Training
The Centre for Public Engagement runs internal training sessions to help prepare and support you to engage effectively with the public. Training sessions currently take place online, and provide a mixture of presentations, activities, and discussions to provide you with the knowledge and practical skills to enable you to get involved with public engagement activities.
If you are new to public engagement, or are looking to familiarise yourself with the basic principles of engagement, we recommend attending our Introduction to Public Engagement session.
As we shape the CPE's new training offer, we'd like to hear from you as to what topics and sessions you would find useful. Please get in touch with us at publicengagement@qmul.ac.uk to let us know your suggestions.
We may also able to offer bespoke training sessions for schools and faculties at Queen Mary, and training for groups external to the University.
2025-26
Introduction to Public Engagement
This online introductory session will introduce you to what public engagement is and why it matters. This session will:
- Explore some of the key principles, definitions and ethos behind public engagement
- Introduce adapting and communicating ideas and research for public audiences
- Explore how to move beyond the ‘general public’ and define target audiences
- Share good practice case studies and examples, providing inspiration and ideas for how to engage with the public successfully.
- Look at Queen Mary’s approach to public engagement, and the types of support available at the university.
This session is aimed at QMUL staff and students looking to take their first steps in public engagement, or those who have undertaken projects before and would like to cement their understanding in this area.
Upcoming dates
- Tuesday 7th October, 3pm-4.30pm (in person)
- Thursday 20th November, 12pm-1.30pm (online)
Introduction to Community Engagement
Engaging with communities can serve as an effective means to develop your work at Queen Mary and can make a positive contribution to the local area. This introductory session is designed for anyone thinking about engaging with a community where their work or research can have an impact.
This session will:
- Explore some of the key principles, definitions and ethos behind community engagement, including what we mean by ‘community’.
- Share good practice case studies and examples, providing inspiration and ideas for how to identify and engage with communities successfully.
- Explore the different considerations to make when approaching community engagement, in order to forge and sustain mutually beneficial and positive relationships and partnerships.
- Look at Queen Mary’s approach to public and community engagement, and the types of support available at the university.
This session is aimed at QMUL staff and students looking to take their first steps in community engagement, or those who have undertaken projects before and would like to cement their learning and practice in this area.
Upcoming dates
- Thursday 13th November, 12pm-1.30pm (in person)
- Tuesday 9th December, 11am-12.30pm (online)
Evaluating Public Engagement
This session will look at how to evaluate public engagement activity, and why evaluation is important for meaningful engagement and research impact. This session will be useful for anyone hoping to maximise and evidence the impacts of their public engagement activities through effective evaluation.
After this session you will be able to:
- Describe what evaluation means and why it's important
- Identify the relationship between evaluation and Research Impact
- Craft effective evaluation plans
- Implement creative evaluation methods & effective survey design
- Use evaluation to evidence the impact of public engagement activities
Who is it for?
This session is aimed at QMUL staff and students at any career stage actively delivering/planning to deliver public engagement, who are thinking through ways to best evaluate their activity.
What to expect
The session will be made up of a presentation and some interactive activities and tasks. Participants will be encouraged to contribute throughout the session.
The session will be delivered by the Public Engagement and Impact teams.
Upcoming dates
- Thursday 23rd October, 2.30pm-4.30pm (in person)
- Monday 1st December, 10am-11.30am (online)
Building Equitable Partnerships
Partnerships are an essential part of engagement practice, ensuring our projects and activities are designed and delivered with mutual benefit from the start. This session is designed to support researchers in embedding equitable partnership principles into their engagement practice, particularly when working with residents, communities and civic organisations.
Participants will explore the core principles of equity—such as mutual respect, shared decision-making, transparency, and recognition of all partners’ contributions.
The session will highlight practical strategies and tools for building trust, addressing power imbalances, and ensuring that external voices are valued throughout. By embedding these principles, researchers can create more inclusive, impactful, and sustainable collaborations that benefit both academia and local communities and organisations.
This session will build on the Centre for Public Engagement co-designed Equitable Partnerships Principles which provides the foundations you will need to build and sustain equitable partnerships in public engagement, and the Queen Mary led Equitable Partnerships for Civic Engagement toolkit (launching across the UK in October).
This session will:
- Define what equitable partnerships mean in the context of Queen Mary, East London for the benefit of research, education and other projects.
- Identify common barriers to equity in collaborations and strategies to address them.
- Apply principles of shared decision-making, transparency, and mutual respect in partnership development.
- Recognise the value of knowledge through lived experience in shaping research design, education and outcomes.
Who is it for?
This session is aimed at QM researchers, staff and students who are working with external partners as part of their work, research or teaching.
What to expect
This session will take place in person and will last for an hour and a half.
The session will be made up of a presentation and some interactive activities and discussions. Participants will be encouraged to participate and engage using their own examples of partnership working.
Upcoming dates
- Thursday 27th November, 10am-11.30am (in person)
Participatory Research Training 1: Principles, Ethos, Study Design
This session will cover the ethos and principles of participatory research, study design and planning, drawing on a range of case studies.
Upcoming dates
- 15 October, 11:00am-2:00pm (in person)
Book now via the CPD Training platform
Participatory Research Training 2: Data Analysis and Dissemination
This session will cover research methods, ethics, data analysis (including visual methods), and knowledge sharing/dissemination.
Upcoming dates
- 18 November, 11:00am-2:00pm (in person)
In-SPYRE Creative Methods Training for Youth-oriented Participatory Research
This collaborative training session will explore how creative and arts-based methods can support meaningful, participatory research with young people, as part of the In-SPYRE (In-Sharing Practice, Youth-oriented Research Experiences) network re-launch at QMUL.
The goal of this session is to reflect on creative methodologies in youth research, how they can make research more ethical and inclusive, experiment with them firsthand, and identify where they can be applied or expanded within participants’ current research practices.
Activities will includes practice-sharing talks, hands-on experimentation with creative techniques, group reflections, and contributions to a research toolkit.
This session is open to all QMUL researchers (with a particular focus on PhD students and early career researchers) interested in youth-focused research, creative methodologies, or reflective practice - no prior experience needed.
Upcoming dates
- Wednesday 26th November, 12:30-4:30pm (in person)
Unfortunately the CPE is currently unable to offer PPI training.
As a QMUL member of staff you will be able to access the UCLH PPI Training free of charge, as QMUL is a partner organisation of UCL Partners: PPI Training | UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.
The Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre also runs online training sessions free of charge: Online PPI training for researchers - NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
Please note: If you are affiliated with the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, advice can be provided through the monthly PPIE drop-in sessions that can be accessed through calendar invites sent to all WIPH staff. For any other Wolfson Institute of Population Health PPIE questions please email: involve-wiph@qmul.ac.uk
I found the training very enjoyable and stimulating - it helped me to think much more widely about the different forms public engagement can take ... and the kind of dialogue I might have about my research.— Cultural Geography PhD researcher
Bespoke sessions for schools and faculties:
The CPE is also able to provide bespoke courses for individual Schools and Institutes within Queen Mary. We have previously worked with colleagues to develop training sessions tailored to their specific needs and integrate public engagement training into existing teaching schemes. If you are interested in a bespoke session, get in touch with us to discuss your requirements.
External Training:
The Centre for Public Engagement may also be able to provide bespoke training courses for organisations external to Queen Mary for a nominal fee. If you are interested in our external training service, get in touch with the team to discuss further.
I found the session very helpful ... this is everything you need, in a clear and concise manner. It was spot on.— Computer Science post-doctoral researcher