Establishing university-community partnerships: Processes and benefits

TitleEstablishing university-community partnerships: Processes and benefits
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2007
AuthorsBuys N, Bursnall S
Journaljournal of Higher Education Policy and Management
Volume29
Pagination73-86
Abstract

This article is based on data from interviews with seven Australian academics who initiated a Community-University research partnership. The findings of these interviews are used to assess the applicability of Sargent and Water’s (2004) framework of academic collaboration (i.e. university-university collaboration) to community-university partnerships. The model, which includes 4 phases: initiation, clarification, implementation, completion, is found to be broadly applicable but community-university partnerships are found to be less linear and more iterative than the model allows. Within the author’s framework, community participation and partnership are elements of engagement. Engagement is ‘intended to characterise the whole orientation of the university’s policy and practice towards strenuous, thoughtful, argumentative interaction with the non-university world’ (p. 74). In this construct engagement is the context in which partnership occurs.