Civil Society & Social InnovationVolunteer sport coaches as community assets
Principal Investigator: Dr Mark Griffiths (University of Birmingham)
2011
Community-based sport is an extensive social enterprise run, almost in its entirety, by volunteer sports coaches. A number of recent studies have suggested that participation in community sport has the potential to deliver a wide range of individual and social benefits. It is in this context that volunteer sports coaches might be viewed as valuable ‘community assets’. Read more
Community gardening, creativity and everyday culture
Principal Investigator: Prof Andrew Church (University of Brighton)
From 2010 to 2011
This project seeks to demonstrate the potential, challenges and capacity of innovative shared creative activities for developing community connections and identities through transformative experiences. It does so in the context of the everyday cultural practice of community farming and gardening. It works with communities that are involved in communal food growing in Sussex, Manchester, and inner London. Read more
Maintaining a faith community: the role of the law
Principal Investigator: Dr Ruth Gaffney-Rhys (University of Wales, Newport)
From 2012 to 2013
Legal rules may have a unifying or a divisive effect and dispute resolution mechanisms may dissipate problems and divisions or reinforce them. Furthermore, faith communities are sometimes confronted with incompatibility between their own religious laws and the secular legal system within which their community is required to operate. Read more
The university of the village: universities connecting with rural communities
Principal Investigator: Professor Michael Wilson
From 2011 to 2012
This pilot project explored new modes of delivery, enhanced through Next Generation Access Broadband, and was interested to redraw the relationship between universities and rural communities and grant access to university outreach services for those communities. The project in St Agnes resulted in delivering a short film course to the participants who collaboratively made a film about their village. Read more
Valuing Different Perspectives
Principal Investigator: Dr Peter Matthews
2014
This project will run both a community-led and academic-led evaluation of project legacy from two previous Connected Communities projects – Community Hacking 2.0 and Ladders to the Cloud. At the heart of this proposal are complex issues of power, knowledge and methodology. Within this complexity are simple binaries that can be presented as poles: positivist-interpretivist; academic-community; participatory-external; quantitative-qualitative. Read more
Song Lines to Impact and Legacy: Creating Living Knowledge through Working with Social Haunting
Principal Investigator: Geoff Bright
From 2015 to 2017
This project developed from the previous AHRC Connected Communities ECR Development Project, ‘Working with Social Haunting’ and the AHRC 2016 Festival project ‘Opening the ‘Unclosed Space’: Multiplying Ghost Labs as Intergenerational Utopian Practice’. Read more
Living Together: Re-Thinking Social Unity for a Multi-Faith Society
Principal Investigator: Dr Derek Edyvane, University of Leeds
2011
The ‘civic health’ discourse in contemporary politics presupposes an analogy between the lives of communities and the lives of individuals that is often overlooked. This report examines two prominent philosophical conceptions of the life of an individual – the ‘episodic’ and the ‘narrative’ – and considers what they can tell us about the lives of communities. Read more
Starting from Values – Evaluating Intangible Legacies
Principal Investigator: Prof. Marie Harder, University of Brighton
From 2014 to 2015
The project brings together partners from the University of Brighton and two Connected Communities project: The Authority Research Network and Scaling-Up Co-Design. Read more
Understanding everyday participation – articulating cultural values
Principal Investigator: Dr Andrew Miles (University of Manchester)
2011
This project proposes a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between participation and cultural value. We are used to thinking about the benefits of the arts as a traditional way of understanding culture and its value but what about the meanings and stakes people attach to their hobbies and pastimes? Read more
Connection, participation and empowerment in community-based research: the case of the transition movement.
Principal Investigator: Professor Rachel Pain (Durham University); Centre for Social Justice and Community Action
From 2012 to 2013
The project addressed issues identified by Transition Network through its experience of fielding interest from researchers. It documented experiences of Transition groups and researchers involved in research collaborations, created draft guidelines for Transition research, and initiated a broader project on supporting Transition groups to devise appropriate methods for monitoring and evaluation. Read more
