National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement
From May 2025 to July 2026 we held the communications retainer for the NCCPE, a national body that speaks to an unusually wide range of audiences, from practitioners and universities to funders, policy makers and the public.
SECTOR
Higher Education and Public Engagement
WHAT WE DID
Framing the Work
NCCPE's own vision is of communities who don't just receive knowledge from higher education, but contribute to it and benefit from it. Taking that as the brief, not just the backdrop — the channels themselves needed to work this way, not just describe it
Moving away from a broadcast approach — institutions talking at their audiences — and building channels that listen and respond in kind, in line with NCCPE's commitment to challenging inequity in everything they do
Priority audiences mapped across a complex picture of universities, individual practitioners, community partners and funders, each of whom needs something different from the same organisation
Content, Campaigns and Events
Monthly newsletter developed with a consistent voice, curating multiple programme strands into something readable rather than a list of institutional updates
Practitioner and community voices foregrounded across LinkedIn, including Catalyst Conversations content sharing lived experience of inclusion and exclusion in higher education
Programme communications delivered across Engaged Futures, the Engage Watermark and network events, giving each strand a distinct identity while holding a coherent organisational voice
Marketing strategy developed and delivered for the Engage Summit, the UK's leading public engagement conference held in Birmingham in April 2026, combining paid advertising, organic content, PR and network mobilisation
Speaker and session content used to communicate the substance of the programme, treating the Summit as a learning moment for the sector
Sector Positioning and Thought Leadership
Feature on universities as placemakers written for Arts Professional and published March 2026, reaching an arts and cultural readership beyond the organisation's usual higher education audience
Comment piece on public value in higher education with WonkHE in April 2026, making the case that universities need a different relationship with the public rather than better messaging, aimed at a policy and institutional leadership readership
Two readerships approached with two arguments drawn from the same programme, timed so both pieces landed in the weeks before the conference
Our impact
Over the retainer, NCCPE's communications reached audiences the organisation had not previously connected with, a shift visible in channel analytics as its LinkedIn following more than doubled. The annual conference sold over 450 tickets and the monthly newsletter consistently achieved an open rate of over 35%. Alongside the delivery, we worked with the team to define what they needed from a communications function, which informed a review of team structure and the appointment of permanent roles, moving communications from event-driven activity to a strategic function working alongside the organisation's other teams.
Felt outcomes not fine words: why universities need a public value story. Sophie Duncan and Paul Manners, WonkHE, April 2026.
Universities as placemakers. Sophie Duncan, Arts Professional, March 2026.
Asli Tatliadim
Head of Communications and External Engagement
NCCPE
To follow