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Public engagement

Photo of Greta Thunberg from OU and BBC series 'A Year to Change The World'The OU in Scotland's vision for public engagement is to work with and across diverse communities in Scotland, engaging with our academics, stakeholders, students, and members of the public to create an inclusive climate for shared learning. 

This includes face-to-face and digital events.  

From responding to the climate emergency, to how we can create conditions for healthy ageing, or support communities to be more resilient in our complex world, engaging the wider public in contemporary issues is of particular interest.   

How we engage 

Our public engagement work has spanned: 

  • Exploring social isolation issues relating to older people, approaches in supporting people to live well with dementia, and end-of-life care.
  • BBC/OU behind-the-scenes events, with TV producers and academic consultants, for co-series like Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, and 'Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change The World' (pictured).
  • Family activities at science festivals and supporting author talks at book festivals. For example, through our partnership with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, explored in our video below.

The Book Festival and The Open University in Scotland are both passionate about extending knowledge and it’s a very fruitful collaboration for us.

I’m a huge fan of The Open University and everything it does, and the way that it brings people together, for all backgrounds and walks of life.

As Director of the Book Festival, the highlight of our partnership is that shared understanding. The Open University plus the Book Festival adds up to something which is genuinely inclusive.

The partnership isn’t only in August. We work with the International Book Festival year-round to reach some of the more deprived communities across Scotland.

Since COVID, of course, we’re reaching tens of thousands more people, because the festival is now in hybrid form.

We realized that there are audiences all over the world, who want to watch book festival events. But that’s just one part of it. We’ve made it possible for people to join who might have found it hard to do so, whether it’s for economic reasons, for health reasons, or for accessibility reasons.

I would fly the flag for The Open University. It’s just electric working with the OU.

OU and BBC partnership 

We partner with the BBC to make television programmes and content across radio, podcasts, digital and social channels, that bring learning to life for millions.

The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland is an example involving OU in Scotland academics.  

Our commitment to the public

Public engagement has always been integral to The Open University’s social justice mission, putting people at the heart of everything we value and do. We are committed to: 

  • Promoting responsible and responsive innovation especially around real-world societal challenges.
  • Embracing fair and equitable practices in exchanging data, information and knowledge and the use of evidence in the way we engage and disseminate with the wider public.
  • Inspiring our uniquely extended Open University community to deliver excellence in our public engagement work, and to seek maximum impact.
  • Working with ‘publics’ over any or all stages of a research process, from issue formulation, the production or co-creation of new knowledge, to knowledge evaluation and wider dissemination.

Public engagement enables the OU to showcase its research and to test out its ideas with the general public, who often share views, opinions and ideas of their own. 

Explore opportunities

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to explore opportunities of how we can work together.

We are very keen to consider ways to develop themes for public engagement initiatives, including how we can work alongside organisations where there are synergies and complimentary interests.