Home > What we do > Knowledge exchange and skills > Contributing to society

Contributing to society

We are committed to enhancing the contribution higher education (HE) makes to both the economy and society. Our funding activity in the area of business and community engagement supports this commitment, but we also run several initiatives that contribute directly to it.

Beacons for Public Engagement

  • Beacons for Public Engagement is a jointly funded programme with the other UK funding councils, RCUK and the Wellcome Trust over 2008 to 2012 and supports six beacons and a National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (the NCCPE).

Social Entrepreneurship Awards

  • These awards support universities and colleges to explore the potential of social enterprise activities, and to raise the profile of this work throughout HE. We are running the awards with the social-enterprise charity UnLtd to allocate a total of almost £1 million.

Concordat for engaging the public with research

  • Research funders and institutions have come together to articulate a combined commitment to public engagement and to aid its embedding in institutions through a Concordat for Engaging the Public With Research. 

In this section

Page last updated 21 July 2011

Share this: