Societal engagement is about interacting with the public – including schools, patients and local communities – to ensure that education and research benefits society. Societal engagement expresses Imperial’s commitment to sharing the wonder and importance of what we do and our desire to empower people through engagement with our research.
We are a signatory of the Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research and our societal engagement strategy and framework, overseen by our Associate Provost (Societal Engagement), strengthen how we recognise, support and embed engagement with the public as an integral part of our work. Imperial’s dedicated Centre for Societal Engagement provides staff and students with funding and training to support their engagement activities. Our annual President's Awards for Excellence in Societal Engagement recognise and reward staff, students and community partners who have delivered excellence in societal engagement, underpinned by an aspiration to better connect the work of Imperial and our research with society.