DESCRIPTION

Public scholarship is an umbrella term that encompasses many types of public-directed open scholarship approaches. Ultimately, what differentiates public scholarship from traditional scholarship is the audience: while traditional scholarship is focused on an audience of academic peers, public scholarship is directed outwardly to the general public, or to specific targeted groups within the general public who are not necessarily scholars themselves. What defines this is an accessible approach to disseminating research to communities outside of academia: Sewell (2025) states that 'public scholarship involves sharing research with audiences outside of traditionally academic settings, including social media, blog posts and opinion pieces, and podcasts'. Public scholarship includes what is referred to as 'social scholarship' which is 'defined as the use of social media to engage in and expand the scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching, and application' (Singer, 2019).

Patricia Leavy, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship (2019), considers public scholarship as accessible to 'lay citizens' in both terms of content availability and comprehension, meaning it is understandable. Leavy also acknowledges the suggestion that not only should public scholarship be available to the public, it should also address public and publicly identified needs and questions. In this way, public scholars 'contribute to the democratization of research' (Leavy, 2019).

Arbuckle (2021) proposes the term 'open social scholarship as a value-based organizing principle' to enact the existing knowledge exchange opportunities and mechanisms for public engagement necessary to implement public scholarship in the humanities more effectively. Arbuckle advocates for open social scholarship as a 'mechanism through which multiple knowledges and knowledge holders can connect, combine, and collaborate', allowing for more plural and situated knowledges to be supported and recognised.

Methods for public scholarship include many public-directed forms and venues, such as academic blogs, journalistic essays, social media posts, media broadcasts (television and radio), podcasts, and public lectures. Leavy also includes trade books in this category, as well as nearly all forms of art, though this is a substantial category and it must be recognised that not all art is fully public and this may need further nuance as a subset.

Kezar et al. (2018) consider the differing groups and communities reached via public scholarship, ranging from professional and local community groups to practitioner audiences and parents (fig. 1.1). The relationship between the public scholar and these groups is considered an outwardly reaching one, but not a one-way trajectory, allowing for feedback to the scholar and for opportunities of co-design and co-creation. The authors also examine the levels of engagement within public scholarship, and how these vary from 'more mutually engaged' - for example, 'direct action within [a] home community' - to 'less mutually engaged', such as in the use of social media to promote the research (fig. 1.2).

Leavy (2019) reflects on the question of what methods public scholars might use to conduct their research, answering: '[q]uite simply, they conduct their research with any and all methods', including both qualitative and quantitative, as well as mixed-methods approaches, in addition to community-based participatory and arts-based research practices. Significantly, Leavy states that, 'Beyond all of these preexisting tools and strategies, public scholars, like others in the research community, may also develop their own research practices and methodologies based on their specific needs'. It is important to remember that while preexisting practices are necessary and significant, public scholarship demonstrates the need and opportunity for constant innovation in research, much of which is regularly taking place in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

A more practical question concerns the formats in which public scholarship may be delivered. As previously mentioned, this can include more obvious media formats, such as social media, blogging, and journalistic media, such as news broadcasts, which Kezar et al. (2018) also recognise. But the authors reiterate that there are also 'less media-focused avenues involving community partnerships, policy dialogues, and local and national leadership roles' which are also impactful forms of public scholarship.

Some authors perceive public scholarship as an 'ethical professional commitment', one that is necessary 'as service to a diverse democracy and social justice' (Kezar et al., 2018), whilst others examine it as an optional pathway as part of an academic career. However, as Zoller (2025) states, public scholarship is a professional area which is 'often undervalued in the tenure and promotion process', and, additionally, as Bucar (2024) reflects, institutional pledges to back public scholarship 'are not always accompanied by investments or structural changes that would support scholars doing this work'. Bucar also reflects on the systematic attitudes within academia that enforced the idea that a 'choice' is necessary between 'serious' scholarship and public-facing work, but suggests that despite this, public scholarship does not require one to 'dumb down' one's research, but in fact alters research 'for the better' by holding the researcher 'more accountable', creating 'new opportunities for collaboration', and encouraging them to 'ask different research questions'.

Others, such as Arbuckle, remind us that while the work of open access has been of tremendous significance, '[i]f scholarship is to be truly open, then academics need to stop thinking of their relationship with the public as a one-way street where they provide information for consumption', suggesting that scholars must consider 'if, how, and why they are engaging with publics' (Arbuckle, 2021). It is in this sense that public scholarship emerges as an essential form of open scholarship going forward in order to support 'the public good, which is a core mission of faculty as professionals' (Kezar et al., 2018).

References

Arbuckle, A. (2021) Opening up Scholarship in the Humanities: Digital Publishing, Knowledge Translation, and Public Engagement. PhD Thesis. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/bitstream/1828/13020/1/Arbuckle_Alyssa_PhD_2021.pdf [accessed 31 October 2025]

Bucar, E.M. (2024) 'The Future of Public Scholarship', Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 18(4), 548–563. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.25739

Kezar, A., Drivalas, Y. and Kitchen, J.A. (2018) 'Defining the Evolving Concept of Public Scholarship', in Envisioning Public Scholarship for Our Time. Routledge

Leavy, P. (ed.) (2019) The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Sewell, A. (2025) 'Giving Voice to Community: Embodied Scholarship, Generative Discussion, and Other Affordances of Scholarly Podcasting', The Journal of Electronic Publishing, 28(1). https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.6036

Singer, J.B. (2019) 'Podcasting as Social Scholarship: A Tool to Increase the Public Impact of Scholarship and Research', Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 10(4), 571–590. https://doi.org/10.1086/706600

Zoller, H.M. (2025) 'Forum on public scholarship', Journal of Applied Communication Research, 53(3), 221–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2025.2509965