Societal challenges call for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research contributions. Hence Engaged Research is not for humanities or social sciences only, but for any discipline. Furthermore, Engaged Research is for anyone who wishes to make positive impact in our societies and for their improvement.
This toolkit, for engaged researchers, aims to enhance the existing knowledge of engaged research methodologies, terminologies, and practices and to assist the professional development of researchers in conducting engaged research projects.
This webpage includes a UNIC for Engaged Research Glossary and various written and online sources collected from the consortium members in different languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Croatian, etc.) together with practice insights on engaged research.
A
Action Learning is a strategy utilised by members of a community or an organisation to tackle real life problems by reflecting on their experience as members of that grouping and collaboratively arriving at solutions. It represents a commitment to learning in an active way that emphasises openness and synergy, while taking into account the specific contextual circumstances of the community that is using the approach.
The purpose of Action-Oriented Research is to generate knowledge that can be used to address practical concerns of local communities, organizations, and groups and incorporate local understandings of specific practices and issues into projects that usually have some type of change (individual, social, organizational) as an ultimate goal.
Research methodologies that fall under the umbrella of ‘Arts-Based’ are, to varying degrees, artistic in nature and guided by art forms that are traditionally not associated with academic inquiry. Some examples of such art forms include short stories, essays, theatre, poetry or the performing arts. Arts-based research does not aspire towards certainty in the form of robust findings but rather aims to achieve an enhancing of perspectives. It is often conducted on activities at the intersection of the artistic and educational spheres, with a view to questioning accepted common sense and taken-for-granted notions.
C
The UNIC CTL group advises to understand CBL as an umbrella term that covers many student centered approaches that are to a certain extent similar (e.g. ‘Impact Learning’ at EUR; ‘capstones or project-based and case-based courses at different levels’ at Koc; specific forms of problem-based learning elsewhere), because it is required to build on existing practices. In the context of UNIC/UNIC4ER,it is suggested to introduce the term CBL in connection with the UNIC City Labs approach.
The CTL group concluded that a common denominator is visible under the CBL umbrella: a) students work in small groups on 2) actual problems in 3) collaboration with non-university partners and 4) teachers do not just deliver knowledge, but operate as (well informed) facilitator.
Useful Links: Follow the work of UNIC's Centre for Teaching and Learning.
Citizen Science is the inclusion of public research beneficiaries in the scientific research process by asking questions, collecting and/or analysing data as part of a scientific project. Citizens are actively engaged in scientific work, and research is being done with citizens and not just for them. Citizen Science projects are regularly started and supervised by professional scientists and are carried out for research that lends to geographically dispersed contributions, including environmental observation work, or work that does not necessarily involve professional knowledge.
A Citizen Summit is an engagement method used to find out the citizens’ attitudes about political priorities and possible action to address societal issues. The objective of the method is to provide advice, tacit knowledge and inspiration for the political decision making process. A summit can provide indication about citizens’ outlooks, and necessitates some degree of commitment to action by the policymakers. The format includes a public assembly, and combines discussions in groups with collective decision making through voting. More often than not communication technologies, such as electronic voting, or online surveys facilitate debates. It is important to get the best representative spread of gender, age, and employment status.
As the title would suggest, Collaborative Inquiry is a participatory, action-based form of research that aims to improve practice and add to knowledge. Adopting this approach requires that the traditional distinction between researchers and subjects be broken down, with the latter becoming co-investigators in the inquiry and the former a full participant in the activity that they are analysing, rather than an external observer. The team engages in a process of collaborative reflection with the goal of answering their project’s overall research question.
Community Action Research refers to collaborative knowledge creation, which is generally initiated with the intent of implementing significant organisational change. It is regularly applied to corporations’ attempts to develop organisational learning, meaning the ‘learning community’ is often composed of corporate representatives, senior consultants, researchers and academic faculty. Despite utilising a different connotation of ‘community’, the ‘learning community’ concept put forward by Community Action Researchers is similar to the ‘learning partnership’ concept favoured by emancipatory researchers, who are more concerned with oppressed minorities.
A credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organised service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility (Bringle and Hatcher, 1995, p. 112). Community-based learning is therefore a teaching methodology that combines classroom instruction, community service, student reflection and civic responsibility. A key element of community-based learning is mutual benefit for students, academics, the university and the community involved.
Any research partnership of researchers and community members that is formed with the aim of solving a social problem or creating social change can be described as Community-Based Research (CBR). CBR projects can adopt multiple approaches and methods but share the common characteristic that the impetus for influence over the research comes from the community and not the external researcher. CBR has its origins in service learning projects in the United States in the 1980s, where academics who had grown up with the activism of the 1960s attempt to develop teaching programmes that would reinvigorate a sense of civic engagement in their students.
Community engagement is a process whereby universities engage with external
organisations to undertake joint activities that can be mutually beneficial, even if
each side benefits in a different way (Benneworth, 2018, p.17). This definition reflects a point that is strongly emphasised in the literature: that the principle of mutual benefit is central to community engagement (Sandmann, 2008; Benneworth et al., 2009; Goddard et al., 2016; Brown University, n.d.; Benneworth et al., 2018; NCCPE, n.d.[b]).
This is a kind of research that has, as one of its objectives, the empowerment of the community upon which it is wholly or partially focused. Community Empowerment can come in many forms, such as boosting employment in an area or improving access to education in a district.
This is an educational approach that encompasses many different kinds of projects, assigned to students and set by a teacher, lecturer, tutor or agenda-setter in a school, college or university. These activities are informed by a combination of learning goals and community service-orientated objectives, and are a way for an educational institution to provide value to a community. Some examples of Community Service Learning projects include the channelling of student resources towards efforts to achieve social justice or to perform assessments of the needs of certain members of a community.
The Community Readiness Model is strategic in nature and sets out to assess a community’s ability to respond to certain challenges. This model can also be extended to the creation and provision of strategies to help improve a community’s readiness to deal with those challenges. Examples of issues for which a community’s readiness can be tested include changes in a community’s health requirements or behaviour.
Community-University Partnerships emerge from engagement between a university and community representatives, such as residents organisations, social service workers or healthcare providers. The aim of these programmes is to contribute towards the development of the community in some way. The partnership consists of research programmes, which are conceived, designed and implemented by both the university and the community. Examples of such projects could include the development of strategies to tackle elder abuse or assessments of the healthcare needs of certain disadvantaged groups.
D
The Delphi Method is an iterative survey method that enables anonymous, systematic refinement of professional opinion to arrive at a consensual agreement. This generates discussion and enables a judgement on a specified topic so that policy decisions can be taken to represent a given group’s wants and views.
E
Emancipatory Disability Research emerged from efforts by disabled scholars to redefine traditional understandings of disability. In particular, they sought to challenge the conventional wisdom that an individual’s impairment, whether it be physical, sensory or intellectual, is the primary cause of their ‘disability’ and therefore the root cause of any difficulties they might have in an economic, political or cultural sense. This field of research often employs the ‘Social Model of Disability’, which shifts the emphasis away from individual impairments and towards the way the environment can exclude or disadvantage people who are labelled ‘disabled’.
Taking inspiration from Emancipatory Research, a small number of researchers have sought to mainstream some of its concepts, by developing a more generalized emancipatory research orientation. Emancipatory Research is concerned with the power relations involved in research; and is consciously aware of how these might affect the value placed upon some forms of knowledge over others. It focuses on: the lives and experiences of people historically marginalized; how and why inequities are reflected in asymmetrical power relations; and how results of social enquiry into inequities are linked to political and social action. The emancipatory research paradigm is based on three key fundamentals: reciprocity, gain and empowerment.
Engaged research is an overarching term that describes a wide range of comprehensive research approaches and methodologies that share a common interest in collaborative engagement ‘with’ and ‘within’ society. Fundamentally committed to academic freedom and the public good, engaged research aims to improve, understand, or investigate issues of public interest where societal partners are active collaborative participants in the research process. It nurtures democratic competencies through participation—from defining research need, to the co-creation of knowledge and equitable and reciprocal knowledge translation to and with society.
Committed to sustainability, and inherently transdisciplinary, it explicitly builds awareness of the interconnectedness of our social-ecological systems. Imbued with different knowledge traditions (expertise, practice, experience and wisdom), it is manifestly impactful research that has an emancipatory and transformative social justice orientation—consistently pursuing intersectional understanding towards greater social solidarity, diversity, inclusion and equity.
Engaged Scholarship promotes the interrelationship of learning, research and service by connecting educational institutions with communities through research projects that are mutually beneficial for both parties. The experience of collaborating on a community project is educational and transformative for researchers, while the community gains the advantage of having the resources of a university or college directed towards an identified community objective.
F
Similar to action research, as described earlier in the glossary, Feminist Action Research aims to generate knowledge that can address practical concerns of a community. Unlike action research, however, this approach specifically addresses women’s multiple perspectives and attempts to change the conditions of their lives through the pursuit of social justice. Feminist action research scholars in sociology, psychology and family studies have used an array of methods to integrate knowledge and action to promote the political, social, and economic status of women and thus empower women.
I
Indigenous Research Methodology involves analysing the epistemology of a defined indigenous community and then using that analysis to inform a project’s research design. This means that instead of merely including the perspective of the subject community in a piece of research, their way of looking at the world actually guides how the research progresses.
J
New partnerships between UNIC alliance members and beyond. The initiatives are recommended to touch upon a challenge defined by UNIC Cities, which were outlined in the Local Engaged Research Roadmaps and are related to e.g., Diversity & Inclusion, Green Cities & Sustainability, Urban Resilience & Transformation, Health & Well-being, Aging Population, Digital Transition through engaged research and aims to co-create knowledge through engaged research.
The joint initiatives includes at least two UNIC universities and can include one or more institutions outside of the UNIC consortium.
Sample collaborative engaged research initiatives are :
Joint project proposals for external funding; Horizon Europe, AMIF, INTERREG, JPI Urban Europe
Other external funding sources enabling international partnerships
Summer Schools or similar formats
Joint publications
K
Knowledge Democracy can refer to any process of creating, sharing and accessing knowledge outside of the traditional academic routes. Striving for knowledge democracy means embracing multiple ways of knowing, acknowledging diverse, marginalised communities and the provision of accessible knowledge in a broad spectrum of formats. The term can also imply that knowledge should be used to further democratic values and work towards a fairer and more just world.
Knowledge Mobilisation refers to the movement of available knowledge into active use, often for the benefit of certain communities or organisations. It involves knowledge sharing between research producers, such as academics or students, and research users, such as a member of a certain community or members of an organisation that represents a community. It has become more prevalent and sought after with the growing popularity of public policies that are based on empirical evidence.
Knowledge Translation is the exchange, synthesis and application of new knowledge between researchers and beneficiaries to implement improved and/or more effective services, products, or processes.
P
Participant Action Research is a type of applied social research where, typically, people concerned with the organization under study team up with professional researchers to design projects, gather and analyse data, and utilise the findings in action projects. In essence, Participant Action Research requires community members to be active participants in the project design, data collection and analysis, and in the dissemination of findings.
Participatory Backcasting is a process of working backwards from a desirable future goal. Rather than trying to predict what outcomes are likely to occur, this approach is orientated towards defining the actions or policy measures that need to be enacted, and the obstacles that need to be overcome, before a defined objective can be achieved. The use of the Participatory Backcasting approach implies that the process of defining and achieving that objective will involve engaging with the community that will be most affected by its successful attainment.
The desired outcome is not necessarily identified in advance of the analysis but can emerge from engagement with organisations and communities. One example of an objective that could be established and aspired towards using Participatory Backcasting is the reduction of household consumption to sustainable levels in a particular area or community.
The Participatory Evaluation approach places those who are most affected by a policy or programme - such as stakeholders, beneficiaries or funders - in the role of assessors. In practice, this can mean that members of a community are centrally involved in designing a project evaluation, gathering and analysing data, drawing conclusions, disseminating results and making recommendations on how to achieve improvements.
Participatory Research is a process which combines three activities: research, education and action. It aims to facilitate those who would not normally look upon themselves as researchers to adopt that role and tackle the issues that matter to them in their everyday lives by gathering and assessing data. In assuming this role, minority or underrepresented communities can collaborate with more traditional researchers to bring about social change.
Participatory Rural Appraisal is a collective term for a number of different approaches and methods that are utilised to empower communities to gather, share and use data about their everyday lives to help achieve development goals. Rather than exclusively relying upon analysis from outsiders, it emphasises the cocreation of knowledge. It utilises methods such as mapping and modelling, seasonal calendars, trend and change analysis, well-being and wealth ranking, and analytical diagramming. Applications include natural resource management, agriculture, poverty and social programmes, and health and food security assessments.
S
Science Shops are small organisations created as mediators between citizens groups, such as trade unions, community organisations, NGOs, or environmentalists, and research institutions, such as universities or think-tanks. They perform community-based research and aim to facilitate greater accessibility to science, knowledge and technology for social groups that would not normally have such access.
The notion of practicality, reality and serviceability being at the heart of the mission of higher education is central to the principle of Scholarship of Engagement. It challenges the idea that universities should exist separately from the world around them and holds instead that they should be utilised to promote economic and social progress. Examples of actions that are reflective of the Scholarship of Engagement were the passing of the GI Bill and the implementation of affirmative action programmes in the United States.
Service-learning in higher education is an experiential educational method in which students engage in community service, reflect critically on this experience, and learn from it personally, socially and academically. The activities address human, social and environmental needs from the perspective of social justice and sustainable development, and aim at enriching learning in higher education, fostering civic responsibility and strengthening communities. Service-learning in is always recognize with ECTS credits.
It brings together students, academics and the community whereby all become teaching resources, problem solvers and partners. In addition to enhancing academic and real world learning, the overall purpose of is to instil in students a sense of civic engagement and responsibility and work towards positive social change within society.
W
World Café is a method for engaging groups, both within organisations and in the public sphere. This method is conducted in a workshop where anybody is able to talk about societal issues that matter to them. The process includes three or more twenty minute rounds of conversation within small groups seated around a table. After the first round each member moves to another table. One person will stay at the table to host for the next round and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round. Each round of a World Café is prefaced with a question designed for the specific context and desired purpose of the session. The participants are invited to share results from their conversations with the rest of the whole group. These results are reflected visually in a variety of ways, most often using graphic recorders in the front of the room.
The UNIC alliance and UNIC4ER team has been organizing a seminar series that champions and raises awareness of "best practice" engaged research exemplars. These online seminars complement an in-person "Strategy Forum" that was hosted by University College Cork in 2022.
Together, these events set out a radical vision to accelerate Engaged Research within and across the participating institutions and cities, and establish UNIC as a centre of excellence for Engaged Research in Europe and beyond. For UNIC, Engaged Research is an intrinsic enabler of research that is transdisciplinary and advances progress on collectively addressing societal challenges with external partners, including them as key contributors to the research cycle.
You can find video recordings of the first two seminars here, and here. Read more about the Strategy Forum here, or download our documentation of key takeaways and session proceedings below.
