Transcript Slide 1

Connected Communities Programme
Update
February 2012
Gary Grubb, Associate Director of Programmes, AHRC
[email protected]
www.connectedcommunities.ac.uk
Connected Communities Programme:
Connecting Research for Flourishing Communities
Evolving Programme Vision
To mobilise the potential for
increasingly inter-connected,
culturally diverse, communities
to enhance participation,
prosperity, sustainability,
health & well-being by better
connecting research,
stakeholders and communities.
What do we mean by Community?
Evolving approach but see communities as:
“dynamic processes through which groups come together, through
choice or necessity, to share some common bonds or values or to
co-operate and interact over a sustained period of time in pursuit
of a collective need or interest in particular issues or outcomes.
Communities may be real or imagined, may share a virtual or
physical environment and/or may share aspects of identity (such
as location, race, ethnicity, age, history, practice), culture, belief
or other common bonds, connections or interests but may also
transform over time, be culturally diverse and involve significant
dissent and conflict”.
What do we mean by Community?
• Importance of temporal as well as spatial dimensions
• Communities as process rather than object
• Recognise that there are many forms of community
e.g. ascribed, elective, imagined, transient, etc
• Consider both the positive and negative aspects
• Interested both in the relationships within
communities and the interactions between
communities (past and present) and their outcomes
for broader society and economy.
• Applicants expected to explain the ways in which
they are using the term community and thinking
about issues of connectedness and to justify why this
is appropriate for their proposed research
Why Connected? – Research Issues
Currently, in terms of the research:
• Improve understanding of both the changing connections between
individuals & groups within communities & the connections between
different communities and their implications for future society.
• Examine the connections between communities and their broader
cultures, histories, beliefs and environments (including spaces, places
and institutions) and how this can help inform future communitybased approaches.
• Explore connections between research issues often considered in
isolation to deliver more integrated understanding of the roles of, and
impacts on, communities.
A Connected Approach
• Connect UK and international
research.
• Connect researchers, organisations
and communities in the coproduction of knowledge and
knowledge exchange.
• Connect research funders to enhance
co-ordination and alignment of
activities and promote partnerships
and collaboration to maximise added
value from the currently highly
fragmented research field and
address strategic gaps
A Connected Approach
Currently, in terms of how the
programme will add value:
• Connect previous research
(synthesis, review, etc)
• Connect researchers, knowledge,
approaches and data from across
disciplines to deliver more
integrated understanding and
promote cross-disciplinary research
• Connect to RCUK Programmes (e.g.
Digital Economy, Lifelong Health &
Well-being, LWEC, Global
Uncertainties, Energy)
Addressing Cross-Cutting Themes: Understanding
Changing Connectivity & Communities
Some fundamental cross-cutting questions & issues:
• What are communities for in modern societies? How
have community values & identities changed over
time? How do they contribute to quality of life?
What do flourishing communities look like? What
can we learn from history & different cultures?
• Changing connections within and between
communities. Inter-relationships, identities, rituals,
narratives and networks. Ties to traditions,
institutions & places. Trans-national communities.
• Understanding communities as dynamic & complex
processes and cultural systems
• Factors shaping changing communities – interfaces
between technological, environmental, social,
cultural & economic factors
Incorporation of Distinctive Arts and
Humanities Perspectives
Religions – Beliefs – History - Custom – Ritual – Narrative Tradition – Law – Experience - Heritage - Values –
Attachment – Belonging – Feelings – Emotions - Ideas –
Purpose & Meaning – Ethics – Protest – Symbolism –
Iconography – Representation - Fashion – Design Culture – Consumption - Music – Performance –
Migration – Identities – Diaspora – Archives – Writing –
Beauty – Aesthetics – Art – Creativity - Critique
Programme Themes & Activities
Understanding Changing Community Cultures and Histories & Patterns of
Connectivity within & between Communities
Research Reviews & 2011 Summit
Community
values,
participation,
self-reliance
and resilience
ESRC/ AHRC
joint call
2011
Community
health and
well-being
Workshop &
Follow-up
2011
Community
creativity
prosperity &
regeneration
Creative
economy
workshop
2010 - 3 large
Grants start
2012
Sustainable
community
environments,
places and
spaces
Workshop &
Follow-up
early summer
2012
Community
cultures,
diversity,
cohesion,
exclusion &
conflict
Potential
workshop in
2013
Connecting Research on Communities
Summits 2010, 2011 & 2012
Connecting Research with Communities & other Organisations, Stimulating Research
Partnerships and Enhanced Harvesting of Research for Impact
Partnership Activities & Summits – Community inspired projects focus for 2012 Summit
Development Funding
• Research reviews: 1st call 2010 -44 awards; 2nd call (A&H
only) 2011 – 31 awards
• Summit follow-up projects: 2010 - 19 projects; 2011 8
follow-up & 10 pilot demonstrator projects; 2012 - ?
• Crime and communities follow-up projects (with ESRC)(9
projects)
• Museums & Galleries Programme follow-up projects (6
projects)
• Research development workshops: creative economy – 7
projects; health & wellbeing on communities – 4 projects
• Highlight notice (e.g. AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards,
Fellowships, Networking awards)
Examples of pilot demonstrator projects:
1. Taverns, locals and street corners: crosschronological studies in community drinking,
regulation and public space
• Comparative, trans-historical
investigation of communal drinking in
Early Modern Florence, Enlightenment
London and contemporary Bristol to
understand competing communities
(commercial, governance, residential
community, community of drinkers) in
civic public places
• Perspectives from history, performance
studies, law & urban studies
2. Memories of ‘Mr Seel’s Garden’: Engaging
with historic & future food systems in Liverpool
• Working with community organisations
within Liverpool’s fledgling local food
movement to explore how engaging local
communities with the changing patterns of
local food production could contribute to
grassroots efforts within Liverpool to raise
awareness around current food issues
• Local volunteers will use oral histories,
historic map research and archive research
to develop a multi-layered account of
historic food systems in Liverpool
• Combines philosophy, community
archaeology, archival science, digital arts,
history and food studies
Developing Partnerships
• Young Foundation project on Civility in 21st Century
Britain (with ESRC)
• Workshop on ‘Design & Communities’ with Design
Council in Gateshead on 20-21 June 2011 & follow-up
funding for 4 small projects
• Research partnership with RSA & its Citizen Power in
Peterborough Project (fellowship & project)
• Research for Community Heritage call in collaboration
with HLF and NCCPE– phase 1 (2012) 21 small awards,
phase 2 late 2012
Longer and Larger Funding
• Communities and Creative Economy Research Development
Workshop (held in late 2010) (Proposals up to £1.5m) – 3 large
consortia grants recently announced
• ESRC / AHRC Community Engagement and Mobilisation call
(proposals up to c. £2m)– 4 shortlisted EOIs, expect to fund 2
projects
• Communities, Culture, Health & Well-Being Research
Development Workshop (held in autumn 2011) (Proposals up to
£1.5m) 6 Project Development awards – decisions on large
consortia late 2012
• Call for 2 Programme Leadership Fellowships – Feb / March 2012
• Communities, Culture, Environment & Sustainability Research
Development Workshop ( to be held in early summer 2012)
Communities & the Creative Economy Projects
• Understanding Everyday Participation – Articulating
Cultural Values (PI Dr Andrew Miles, Manchester University, also
Exeter, Leicester, & Warwick)
• Cultural Intermediation: connecting communities in the
creative urban economy (PI Dr Phil Jones, Birmingham
University, also Salford, Leeds Met., Birmingham City, Cardiff)
Partners include: Arts Council England, Unity Radio, Sampad South
Asian Arts, DCMS, Birmingham & Manchester City Councils, RSA,
Inst of Contemporary Arts, Brighter Sound...
• Media Community and the Creative Citizen (PI Professor
Richard Hargreaves, Cardiff University also Birmingham City, RCA,
UWE, Open Uni)
Partners include: NESTA, The Glass-House (Design), Ofcom, Talk
about Local, Knowle West Media Centre, South-Blessed, Moseley
Community Development Trust)
Understanding Everyday Participation
– Articulating Cultural Values
• Bringing together evidence from in-depth
historical studies, re-analysis of existing survey
data and new qualitative research on the
detail, dynamics and significance of day-today cultural practices and engagements, the
project aims to create new understandings of
community formation, connectivity and
capacity through participation
• Collaboration with 16 national and local
partners, including Arts Council England, the
National Council for Voluntary Organisations,
and the Working Men’s Cubs and Institutes
Union, with Creative Scotland supporting
additional case study work
Future Activities
• Commissioning 2 Leadership Fellowships on ‘Community Cultures’ &
‘Community Engagement’ (call Feb/ March 2012)
• Complete commissioning of ESRC/AHRC consortia call on
‘Community Engagement & Mobilisation’ & Follow-up to Health &
Well-being workshop
• Research Devel. Workshop on Communities, Culture & Sustainability
(early summer 2012) Call for participants c.March 2012
• Second phase of Researching Community Heritage initiative with
HLF late 2012
• 2013 Research Devel. Workshop provisionally on Communities,
Cultures, Diversity and Cohesion
• Further award-holders Summit in 2012 – ‘community-inspired’
follow-up projects, 2013 Summit with possible international theme
• Continuing AHRC Highlight Notice (Networks & Fellowships, CDAs)
• Possible launch conference / showcase event
• Advisory group to advise on further priorities & partnerships
Some Issues for Peer Review
• Recognising genuinely cross-disciplinary research – A&H shaping
agendas not just informing interventions
• Supporting innovation and ‘edge’ / higher risk proposals
• Communicating aims, criteria and focus to reviewers not present
at events – e.g. when criteria may be re-enforced, discussed /
developed at events
• Challenges of high quality applications with poor fit to Programme
• Are communities at the core of the research questions/ does a
community focus make a difference to the research?
• Focus on research with rather than on communities but co-design
and co-production with communities may raise issues e.g. with
projects needing to be more open to community influence rather
than fully defined in advance
• In large and complex grants it is hard to get absolutely everything
right – how should imperfections in otherwise strong proposals be
handled?
Key Features of Programme Projects
Some ideas Discussed at the 2011 Summit
• Exploits the benefits of inter-disciplinary research but not
interdisciplinary for interdisciplinary’s sake
• Innovative / something not done before / not boring! / some element
of ‘edge’
• Not constrained to produce predictable outcomes / allows for higher
risk research which may not produce the ‘expected’ results
• Ideas driven
• Sets new agenda
• Transparent methodologies
• Has relevance beyond the specific case studies
• Builds upon existing knowledge.
• Engages with stakeholders alive and dead
• Should have pathways to potential impact embedded within the project
• Methods to assess the impacts upon communities built into the design
• Benefits from insights from the arts and humanities
End