Public Engagement

As an engaged scholar herself, Linda Tropp has sought to make academic research accessible to members of the public and useful to civil society, while also training future generations of scholars to communicate research findings effectively through public engagement and outreach.

Cover of Making Research Matter showing a staircase leading into the sky.

Making Research Matter: A Psychologist’s Guide to Public Engagement

As academic psychologists, most of us have never received training in how to use our work to make a difference in the world, or how to engage effectively with non-academic audiences, yet these are skills we need to maximize the impact of our work. Making Research Matter fills these gaps in our training, by serving as a resource for any researcher (in psychology or related fields) who seeks to make their work more accessible and useful in addressing real-world concerns. This edited book can help researchers to develop greater confidence and skill in sharing their research with non-academics, developing effective collaborations with the audiences they wish to reach, and enabling those with prior engagement experience to broaden the domains in which they work.

Applying the Full Force of Research and Theory to Social Policy: British Psychological Society

In 2023, while at the University of Sussex (UK) as a visiting international professor funded by the Leverhulme Trust, Tropp was asked by the British Psychological Society to write about her own path to public engagement, and how psychological theory and research might be used to inform social policy. Here is the piece she wrote for their publication, The Psychologist.

Illustration from BPS online: a sketch of lady justice facing a cityscape

asap: Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy

Making Research Usable: A Relational Model of Public Engagement

Academic scholars have commonly followed one of two paths (an “expert” model or a “community-engaged” model) to share research with the public and contribute to the common good. In "Making Research Usable", published in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy in 2020, we present a relational model of public engagement that builds on strengths of these two existing paths—urging relationship building, mutual learning, and partnership on the one hand, and researcher independence during the processes of research design, data collection, and analysis on the other. Throughout our discussion, we seek to clarify goals and challenges associated with the relational model, which we compare and contrast with other models of public engagement.

Public Engagement Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

The Public Engagement Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supports and trains faculty members to use their research to contribute to social change, inform public policy, and enrich public debate. Scholars learn new skills from experts and from each other to improve their communication and engagement with media professionals, community groups, policymakers, and practitioners. Since its initial founding in 2007, Linda Tropp has served as a member of the Public Engagement Project (PEP) steering committee and as its director. With current PEP director Lisa Troy, she also summarized the PEP model for inclusion as a case study in Modernizing Scholarship for the Public Good: An Action Framework for Public Research Universities, a report prepared by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU).