Work with communities

Bringing community groups into research projects can achieve fantastic results: diversifying knowledge, inspiring learning, empowering voices, and reframing public debate. We have a wealth of experience in matching research projects with ideal community groups and managing the relationship, ensuring it is beneficial for all parties.

Our service in working with communities is for individual researchers, teams of academics, or research organisations who need to find community groups to collaborate with.

Contact us if you would like expert advice on how to identify the ideal community group, establish excellent working practices, and manage the relationship effectively.

Why work with us?

Bring external knowledge, skills, and experience into your research project, generating new ideas and broadening the scope and reach of your work.

Achieve social impact by working with communities to reframe public debate.

Empower community voice, bringing underrepresented people into formal research.

Achieve more inclusive and representative knowledge outcomes, working in partnership the communities your research is intended to speak to.

In practice

The example below shows working with communities in practice.

Case Study: AIAI – Artificial Intelligence, Art, and Indigeneity

Research Context

Our work with indigenous communities in Brazil led us to ask two very important questions: How accurately are AI image generation tools able to represent life within those communities? What does the accuracy of those images mean for communities facing misrepresentation and struggling to defend their rights?

Working with communities

We brought together indigenous artists, academics, community leaders, writers, and NGOs from across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Chile to collaborate with us in addressing our research questions. We created a private AI image generation platform for all parties to experiment with, facilitated group critique sessions, and hosted an exhibition of selected results to spark public debate.

Research Impact

This project generated numerous exciting and impactful outputs including publications, such as a toolkit for values-informed medical humanities research, and practical outputs, such a performance that allowed a dancer to generate audio through their movements.

The experimental research activities we facilitated have changed the working practices of our partner organisations. For instance, a charity working with adults who have learning differences are now embracing immersive technologies as an educational tool.

Working Together

We collaborate with researchers, research support teams, and organisations working with research. Our partnership can begin at any point in the project. We are happy to become a formal partner, or provide an ad hoc advisory service.

Book a meeting with us now.