PCER Fund

Key info

There is currently one application deadline confirmed for the 2025/26 academic year, in Michaelmas term. The PCER team is exploring possibilities of a further deadline in Trinity term 2026 and will provide an update on this if it is confirmed in 2026.   

What is the PCER Fund?

The Public and Community Engagement with Research (PCER) Fund allows researchers and public engagement facilitators to apply for funding to support purposeful and responsible public and community engagement with research activities. 

Who can apply?

Any researcher or public engagement professional at the University of Oxford from any discipline or research area can apply as Principal Investigator (PI). PIs are accountable for the project.

As PI, you can submit applications with co-applicants. Co-applicants may be other staff members (e.g., researchers, DPhil students, teaching staff, public engagement professionals, museum staff) or external partners (e.g. representatives from patient and community groups, teachers, etc).

Both newcomers and those experienced in public engagement with research are encouraged to apply.

Eligibility requirements:

• A University cost centre is required to host an award. College-based activities are possible, but funds must be managed through a faculty or department.
• At least one applicant (either the PI or a co-applicant) must be a researcher at the University of Oxford.
• DPhils are welcome to apply but will need the support of their supervisor/PI. DPhil applicants should ensure that their supervisor/PI supports the project, agrees to hold the budget in the event of funds being awarded, and include their supervisor as a Co-Applicant in the application in IRAMS.
• There’s a deadline for spending the funds so you’ll need to make sure your project can be completed by 30 June 2026.
• Your project must be engaging the public and/or communities with your research. Before applying please consider the information in the ‘About the fund’ and ‘Preparing your application’ sections to determine if your project is right for the PCER Fund.

How much funding is available?

As an applicant you can apply for up to £6,000 to support your project. There is a total of £60,000 available for the 2025/2026 academic year.

Funds must be spent before the end of June in the financial year they are received.

What can funds be used for?

All funds requested should be spent on the development, delivery and evaluation of your project and justified in the budget section of your application.

The kinds of costs that can be applied for may include (but are not limited to):

• Equipment and materials costs
• Reasonable travel costs in line with the University’s travel policy
• Venue and catering costs (e.g. for engagement workshops)
• Recognising and rewarding community contributors for their time and expenses
• Promoting or advertising engagement opportunities
• Staff time and/or salaries

Questions?

If you have any questions about the PCER Fund, please contact Faye Shelbourne ([email protected]) in the Public and Community Engagement with Research Team in Research Services.

For support in planning your project and preparing your application, we suggest speaking to the Public Engagement Lead in your division:

• Humanities: Karen Houghton(Head of Impact)
• Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences: Dr Michaela Livingstone-Banks (Head of Public and Community Engagement with Research)
• Medical Sciences: Naomi Gibson (Public and Policy Engagement Facilitator)
• Social Sciences: Aileen Marshall-Brown (Head of Engagement)
• Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM): Dr Harriet Warburton (Head of Research and Impact Management)

• Is your project right for this fund?
• What support is available?

Is your project right for this fund?

Please ensure you meet eligibility criteria before making an application (see ‘Overview’ section).

To assess whether your project is right for this fund, it can be helpful to consider the following:

1 - Purpose & Difference

Your project should have a clear purpose that is responding to an identified need within the public and/or community you are working with. This might include building on work that’s already underway, starting something completely new, or even developing a relationship for future engagement work. The project should be clearly related to your research and have clear intended or desired objectives.

Ideally, projects should be mutually beneficial to all involved, including members of the public/ a community, researchers or the research itself.

When you think about the difference(s) your project will make, it may be helpful to consider whether it’s a difference in knowledge/information, skills/capacity, or behaviour/attitudes.

Examples of what difference(s) a project could make to different groups are set out below:

Differences made to the public and community(s)

Type of difference – Knowledge/information

Increase awareness of a research topic or outputs

Type of difference – Skills/capacity

Enable audiences to explore a research topic that is new to them

Type of difference – Behaviour/attitudes

Stimulate new interests or increase self-confidence

Differences made to Researchers

Type of difference – Knowledge/information

Increase awareness of common public attitudes towards their research topic

Type of difference – Skills/capacity

Enable researchers to tailor their approach in the context of common public attitudes towards their research topic

Type of difference – Behaviour/attitudes

Increase fulfilment as researchers feel more connected and responsive to public

 2. Methods & audiences

Alongside the purpose of your project and the differences you hope to make, thinking about the types of activities your project will be undertaking and who you will be working with will help you decide if your project is right for this fund.

The fund aims to support projects engaging a diverse range of people, including (but not limited to) groups who may have been under-engaged in the past, through responsible, purposeful methods. These might be new, innovative methodologies or something more tried and tested. The methods you use must be appropriate and relevant to the groups you are working with and the differences you are aiming to make.

Some examples of the kinds of activities you could do to make those differences are:

• Co-creation of research questions with relevant communities
• Consultation or interviews with public or community contributors to inform your research
• Production of a podcast series or animations to share your research
• Bringing together diverse stakeholders to develop innovative methodologies or tools that address societal challenges

Engagement with research activities

 The Public Engagement ‘onion’ developed by Wellcome is a helpful visualisation of the types of activity that can be defined as public engagement with research. It also represents which activities lend themselves to ‘deeper’ levels of engagement, i.e., where a more rich, two-way interaction can take place; shared decision making at one end and broadcast activities at the other.

Engagement Onion

You can read a transcript of this image here: The Public Engagement Onion — Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division

Participatory Research

While we fund a whole range of engaged research activities, we also strongly encourage applications from participatory research projects.

Vaughn and Jacquez (2020) developed a helpful definition that offers a starting point for reflection, highlighting that in participatory research, knowledge is co-created in collaboration with those with direct, lived- and living- experience of the topic in focus:

“Participatory research (PR) encompasses research designs, methods, and frameworks that use systematic inquiry in direct collaboration with those affected by an issue being studied for the purpose of action or change. PR engages those who are not necessarily trained in research but belong to or represent the interests of the people who are the focus of the research.” (p.1)

You can read more on our website Participatory Research Oxford

Community Engagement

The term ‘community’ has very different meanings for different people. We understand it as distinct from the general ‘public’. Whilst we welcome applications from projects engaging with the general public, engaging with relevant, more specific communities can increase the potential of your project to make a bigger difference to the groups you are working with.

A community can be any group of people that is connected by place (e.g., a shared geographical location such as people who live in the same town suburb or postcode region), by practice (e.g., a shared profession or activity such as teachers, entrepreneurs), by identity (e.g., gender, ethnicity) and/or experience (e.g. parents, migrants, experience of a particular health condition), or an intersection of more than one of the above (e.g. people in a particular location, with a particular identity who have specific life circumstances). Which community or communities you decide to work with should be influenced by, and in turn influence, your research.

What is distinct about engaging with communities is the purpose and the methods or practices used to do engaged research. Community engagement should be oriented around understanding a community’s needs and improving their circumstances in a co-constructed, non-paternalistic way. As such, community engagement should be built around inclusive, participatory practices and be oriented around consulting and collaborating, rather than informing.

Often, community engaged research can be a catalyst for further activity or social action:

"[Community engagement] often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices."

- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Principles of community engagement (1st ed.). Atlanta (GA): CDC/ATSDR Committee on Community Engagement; 1997

What support is available?

When preparing your applicaton, the following resources may be helpful:

• FAQs and resources for planning public engagement with research activities can be found on the PCER Fund Padlet.
• Responsible Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Framework
• Participatory Research Oxford resources

For support in planning your project and preparing your application, we suggest speaking to the Public Engagement Lead in your division:

• Humanities: Karen Houghton, Head of Impact
• Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences: Dr Michaela Livingstone-Banks (Head of Public and Community Engagement with Research)
• Medical Sciences: Naomi Gibson (Public and Policy Engagement Facilitator)
• Social Sciences: Aileen Marshall-Brown (Head of Engagement)
• Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM): Dr Harriet Warburton (Head of Research and Impact Management)