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About Our Blog

The LERU Public Engagement Focus Group’s blog series, “Forging Connections: Public Engagement in Europe and Beyond” is an ongoing series which provides a platform for diverse voices in the current landscape of public engagement.

Public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. By showcasing activity taking place in communities from a number of LERU universities, this blog series aims to ignite conversations around public engagement.

The focus group on Public Engagement, under the lead of Open Science Ambassador Prof. Dr. Joos Vandewalle (KU Leuven), is bringing together experts and practitioners on Public Engagement of the LERU universities. Since its inception in early 2022, one of the main objectives of the focus group has been to share best practice in engaging the public at a local level, with approaches covering a broad spectrum from festivals to research funding and citizen science.

Members of the editorial board draw from a wide array of subjects across the Arts and Social Sciences as well as STEM subjects. These include English, Ancient History, Conflict Studies, Visual Arts, Sociology and Journalism, and International and Political History, alongside Engineering, Physics, Ecology and Chemistry.

The monthly blog posts, which are each written by members of the board, reflect their expertise in these areas and discuss how Public Engagement can be used to further explore these subjects within LERU member organisations and elsewhere, in meaningful and practical ways.

The first series of blogs (January to March) is edited by Drs Lauren Gould and Saskia Stevens, Associate Professors and Public Engagement Fellows at Utrecht University.

The second series of blogs (April-June) is edited by Victoria Brotto, Research engineer on Participatory Research at Labo citoyen (OPUS), University of Strasbourg, and Dr. Lucinda Spokes, Head of Public Engagement at University of Cambridge.

Featured Image Credit: Domininkas