Research With Us

Research With Us

This page provides a walk through guide about collaborative research and how to start an initial conversation with SJSC about undertaking research of an issue or in an area that affects your community or organisation. It provides general information about SJSC and the work which is our focus.

• Funding
• Support and services
• Stages of a collaborative research project
• Researching together
• Other issues we consider
• References
• Links to further information

At SJSC, we are genuinely interested in working with, and learning from, the community organisations sector and drawing on the grounded expertise and experience of agency staff and clients [‘About us’].

University and community research partnerships allow organisations and agencies to couple their ‘on the ground’ expertise and understanding with an independent and authoritative research voice to make stronger arguments for policy and/or program change and the need to fill identified service gaps.

SJSC is committed to genuinely collaborative partnerships which recognise
(i) The complementary skills and experience each partner brings to the table, and
(ii) The need to generate findings which can be used by the agency to improve the quality of their work and support evidence-informed advocacy.

SJSC’s commitment to innovative research approaches allows the voices of those who are marginalised or disadvantaged to be heard. In addition to supporting research participation of the ‘vulnerable or less articulate’, SJSC also has experience working with CALD and ATSI communities, people with poor literacy skills, people with disability and people who have experienced trauma [‘Examples of community projects’].

SJSC is committed to making research accessible while making sure it stands up to scrutiny. Sometimes university researchers can be seen as ‘having our heads in the clouds’ and getting lost in complex language and high theory. While this can be true, by working in partnership with community sector organisations we are better able to conduct research which can be used to produce positive change for those most in need and to write this up in a way that is accessible and meaningful. At the same time, theory is important as it can offer new ways to look at problems and we are absolutely committed to using rigorous research methods so that you can be fully confident in research findings and recommendations.

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Funding

At SJSC we recognise that the sector often has a limited amount of resources to contribute to research but that this doesn’t rule out involvement. It’s still worthwhile to have the conversation!

SJSC can talk to your organisation about what resources you have available and there may be UWS grants for which SJSC could apply or philanthropic foundations or government departments that we could approach for funding. SJSC could also look at whether other community organisations might come on board for a particular project so that costs can be shared across a broader group [Further details on funding].

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Support and services

All research projects at SJSC are given the following support:
• The academic researcher’s expertise, which is not a cost for the community partner.
• Research equipment and specialist software.
• Full library access, including the assistance of expert research librarians.
• Administrative support for accounts, travel arrangements, staff payments.
• Recruitment of research staff.
• Identification of funding sources and writing of grant applications.
• Sharing of research skills with the community partner.
• Dissemination of findings:
   - seminars
   - report launch
   - assistance with booklets or brochures that are accessible to the community
   - UWS media unit.

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Stages of a collaborative research project

If you are a community organisation looking to approach SJSC about a concern you would like to see researched or a question which needs research to find the answer, our Research Program Coordinator Peri O’Shea is your first point of contact. You are invited to phone or email Peri with research proposals, questions or interests, who will be able to judge whether there is a fit between SJSC’s interests and expertise. Should that be the case, Peri will organise for the relevant researcher/s to make contact.

In a collaborative research project between your community organisation and SJSC, support will be provided for research design, the establishment of a project steering committee involving all partners, identification of funding and resources, preparation of research ethics applications [‘Research and ethics’] (SJSC being committed to the conduct of high quality ethical research which respects research participants and protects them from harm), data collection, analysis and interpretation, writing up of a research report and disseminating research findings [Further details on stages of a collaborative research project].

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Researching together

Regardless of the approach taken to a particular research project, partners in a collaborative research project will have the following roles and responsibilities:

Academics
• Expertise in research methodology.
• Data collection.
• Analysis of data.
• Ongoing project management, usually by Chief Investigator, including hiring of staff, managing staff, ensuring that staff are trained appropriately in methods, obtaining ethics clearances etc.

Community organisations
• Provide ongoing feedback, direction and evaluation of project.
• Attend the initial meeting, work-in-progress meetings and project presentations and provide input into the development of the research.
• Ground research in everyday practice.

Both
• Liaising with participants.
• Being involved in the steering committee.
• Searching for and providing funding and resources.
• Interpretation of the data. Oftentimes, academics will take their analyses back to partners and other stakeholders for their take on the results.
• Dissemination of results after interpretation. Community organisations have a special role here due to their connections with stakeholders.

Involving community organisations at the beginning, during process and in the outcomes is a key factor in building and maintaining strong and truly collaborative partnerships. At SJSC we believe in the “Nothing about us without us” philosophy that came from the Disability Movement. Over the years, SJSC has built strong relationships with community partners. And yet, as an impartial outsider, the University can provide a forum for uniting organisations by identifying shared issues. Proof of this is a series of overlapping projects SJSC has undertaken with partners with similar goals.

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Other issues we consider:
• Avoiding research that imposes stress or stigma on participants or communities who may feel ‘over-researched’.
• Avoiding as ‘helicopter research’ or ‘drive-by research’ which is when researchers come in as outside experts, take data, and don’t give back.
• Taking time to get to know the organisation and the community and their respective needs.
• Your need for sufficient feedback

The project steering committee is a mechanism where these issues can be discussed openly and worked through.

The following guidelines underlie our approach to collaborative partnerships with community organisations, to ensure that these partnerships are successful:

1. Community engagement at the beginning of the collaborative research project:

• Being inclusive from the start of the partnership in terms of who is invited to initial planning meetings.
• Value and take seriously community input. A researcher validating a community member’s input is crucial to community representatives finding and being able to claim their place in a research partnership.
• Listening to and addressing needs identified by community partners.
• Elevate the importance of the community’s research priorities over those that are pre-determined by external interests. If funding is available for asthma research, but the community is most concerned about domestic violence, a successful research partnership focused on asthma will be difficult to develop and sustain. 
• Demonstrate positive regard for other ways of thinking, especially about research. All partners bring knowledge, skills, and expertise to the table and challenging underlying assumptions about research methods and community issues are important steps in moving from rhetoric to reality.

 
2. Community engagement throughout the process of doing the collaborative research project:

• Recognize and conduct ongoing analysis of the community’s strengths and resources.
• Examine the consistency and shifting of the relationships.  It helps to understand the dynamic nature of trust, and thus a process evaluation is an imperative exercise in collaborative research projects.
• Define roles and responsibilities based on assets and strengths and capacity-building needs.
• Identify capacity-building needs and schedule them into the structure of the research project. For example, if community partners want to learn more about collection, analysis and interpretation of data, then tasks, community interns, student placements, volunteer opportunities, etc. can be structured around those needs.
• Sharing power and control. This can be achieved in terms of who facilitates or chairs the partnership’s board (community representative or rotating leadership among institutional and community members), how decisions are made, how funds are distributed (community-based organizations as lead organizations on grants, for example), and community representatives serving as Principal Investigators and/or Co-Investigators (with attendant responsibilities of those roles).
• Work through discussions of potentially divisive issues (e.g. budget cuts, issues of racism, partners are not getting work done) before they arise. 

3. Community involvement in determining the outcome of research:

• Agree that research is intended to be used by the community to achieve social justice, enhance health and build on community assets.
• Determine the role that community representatives play in disseminating project outcomes, including interpretation and translation of findings into policy and action.
• Decide how dissemination strategies are defined and carried through.
• “Deliver on the promise” and ensure that research findings are used in valuable and meaningful ways that enhance quality of life in communities.
• Conduct dissemination strategies that are consistent with the original goals and objectives of the research and not for simple, personal gain.
• Disseminate results with community input regarding how and when all data are released and to whom. “Sensitive” data (i.e., those that cast a community in a negative light or reinforce negative stereotypes) should not be disseminated or talked about publicly without significant community control and agreement to a process.
(Adapted from Greene-Moton, et al., 2006)

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References
Greene-Moton, E., Palermo, A., Flicker, S. and Travers, R.(2009)  “Unit 4: Trust and communication in a CBPR partnership – spreading the “glue” and having it stick”, The Examining Community-Institutional Partnerships for Prevention Research group, (2006), Developing and sustaining community-based participatory research partnerships: a skill-building curriculum, viewed 23 June 2009, <www.cbprcurriculum.info>.

Guyette, Susan, (1983), Community-based research: a handbook for Native Americans, American Indian Studies Centre, University of California, Los Angeles.

Hartwig, K., Calleson, D. and Williams, M., “Unit 1: CBPR – getting grounded”, The Examining Community-Institutional Partnerships for Prevention Research group, (2006), Developing and sustaining community-based participatory research partnerships: a skill-building curriculum, viewed 23 June 2009, <www.cbprcurriculum.info>.

Nunavut Research Institute and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, (2003), “Negotiating research relationships: a guide for communities”, Pimatsiwin, vol 1, no. 1, viewed 23 June 2009 <http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/env-negotiating-research-relationships.pdf>.

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Links to further information

1. About SJSC
2. Examples of community projects
3. Research and ethics
4. Further details on funding
5. Further details on stages of a collaborative research project
6. Checklist for collaborative research partnerships
7. Research methods and approaches
    a. Research terminology
    b. Qualitative methods: the survey or questionnaire
    c. Qualitative methods: the interview
    d. Other methods

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