Public Relations Education Report 2024 1/4
Introduction and executive summary
Introduction
Our report into PR Education, Training and Accreditation in the UK last year was the first of its kind for many years. It highlighted a number of themes, including the decline of single honours BA Public Relations degree courses at UK universities and the strength of training and qualification provisions.
A professional project (and public relations is best viewed as a professionalising field rather than a full profession) involves a combination of study, qualification, accreditation, professional membership, continuing professional development and professional practice supported by academic research through knowledge transfer. Professionals should be guided by ethical principles, be governed by codes of conduct and operate with regard to the public interest. The professional project requires contributions from and cooperation between practitioners, educators and trainers, research academics and those running governing bodies.
As part of the research for this report we asked practitioners about the importance and value of academic research, accessibility of research, and the topics where academic research would be particularly useful now.
This report builds on the research conducted in 2023, with a focus on the following themes:
- Public relations degrees and the marketisation of higher education
- The focus of academic public relations research
- The transfer of academic research knowledge into practice
- Training and professional qualifications
We acknowledge that the PR education, research and training space is a large topic. Our focus reflects our own interests as university and qualification tutors and providers. Our perspective is grounded in the application of learning to effective and ethical practice. This is not to dismiss the merits of other perspectives on what public relations is, or should be (for example: critical, political and societal perspectives).
This year our report is based on the following research:
- Desk research on the state of education in the UK
- Informal conversations with public relations tutors and researchers
- Review of 247 articles from six public relations journals in 2023
- Survey of 189 practitioners
The report is best described as a small-scale research project. It does not therefore claim to be a comprehensive assessment of the situation. Rather, the intent is to provide some useful insights into potential themes that form the basis for further research and debate within the sector.
Dr Kevin Ruck and Richard Bailey
Executive summary
This is a follow-up to PR Academy’s research report PR Education, Training and Accreditation published in 2023.
This new report explores the contribution of academic research to practice (‘knowledge transfer’), it provides further analysis of public relations courses offered by UK universities, and provides data on PR apprenticeships and professional qualifications.
This year our report is based on the following research:
- Desk research on the state of education in the UK
- Informal conversations with public relations tutors and researchers
- Review of 247 articles from six public relations journals in 2023
- Survey of 189 practitioners
Key findings include:
Degrees and apprenticeships
- Undergraduate public relations degrees are a surprising victim of the marketisation of higher education.
- Most of the losses are within post-1992 universities (former polytechnics), while public relations degrees and research institutes are flourishing within higher ranked research universities. Yet these courses and institutes tend not to use the name public relations, preferring instead names and descriptions such as corporate reputation and strategic communication.
- The disciplinary distinction between public relations, integrated marketing communication, corporate communication, strategic communication, digital communication and organisational communication is the subject of academic analysis, with Howard Nothhaft and Ansgar Zerfass arguing that ‘Public relations research aspires to recognition as a “proper” academic discipline but remains frustrated.’
- Apprenticeships offer a debt-free alternative to public relations degree courses. These have been offered through the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) since 2012. There have been 248 enrolments, an average of just 20 a year.
Knowledge transfer
- 87 per cent of survey respondents stated that they are interested in learning about how academic research can be applied to practice.
- But 69 per cent of practitioners surveyed said that academic research was not easy to find.
- The authors argue that this strong interest in learning from academic research is severely hampered by open access to the information.
- We show the most common and least common topics of public relations research published in the main academic journals and reveal the gaps in research between those topics addressed by academics and those of interest to practitioners.
- Among these, there is relatively little attention given to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and data and analytics compared to other topics. There was also hardly any academic research published on AI in PR in 2023 in the journals we reviewed.
- There does not seem to be any overt discussion between academics and practitioners on topics of interest or concern.
Qualifications and accreditation
- Our analysis of the training and qualification market in the UK suggests that fewer practitioners (853 – down from 1,006 the year before) enrolled for training or a qualification in 2023.
- Yet 70 percent of respondents said that ‘A professional public relations diploma is important for professional education’ (20 percent strongly agreed)
- 47 percent of respondents said that ‘My employer values communication practitioners who have a professional diploma qualification’ (11 percent strongly agreed)
Public Relations Education Report 2024
