Our Aim
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.
What is our understanding of Impact?
Broader or longer-term changes or effects of a project’s activities, outputs* and outcomes**. These effects and changes can have different impact spheres (e.g. societal, social, environmental, political, health, economic, cultural).
*Outputs are tangible and intangible products and services delivered as part of project activities.
**Outcomes are the changes, effects or other benefits that occur as a result of one’s project activities.
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:
In Work Package 1 (Concept & Contexts) we mapped relevant stakeholders, Public Engagement initiatives, and motivations or needs regarding Public Engagement. We have also co-defined Public Engagement-related concepts and frameworks, as well as understood the interrelationships between them.
Work Package 2 (Impact Planning & Assessment) focuses on identifying Public Engagement impact goals and indicators, the co-creation of an impact model, and establishing a research methodology that evaluates the impact of the museum’s Public Engagement initiatives.
In Work Package 3 (Culture Change & Co-creation) we will deliver activities that contribute to maximising the impact of the museum's Public Engagement. This will be done through impact & project sustainability workshops, Public Engagement co-creation accelerators, as well as strategies for rewards and incentives.
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 Alina Loth
Head of the Public Engagement
and Impact Unit & Head of IETI
Dr Ana Faustino
IETI Deputy Head and
Research Associate
Dr Zinaida Vasilyeva
Research Associate
