Collaborative community research dissemination and networking: Experiences and challenges

Abstract

This article reports on the experiences of a community-university research partnership with young people’s arts organisations that disseminated their collaborative work on resilience at a Research Showcase event held in Cardiff in June 2014. Through interviews with the young people and their collaborators, and critical reflection on our collective experiences, this article identifies some of the challenges and logistical issues that were encountered in the planning and implementation of the creative ‘Resilience House’ exhibit. We argue that the not often discussed nitty-gritty of this work needs to be brought to the foreground to help make collaborative research meaningfully inclusive if ideals of ‘cross-connection’ and a ‘new public knowledge landscape’ are to be realised. For example, we identify the potential developmental benefits to young people (rather simply framed as ‘participants’) of being involved in research dissemination, but that factoring in time, shaping expectations of all contributors, training contributors to speak to the public about their work, ensuring appropriate sub-forums are constructed and attended, discussing different cultures of language and ensuring basic needs are met are key foundations that need to be built on in future collaborative dissemination activity.