Collaboration in Action: Lessons from SPARK’s Interactive Panel at CiviCon24

In June this year, two Research Fellows (Dr Anna Skeels and Dr Sofia Vougioukalou) paired up with two non-academic partners (Dave Horton, independent Consultant / from ACE and Fateha Ahmed from EYST) to co-convene a SPARK interactive panel session at CiviCon24. The session focused on ‘Collaborative Relationships and Civic Impact’, using  the ‘fishbowl’ method.  Our aim was to explore the conditions and actions that might enable impactful, collaborative relationships to form between universities and civil society.

The Civicon24 event was targeted at leaders, professionals and academics navigating the civic landscape within higher education, as well as senior leaders driving change within their institutions. Its aim was to highlight exemplary civic initiatives and provide institutions with practical civic engagement tools.

The ‘fishbowl’ method is interactive and participatory, providing workshop participants with the option to join the panel, pose questions and direct the discussion.  As such, there is no singular expert on the topic, only a roomful of valued expertise.

Such convening, collaboration and creativity in approach are at the core of SPARK, Cardiff University’s (and the world’s first) Social Science Research Park.  SPARK co-locates world-leading social science researchers with private sector companies, public sector bodies and third sector organisations and is uniquely placed to find new ways of working to drive impactful and meaningful academic/civic engagement.

Each of the initial SPARK panel of four here share their starting provocations on collaborative relationships and civic impact.

Fateha Ahmed, BME CYP & Families Project Lead, EYST (Ethnic Minorities & Youth Support Team Wales) – Collaborating with SPARK: a successful engagement

EYST Wales had the privilege of partnering with SPARK researchers, who effectively demonstrated the value of research data using accessible formats like graphs and timelines. This approach made the information understandable, even for those with language needs, helping participants see how their contributions could secure funding and influence policy changes for ethnic minority communities.

SPARK’s openness to EYST’s insights was invaluable. They provided lunch and vouchers to recognize participants’ knowledge, and held the focus group in a familiar, comfortable space to reduce participation barriers. By covering travel costs, providing food, and offering interpreters, we created an inclusive environment where participants felt valued and safe sharing sensitive information.

Unlike many studies, we ensured ongoing engagement to maintain trust and collaboration. Special thanks to the SPARK community for delivering culturally appropriate services and fostering meaningful connections. We can use this SPARK approach to create more inclusive and effective research engagements that truly benefit and empower ethnic minority communities.

Dave Horton, Independent Consultant and ACE Learning and Training Director, ACE (Action in Caerau & Ely) – The SPARK Third Sector Research Partnership

The SPARK Third Sector Research Partnership seeks to bring academics together with small Third and Community Sector organisations to identify their evidence needs, to build their research skills and capacity through pro bono support, and to co-produce knowledge that they can use to make change in some of Cardiff’s most disadvantaged communities. This vision of research led by the aspirations of communities themselves rather than the interests of academics formed a key provocation during the session.  The values underpinning this vision inspired the use of the ‘fishbowl method’, which supported the formation of new relationships and harnessed the different types of knowledge available in the room.

Whilst many useful suggestions were shared in relation to how progress might be made in the coproduction of research with communities, perhaps most powerful of all was this collective experience of dynamic and creative conversation and of shared power.  The challenge going forward is to harness this energy through research partnerships in our communities!

Sofia Vougioukalou, Research Fellow, CARE, SPARK, Cardiff University – Contract-based researchers and sustaining civic engagement

A lot of community facing research is conducted by a largely precarious workforce employed on short-term and often part-time contracts. This makes relational continuity with community groups and third sector organisations quite challenging. This in turn leads to fractured relationships and mistrust as project-based time-limited engagement has often been seen as opportunistic and extractive. An investment in research involvement in posts embedded within core research centre staff teams (as in SPARK, CASCADE and CARE) can help overcome some of these issues allowing academic/civic relationships to continue in the longer-term.

Anna Skeels, Research Fellow, SPARK, Cardiff University – Research fellows as ‘blended professionals’

The SPARK Research Fellow role and remit is innovative in a higher education setting.  It mixes substantive convening, community-building, collaboration and civic engagement activity with personal (SPARK-aligned) research interests and outputs and is a permanent role.  SPARK Research Fellows act as ‘blended professionals’ (Whitchurch, 2009) rather than more traditional academic research fellows.  In contrast with the contract-based researcher roles above, this enables academic/civil society relationships to continue to be supported and developed in the longer-term.

These four provocations combined suggest that how academic/civil society relationships are built, who is involved and how collaboration is ‘done’ has bearing on the nature and extent of civic impact.

Using the fishbowl method, they sparked contributions from other participants in the session who stepped into the panel to raise additional provocations or to question the initial four.  Discussion topics included ‘relationship building as an art and a skill’, how students can disrupt unhelpful approaches and forge meaningful connections with universities, how universities can act ‘in the service of’ their communities.  There was also interest in and follow-up contact on the potential for SPARK to scale successful approaches across Cardiff University and beyond.