Investing in Engagement
How long term-funding leads to impactful research
Well-funded engagement enables the development of long-term, mutually beneficial relationships which are essential for continually improving, progressive programmes that result in an engaged research culture and impactful research.
Flexibility is Key
Flexibility in how and when to spend our funding was crucial to our ability to deliver on our strategic aims. For instance, alongside the smaller, low-cost projects, we were able to work on large-scale, long-term projects that would have been out of reach without sustained funding.
Examples include our Your Amazing Brain exhibition with Banbury Museum & Gallery (see case study) which was several years in the making, involved multiple partners with specialist expertise, and was picked up by two additional museums. We were also able to create a stand-alone escape room which is still a mainstay of our engagement programme (see ‘SHElock’ case study).
Meeting audiences where they are is an essential component of successful engagement. Our funding allowed us to pay for researchers to travel (individuals as well as large groups) to venues beyond Oxford. Additionally, we were able to cover the otherwise prohibitive costs of transport when state schools visited us. This allowed us to reach a wider audience with our research, resulting in greater science capital in areas where access to science is not as easy as for those living in the centre of Oxford.
The expertise, knowledge and experience our staff gained through the sheer variety of engagement projects has also resulted in a large number of successful applications for additional engagement funding (including from Wellcome's Enriching Engagement fund; the Medical Research Council; NIHR-BRC and other internal (Oxford University) and external funding schemes).
Finally, funding meant we were able to share our expertise, materials and time widely: within the University, as well as externally through the NCCPE and research societies.
To provide some context on the scale of our project delivery costs, the figures below represent direct activity expenses incurred beyond the substantial staff time contributions from our team and partners. These ballpark estimates cover materials, venues, catering, travel, and external services, but do not include the significant salary costs that form the majority of our project investments. For larger initiatives like "Your Amazing Brain" at Banbury Museum and Gallery, the exhibition component required approximately £100k in activity expenses, while our ongoing Neuroscience Experience Programme runs at around £1,250 annually including catering. Smaller-scale activities vary considerably: Museum Late events cost roughly £5,000, our Rogue Brain Takeover escape room required £35k in development and setup costs, and the Ambassador programme operates at approximately £2,000 per year covering catering and external trainer fees. For focused engagement activities like PPI focus groups, costs range from £400 for online sessions to £625 for in-person meetings including travel and refreshments. These figures illustrate the additional investment required beyond core staffing to deliver meaningful engagement at different scales and formats.