Synopsis
The three aims of the TTE competition are:
- to capture the tangible impacts of DE theme-funded, how the impacts unfolded, and the benefits of the research to society and the economy, particularly highlighting any impacts that are relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
- to help the wider research community learn examples of best practice in research and project partner engagement from your experiences
- to engage the public with DE research, focusing on ensuring audiences are diverse and activities are inclusive, and finding innovative ways to involve the public in the context of COVID-19 restrictions, while helping to address UKRI’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) agenda.
The TTE has the ambition of promoting the impact of applied DE research. UKRI defines impact as ‘the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy’.
Impact embraces all the diverse ways that research-related skills benefit individuals, organisations and nations. These include, but are not limited to:
- fostering global economic performance, and specifically the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom
- increasing the effectiveness of public services and policy
- enhancing quality of life, health and creative output.
A key aspect of this definition is that the potential impact must be demonstrable. It is not enough just to focus on activities and outputs that promote engagement, such as staging a conference or publishing a report.
Evidence of the research impact is required to demonstrate, for example, that it has been taken up and used by policy makers or has led to improvements in society.
Therefore, applicants are encouraged to carefully design their demonstrable public engagement activity. Please see appendix A and B in additional info.
In addition, careful consideration of how research impacts could benefit a diverse community and society could help to draw out even more demonstrable outputs from your activity. Please see appendix A, in additional, info for more information on previous TTE awards.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused fundamental changes in how we work, socialise, network and communicate as a society.
Increasingly rapid digitalisation of human communication has accelerated the transition to virtual socialising, online knowledge-sharing and technologically-mediated immersive cultural experiences.
We are keen to see examples of creative, innovative and inclusive public engagement in the context of COVID-19 restrictions.
We encourage applicants to consider the target audience(s) for their proposed engagement activities from an equality, diversity and inclusion perspective.
We are interested in seeing activities that engage with different community groups, ages, gender identities, ethnicities, abilities, neurodiversity characteristics, social classes, incomes, levels of digital literacy, and so on, where appropriate.
We are particularly interested in engaging digitally-excluded audiences, or those typically disenfranchised or underrepresented in the DE research space.
Successful applicants will be provided with guidance by UKRI for developing their EDI plans. Please refer to appendix B, in additional info, for examples of potential audiences to engage with.
Scope
Your entry must be associated with a previously funded DE theme research grant. It should focus on telling the tale of how this research grant’s impact arose, and capture elements of any engagement with partners in an interesting and engaging way.
Your entry must address the following:
Your research and its impacts
- What was the main research challenge of the associated DE research grant? What were the key outputs?
- What has been the societal and economic impact of these outputs? What individuals or community groups did the research have an impact on?
- What positive changes have resulted from your research, and how did these changes come about? Can you showcase a diverse range of impacts resulting from your work? What evidence can you provide to demonstrate these positive changes or impacts?
- How did you go about engaging with any partners on the project?
Your proposed TTE activity(s)
- How do you propose to ‘tell the story’ of your demonstrable impact(s)?
- What kind of public engagement do you propose to have with your target audience?
- Which sectors of society or members of the public will you seek to engage with and why?
- How will you incorporate an element of audience interaction? How will you ensure that you engage with the public in a creative and meaningful way, for mutual benefit?
- How will you ensure your engagement is successful in the context of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions?
- How has equality, diversity and inclusion been taken into account in your public engagement activities? Are you engaging audiences that are, for example, diverse in age, gender identity, ethnicity, ability, neurodiversity, social class, income or digital literacy, or audiences that are typically disenfranchised or underrepresented in the DE space?
- How will your public engagement contribute to the further development of your research and impact?
Your plans for dissemination within the DE research community
- How do you plan to share your understanding of the overall impact process with other parts of the DE research community, who may not be so advanced in their thinking and practice?This could help researchers set impact-related goals and metrics and help UKRI provide further guidance on impactful research.
Your entry should tell the story of how your impact pathway unfolded in practice, clearly linking the research to its impact:
- describing how the impact arose
- explaining how you went about engaging with partners
- evidencing a diverse range of positive, demonstrable changes.
Your story should help the wider research community and public understand how engagement and impact occurs in practice. Allowing you to tell the story of your engagement should enable the spread of best practice within the research community.
A good TTE project will help others to stimulate their thinking on more imaginative and illustrative ways to tell the story of their engagement and enhance the impacts and benefits of their research.
Please see appendix B, in additional info, for some guidance from previous TTE award winners.
Funding available
Three awards of £10,000 each are available to support an activity, or activities, that will allow you to tell your impact story in a creative, interesting and engaging way to a wider audience and the general public.
Please note that funding is not available to conduct further research.
Activities could include, but are not limited to:
- video or podcast production
- outreach activities in schools
- in-person or online public lecture series
- community events
- artistic interpretation
- specialised media training or attendance at high profile, non-academic focused conferences
- online interactive or immersive experiences
- virtual reality, and so on.
Please refer to the appendices for further suggestions and examples of previously funded activities.
The funding will support projects of up to 18 months in duration, starting from April 2021.
If you are successful, payment will be made to your higher education institution, who will then be responsible for issuing the award and ensuring funds are released as required.
EPSRC reserve the right to retain 40% of the total funding until an account of the expenditure has been submitted from the university finance office.
