Our Aim

Our aim is to increase the quality and efficiency of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin’s Public Engagement, thus contributing to the museum’s academic, societal and environmental impact. We are doing this through research, impact planning and assessment, as well as culture change and co-creation processes.

What is our understanding of Public Engagement?

Public Engagement (PE) activities can actively and continuously involve anyone in our society, regardless of identity or background, particularly those with an interest in or connection to the topic. This aims to enrich the discourse around research topics with lived experience and valuable societal perspectives outside of academia. These contributors can be citizens, experts, NGOs, schools, children, associations, politicians or companies, to name just a few examples. Through PE, researchers, students, professors and representatives of research institutions enter into an equitable exchange with these communities. PE is an English language term that has become established internationally. By focusing on mutual benefit and exchange supporting society-oriented research, PE clearly differs from other forms of science communication. PE describes a field in the German research landscape, the practice of exchange between researchers and the public, and stands for the attitude that research and society benefit from mutual interaction.

Source: Public Engagement Principles, 2023. Joint publication between: Berlin School of Public Engagement and Open Science – Public Engagement & Impact Unit of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Cyber Valley, and the German community.

What is our understanding of Impact?

Broader or longer-term changes or effects resulting from a project’s activities. These effects and changes can have different impact spheres (e.g. societal, social, environmental, political, health, economic, cultural)*.

*Adapted from: your project and its outcomes, 2007. By Sally Cupitt with Jean Ellis for Charities Evaluation Services.

Our Objectives

Further align MfN’s Public Engagement with academic, societal, and environmental impact goals

Support the design of MfN’s Public Engagement initiatives that are impact-oriented

Explicitly include Public Engagement into the strategies of research institutions and career paths

Contribute to impact optimisation through research, best-practices, culture change, co-creation and multi-stakeholder processes.

IETI Work Packages (WPs)

IETI combines research, impact planning and assessment methodologies, as well as culture change and co-creation processes to optimise the impact of Museum für Naturkunde Berlin’s research and Public Engagement.
IETI’s research and practice are divided into three work packages:

Work package 1. Concepts & Contexts: Focuses on the mapping of stakeholders and public engagement (PE) initiatives, as well as initial perceptions of impact and practice. It also explores relevant concepts and frameworks.

Work package 2. Impact Planning & Assessment: Explores how MfN understands, practices, and evaluates its institutional and social impact. The goal is to develop tools for institutional self-evaluation and to promote reflexivity within institutions.

Work package 3. Culture Change & Co-creation: Examines MfN researchers' motivations, barriers, and needs regarding PE, and explores effective integration of PE, participation, and societal needs into MfN's research, including ways to recognize and incentivize researchers’ involvement in PE.

IETI will generate multiple research and practice outputs, recommendations on how to optimise the impact of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, several impact and culture change initiatives, practice reports for Public Engagement practitioners and professionals, and research articles for the academic community.

The project’s work is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land).

Our team

Dr Ana Faustino

IETI Lead

Mairi Stauch

IETI Project Manager & Research Associate

Dr Ana Faustino

IETI Lead

ana.faustino@mfn.berlin

+49 308 891 40-8122

/anaifaustino

“With IETI, we have the opportunity to further align museum’s research and public engagement with societal needs and meaningful impact. This involves fostering lasting culture change within the institution and embedding impact-oriented thinking into everyday practice. Through participation and co-creation with diverse stakeholders and incentive-based approaches, we enable research to become more inclusive, responsive, and transformative.”

Ana leads the strategic development, coordination, and management of the IETI project, including team leadership, project governance, funding, partnerships, and the IETI Hub for Research Impact. She also serves as the IETI Principal Investigator, leading all action research and impact research initiatives developed under the IETI project. Ana is a senior project lead and researcher with over nine years of experience working at the intersection of science and society. She has contributed to European, Portuguese, and German institutions and projects, applying action research, participatory, transdisciplinary, co-creation, multi-stakeholder, capacity-building, and impact-oriented approaches to promote change.

Mairi Stauch

IETI Project Manager & Research Associate

mairi.stauch@mfn.berlin

+49 30 889140-8477

/mairi-stauch

“At a time when trust in scientific research is diminishing, I believe it is essential not only to communicate the importance of scientific standards, but also to critically reflect on how research is conducted. IETI’s action-oriented approach offers an opportunity to bring societal stakeholders into research processes and to recognise the knowledge and perspectives that exist beyond academic institutions. For me, meaningful engagement means creating spaces where different forms of knowledge can meet, challenge each other, and contribute to making research more inclusive, responsive, and relevant to society.”
Mairi Stauch is a working student at IETI at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, supporting project management with a focus on research, communication, coordination, and administrative tasks. She studies Theatre and Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin and holds a degree in Communication in Social and Economic Contexts from the Berlin University of the Arts. Before joining IETI, she worked at the VDMA’s Berlin office and gained experience in press and marketing at the Semperoper Dresden as well as in production at Theater und Orchester Heidelberg. At IETI, she is particularly interested in the ways communication can connect scientific research with different societal perspectives.