Right now, issues such as mobile phone masts, medical vaccines and the spread of infectious diseases are often cause for great deal of public concern. With so many researchers working in such a vast array of fields, the volume of information being published on a daily basis is quite overwhelming, even for those said to be experts.

In recent years, the mantra “Publish or Die” has become the main concern of any university researcher. Indeed, in a 2006 survey conducted by the Royal Society, the majority of respondents cited the pressure to publish research and attract funding to their departments as the major factors preventing them from conducting public engagement work such as debates, exhibitions, media appearances or outreach activities with schools.

While research councils—which fund most of the research in the UK—have public engagement high on their agendas and most grant holders are required to engage with the public about their research, for many this is not high on their list of priorities. There is little support for researchers who would like to do this, and few rewards for those who do.

The higher education funding councils that fund our universities also need researchers to organise high quality engagement with the public, inspiring more confidence in the research process as well as a better understanding of the benefits of its advances. However, it is clear that this broadening of the agenda by funders has not been embraced fully by higher education establishments. As such, several researchers in higher education institutions across the UK have set out to deliver a new project to create “Beacons for Public Engagement.”

“Edinburgh Beltane,” a consortium led by the University of Edinburgh, along with Heriot-Watt University, Napier University and the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute has made a successful bid to be a part of the scheme with the aim of engaging with people so that they can manage their lives with increased confidence and make informed decisions about their own health and lifestyle. It should also help the government hear the public’s voice so that people are able to have an influence on the future direction of Scotland.

We also aim to embed a culture change in our institutions so that researchers engage more widely with the public. This must be a two-way process and our researchers will benefit enormously from hearing a wide variety of views on what they do.

Edinburgh Beltane competed against more than 80 other partnerships for one of the six Beacon titles. Having proved successful, we will receive £1.2m from Research Councils UK, The Wellcome Trust and Scottish Funding Council to support researchers and bring about a cultural change to facilitate researchers engaging with the public.

In Scotland we have very special advantages with a relatively small population and a limited number of higher education institutions. This makes networking and sharing events much easier. Another advantage is the proximity of the Scottish Parliament who have expressed a wish for more engagement in policy making by the public and we see a Beacon as being a genuine way to facilitate this process.

To deliver our vision, our partners include a mixture of researchers, both basic and applied or translational. We cover a very broad range of disciplines across the sciences, engineering and medicine, the professions and the humanities and social sciences. It brings together those who deliver activities direct to the public in a professional capacity through businesses, public places or the media. We needed to include members of the public from both city and rural environments as they can have very different views and needs and we have to know about both to inform our research. So it is centred on a cluster of universities in Edinburgh, but has partners such as the University of the Highlands and Islands, to provide us with the rural dimension.

Changing cultures, especially within large and autonomous institutions full of people who are highly individualistic and chosen precisely for those skills, does not happen overnight but is an essential undertaking.

We have some outstanding examples of public engagement activities within the partnership at present and so we have lots of good practice to share and experience to build on. Policies alone do not change practice so, along with winning hearts and minds we have to create a culture with a supportive management that rewards, promotes and praises those who take the time to share their visions with others and listen to and respond to their views. These activities need to be a part of everyday life for researchers.

The wider public doesn’t view the world divided into academic disciplines, so to achieve our goals will need many more researchers to work together to ensure that the interactions with the public combine the expertise of the scientists and engineers and technologists with those developing new ways forward in medicine as well as with researchers in the humanities and social sciences who have the expertise to put these developments into a human context and see how they might affect society and our environment.

It is crucial that whatever we deliver is done in a professional, high quality and appropriate way for our audiences and that we learn to listen as well as pass on our knowledge. Working with our partners who have extensive experience in direct delivery to the public, be it in museums, galleries or botanic gardens, in science centres or businesses, or direct to farmers or patient groups is key to achieving our aims

With research in the 21st century moving at so rapid a pace, this kind of collaborative approach to sharing new knowledge is essential to ensure that we can utilise our discoveries to their best effect.