{"id":7834,"date":"2018-09-04T10:52:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T14:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/?p=7834"},"modified":"2018-09-13T15:11:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T19:11:11","slug":"so-you-want-to-apply-for-a-sshrc-partnership-grant-how-can-you-respectfully-involve-your-community-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/2018\/so-you-want-to-apply-for-a-sshrc-partnership-grant-how-can-you-respectfully-involve-your-community-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"So you want to apply for a SSHRC partnership grant\u2026 How can you respectfully involve your community partners?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chelsea Nash, Communications Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Being ‘community first’ means engaging and involving community partners at all stages of the partnership, even the application process. When the CFICE team was putting together its SSHRC application several years ago, the application process presented one of the first opportunities to put the \u2018community first\u2019 ethos into action.<\/p>\n

With so many partners involved in CFICE, (at least a dozen universities and 60+ community-based organizations), finding a project design, structure, and common goals across the project posed a challenge, but over the course of the six years of this project, CFICE leaders have learned to put community first through practice.<\/p>\n

CFICE spoke to its current Principal Investigator, Peter Andr\u00e9e, and one of the community partners from the Poverty Reduction Hub, Liz Weaver of Tamarack Institute in Waterloo, to gain their insight into how best to formulate a SSHRC partnership grant application while respectfully involving your community-based organization (CBO) partners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sharing ideas at the Ottawa CCE Regional Roundtable.<\/p><\/div>\n

Start with existing relationships <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before you can think about submitting a SSHRC partnership grant application, you need to know who your partners will be. In CFICE\u2019s case, most community partnerships arose out of pre-existing relationships and networks. CFICE\u2019s original Principal Investigator (PI) Ted Jackson approached the Tamarack Institute, for instance, because he already had a relationship with them from his work in the community development sector.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>

CFICE Principal Investigator, Peter Andree.<\/p><\/div>\n

Peter Andr\u00e9e, the current PI for CFICE, was originally involved in the project as the academic co-lead for the Community Food Security<\/a> hub. Through his academic research on food security, Andr\u00e9e had an established network of contacts in that field, and it was through this network that he recruited Food Secure Canada<\/a> to be a part of CFICE. Andr\u00e9e said in an interview that connecting with partners in the early stages of the project \u201cwas a bit of an organic process\u201d involving the lead academics and the Canadian Alliance for Community Service Learning (CACSL) drawing on their networks.<\/p>\n

While you might begin with relationships you\u2019ve already built, that does not mean that those you first approach will necessarily be the right fit. \u201cThe question then becomes how much you can ask of [the community partner],\u201d Andr\u00e9e says. \u201cIt\u2019s often about your networks, but then don\u2019t take that relationship for granted…really try and figure out if this is going to be of value [for them] or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Community partners are often asked to write letters of support in the context of a partnership grant application, but Andr\u00e9e says this isn\u2019t something you want to ask them for right away. \u201cRather, you first have to have a conversation about what would be in this for you, and what would be in this for me, and how can we make sure that your time is valued and how can this be reciprocal?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Those initial conversations, of which there might be several, are the key to hashing out things like the responsibilities involved in the project and the potential benefits for each partner. If it\u2019s a SSHRC partnership grant you\u2019re applying for, don\u2019t forget that the project is a research project at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it can serve other ends for community organizations, it ultimately needs to be this knowledge generation, synthesis project, so if that is not of interest to them, then you have to have those conversations early on\u201d in order to determine if the partnership will be a good fit, says Andr\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

Consult partners from the get-go <\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"Portrait<\/a>Liz Weaver, the Co-CEO of the community-based organization the Tamarack Institute<\/a>, was a community co-lead in CFICE\u2019s Poverty Reduction<\/a> hub in Phase I of the project. She says CFICE helped the folks at the Tamarack Institute feel respected and included in the application process by involving them in the initial design of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what was really important was the whole notion of community-first,\u201d Weaver told CFICE in a recent interview. For CFICE, \u201ccommunity-first\u201d means fostering equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge that can then be applied to benefit the community context.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt I was informed at every stage of how the process was moving forward\u2026there were lots of emails back and forth with community partners about where the proposal was at,\u201d Weaver said. Then, when the CFICE project got to the interview stage of the SSHRC proposal, community partners were invited to be a part of that process as well.<\/p>\n

As a community partner outside of the academic sphere, Weaver said the SSHRC application itself can be a bit \u201cdaunting,\u201d but that \u201cthe people at Carleton [University] were quite helpful in terms of navigating [that].\u201d<\/p>\n

Exchanging as much information as possible and providing assistance with the application process when needed can make your CBO feel included and involved without feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Align shared goals <\/strong><\/h2>\n

As part of those early conversations, ensuring that partners are on the same page as to the broader goals of the project, and what they hope to get out of the project for their individual organization or research, is an important step in ensuring that expectations are aligned.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of what\u2019s implicit in how we work needs to be made explicit, so that everybody understands the parameters that everybody\u2019s working with,\u201d says Andr\u00e9e. For instance, if an academic partner is looking to get tenure in the next five years, \u201cthat\u2019s got to be on the table,\u201d Andr\u00e9e says. \u201cWhat do you need to get tenure? If that\u2019s a certain number of publications, how does that fit in with what you\u2019re planning to do with your community partners?\u201d Expectations that might seem like they are outside of the partnership, but that could influence one\u2019s involvement in the project, need to be acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Weaver said \u201cthe group has to buy into the shared agenda\u201d of the research project, and thought maybe that was something that was lacking within CFICE\u2019s Phase I. \u201cI think we circled around the shared agenda a lot, and then each of the hubs did their own thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Both Weaver and Andr\u00e9e identified the need to be in partnership with an organization as a whole, rather than just one person within that organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cChances are people who are still doing the work five years later are not the people who started, and so there needs to be an institutional commitment to the value of the work for that organization,\u201d Andr\u00e9e says.<\/p>\n

And, if you do have organizational or institutional support, and you have aligned goals and expectations, Weaver adds that something else to consider is your partners\u2019 state of readiness. \u201cIf you want [the project] to get off the ground quickly, then you want to have groups that have good relationships and people who make decisions relatively quickly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Negotiate power and governance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Over the course of CFICE, face-to-face meetings have been found to be integral to the success of partnership projects. These meetings allow honest and frank discussions to take place and can be helpful to address more difficult topics such as power imbalances. Weaver says the first face-to-face meeting for all CFICE partners did not happen until after the funding was secured and the logistics and structure of the project was already in place. She suggests that in hindsight, this might have been done differently, so that the main \u2018hub\u2019 structure of the CFICE project could have been better communicated to community partners.<\/p>\n

While Weaver said community partners might have been more involved in deciding the overall project structure, when it came to the individual hubs, \u201cwe were able\u2014both community and academic\u2014to make decisions fairly quickly with the design of that project.\u201d Weaver said the independence that was afforded to the hubs, in her case the Poverty Reduction hub, was helpful to the community partners and allowed them to have a driving voice behind the work.<\/p>\n

Identifying areas where community partners will take the lead in terms of decision making and governance, and outlining areas that fall into the academic purview is important to ensure power dynamics are addressed and relationships are as equitable as possible.<\/p>\n

For instance, within the SSHRC partnership grant, the PI, an academic, is ultimately responsible for budgeting and management of funds. That means that they will hold a certain degree of power and governance in the project. It is important to acknowledge this role and how it may impact the partnership in the context of these early conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

Too Long, Didn\u2019t Read? Quick tips for submitting a community first SSHRC application:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Ensure you give yourself enough time<\/strong> to submit a thoughtful application for which all partners have been consulted. If you\u2019re rushing, you\u2019re probably having to make unilateral decisions that could have a lasting impact on your project.<\/li>\n
  • Build on networks you already have<\/strong>. Having a pre-existing relationship with community partners was found to be key within the CFICE project. Those relationships became the backbone for frank and honest discussions about the direction of the project.<\/li>\n
  • Ask important questions<\/strong>, like how ready will your partner be to move forward on this project once funding is granted? Have conversations early and often.<\/li>\n
  • Discuss shared and core goals. <\/strong>Without explicitly identifying the shared goals of the project with all partners, you may leave room for misunderstandings to occur, or for partners to lack an understanding of the project\u2019s true purpose. Remember, with a SSHRC project, advancing research is the primary goal.<\/li>\n
  • Evaluate fit.<\/strong> Based on a combination of the above factors, you should be able to evaluate whether or not your chosen partners are the right fit for the project. This may seem obvious, but is key for the success of the project. If partners are expecting to get one thing out of the project, but the project goals are oriented differently, these gaps in expectations could be trouble down the road. Evaluating the fit of your partners with your project well in advance of your application gives you time to ensure you have the best partner(s) for the project!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Chelsea Nash, Communications Research Assistant Being ‘community first’ means engaging and involving community partners at all stages of the partnership, even the application process. When the CFICE team was putting together its SSHRC application several years ago, the application process presented one of the first opportunities to put the \u2018community first\u2019 ethos into action. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[85,86,87,88,90,1,95,605],"tags":[723,130,520,799,177,113,214],"yoast_head":"\nSo you want to apply for a SSHRC partnership grant\u2026 How can you respectfully involve your community partners? - Community First<\/title>\n<meta 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