Communications and Engagement

Defined

There are several important RPP activities found under the broad category of “communications and engagement.” We typically organize these into two large buckets: those that support internal communications goals and those that support external efforts. In either case, some RPPs may have dedicated communication specialists that specifically support this work; for others, both the internal and external efforts may be led by an RPP broker, for example.

Internally, communications and engagement strategies help to support relationship building within the partnership, ensure the work itself gets done, and aim to create opportunities to center all voices in the work. Activities may include giving status updates on ongoing research projects to practice-side partners or organizing sense-making meetings on planned or ongoing projects with partners. Externally, communications and engagement strategies tend to focus on how constituent groups who are not necessarily directly involved in the partnership might engage with the work of the RPP (e.g., school board members, community members, university leadership, and students). Activities may include organizing an externally-facing research symposium or sharing about the partnership through newspaper articles. A good first step is to map out who the internal and external members of your partnership are and what their engagement needs might be.

Publishing and sharing research findings can be both an internally-directed and externally-facing activity, depending on the specific target audiences of a given research project and how the RPP is structured. For example, some RPPs do not share their research externally but only with their specific practice-side partners. Other RPPs seek to reach various audiences outside of the partnership as well, in which case communication and engagement strategies around a new publication might include a variety of public relations activities, such as connecting with journalists, and social media efforts, such as launching a social media campaign around the release of new research findings. Whether internally- or externally-facing, when sharing research findings, it is helpful for RPPs to plan for “engagement” rather than “dissemination,” since the goal is generally to reach those who can actually put the research into practice or have it inform their thinking in some impactful way, rather than passively scan a research report.

When sharing research findings, it is critical to design strategies targeted to specific users in order to support use and engagement with research artifacts. Knowing how the intended user prefers to engage with materials and how the RPP hopes the user will interact with the research both directly inform the types of strategies the partnership might take on. For example, for many education leaders who have limited time to engage with research, short executive summaries and easily interpretable visual graphics are likely to be more accessible than lengthy technical reports. You might also consider hosting events for partners and the broader community to facilitate sharing and engaging with research findings. Videos and podcasts are two other ways to share important research, though not all research-practice partnerships may have the resources to produce these.