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Exploring Ireland’s Open Research Future at the UCC ENGAGED Roadmap Event
On 26th March OVPRI and PPI Ignite Network @ UCC co-hosted an ENGAGED roadshow event designed to bring together academics, researchers, research support staff and community stakeholders, to discuss ENGAGED: Ireland's Public Involvement in Open Research Roadmap.
Event MC, Dr Martin Galvin, UCC Civic & Community Engagement Manager, guided 35 attendees through the morning, which involved a presentation on the roadmap by Dr Michael Foley, Civic Engagement for Societal Impact Manager at TCD, and a series of small group discussions facilitated by Ciara O’Halloran, UCC Programme Officer, Research Culture, Engagement and Impact. Michael was joined by his colleague, ENGAGED Project Manager, Kathyan Kelly, who supported the event and took photos which captured the energy and enthusiasm on the day.
The ENGAGED Roadmap is the result of a year-long collaborative process carried out in 2025 by Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University. It was funded by the National Open Research Forum (NORF), which is a Government of Ireland initiative, funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, through the Higher Education Authority. Ten Collective Intelligence Workshops were conducted with contributions from more than 90 co-creators to co-create a national roadmap. The workshops were held in person and online, using a wide range of creative data collection methods. The ENGAGED co-creators came from academia, community and voluntary groups, NGOs, public and civil servants, businesses as well as activists, advocates, and citizen scientists. ENGAGED launched the roadmap in early March. The roadmap is built around five clear destination themes for a more Engaged Research Ecosystem. The roadmap destinations include:
- Research that Reaches Everyone: Accessible outputs and open data.
- Fair Partnership: Communities as Equal Partners.
- Knowledge as Exchange: A research environment that values mutual learning.
- Systems That Work and that People Want to Use: Supportive systems and infrastructures.
- Communities Shaping Research Priorities: Civil society shaping agendas, not just responding to them.
Attendees at the UCC ENGAGED event were asked to reflect on the roadmap and what it means locally, nationally and internationally. Dr Fiona Riordan, Research Officer OVPRI, Dr Emmy Racine, PPI Ignite Programme Manager, and Kieran O’ Connell, Social Inclusion Specialist in Corporate, Community and Cultural Affairs Directorate, Cork City Council provided short provocations for the three roundtables discussions, when attendees were asked to: (1) reflect on Cork’s strengths in engaged research, what more could be done and what supports are needed; (2) what ideas to achieve fair partnership should PPI Ignite at UCC focus on in their next phase and (3) what big ideas did the group suggest to support engaged research, nationally and internationally.
When considering strengths and what more could be done, participants identified the need for more dialogue to de-mystify research for the public and build on existing collaborations, more spaces and forums through which researchers can engage with community actors, more in-reach to existing community stakeholders and networks, more seed funding opportunities for early engagement, and more recognition within the institution of valuable work done by researchers and community partners. Several supports were also identified.
Five ideas were prioritised to for PPI Ignite at UCC, to achieve fair partnership: Focus on appropriate power sharing between researchers & communities; Financial recognition of individuals and community organisations, for community engagement outside of PPI; Researcher training in collaboration and power-sharing; Embedding partnership/engagement into ethics committees; Focus on partnership plans.
In terms of big ideas participants identified the need for system change whereby community involvement is the norm rather than the exception. Among the ideas discussed were having long term, sustainable grants which enable engagement, creating a national panel of community experts, embedding the importance of engaged research into the culture by including it in curriculums, and integrating engaged research into UCC Futures
For full summaries of the discussions and photos from the day, please see below:
