The imagine programme is a five-year project running from 2013 to 2017 which brings together a range of different research projects working together across universities and their, mostly local, communities.
Of interest are the findings of this first study suggest that successful community-university partnerships have a set of characteristics that include the following:
- Partners accept that partnership working is an ongoing learning experience
- Partners manage to reframe differences into an opportunity, rather than an obstacle
- Partners make an effort to become aware of existing power dynamics and take practical steps to address these
- Partners pay attention to the social aspect of the partnership
- Partners play to each other’s strengths and acknowledge that equity and fairness in the partnership is compatible with different levels of involvement by different partners and, if applicable, varying levels of involvement over the course of partnership
- Partners choose a level of formality appropriate to their mission.
The site gathers knowledge from a range of different projects to imagine how communities might be different. Visit the site here