Example Two: Initial Stages of Partnerships

Research Partnerships Start in Different Ways

Partnerships not only start for different reasons; they start in different ways.  Do any of the examples below look familiar?  Have you started a partnership for any of these reasons?

What are some of the ways that partnerships can start?

•     A University might have service learning for students (in which they work with local health agencies) and through the placement of students over time faculty and agency personnel become increasingly aware of shared concerns (Why does there seem to be so much asthma among very young children in the community?).

•      A community organization (such as a community development corporation) is starting an affordable housing campaign and want to bring researchers into a partnership so that they can help look at some of the data that exists and that is needed to understand affordable housing issues.

•   A community may have noticed something alarming: that there seem to be many, many cases of lupus and other autoimmune disease and that the community also has many, many contaminated sites that are located near residents, schools, and parks.  The residents approach a nearby university to see if researchers would enter into a partnership to study the problem and identify possible solutions.

• A University might have so many researchers that are interested in the same problem (for example, asthma in the community) that researchers decide to start a partnership that will enable them to work collectively with the same community groups.

• A number of different community groups realize that they are all working in different ways with the same university researchers and realize that a partnership will make it easier to share results and approaches.

• A group of researchers may realize that if results are to be implemented it will be important that the research be done in ways that may implementation easy.  They form a partnership to achieve these aims.

•   A University might have a Community-University Advisory Board that advises the university on emerging problems.  The Board helps to implement partnerships that are needed to address these problems.

 Clearly, some of these partnerships are initiated by the community and some by researchers.  Some start as a result of a particular problem and some as a result of a relationship that has begun for other reasons.  Partnerships also seem to start because there are structures in place that encourage partnerships and they start because some kind of other activity (such as setting up service learning for students) provide unexpected opportunities for communities and researchers to learn about each other.