Short abstract:

Despite a relational ethos of ‘power-with’ we discuss the effects of collaborative inertia in a University-Community Sector research partnership in Northeast England. We show the paradox entailed in normative expectations and the labour entailed as boundary spanning university researchers.

Long abstract:

Conceptually, partnership has ubiquitous, normative appeal, yet, the craft of collaboration is demanding, and can exhibit unequal power effects. Throughout 2023, as university researchers, we’ve been ‘collaborating’ with community organisations in Northeast England to build a community research partnership. The aim is to generate capabilities, co-develop research with communities, and improve accessibility of university knowledge and resources. We work in marginal university research endeavours, navigating differential power relations both within the university, and the small community-based organisations we are working with. We describe ourselves as boundary spanners, managing without formal power between partner organisations, but wanting to establish equitable, durable institutional relations, and reduce dependency on individuals’ efforts and precarious positions.

This paper outlines our efforts in an intensively participative, but in what has felt like, unproductive process, as we grapple to make sense of what is appropriate to do next. Despite our relational sensibility, the time involved, mistakes, learning, and challenges remain ongoing predicaments. Furthermore, our attempts to build bespoke relations have highlighted “the university” as opaque and convoluted, where managerial practices clash with claims to equity. The university's business model readily seeks partnership with other corporate actors, while community organisations remain overlooked. Our approach also does not fit well with extractive, impact-seeking research infrastructure. Finally, while the new university strategy invokes ‘world-leading’ research and employable students, it disregards its role with local communities. This context obscures the processual features of collaborating, and the disarray that can occur. Clearly ‘working together’, while easy to espouse and recommend, is arduous.