Research-Practice Partnerships in Times of Need
I am struggling — like many others in my small bubble (researchers and professors in higher education) — with a myriad of questions about how we could best be of service to the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Should I shut down or amend my research activities? Should I write that op-ed and talk to that reporter about my work, or help my daughter understand her 2nd grade, remote-learning assignment? How do I hold space to take care of my family in all the ways that we need? How can I utilize my privileges in life and the academy to help my local community in concrete ways?
My own personal tensions are a microcosm for bigger questions about how universities can be of service right now. I think the typically known roles of universities are really important in these times. We are a place: where science and data can help inform society; where new ideas can arise to help the world make sense of this time; that can be a model for how to hopefully act responsibly as organizations (e.g. my university quickly enacted physical distancing measures and worked to support professors to move to online forms of instruction).
Beyond being just thought leaders however… there are other impactful ways that those of us in the academy could also actively help our local communities.
I’ve been lucky to be part of a unique project called OCEAN — Orange County Educational Advancement Network — where our UCI School of Education creates Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) with local public schools. The elevator pitch I give to describe the initiative, is that we fund a graduate student to be embedded in a local school, where they develop research that arises directly from the needs of that community.
The idea of an RPP means many things for different people. For some, the idea of partnership means that a researcher has a ready-made location to conduct their studies. For others, a partnership means that we can have a direct channel for “evidence” to trickle down to schools and teachers, so they can use our research finally. For others, the partnership is akin to community service, where folks in the university help out in some way, but it’s not related to our core work of scholarship.
For me, the secret sauce… the real power of an RPP, arises when enough time and elbow grease has been put in, where all the members of the partnership have a good relationship.
My colleagues Erin Henrick and Don Peurach wrote in their own reflection on RPPs that:
“Because researchers working in RPPs typically spend time and energy developing relationships and connections, mutual trust and “ways of working together” that have already been established may support shifting research plans and study designs to address new challenges.”
This notion seems so abstract and wishy-washy, especially in a results-driven environment of a research-university. But being part of an OCEAN partnership school, and experiencing this pandemic over the last few weeks, really made clear what superpowers a good RPP can have.
What can a good foundation of RPP relationships unlock? Here are some of the small, but impactful ways, that the graduate students and faculty in our OCEAN initiative have been responding to the needs of our partner schools. I hope these may seed ideas for other RPPs and open up sharing of more ideas. I also hope that these bullet points illuminate how RPPs are a uniquely powerful way for universities to make significant impact in the world, in addition to playing the traditional role as a place for knowledge.
Developing these RPPs takes work, sweat, and tears. It takes dollars and infrastructure. The details of “how” to do RPPs will be for other posts, but I mention this here because I’m thankful in this moment for the private donors, the Dean’s office of our School of Education, the staff, graduate students, and faculty who do this work at UCI.
- On one team, researchers and the school principal are jointly writing guidelines and best practices for supporting special education students in remote learning. This is a major blind spot and area of critical need right now.
- Graduate students and faculty are collecting survey instruments and other data collection ideas, to share with local schools that want to track and learn more about students’ mental health, food security, changes in behavior, sources of information, and experiences with remote learning during this extremely challenging time.
- Some partnerships are continuing their existing research projects, presenting results to boards of directors and educators, and assisting with plans to collect data and inform school practices, even remotely while sheltering in place.
- Partnerships are sending weekly emails to school partners to both socially check-in and keep tabs on our collective well-being, but also quickly share resources and information as they come out of our university communities. Being an information channel, from university to the world, through direct relationships is a small but impactful role we can play.
- Some graduate students have been able to do ad-hoc reviews of research to inform key issues that our school partners are facing, such as what we know about online education and supporting students’ social and emotional well-being.
- Researchers can become participants in their partner school’s activities — joining teacher zoom calls for example — and being a just-in-time emotional/social support and resource as our awesome educators are making decisions on the ground.
