Emotions in Engagement Toolkit

Hope, fear, frustration,curiosity… Emotions are everywhere when we bring together publics and communities with research. How can we navigate and manage these emotional experiences? and how do we develop a culture of care towards our participants, partners and ourselves within public engagement? 

These questions stood at the heart of our Collaborative Futures Academy 2024, an international three day online space of learning and exchange. We are very happy to now share with you the resulting Emotions in Engagement Tool Kit.

This practice guide collects insights, reflections and activities from contributors and participants of the Academy. You will find case studies, practical methods, reading suggestions and even theatre scripts as a way to extend the conversation to our wider community. 

A huge thanks go to all the contributors and participants for sharing their knowledge and experiences. We invite you to have a look, experiment with the methods and follow up on examples and ideas. Most of all, we hope the tool kit sparks conversations about how emotions matter in research engagement contexts. If you have any thoughts or feedback, we’d love to hear them,

Collaborative Futures Academy 2024 was an intensive three day online training run in collaboration between the Kavli Centre for Ethics Science and the Public at the University of Cambridge, the University of Cambridge Public Engagement team, Wellcome Connecting Science, the Berlin School of Public Engagement and Open Science (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Stellenbosh University.