Informal Education Is Essential to Physics

This document, "Informal Education Is Essential to Physics: Recommendations for (inter)national organizations 2025" by the JNIPER Community, advocates for a culture shift to recognize Informal Physics Education (IPE) as an essential physics practice. It outlines three main "Levers" with specific recommendations for (inter)national organizations:

• Lever 1: Structures Focuses on amplifying structures that frame IPE as an essential activity deserving of resources. Recommendations include establishing common publication venues for IPE work (with open access and multiple submission types), creating recognition mechanisms for exemplary IPE programs and practitioners (including awards and professional certificates), dedicating prime-time sessions for IPE at physics conferences, and requiring public engagement plans in grants, directly funding IPE, and supporting IPE training.
• Lever 2: Engagement of interested, influential, and impacted parties Aims to identify techniques for recruiting and empowering people to engage in and support IPE. Recommendations include acknowledging and legitimizing IPE career pathways for students (through career panels and job boards) and physics societies releasing policy statements on the importance of IPE to physics (citing the APS Statement on Public Engagement as a successful example).
• Lever 3: Integrating Research-Based Practices in IPE Emphasizes leveraging research to understand, develop, and advocate for IPE. Recommendations include establishing common publication venues for IPE work (mirroring a Lever 1 recommendation), building infrastructure for collective data sharing, creating dedicated IPE sessions at physics conferences (mirroring a Lever 1 recommendation), and funding agencies supporting IPE evaluation, assessment, and research (through grant lines for IPE research and requiring public engagement plans with evaluation components in all grants).