Recommendations for "Societal Integration and Public Engagement in Science"

5. Nurture Public Engagement Competences

Actions for RPOs & Institutional Support officers

Ensure that engagement is encouraged and merited, providing opportunities for learning and understanding across groups. If public engagement is to be prioritised, meriting of public engagement in hiring and advancement decisions is necessary
Allow certain researchers to prioritize and engage in public engagement more than others and facilitate and encourage specialization within this field as within other aspects of research
Provide training and resources for researchers in all positions and fields to facilitate self-efficacy and skills for science-society interactions
Commit to open science practices and making research openly available, while also being open to having scientific expertise critiqued and supplemented by societal actors

Have accessibility and mutual understanding in mind when engaging society and continually work to improve mutual understanding
Work to improve the reach of public engagement beyond groups already proximate to science

Encourage public involvement in early stages of research, to facilitate mutual learning and effective public engagement
Provide funding for building competence within public engagement and other forms of societal integration within research projects

Commit to continued investment in making science available for society at large, in both deliberation and dissemination and through open science practices
Ensure that public engagement research is established and funded as an independent field, and not merely an addition to other research fields
Facilitate cross-national networks to ensure that lessons learned in public engagement are shared and transferred across national contexts