1. Prof Angie Hart
University of Brighton Centre for Health Research/
Community University Partnership Programme
Boingboing (Resilience Research & Practice Network)
Sustaining community university
partnerships
Using a Communities of Practice
approach

2. • · Where the approach came from
• · Why did we adopt it?
• · How it has worked in practice, including overcoming
barriers
• · How it has helped embed the work in teaching and
research
• Share experience of using Communities of Practice
Approach to support our multi national resilience
research project etc.
Presentation Plan:

3. Sustaining….
• genuine reciprocity
• a creative approach to partnerships
• mutual learning and recognising the multiple
purposes of partners
• building ‘bridges’ within and between
organisations
• Funding (see Northmore and Hart 2011 for a
full discussion)

4. Communities of Practice are groups of
people who share a passion to address a
common concern and are designed to cut
across traditional organisational barriers
and hierarchies. (Wenger & Snyder 2000)
The Imagine – Social
Project ‘meta’ CoP
meeting Durham 2014
- Lived experience experts
- Practitioners
- Academics

6. .
• The Imagine Project - Social, funded by a UK Research
Council is using a Communities of Practice (CoP)
approach in its resilience related work.

7. 1. To demonstrate the potential (or not) for community
university partnerships (CUPs) to make better and more
resilient collective futures.
2. To develop resilience theory and practice particularly as they
apply to communities and the potential to challenge sources
of adversity
3. To enable a cross-cultural comparison of 1 and 2 above.
Imagine (Social) Project Aims:

8. www.cupp.org.uk
Community of Practice
• Inter disciplinary
• Cross
agency/citizenship
• Collaborating for
mutual benefit
• Exchange of
knowledge between
sectors
• Boundary spanning
• Shared passion

9. outsiders lurkers
alumni
experts
leaders
coordinator
core group
active
occasional
peripheral
transactional
beginners
sponsors
www.cupp.org.uk
Forms of participation

10. The hope is that they:
• Accumulate knowledge and become bound by the
value they find in learning about the issue together
• Develop a unique perspective on the issue or
problem, as well as a body of common knowledge,
practices and approaches (eg tools, standards,
manuals, materials) –’boundary objects’
• Develop personal relationships and established ways
of interacting with each other
Communities of Practice

11. Beating the odds to change the odds

12. Resilience Forum
• set up a space for a community of
practice who meet monthly;
• is open to anyone who is interested in
resilience research and practice
•

13. Since its start in 2010…….
• 59 Forums in Brighton
• 8 Forums in Hastings
• 3 Forums in London
• 1 Forum in Halifax, Canada (‘pop up’)

14. Range of Roles/Professions…
More than 50 categories
Such as:
Programme and project managers,
Educators,
Young people,
Parents,
Practitioners
Academics/researchers,
Policy makers,
Commissioners

15. Resulted in lots of connections for
posterity…and some goodbyes…
• Support with training in local voluntary sector
• Place for Phd students to make connections
for their study
• Lead to research bids: e.g. Australian
programme grant
• Private sector people come to sell us things
• Some people want to work with us and we
don’t want to work with them

16. Developing the space
• Going forward we have identified 4 themes:
• Engaging/involving more people
• Content and format
• Sustainability
• Sharing responsibility

17. • ‘Holds a space’
• Generates links between people and creates opportunities
• Clustering projects together under a shared theme to
promote longevity and impact
• ‘Helping different stakeholders keep up to date with
information and skill development
• Mechanism for assessing the viability and value of new
pieces of work or projects
• Influencing key decision makers by providing them with
well worked and mutually owned solutions to shared
problems
• Explicitly working with power differentials and different
knowledge bases
Communities of Practice: Benefits

18. • Know thyself – what is the domain?
• Put yourself in their shoes (reflective self-functioning)
• Share, share, share
• Connect up
• Be prepared to talk through power dynamics explicitly
• Do things because they are right, not trendy
• Think beyond your nose
• Be honest if you don’t think a partnership has potential
• Be brave
• Underreact
• Hold a space – e.g. forum, cheap and cheerful
Ten ingredients….

19. https://vimeo.com/125734284
Boing Boing Community-University Partnership Hits The Road

20. Learnt some projects more
‘boundary encounters’ than
ongoing CoPs

21. Artistic Record by Lisa Buttery

22. Anxieties about ‘doing research’
from practitioners and lived
experiences experts
• Perception of research as
complex
• Challenges of integrating into
practice real world settings
• demands on people re time
• distraction from local
project aims
• Ethics of practice

23. Further Information:
• ‘BoingBoing’: resilience research and practice
network: http://www.boingboing.org.uk/
• Connected Communities Imagine project:
http://www.imaginecommunity.org.uk/projects/the-
social-context/
• Communities of Practice:
– www.wenger-trayner.com
– http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/how/methods/com
munities-practice
– Hart A and Wolff D (2006) Developing communities of
practice through community-university partnerships.
Planning, Practice and Research 21(1) 121-138

24. Various resilience boundary objects…
• Short film on resilience by Angie,
Tedex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=XPUzjyAoOK4
• Various films on resilience by
Angie and others, including one
on systems
http://www.youngminds.org.uk/traini
ng_services/head_start/resources
Resources and information
available on;
http://www.youngminds.org.u
k/training_services/academic_
resilience