11. Amy Bugeja on embedding engagement in your research org
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Today's episode is a deep dive with Amy Bugeja, Manager of Engagement and Strategy at the Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne.
In 2019 the University awarded her the Excellence in Engagement award for the development of PsychTalks, the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences forum for ideas and discussion.
Our conversation covers —
The importance of engagement
Attracting donors
The importance of close relationships between researchers and comms/engagement staff
Using different formats/mediums for different types of people
Communicating your team's mission
Interdisciplinary communication and collaboration
The benefits of decentralising support teams
Enjoy, and stay tuned for next week's episode. We'll be releasing weekly for the first 12 episodes, and then switching to every other week to give us a bit more time to release some of the other exciting Amplifying Research projects we have in store for you.
Find Amy Bugeja online:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-bugeja-0151412b
Contemplative Studies Centre
https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/CSC
PsychTalks Podcast
https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/engage/psychtalks/podcasts
Find Chris online:
https://www.amplifyingresearch.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispahlow
Credits:
Hosted and produced by Chris Pahlow
Edited by Emily Bird and Laura Carolina Corrigan
Consulting Producers Maia Tarrell and Michelle Joy
Quotes:
"It was really essential having some type of stakeholder management, engagement role at the helm of this because we're looking outside of the ivory tower where we're really trying to embed, our work actively in the community. So it's just not possible if you don't have that dedicated resource."
"Just have that little thought in the back of your mind of what would you do if you were given 10 million dollars? How could you change the world that we live in for the better?"
"Putting yourself out there, doing as much media as possible. If you're not comfortable in front of the camera or doing really accessible public panel sessions, then write for the conversation or pursuit or find the different channels out there that are going to reach the audience that you want to reach, knowing your audience and who you want to communicate to is the most important thing."
"It's really important to be able to record these things in different formats for different people. Everyone's consuming media in such different ways these days, whether it's by podcast... Radio... Some people like to sit down and watch YouTube... Others just want to read a conversation piece or have that translated into something super accessible in maybe the Herald Sun or something like that. So really making sure you can get the breadth of audience, the largest breadth of audience as possible."
"So I guess allowing those science communicators or event managers, whoever it is you have working with you, the space to learn how to innovate, making sure they're getting professional development, making sure they're having time to talk with their colleagues so we can learn from each other."
"Look for slow news cycles, if you want to be pushing something out there into the more general realm. Ensuring that you have something that's really groundbreaking that you haven't offered to anyone else. and making really, really great relationships with those journos who are happy to publish things like that."
"The more I talk about this, I'm like, Oh my gosh, it is so much work for any one researcher to do all this. It is a ridiculous amount of work. But it is the model that we've found that's working in this new landscape that we're operating in."
"It's because the Centre is smaller that I really understand what is happening in all aspects of the Centre's research and education. When I had this similar role in psychology previously, even within psychology, there's so many different disciplines within that one discipline. And it ranges from basic science through to really accessible science, which makes it so challenging because there's just not going to be equity in the media coverage."
"We do speak really different languages and we're going to have so much impact if we can cut through the issues that might be associated with that, and find really beautiful, meaningful ways to work together across different disciplines."
"Even though I am a professional staff member, I am equal to my academic colleagues and we work hand in hand. We wouldn't be able to have the same impact if we didn't work together in such a great way."
"I could not do what I do so successfully if I wasn't so close to where the action was actually happening and building those relationships. And in a way, you know, I do feel for, those wonderful colleagues that we have working more centrally. Because, it must be so much harder to be able to build that trust."
"We're at a university. We're surrounded by experts. I've loved just being able to reach out to the school of journalism or the school of government and picking their ear on ways that I can learn about writing a white paper or whatever it is. We do have those resources within the university and it's just, everyone's so time poor and that, that is a real challenge when everyone's workloads are so high. But there's so many people out there who are so excited about their work that they're really, really happy to share their expertise with you as well. "
"So we're having to seed this work with investigative journalists. We're not journalists. We shouldn't do this work ourselves. We're going to leave it to them to tell the story from their perspective. and we can supply some of the expert commentary, but we're just sort of going to leave it to them to explore. And I think that's really important as well as, figuring out when you aren't the best to follow through with the type of engagement activity that you want to do and when it is actually left best with the people who do it really well."
