posted on 2025-12-02, 16:53authored byRachel WeissRachel Weiss, Kaitlyn Harper, Nicole Labruto, Steffanie Espat, Kaitlyn Stack Whitney, Charis Edwards, Weslynne Ashton, Roni A. Neff, Norbert L.W. Wilson, John W. Apolzan, Rosemarie Santa González
<p dir="ltr">Community-engaged research is essential for building capacity among populations who have historically been and continue to be excluded from conversations about their own well-being and the places in which they live and work. Engaging communities in research works toward racial and class equity and environmental justice. This model also has the added benefit of making research more relevant and effective by engaging community-held knowledge, without being exploitative of the people holding that knowledge.</p><p dir="ltr">This document serves to provide guidance for researchers who are in the project planning phase, and to encourage research teams to include community partners in projects, particularly in leadership roles, and to educate researchers on how to do it.</p><p dir="ltr">When developing a new project, teams should be able to use this document as a resource, read through it, and discuss whether and to what extent community partners will be involved.</p><p dir="ltr">Each of the points outlined in the guide should be discussed, considered, and reconsidered throughout each project, rather than simply checked off.</p><p dir="ltr">Like the PDF with Workbook, this version of the document includes text fields for project teams to fill out. However, this iteration may be easier for teams to edit and allows for multiple team members to edit the document at the same time. This version can be downloaded and uploaded to your Google Drive account for easy cloud-based collaboration with others.</p>
Funding
This work was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant # 2115405 SRS RN: Multiscale RECIPES (Resilient, Equitable, and Circular Innovations with Partnership and Education Synergies) for Sustainable Food Systems. Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.