Public intellectualism and the impact agenda: international perspectives

This chapter uses six in-depth interviews with high profile academics in a range of countries that have an interest in the notion of research impact: Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. Three of our interviewees are what we term ‘public intellectuals’, while the other three, each of whom works at the intersection of research and policy, we term ‘academic interlocutors’. These perspectives allow us to consider how academics working within and beyond the UK, with some contrasting views about external engagement, view notions of ‘public intellectualism’, ‘relevance’ and ‘impact’.