Research As Process: The Not-So-Great Divide Between Community-Based Research and Faculty Productivity

"Community-based research is often seen by university faculty and administrators as a distraction from core teaching and research responsibilities. The goal of this article is to highlight that under the right conditions, CBR and academic research and teaching are highly complementary activities. By examining the various stages of the research process, we argue that collaborative community research supports faculty productivity in at least three ways: 1) it can help researchers complete necessary tasks he or she would have to undertake for research of any kind; 2) it can be a rich source for multiple new project ideas, courses and publications; 3) and with institutional support, it can provide funding and release time for preliminary research, an important consideration given the dearth of funding for exploratory research in general."