Institutionalizing public engagement in research and innovation: Toward the construction of institutional entrepreneurial collectives

Abstract

In the past decades we have seen increased policy discourse around public engagement with research and innovation. Despite this attention, the institutionalization of public engagement practices still appears rather limited, leading to a recent systemic turn in public engagement with science studies. Still missing in this systemic turn is a pragmatist and new institutionalist framework that can support research into how public engagement practices may enact or transform the research and innovation system. This article presents such a framework to help untangle how existing (in)formal institutions and materialities influence public engagement with research and innovation. To illustrate its utility, the framework is tentatively applied to engagement in the British research funding context. This application informs further development of the framework, including recommendations for (action) research into the construction of collectives of institutional entrepreneurs (institutional entrepreneurial collectives) that may support further institutionalization of public engagement in the research and innovation system.