Community University Research Partnerships A Critical Reflection and an Alternative Experience (original) (raw)

Building equitable community-academic research collaborations: Learning together through tensions and contradictions

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 2013

This article explores the findings from a multi-method study of a community-university research alliance (Assets Coming Together for Youth) that brings together multidisciplinary academics, graduate student research assistants, community stakeholders and youth research interns. The project undertook evaluative and reflexive research to better understand how these different partnership group members experienced the collaborative process. The article draws on focus group discussions with the four stakeholder groups, in-depth interviews with youth research interns and an online partnership assessment survey of partnership group members. Data highlight people’s ambivalence toward the partnership process. Despite a shared desire to collaborate, it is difficult to maintain a process that mobilises the outcomes of collaboration for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders. In this article, we explore three key factors that shape people’s perspectives on the partnership process: historical an...

Strengthening Community University Research Partnerships: Global Perspectives

ISBN 978-1-55058-562-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-55058-560-5 (PDF) ISBN 978-1-55058-561-2 (EPUB) ISBN 978-1-55058-563-6 (mobi) Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Strengt hening commu nity univer sity research partnerships : global perspectives / edited by Budd Hall, Rajesh Tandon, Crystal Tremblay. Co-publi shed by: PRIA. Our book is dedicated to Dr. Martha Farrell, activist on behalf of women's rights, Director of PRIA and wife of Dr. Rajesh Tandon. Dr. Farrell was killed on Wednesday May 13, 2015 while in Kabul Afghanistan providing gender training. Martha's work over her lifetime has inspired and continues to inspire us as we seek ways for communities and universities to work toget her to improve t he lives of women and ot hers in every corner of t he world.

Community-university research partnerships by P Hall and I MacPherson (eds)

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 2013

During the last months of the liberal federal administration of Paul Martin in Canada (2003-2006), after a sustained lobbying campaign led by Quebec's Chantier de l'economie sociale and the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCED Network), funds were allocated to support the social economy sector of Canada, and a call was issued for research proposals on the social economy 'conducted by academic researchers in partnership with community based organizations'. While the subsequent administration cancelled the general program everywhere except in Quebec, it retained the $15 million research program, which was modelled on the existing Community University Research Alliance (CURA), funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Through a peer review process, SSHRC selected and funded six regional nodes and one national hub to pursue this research agenda from 2006 to 2012. This unprecedented level of resources for a pan-Canadian exploration of the social economy, known as Canadian Social Economy Research Partnerships (CSERP), resulted in almost 400 studies, involving 16 universities and over 140 community-based organisations. This volume, Community-university research partnerships: Reflections on the Canadian social economy experience, describes the organisation of this large research effort. It provides context for chapters submitted by the hub and nodes, and concludes with directions for the future. A second volume, Assembling understandings, summarises the research findings across all the nodes. The third volume is Canadian public policy and the social economy. All three are available as free e-books at the website: http://socialeconomyhub.ca. In this research, the social economy included not only the voluntary non-profit sector, as Americans might define it, but also cooperatives, social enterprises and informal, emerging efforts. Four of the node principal investigators knew each other from prior membership in a professional association for studying cooperatives.

Community–University Partnerships in Community-Based Research

Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 2012

Problem-Community-engaged research (CEnR) is a complex, collaborative process that presents many challenges and requires investment of time and commitment by both community and university research partners. Purpose-This paper describes the experience of a group of university and community members developing a set of guidelines for the ethical conduct of CEnR projects. Key Points-The paper outlines the process of guideline development and lessons learned from this collaborative effort, which was based upon approaches and methods of community-based participatory research (CBPR). Conclusions-The guidelines are included and may serve as a framework to be individualized by other partnerships. Our experience shows that the very process of review, revision, and engagement is extremely helpful in creating a framework that works for the specific communities and for establishing working relationships among the partners so that all stakeholders feel ownership and investment in the framework and the collaborative research efforts.

Balancing Power Among Academic and Community Partners: The Case of El Proyecto Bienestar

Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 2008

research, where scientists are ultimately responsible for generating knowledge, CBPR partners scientists with communities with the intent of co-producing knowledge and linking it with social action (Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker, 1998; Wallerstein & Duran, 2006). Through this work, CBPR is redefining research ethics, expanding notions of societal benefit to include tangible benefits for the involved community through the research relationship (Lesser & Oscos-Sanchez, 2007). Through new approaches to research, CBPR intends to have ethical advantages over other forms of research. However, realizing these advantages is predicated on implementing ethical values new to the research enterprise, three of which include: balancing power among community and research partners, addressing community-identified needs, and strengthening community capacity (Community Campus Partnerships for Health, 2007; Israel, Eng, Schulz, & Parker, 2005). Evaluating this implementation process requires new approaches to evaluating CBPR. Many investigators who have conducted process evaluations of CBPR partnerships have taken a lessons learned approach, making broad recommendations based on what they identify as facilitating factors and lessons learned in

Challenging institutional barriers to community-based research

Action Research, 2008

Those of us attempting to develop truly equal partnerships with communities and community organizations, using the method of community-based research, encounter many barriers. These barriers revolve around who sets the schedule, who determines the labor pool, who controls the product, and who gets the funding. In this article, a case study shows how those barriers exert themselves, and evaluates the success of strategies to challenge those barriers. It ends with a set of recommendations for changing university overhead policies, developing university quality control practices, refining the university IRB process, institutionalizing a flash seminar structure, and training community members to control the research relationship.

Collaboration of Community and University Scholars: Training in the Transformation of Research for Community Development

Practicing Anthropology, 2015

Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) provides a methodology that creates mutually beneficial and equitable partnerships between researchers and community people involved in positive change. Participatory Action Research (PAR) is rooted in trust, connectivity, and reciprocity to address issues and actions that remedy inequitable social, economic, and environmental problems arising from racism rooted in structural/political imbalances. In this paper, we discuss the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee (HEAT) and its affiliated six week Ethnographic Field School that trains graduate students in CBPR methodology by bringing faculty, local community activists and stakeholders, and students together for mutual learning in dynamic classroom, community, and social settings. The paper offers reflections on the experience by a student, HEAT activist, local and visiting faculty, and demonstrate how a model field school based on PAR offers an empirical approach to building capacity to...