FAQ on CER/CERL

Community Engaged Research (CER) is a collaborative approach in which research is designed with and for the people most affected by the issues being studied, rather than by researchers alone. As well as producing knowledge about society and knowledge that is useful to society, it responds to questions raised by communities and aims to address concrete societal challenges, often aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This approach recognises communities as knowledge holders whose experience complements academic expertise.

Community Engaged Research is sometimes known as Community Based Research, Participatory (Action) Research, Citizen Science, Science Shop activities and many other terms.

Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) involves students working with community partners on collaboratively-designed, real-life projects, within the curriculum, for mutual benefit. Projects are supervised by lecturers and are co-designed with community partners to enhance student learning and to support community goals.

Community Engaged Research and Learning is also sometimes known as Community Based Research, Participatory (Action) Research, Citizen Science, Science Shop activities and many other terms.

In community engaged research, interdisciplinarity goes beyond collaboration between academic disciplines. It also involves integrating the knowledge, perspectives, and expertise of community members, civil society organisations, practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders from the very beginning of the research process. While academic knowledge is traditionally organised into disciplines, community knowledge is not: it emerges through lived experience, dialogue, collective problem-solving, and is informed by what works in practice. Beyond assembling interdisciplinary academic teams, the idea is also to create mixed working groups where researchers, community partners and sometimes students or commercial partners jointly address different aspects of a project.

A science shop coordinator acts as a facilitator and a translator (or broker, or bridge-builder) between universities and civil society organisations throughout the research process, and builds and supports relationships. Their role is not simply to match community partners with researchers or academic supervisors (for projects involving students), but to ensure that communication and collaboration is effective across different disciplines and between academic and community actors. They help translate community concerns into feasible research questions, and they also help translate traditional research approaches into projects that are meaningful to communities. Coordinators support (and sometimes evaluate) the participation of community partners to prevent projects from reverting to traditional researcher-led approaches.

Informal interactions are essential for building trust, mutual understanding, and effective collaboration in community engaged research: coffee/tea breaks, time for informal discussions before and after working sessions etc. Projects that focus heavily on governance and procedures from the outset may overlook the importance of creating positive working relationships, making later collaboration more difficult. Informal gatherings, open exchange sessions, and opportunities for participants to get to know one another help break communication barriers, especially in large, complex projects. Researchers should invest time in understanding communities before proposing solutions, adopting a posture of curiosity rather than expertise, and co-creating solutions where possible. Preparing students and researchers through training on ethics, respectful engagement, and listening is equally important. Reviewing research findings with communities for validation, recognising their contributions, and making participation practically possible—for example through financial compensation or protected time—also strengthens trust and long-term engagement.

Universities often control funding, decision-making, and research agendas, creating unequal partnerships with communities. Community engaged research should therefore ensure high levels of transparency, shared ownership of outcomes, and meaningful involvement of community partners in governance and decision-making from the outset. Research questions should respond to issues identified by civil society rather than only to academic interests, and communities should retain ownership over their data and outputs. Recognition through co-design, co-authorship, financial compensation, and respectful participation helps value community expertise. Particular attention should be paid to avoiding extractive practices in which researchers collect ideas or data without involving communities in a mutually beneficial and respectful way. The goal is to redistribute power so that communities become genuine partners rather than research subjects.

To improve the chances of a real co-creation process, researchers should approach community engaged research with humility, openness, and a willingness to listen before acting. Rather than assuming they already know the best solutions, it’s generally more efficient to spend time on the ground understanding the social, cultural, and practical realities that shape people’s choices and everyday lives. For one researcher working for a long time with on CER: “Effective researchers therefore prioritise observation, dialogue, and co-creation instead of simply transferring knowledge or criticising existing practices”. Therefore, listening should be considered a core research skill, alongside scientific expertise. By remaining open to different forms of knowledge and recognising communities and searchers as equal partners in framing the actual needs and questions, and in creating solutions, researchers and community partners can co-develop responses of increased relevance and scientific quality, as well as useful to local communities.

• What happens to a partnership when project funding ends - who maintains the relationship, on what institutional basis, with what resources?
• How is a partnership initiated in practice?
• Who owns data and outputs?
• How is success evaluated?
• What happens when conflict arises?
• Do you have successful examples of community engaged research projects? 
• How can universities financially compensate participants from civil society organisations?
• What is the difference between interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity?

Therefore stay tuned for further updates and don’t hesitate to contact us (contact[@]togetherness-project.eu) with suggestions for other questions.