Public & Community Engagement Conference 2026, Oxford

The Public & Community Engagement Conference (PCER) was held on 11 June, 2026 at Oxford. It was open to anyone working in, or interested in, public and community engagement with research. Participants included University of Oxford staff and students, members of the public, and community organisations and colleagues from other universities committed to meaningful engagement.

The New Cartographers and the History of Science Museum participated in the poster session. We produced a small interactive display introducing the Colonial Standards project to the conference audience. We traced the evolution of our research questions and methods as we incorporated the ideas and concerns of our community participant researchers in the UK and the practitioners we encountered during our fieldwork in India. In the process, we asked how histories of measurement, mapping, and scientific instrument collections concerned with South Asia can be reinterpreted through collaborative work with communities. In our case, communities include research scholars at the French Institute of Pondicherry engaged in historical and ethnographic study of measurement practices, practitioners such as surveyors and paddy procurement workers in Tamil Nadu, and members of the South Asian community engaged in the heritage sector in the UK. 

The poster also invited members of the public to reflect on and share how they think museums can build trust with communities to produce collaborative research that is meaningful and not extractive, including identifying institutional barriers to such approaches.