At 黑料正能量 we are innovative and resourceful and our public engagement is distinctively creative, involving stakeholders in all we do.

We pride ourselves on our sense of community and the way in which we nurture relationships.  We enable communities to engage with research at all stages so that not only do we aim to share our knowledge, resources and skills, we also listen to and learn from the many different communities with which we engage.

Strategy for Public Engagement

Our Public Engagement Strategy is underpinned by four strategic commitments:

A commitment to understanding the distinct features of public engagement with research at 黑料正能量.

Determining how our strong emphasis on practice-based research might make our engagement opportunities distinct, and linking our understanding to other areas across the University, such as widening participation and REF Impact.

A commitment to celebrating our successes and learning from the challenges we have faced.

This aim to raise the profile of our research will enable us to add value to our staff鈥檚 research, and help to communicate our successes to some of the audiences which we may wish to work with in future.

A commitment to developing institutional support for engagement with research.

Aiming to coordinate activities across the University, and work with both internal and external stakeholders to maximise our impact. To empower staff to gain training, advice and support where needed to enhance their engagement activities.

A commitment to learn from our activities and their evaluation, and to develop our engagement offering.

We must ensure that best practice is at the heart of our public engagement development, and that our interactions are partner-focused and meaningful, providing safe spaces for knowledge exchange and two-way learning.

黑料正能量 is an ambitious, enterprising and supportive institution. We deliver academic-led teaching inspired by cutting edge research, enabling our staff and students to contribute to the UK’s creative and cultural economy. Through their research, our staff shape practice, trigger innovation, and inform policy.

The University has a responsibility to contribute to and learn from society through public engagement with research. This strategy therefore confirms a commitment at the University to embed a culture of engagement, and to continue to work on connecting external audiences with our research. We firmly believe this is a two way process and are committed to collaboration, conversation, and partnership in all of our engaged practice.

Professor John Strachan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)

The University’s public engagement activities are framed by our commitment to leveraging our research expertise. The following examples all illustrate the powerful impact of our work with different communities.

  • Creative Policy Fellowships
    The Creative Policy project explores how creative practice research might inform and impact local policy and affect change in the area. Five Bath Spa Creative Policy Fellows have been appointed to a new initiative exploring how creativity can contribute to policymaking within organisations focused on planning, health, climate emergency, and justice. The Fellowship is funded by Bath Spa’s AHRC Impact Acceleration Account.

  • The Holders Alliance, which culminated in an online public platform, Rewrite Psychosis, provides a space for carers to share their experiences through creative writing, art, audio, video, and personal essays. Co-designed with carers, the website also offers peer support, advocacy, and links to trusted resources.
  • We Are the People
    We Are the People is led by a research team of disabled academics and non-disabled allies engaged in disability research and disability activism. The five-year £1million grant from the Wellcome Trust is dedicated to exploring issues which affect disabled people in South West England, and delivering projects and events co-produced with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations.

  • Emergent Value is a new and innovative way of understanding the unpredictable ways through which participants find meaning and value in their arts experiences. The project is funded by the AHRC and aims to develop a framework around Emergent Value with associated participant-centred evaluation strategies in collaboration with an exciting network partner organisations, commissioned artists, and public advisory groups.
  • Forest of Imagination
    Forest of Imagination is a partnership with local businesses and civic authorities which uses creativity to transform urban spaces in an effort to change lives, communities, cities and economies.

We work closely with a number of organisations to help ensure that we are maximising our reach into the community:


  • We are signatories of the NCCPE’s Manifesto for Public Engagement


  • Providing research for Parliament and parliamentary audiences


  • Contributing evidence to the policymaking process

We are always delighted to meet any members of the community who would like to get involved in co-creating research, performances, reports, workshops or similar with our staff and students.

Please contact our Research Support Office:
researchsupportoffice@bathspa.ac.uk