Abstract
Following an observed need to build community partner infrastructure and support to enhance community-university partnerships, a successful bid was made to the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. This funding provided an opportunity for community partners to come together with engaged academics at the first ever UK Community Partner Summit. They resolved to set up a community partner network to help build capacity for effective community-university partnerships, and to influence the policy environment which supports this work. This article reflects on the activity of the working group in seeking to establish the network, and introduces some of the concepts that have proved critical to its development. Drawing on a wealth of perspectives from a range of sources including academic and grey literature, community partner experiences, and international work, we open up some of the challenges that we have faced, and explore some of the implications of our first year’s work together. We reflect on the time it takes to establish any form of network, the need to be clear about definitions and boundaries, and the challenge of changing cultures. We conclude that the progress with the network to date is encouraging, and we look forward to building on our learning thus far, to develop stronger community-university partnerships of the future.Keywords: community partner infrastructure and networks, partnership resilience, community-university partnership
Highlights
National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement. It is a sunny day in June 2013 and the UK Community Partner Network (UKCPN) working group are meeting in London to discuss how they might support community-university partnerships to develop in more effective ways
The authors of this article, a community partner, a public engagement practitioner and an academic involved in the project, 130 | Gateways | Aumann, Hart & Duncan took this opportunity to reflect on the journey travelled so far
How do we develop practical ways to move communityuniversity partnership working forward in the UK, and how do we ensure we build on learning we have already? Our international experiences have opened up new vistas and provided important context for our work
Summary
It is a sunny day in June 2013 and the UK Community Partner Network (UKCPN) working group are meeting in London to discuss how they might support community-university partnerships to develop in more effective ways. It was part of a successful grant application that argued the need for community partner infrastructure support and real decision-making powers, to create enduring communityuniversity partnerships for the future It was the academic amongst us who spotted a major capacity issue for community partners to take part in individual partnerships, or to get involved in the larger strategic work, to influence and promote good partnership practice. She noticed that, whilst many academics have the opportunity to support their ongoing learning by attending conferences and securing faculty buy-outs, community partners rarely, if ever, get to network to share their experiences, consider solutions to partnership problems, or increase their knowledge base. The 2012 Summit was our first attempt to craft a space for community partners to network, share experiences and good practice, and explore the potential for a UK-wide community partner network
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