Under evaluation pressure: how research evaluation shapes academics' community engagement practises

This paper examines how research evaluation affects academics’ autonomy to initiate and sustain community engagement within their institutions. The analysis draws on the theoretical framework developed within the PRIN2022 project PLACES, which conceptualises community engagement as grounded in reciprocity, an emancipative orientation, and a critical epistemology, and emphasises forms of participation based on involvement and co-production with external actors. On this basis, the paper investigates whether, and through which institutional mechanisms, research evaluation generates pressures on academics and reshapes their community engagement practices across different university contexts.