Researcher engagement in policy deemed societally beneficial yet unrewarded

Maintaining the continued flow of benefits from science, as well as societal support for science, requires sustained engagement between the research community and the general public. On the basis of data from an international survey of 1092 participants (634 established researchers and 458 students) in 55 countries and 315 research institutions, we found that institutional recognition of engagement activities is perceived to be undervalued relative to the societal benefit of those activities. Many researchers report that their institutions do not reward engagement activities despite institutions’ mission statements promoting such engagement. Furthermore, institutions that actually measure engagement activities do so only to a limited extent. Most researchers are strongly motivated to engage with the public for selfless reasons, which suggests that incentives focused on monetary benefits or career progress may not align with researchers’ values. If institutions encourage researchers’ engagement activities in a more appropriate way – by moving beyond incentives – they might better achieve their institutional missions and bolster the crucial contributions of researchers to society. Scientists have much to offer society, including the directbenefits of research and technology, increased public understanding of science and policy, informed democracy, and science‐based policy. Realizing these benefits often requires that researchers engage beyond academic communities, but this depends in part on institutional support (Hauser and Katz 1998; Franceschini et al. 2014). Scientific institutions often proclaim engagement to be a public good, but institutional values, strategies, and actions may dissuade researchers from participating in the very activities that provide important public benefits (Hauser and Katz 1998; Brembs et al. 2013). This is true even though public support for science has always been linked to the immediate or eventual benefits it provides (Sarewitz and Pielke 2007; Baron 2016). Researchers’ activities are often grouped into four broad categories: research, teaching, service (eg sitting on committees), and policy and public engagement (Lach et al. 2003; Singh et al. 2014). Engagement – generally defined as collaboration between research institutions and surrounding communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity (Leshner 2003; Driscoll 2008) – is broadly viewed as an important activity to be encouraged (Singh et al. 2014). Many universities developed engagement programs in