The university as a Just anchor: universities, anchor networks and participatory research

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we connect literature on civic universities and anchor institutions with the notion of visibility to explore how universities can play more engaged roles in their areas. We introduce the concept of ‘just anchors’, which are institutions with strategies to achieve local social, economic and epistemic justice goals through collaboration in networks of other anchors and knowledge co-production with citizens. This paper is based on data from USE-IT!, an ERDF-funded programme that developed mechanisms to build social resilience in inner-city wards of Birmingham, the second-largest city in England. Our findings show that co-production empowers citizens, and that universities are well-placed to facilitate and benefit from the outputs of this process. Based on the experience of delivering a community researcher training scheme, we reflect on the potential of universities to be more visible to, and facilitate the visibility of, marginalised groups, introducing a new theoretical concept into the literature on universities as anchor institutions. We also draw further lessons from USE-IT! to offer practice-based recommendations to other universities seeking to activate their role as just anchors.

KEYWORDS:

• Community engagement
• coproduction
• participation
• social inequality
• university practices

Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Anne Green and Professor John Goddard of the University of Birmingham for their comments on drafts of this article. We also give thanks to the reviewers of this article who helped us to improve the quality of our analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

‘USE-IT! – Unlocking Social and Economic Innovation Together’ was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (grant number UIA01-004).