UMass Dartmouth Community Engaged Research Academy: Some Methods to Develop Inclusive CER

Abstract

Breakout Session 1A: The UMass Dartmouth Community Engaged Research Academy has completed two years of CER skills building, mentoring, seed funding, and other resources, with seven supported CER scholars to date. This interactive breakout session draws on the curriculum of the CER Academy to build particular skills, stakeholder analysis and mapping of needs that together chart the path to inclusive and practical CER proposals, and lead to creative, relevant approaches to grant seeking. In a stakeholder analysis, the goal is to identify who is involved in a CER issue, to what extent they are engaged at the start of the process of identifying needs to be addressed in the research, how likely they are to try to address the issue and remain involved as those who have a stake in outcomes, and what might happen post-research findings, leading to impact, implementation, and dissemination. The mapping of basic and perceived human needs (adapted from David Gil’s Unraveling Social Policy) deepens researchers’ understanding of the problems they will address, in a format that serves as a readily accessible communications tool for working with community partners. This training workshop will address stakeholder analysis, mapping basic and perceived human needs, and CER grant seeking through the analysis of a CER disparities issue as a case study. At the end of the workshop, participants will have learned a clearly articulated process for working through these essential steps toward inclusive CER, and to engage, more effectively, with community partners challenged by health disparities.