Before you meet, spend around 60–90 minutes in total engaging with the resources below. You do not need to read everything in full. Instead, scan, dip into sections, and focus on what feels most relevant to your own externally-facing work, partnerships, engagement activities, or future career direction.

Try to engage with at least three resources.

As you engage, the aim is not to master everything, but to notice what the resources prompt you to think about in relation to your own work, influence, visibility, and career development.

Resource 1: Ensure your external-facing work is recognised, using the Knowledge Exchange Concordat

As you reflect, notice:

• Which aspects of your externally-facing work would you most like others to better understand or value?
• Where might you already have opportunities to communicate or evidence the significance of this work more clearly?
• What kinds of support, recognition, or advocacy seem most important for making this work sustainable?

Resource 2: Use consulting to build external credibility and open up impact pathways

As you engage, notice:

• How might consulting or advisory work expand your networks, credibility, or future opportunities?
• What skills, perspectives, or forms of confidence could you develop through working beyond academia?
• To what extent do you currently see externally-facing work as separate from, or integral to, your academic identity and contribution?

Resource 3: Systematically plan, deliver, and evidence Knowledge Exchange and its impact

As you reflect, notice:

• How intentionally are Knowledge Exchange or engagement activities planned within your work?
• How clearly are you capturing, evidencing, or evaluating the outcomes of your externally-facing activities?
• What kinds of contribution, influence, or impact are easiest to demonstrate, and which are harder to articulate or evidence?

Resource 4: Use practical tools to engage with policy audiences and processes effectively

This is a broad toolkit rather than a resource to read in full. Skim the introduction and explore one or two formats, examples, or sections that feel most relevant to your interests or context.

As you engage, notice:

• Which policy engagement approaches or formats feel most relevant or realistic within your own context?
• How realistic are your expectations about influence, timescales, and change in policy or institutional systems?
• What kinds of institutional support, recognition, or collaboration would make policy engagement work more sustainable for you?

Resource 5: Get to grips with promotions criteria, process and people

As you engage, notice:

• Which types of contribution appear to be most visible or valued within promotions and recognition systems in your context?
• Where do ambiguity, interpretation, or hidden expectations seem to shape how contributions are assessed?
• How clearly and confidently do you currently communicate the significance and impact of your work?
• Which people, processes, or conversations could help you better understand how your work is perceived and recognised institutionally?

Resource 6: Mapping contributions against institutional strategies

As you reflect, notice:

• How closely can you currently connect your externally-facing work to institutional priorities, language, or strategic goals?
• Which aspects of your work may be valuable to your institution, but are not yet being communicated or framed clearly?
• Where might small shifts in language, framing, or evidence help others better understand the significance of your contributions?

Optional: career stories and lived experiences

If you would find it helpful to hear how other researchers have navigated externally-facing and engagement-focused careers, you may also wish to explore some of the White Rose career stories linked below.

• Redefining success on my own terms, pushing back against imposed limits, and leading with passion rather than permission
• From flood engineer to boundary-spanning impact fellow: designing a career at the intersection of science, policy and lived experience.
• Taking opportunities, leading through listening and collaboration, and empowering communities through research

As you read, notice:

• How individuals describe the value and complexity of externally-facing work
• What helped them build influence, credibility, and meaningful partnerships over time
• How they navigated visibility, recognition, and institutional expectations
• Which aspects of their experiences resonate with your own context

As you review these resources, you may find it helpful to keep your own current or emerging career direction in mind, and to use the tools as prompts for reflection rather than as checklists or templates to complete.

The structure below is held collectively by the group. You may choose to rotate who keeps an eye on time or simply move together through the stages.

1. Arrival and framing (5–10 minutes)

• Brief reminder of purpose: learning from different perspectives
• No pressure to have implemented anything yet
• Agreement on confidentiality and respect
• An explicit intention that everyone will have space to speak

2. Resource reflections and shared learning (30–40 minutes)

A simple round:

• What stayed with you most in relation to your own externally-facing or engagement-focused work?
• Which idea, prompt, or resource felt particularly relevant, surprising, or uncomfortable?
• Did anything help you think differently about visibility, recognition, or influence?

Pay attention to differences in how you engaged with the materials. The aim is collective sense-making, not consensus. Encourage one another to ask: 

• “What did you take from this that I didn’t?”
• “What forms of contribution tend to be most visible in your context?”
• “What types of work feel harder to explain, evidence, or have recognised?”

3. Coaching-style reflection: so what? (20–30 minutes)

Each participant shares:

• One aspect of my work that I may need to communicate or evidence more clearly
• One thing that currently feels undervalued, unclear, or difficult to navigate institutionally
• One thing I want to become more intentional about in how I position or develop my work

Peers respond with curiosity rather than solutions:

• “What feels most important about that?”
• “Who currently understands or values this work well?”
• “What evidence or examples could help make this contribution more visible?”
• “What conversations or relationships might help strengthen support for this work?”
• “What would feeling more recognised or strategically supported look like for you?”

4. Closing and commitments (5–10 minutes)

Each person is invited to name:

• One small action they will take to strengthen the visibility, recognition, or strategic positioning of their work

Optional:

• One conversation they may need to initiate
• One contribution they may need to articulate more clearly
• One source of support, sponsorship, or guidance they may wish to explore
• What might get in the way, and how can they overcome that?

This can be very light-touch and self-directed. Possible options include:

• Revisiting a narrative CV or promotion case
• Mapping contributions or engagement activities more explicitly
• Exploring another relevant resource
• Continuing a peer discussion or accountability conversation
• Arranging an informal conversation with a mentor, sponsor, or senior colleague

No reporting is required unless the wider programme explicitly asks for it.