The Office of Research and Engagement (ORE) is your main source for information on engagement on campus.
ORE’s Office of Research Development provides guidelines to develop the broader impacts of your work and engaging with the public, whether that is communities or industry.
ORE's Office of Corporate Engagement is a point of contact for engaging with corporations. Within this office, the UMass Innovation Institute provides a Faculty Guide to Engagement with Industry.
The UMass Technology Transfer Office (TTO) manages inventions and copyrightable works developed by the UMass research community. Their goal is to benefit the public by moving technologies from research labs to the marketplace through industry and startup companies. NSF-funded iCorps program is also a good source of information on this topic.
- Best practices for community engagement
- Engaging through teaching
- College outreach offices
- Centers & Institutes
The Center for Community Health Equity Research’s Resource on best practices in community-engaged participatory research
The Civic Engagement and Service Learning’s Community Engagement Guidelines
The Civic Engagement and Service-Learning unit focuses on student engagement and has teachings and other resources for faculty seeking to work with local communities.
The UMass Amherst Henry M. Thomas III Center at Springfield aims to bring more of UMass to the Springfield community and more of Springfield to UMass. Connect with them to find out about opportunities.
Through student-facing offerings at the UMass Amherst Charles River Campus, our greater Boston hub for student professional opportunity, faculty also have the opportunities to engage corporate and community publics.
Your department or college may have an Outreach Office that could connect you and your work with wider local audiences. A few examples are:
- College of Humanities and Fine Arts Community Engagement
- Elaine Marieb College of Nursing Local Public Health Nurse Consultation Program
- College of Information and Computer Sciences, Office of Community, Outreach, and Organizational Learning
- College of Engineering Industry Partnerships
- College of Natural Sciences Industry Partnerships
- Institute for Social Science Research - Visibility & Engagement
There are Institutes and Centers on Campus whose mission is to connect otherwise siloed scholars, researchers, and creatives on campus to each other and/or to communicate, conduct outreach, and engage the public in various ways. If your expertise overlaps with their mission, reach out to them directly to become a faculty affiliate! Some examples include:
- The Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment integrates research and outreach education from the UMass Amherst community
- Center for Research on Families
- The Energy Transition Institute’s ELEVATE program for graduate student training also has public impact as a key component of their work.
- Institute of Diversity Sciences
- Public Interest Technology (PIT) is an interdisciplinary cross-campus program established to train students, faculty, and communities to promote the common good and public interest through the responsible creation, management, and use of technology.
Be sure it counts in your Annual Faculty Review!
Here are guidelines for faculty to document their engagement activities on the Annual Faculty Review submissions. These guidelines were developed by the Public Engagement and Outreach Council , the governing body within the Faculty Senate which discusses and advises on policy, community, and public engagement. They can show you how different forms of engagement can be documented as service, teaching, and/or research activity.