Researchers studying academics in Australia and Japan found that Australian universities offer limited support for researchers doing public engagement.
Universities prefer scholars share research within the scholarly community, academic journals, and conferences rather than the public as the former counts towards their performance evaluation and the latter is not considered part of their workload.
In Japan, academics are expected to do public engagement, but don't get adequate resources or training.
Academics surveyed value public engagement, but cite time and workload as the biggest barriers to doing so.
Universities must understand that sharing research with the public, industry and policymakers increases reputation and funding. They should provide academics with training and resources to talk to diverse audiences, and especially, the media. In fact, many academics felt unprepared giving interviews.
Keeping all this mind, Australian universities could count public engagement as part of the academic's workload and take it into account when doing performance evaluations.
Original article:
Unis want research shared widely. So why don’t they properly back academics to do it?
Original study: