now this something I occasionally mull over as part of my own learning and how I can best support the University, but this was a more focused reflection thanks to a workshop organised by the NCCPE and my colleague Jana. Given that the room was mostly full of engagement practitioners (so, people like me) it was no surprise that there was a general consensus that we are caught up in the "juggernaut of practice" - a great phrase coined by one of the participants. I wouldn't dare to speak for others but it got me thinking as to why I don't use learning from the academic sphere to help inform my practice sufficiently. When I was an academic it was second nature to learn as much as I could before attempting to try things out in the lab. So why am I minding the gap rather than bridging it?

The trite answer is that I don't have time. It's the easiest claim to make, mainly because it's true, but it's also the easiest to dismiss. If learning can genuinely improve my practice then I would be foolish not to put the effort in now, knowing that I would reap the rewards later. When asked about this issue, I commonly reply that I struggle to understand the academic literature on engagement. Without a social science background a lot of the terminology baffles me, not to mention the context in which this learning is set. And there's always a reference within a reference, like a set of Russian dolls. But again, this is something that can be overcome with a bit of patience.

So my revelation the other day was realising exactly why I don't engage with theory - I don't have a voice there. When discussing co-production we always talk about the importance of experience beyond academia and how this knowledge, and those who have it, should be valued at an equal level*. And amongst my practitioner peers, I feel (or at least hope) that this is the case. But on the academic side, I can be a research participant or contributor of data, but I've never been a co-author. I'm not saying there aren't some amazing people who manage to span both fields, although usually they have a relevant academic background first. But as an individual, I feel disenfranchised by the boundary and my perception (probably misguided) that academics have a monopoly on this knowledge. It's perfectly feasible for us an engagement community to come up with solutions that empower both academics and practitioners - whether it's a journal or conference that encourages joint papers, or funding that equally supports this kind of collaboration. However, until there is an clear route for us to work together to develop genuine outputs, I will continue to notice - and be bothered by - the space between theory and practice. So in both senses of the word, I will keep on minding the gap.


* If I was more up on my theory I'd be dropping in a reference here.  But, as this post explains, this clearly isn't the case

Trampling through mush

"You can see a million miles tonight, but you can't get very far" - Counting Crows (Mrs Potter's Lullaby)

OK, so I've found another thing about academics that I'm envious of (for the first, see this post) - their purity of vision.  Now I'm not talking about some small scale vision of finishing a piece of work or writing a seminal research paper, I'm meaning epic utopian vision - whether it's a world without social inequality or a massive increase in life expectancy for people with a particular health issue. But the amazing thing is not the vision itself but the single minded focus and conviction that it is achievable. Everything that is between the researcher and the vision is incidental, even though there may be the occasional distraction where they worry about where the next bit of funding is coming from or how their field is going to fare in the REF.

Us public engagement practitioners (or professional services or research administrators or whatever the hell we are called) also have our own visions. One of the great privileges of stepping up into the role of Head of the Centre for Public Engagement was the chance to see a broader vista and imagine how I would like it to look in, say, a decade's time. But we are continually brought down to Earth by having to deal with complexities and nuances. A project that I'm involved in was recently described by an academic colleague as a bit mushy. This is a project involving our team, several academics from different disciplines and a host of external partners. The project manager has to handle competing agendas, a range of egos and a bunch of people who are enthusiastic about the project but don't have the time and resources to dedicate sufficiently to it. Is it any wonder that the project appears a bit mushy? That's reality at work.

I'm not wanting to foster the (really unhelpful) two tribes mentality. But it seems to me that both academics and non-academics in higher education are looking up at the stars. The academics are mentally already amongst them, a million miles away where the journey doesn't appear to be so bad from their view.  Whilst the rest of us are stuck on the ground, trying to work out how to build a rocket to get us even a fraction of the way there.  And it's galling to see a vision in the distance but not be able to get very far.