Electronic journal Gateways published its fourth volume in 2011, a special edition on the theme of Sustaining community-university partnerships. A collaboration between Gateways and the University of Brighton Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) in the UK, it is guest edited by Professor Angie Hart and Simon Northmore of CUPP.
The volume features articles from around the world, reflecting on projects and partnerships big and small, young and more established. A number of articles describe efforts to grow partnerships in terms of scale and degree, and ask if there is a geographic fit to sustainability. Others explore the benefits and challenges to collaborations across universities and other higher educational institutions, for example, or with seemingly disparate groups such as universities, environmental activists and health advocates.
Other contributions demonstrate the need for strategic buy-in at senior levels in universities if there is to be lasting appreciation of the scholarly value of community-engaged research.
“Rather than assume that sustainability has an intrinsic value, the aim of the special edition was to encourage contributors to reflect on their work and the concept of sustainability,” said Angie.
“Interestingly, few of the articles cite finance as a key factor in sustainability. While resources can't be ignored, establishing genuinely reciprocal relationships between partners with different levels of power, legitimacy and commitment and recognising the important contribution of each, including individual community members, seems to be more central. The creativity of the partnerships described in the articles is grounds for optimism about the sustainability of this work.”
Gateways, a joint initiative of Shopfront and the Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University, Chicago, is published by UTS ePress.