This blogpost summarises a set of principles for supporting lecturers to build Community Engaged Research and Learning into their teaching. The principles were devised by a group of lecturers, community partners, students, and community engagement coordinators, all interested in community engagement in the curriculum in higher education, beginning with a participatory workshop at the 9th Living Knowledge Conference 2022 in Groningen. The workshop was about effectively designing professional development programmes to support lecturers to build Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) into the curriculum. It was facilitated by members of the Erasmus+ CIRCLET project team, together with lecturers who were participants in the CIRCLET Continuing Professional Development programmes.1

During the workshop, the CIRCLET team facilitated a discussion on how we can most effectively design supports for lecturers to build Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) into their teaching. A brief case study on the CIRCLET newly designed supports for lecturers across Europe was presented. After introducing the new supports and describing the thinking behind them, facilitators asked participants to think about what they had learned from any supports or initiatives they had been involved in (either as coordinators or participants), and from their own experiences of doing, or supporting, CERL.

Through individual reflection and sharing of experiences, during the workshop and afterwards in a collaborative writing process, the participants and facilitators collectively developed the following diagram and Key Principles to guide and support lecturers starting to build CERL into their teaching. We hope you will find them useful!

Figure 1 - The circles of CERL (Community Engaged Research and Learning)

Key Principles

Building relationships, trust and partnerships

The first step in any CERL project is a conversation – with your CERL support team, with a lecturing colleague who’s doing CERL, or with a community partner who you think you might like to work with, and might like to work with you.

Make time and space to work together with CERL community partners, and to clarify a common vision.

Clarify the concept of partnership – make sure to form reciprocal partnerships that don’t reproduce the same old knowledge hierarchies.

Build a sense of trust and security in partnership with all participants - conscious awareness of differences and common purposes, combined with heart.

Engage management colleagues at the planning stages – to enhance the culture of the university by including societal impact as a core value or goal, not just in research strategies but also in teaching and learning strategies.

Look for support in your discipline. Share experiences with others, informally or in coaching or mentoring relationships.