Part 4: Why should I work with community partners?

People chatting at an event There are a wide range of benefits to working with community partners to engage the public with your research, including:

Opportunities to engage with audiences and communities you would not otherwise reach
Expertise in how to engage audiences who are not familiar with higher education/research
Expertise and knowledge that researchers may lack
The opportunity for two-way knowledge exchange
Gain new ideas for research or ways in which your research can have an impact
Access to local networks that can broaden links with communities
Potential to contribute to policy drivers such as Engaged Universities[1], the placemaking and levelling up[2]

Visit the Collaboration and Co-production fund pagesLink opens in a new window to explore some of the projects and partnerships WIE has funded to see first hand the benefits to the researchers involved.

Find out more:

Leeds Beckett University have produced a video exploring the benefits of their community partnerships initiative “CommUNIty”.
Northumbria University discusses the benefits of working with local arts and cultural organisations.
Researchers talk about the benefits of working with public libraries in a toolkit created by Carnegie UK and Libraries Connected to support public library/HE partnerships
The NCCPE have produced a toolkit for working with local communities which emphasises institution-wide and strategic approaches to partnership building