PR education and the transfer of academic research to practice

Internal communication course leader Dr Kevin Ruck
Author: Kevin Ruck
20th May 2024 2 min read

About the author

Kevin is a co-founder of PR Academy and editor/co-author of Exploring Internal Communication published by Routledge. Kevin leads the CIPR Internal Communication Diploma course. PhD, MBA, BA Hons, PGCE, FCIPR, CMgr, MCMI.

Last year Richard Bailey, editor of PR Academy Insights, and I published a report on the state of PR education in the UK. It caused a bit of a stir because it revealed the serious decline of the single honours undergraduate PR degree.

It also explored the growth of professional qualifications and training.

You can read the full report here.

This year we are again researching PR education in the UK and we’d love to hear from practitioners and academics via a survey that will be available for the rest of May.

Our focus this year is on why the situation has changed in the higher education (university) sector and what this means for PR professionalism.

We’re also reviewing the topics that academic researchers explored in 2023. We’re currently analysing 247 articles from the following six public relations journals:

  1. Corporate Communications: An International Journal: Volume 28 – 56 papers
  2. International Journal of Strategic Communication: Volume 17 – 27 articles
  3. Journal of Communication Management: Volume 27 – 34 articles
  4. Journal of Public Relations Research: Volume 35 – 22 articles
  5. Public Relations Inquiry: Volume 12 – 14 articles
  6. Public Relations Review: Volume 49 – 94 articles

This is to explore how far scholarly knowledge is being transferred to practice.

Initial analysis suggests that sustainability and corporate social responsibility, internal communication and crisis communication are the three most popular topics that were researched and published in 2023.

We’d love to hear from you on education and research either by completing the short (10 minute) survey or, if you would prefer, just by sharing thoughts and comments directly with Richard or Kevin on LinkedIn.

The report will be published in July and will be free to download.

 

TAKE THE SURVEY

Related topics

Education Qualifications Research