Survey analysis

The purpose of this survey was to inform the planning of the first (context-setting) seminar and the framings of the series as a whole. An initial thematic-cluster analysis was conducted based on 38 responses, however, the survey remains open until the day before the first seminar: 25th February 2015

The survey was structured around the following three sections:

• Motivations and expectations for the seminar series (including assumptions to interrogate)
• Experience of research partnerships
• Use of evidence

Motivations and expectations

QUESTION: Why are you interested in participating in the series?

1. Improving current practice

• identifying good practice/principles for partnership
• reflecting on previous practice
• learning from different perspectives (across organisations and sectors)

2. Conceptual interest in the topic

• unpacking hierarchies of knowledge/evidence regimes
• concern about what evidence is valued
• concern with misuses of evidence
• interest in dominance of Northern-led evidence
• interest in dynamics of participation
• interest in interdisciplinarity
• interest in the role of Higher Education in development

3. Interest in capacity building

• improving the organisation’s research portfolio
• identifying key research literacies/skills
• knowing where to invest research
• understanding different ways of disseminating (e.g. academic publication v policy brief)
• improving impact/civil-society engagement in Higher Education
• supporting students

QUESTION: What are your expectations/hopes for this seminar series?

1. Better conceptual understanding of partnerships

• identifying challenges
• identifying markers of success
• identifying the full range of evidence its possible to produce
• understanding of role of partnership in wider debates around HE/impact

2. Mobilising a common project

• becoming part of a new network/community of interest
• feeling solidarity with others struggling with similar issues
• developing a collective response to common challenge

3. Dialogue

• Space for critical reflection
• Understanding expectations of other partners
• Learning from different sectors

4. Outputs

• developing a “how to” of partnership
• developing resources to share with policy-makers to inspire/focus attention and contribute to ‘high level dialogue’

QUESTION: List any assumptions/stereotypes about research partnerships that you would like to unpack

1. Labels

• the terms ‘academics’ and ‘practitioners’ (and policy makers) are meaningful (clear, homogenous etc.)

2. Skills/knowledge

• Practitioners can’t be researchers (don’t have research skills/knowledge)
• NGOs provide the data and universities the theory – or NGOs provide the populations under study and academics provide the brains.
• Academics can solve NGOs problems surrounding evidence
• Practitioners respond to academic knowledge as if it is superior to their own, even if they have lots of experiential evidence that their knowledge is valid.
• Northern institutions have a stronger academic discipline than southern institutions

3. Theory/practice

• Theory is academic and abstract, it is separate from practice and does not emerge through or from practice (or underlie practice), it is an absolute.
• Academics down-play theory when working with NGOs
• Academic research is too theoretical to be useful

4. Language

• NGOs and academics speak different languages
• NGOs (and donors) simplify the research questions, whereas academics are more comfortable with complexity

5. Ways of working/relationships/personalities

• Academics are ego driven, NGO staff collaborative
• NGOs are closer to people on the ground, and understand local people and their context, whereas academics are distance and detached
• Academics are in the driving seat of these ‘research’ partnerships
• Academics are so slow, NGOs are just go go go

6. Agendas/values

• NGOs do research as a means to an end, whereas academics see research as open exploration or an end in itself.
• NGOs care about social change, academics only care about the research question
• Evaluation and research are distinct

7. Partnership

• That partnerships are always positive
• The differences in agenda, time-frames, motivations etc. are insurmountable

Experience of research partnerships

QUESTION: What factors have in your experience contributed to good participation in partnerships?

1. Common goals/understandings

• clear/shared understandings of terms/language/ideas
• clear/shared/tangible agenda
• shared politics/values
• clear/shared understanding of roles/responsibilities

2. Explicit participatory process :

• commitment to co-production
• shared credit for partnership’s accomplishments
• shared ownership of branding and outputs
• good communication
• critical reflection throughout
• explicit recognition of power dynamics
• openness to learning
• willingness to admit mistakes/compromise

3. Good relations

• Trust
• Respect
• Honesty
• Face-to-face contact
• Understanding of different institutional constraints on both sides

4. Commitment

• Interest and enthusiasm on both sides
• Time to commit
• Adequate (and equitable) funding
• Delivering on objectives
• Institutional support so that the work is valued

5. Appropriate skills

• Professionalism
• good management/planning/experienced coordinator
• appropriate research skills

6. A learning/training/capacity-building component

QUESTION: What factors have in your experience posed challenges to participation in partnerships?

1. Conflicting goals/understandings/languages/values

2. Poor communication/relations

• lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities
• insufficient/irregular/unstructured communication
• failure to re-think
• bad relations/mistrust

3. Power imbalances

• hierarchies of ‘expertise’
• unequal ownership of partnership
• tokenistic partner involvement (e.g. invitations to potential Southern partners after project has started)

4. Lack of commitment

• lack of enthusiasm
• lack of time to commit

5. Logistics

• conflicting time-scales
• different institutional capacities/infrastructures (e.g. internet)
• different time zones
• inadequate funding

6. Rigid funding requirements

• outputs preempting research design
• partnership based on opportunistic funding rather than genuine need
• Inequitable allocation of resources
• Micro-management by funders/donors
• ‘consultancy culture’ or ‘subcontracting’ types of partnerships favour alienated/individual ways of working and focus more on deliverables than process

7. Lack of skills/capacity

• Unqualified/underperforming partners
• lack of research capacity/skills/rigour
• bad management/poor planning

use of evidence

QUESTION: What are the most valuable types of evidence you draw on in your work?

Interviews/focus groups (47)

Evaluation reports (38)

Academic research (33)

Personal testimony/direct experience/observation (17)

Policy Briefs (16)

Statistical databases (15)

Systematic reviews (9)

Collaborative Action Research (8)

Newsletters/bulletins (4)

Public archives (3)

Visual data (2)

Media articles (2)

Research resources – supporting methodology (1)

Workshop documentation (1)

QUESTION: What are the least useful types of evidence to your work?

Statistical databases

• messy/unreliable
• reductionist/miss nuance
• decontextualized/depoliticized
• obscure voices /
• inaccessible without advanced skills
• (but useful as ‘background data’)

Personal testimony/anecdote

• not seen as legitimate/rigorous
• needs additional research to back-up
• less useful to central offices though can provide ‘powerful stories’

Public archives

• takes time to access
• no ‘quality control’
• less relevant to contemporary research

Media articles

• developed for other purposes (different agenda) so not research
• “fiction agents” / biased
• over-simplistic
• (though may help to identify emerging issues)

Academic research

• can be detached from practice and over-theoretical
• lack of time to read lengthy articles
• inaccessible

Evaluation

• makes grand claims/ too much focus on the positive (fundraising agendas)
• not generalizable
• often lack rigour
• Is this research???

Newsletters/bulletins

• not research
• “too slick”
• but can provide helpful links to other resources

Visual data

• not compatible with report format

Interview/FG

• no capacity (“time and academic skill”) to collect/analyse

GENERAL COMMENTS:

• Need for triangulation across different sources of evidence
• Type of evidence will depend on nature of task