Collaboration with Caveats: Research–Practice Exchange in Planning

Abstract

Researcher and practitioner collaboration in urban planning is both critical to good outcomes and problematic to achieve in reality. Collaboration has the potential for new partnerships, better research problem definition, improved research design and greater impact on practice and policy. However, politics, stakeholder agendas and funding bodies bring pressures and constraints, for which research professionals require a broader set of skills to manage. We examine researcher–practitioner collaboration as part of an action research project on urban greening in Australia. Focusing on a stakeholder engagement workshop, we examine the mechanisms used to overcome barriers to research-practice exchange. We find overt consideration of common barriers to access and use of research when planning collaboration exercises can help facilitate more productive engagement, creating spaces for mutual understanding and generating shared objectives. However, we also find that efforts at collaboration challenge traditional research practices, involve tensions and caveats, and require a different mode of researcher engagement.

Keywords:

• Action research
• practice
• urban planning
• collaboration
• workshop
• policy
• urban greening

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the contribution of the workshop presenters and participants featured in this research.

Notes

1. This project was a two-year sub-project as part of the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes (CAUL) hub of the Australian National Environmental Science Program (NESP). https://nespurban.edu.au/