Recent decades have seen the rising establishment of public engagement professionals supporting communication and engagement in the contexts of science and health research. This article explores how public engagement professionals consider the ethical dimensions of their work. Based on analysis of 17 interviews with science communication and public engagement specialists at UK academic institutions and in practice settings, we examine the ways in which they frame ethical issues associated with engagement, as well as how they frame both publics and researchers. In doing so, we explore two tensions that together highlight how the rising popularity of engagement methods, including engaged research, can increase awareness of the need to ethically scrutinise engagement and associated practices. We also argue that public engagement professionals can further contribute to and advance academic discussion around engagement, arguing that ongoing research with practitioners is beneficial for academic understanding of communication, engagement and engaged research.
Wilkinson et al. (2026) studied this question.