Breaking Down Silos: Creating the foundations for localised knowledge and expertise mobilisation between communities and research institutions

“It feels very individualistic—lots of separate work going on, not so much collaboration within the sectors let alone across the sectors.” – Cathays Future Lab Attendee.

This observation cuts to the heart of an ongoing challenge. If knowledge is fragmented, how can we expect to create meaningful, community-led change? In an age where expertise is often siloed within universities, public sector institutions, businesses, third sector organisation, local groups and so on – how do we begin to dismantle these barriers?

These are the kinds of questions Cathays Futures seeks to answer. Led by SPARK, Cardiff University’s social science research park, Cathays Futures is exploring how diverse knowledge—from lived experience to academic research—can come together in new and experimental ways to mobilise expertise and improve local wellbeing. But is simply bringing people together enough, or do we need to rethink how we collaborate?

The Big Idea: Cathays Futures Project

Cathays Futures has three key objectives:

1. Strengthen SPARK’s relationships with place-based civic partners and Cathays residents.
2. Create spaces for dialogue that lead to action, not just talk.
3. Test and refine new ways to mobilise knowledge and co-produce research that benefits everyone involved.

We often talk about co-production, but what does that really mean when power imbalances and institutional mistrust are present? How do we ensure that community know-how is valued equally with academic research? Cathays Futures is attempting to do just that by convening residents, social scientists, place-based civic partners, and NGOs in an ongoing dialogue. Through using participatory futures approaches, the project aims to break down traditional barriers, creating spaces where knowledge isn’t just shared, it’s co-created.

When Vision Meets Reality: Activities in the Pilot Phase

In the pilot phase of Cathays Futures, SPARK ran a series of Futures Labs – spaces designed to convene SPARK and Cathays-based stakeholders. These sessions were both a space to explore how we can achieve the aims of the project and a chance to experiment with ways to mobilise knowledge to improve local wellbeing.

The Futures Labs used future-thinking techniques like:

• Decision-Making Matrix: Participants plotted connections between research findings and local knowledge – how do these intersect, and where are the gaps?
• Three Horizons Mapping: This looked at the relationship between SPARK and the Cathays community, mapping out the journey from where we are now to where we want to be.
• Futures Wheel: A visual tool that explored the direct and indirect consequences of potential actions/next steps we could take – what ripple effects could our actions have in the future?
• Roadmapping: A step-by-step process of determining what needs to happen for our vision to become reality.

The first lab introduced participants to the project, exploring the current state of wellbeing in Cathays and ideating future possibilities. The second lab built on this, refining ideas and digging deeper into potential solutions. Before, during, and after these sessions, we engaged stakeholders through group meetings and one-to-one conversations. Both Labs and informal meetings were key to building and strengthening relationships with the Cathays community and wider stakeholders.

What We Learned: Key Insights and Results

We saw real progress in building relationships and creating spaces where diverse expertise could be shared. People involved were quite positive, with 100% saying the project was useful or very useful in fostering collaboration and 80% noting that it helped build or strengthen relationships between SPARK and the community. Here’s what some of the people involved had to say:

• “The individuals and organisations represented provided a good range of ideas to work towards improving the local community.” – Public Sector Worker in Cathays
• “I found it very collegiate and really good to get a cross section of people together. I am optimistic but also wary as it needs ongoing commitment and will also need more people to engage… people can feel understandably cynical.”– Local Councillor

So then, how do we move beyond the initial excitement of a project like this and build the long-term commitment needed to drive real change and address the structural (and other) issues that block collaboration? One of the most striking outcomes was that 100% of participants felt optimistic about the future of the relationship between SPARK and the Cathays community, with 80% noting that the project was effective in using evidence and diverse expertise to imagine socially just futures. Optimism is essential, but it is important to ensure that this optimism is not lessened by inaction.

Challenges

Despite the positivity outlined above, Cathays Futures also encountered a range of challenges. A recurring theme was distrust. For many, past experiences with the University hadn’t necessarily been positive ones. One Cathays resident expressed early on, “I think you’ve approached this from a very poor angle—you need to do some proper focus group open interviews.” Others felt unsure about whether this was just another project that would fade away once the funding dried up. Researchers and the University were seen as ‘hard to reach’ and that we only engaged on our terms, not the community’s. How do we overcome this ingrained distrust? And can we, as researchers be honest about our own limitations when entering these kinds of partnerships? If people are cynical, what can we do to ensure that trust is built and, more importantly, sustained?

Other challenges included:

• Balancing expectations: Different stakeholders came to the table with varied agendas. Is it possible to reconcile these, or is tension a necessary part of innovation?
• Maintaining momentum: How do we keep energy alive in a project that is emergent and co-produced, without clear-cut deliverables from the start?
• Creating safe spaces for dialogue: We needed to ensure that the Labs were secure enough for people to express themselves but open enough to tackle difficult, even uncomfortable, conversations.

Igniting Ideas: Next Steps for the Project

The next steps for Cathays Futures can be grouped in the three action areas:

1. Creating informal networking spaces: We need more opportunities for the SPARK community and Cathays community (residents and local civic partners) to interact beyond formal settings. Is it in these casual, unscripted moments that meaningful relationships between different people can evolve?
2. Supporting evidence-informed practice: We are connecting local civic partners into knowledge exchange opportunities in SPARK and into the emerging Third Sector Research partnership. We hope that this will provide linkages with relevant evidence and the expertise behind that knowledge.
3. Issue-focused Futures Labs: We are teaming-up with civic partners already engaged in specific social actions in Cathays to run individual Labs. These will focus on specific issues in the area and on plugging community-identified expertise and knowledge gaps.

By continuing to test, reflect, and refine our approach, we hope to create replicable models for how universities and communities can mobilise knowledge and co-produce solutions to local challenges.

By Dr Hayley Trowbridge