Why Conduct Community-Engaged Research?
Engaging communities in academic research is a great way to ensure research outcomes are applicable, meaningful, and useful for communities and stakeholders through the co-production of knowledge, cooperative problem-solving, and restructuring how research is designed, conducted and disseminated.
Today, many people in the academy conduct research to solve local sustainability challenges, ensure healthy and resilient environments, develop sustainable and equitable opportunities, and create innovative programs and initiatives with and for communities. Researchers may not always, however, know how to meaningfully engage community members and organizations in that work. This can mean that the research lacks key knowledge, experience and perspectives that can significantly enhance the projects. Further, misaligned research efforts can erode trust and contribute little of value to the communities in question.
With that in mind, researchers are encouraged to consider how to best connect with communities and to meaningfully exchange needs, values, knowledge, and perspectives throughout the research process, from the development of research question(s) to the dissemination of findings and outcome implementation (and beyond!). To this end, this website provides some resources for researchers interested in community-engaged work.
Practically, by understanding the type of community-engaged research one would like to conduct, researchers can be more intentional about accessing appropriate resources and applying best practices toward their projects. This information will also be of use for students who are interested in community-centered approaches and want to begin to develop the critical skills to be a successful engaged researcher.
The ultimate goal is to support transformative research that can make a difference for communities and for a more sustainable, inclusive, and just world. Through collaborative and collective action research, researchers can be meaningful partners with the local, regional, national, and global communities of which we are a part!