PhD Structured Engagement

Community-University Research Partnerships for PhD Students: A First for NUI Galway

NUI Galway is the first university in Ireland to offer postgraduate students the opportunity to apply their discipline-specific knowledge and skills to the design, conduct and reporting of a community-engaged research project. From September 2011, PhD students will have the option of working in small teams to address the research needs of voluntary or community organisations, as a credit-bearing module in a postgraduate research programme.

This module is one of the outcomes of the Community-Engaged Research in Action project (CORA), which was led by Dr Padraig MacNeela (School of Psychology), Dr Josephine Boland (School of Education), from the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies, and Fintan Maher (Director of Development and Communications, COPE Galway). CORA aims to further enhance sustainable and collaborative research partnerships between the university and community - a process which began with COPE Galway.

The CORA research development event attracted participants from local community groups and academics from a range of disciplines at NUI Galway and the University of Limerick, demonstrating the widespread interest in working more closely together in the future (see Photo; CAPTION: Dr James Browne with organisers and participants at CORA Research Development Event held in NUI Galway in December, 2010). In opening the event, the President of NUI Galway, Dr James Browne, said that "the project offers the opportunity to realise many of the goals of the university in relation to engagement and partnership with our local community".

The module, "Engaging with the Community: Research Practice and Reflection", was subsequently designed to support postgraduate students in learning the practice of community-engaged research, bringing together colleagues such as Dr Jamie Goggins (College of Engineering and Informatics), Dr Anne McFarlane (College of Medicine and Health Sciences), and Tomas and Mary De Brun (Centre for Participatory Studies).

This research initiative builds further on the international reputation NUI Galway enjoys for supporting civic engagement. The Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) and ALIVE volunteering programme support thousands of students each year who work with community and voluntary groups. With the implementation of this module, we aim to build on this success by developing PhD students' research skills in an applied, real world setting to meet a community need.

For further details, contact:Dr Padraig MacNeela, School of Psychology, NUI Galway, +353 91 495121, padraig.macneela@nuigalway.ieDr Josephine Boland, School of Education, NUI Galway, +353 91 3857, josephine.boland@nuigalway.ie