Research & Scholarship Community Engagement Resources

Engaged scholarship involves a variety of research and dissemination activities, vital to the mission of higher education, that are intentional, mutually beneficial, and connect deeply with a community or public audiences through teaching, research, and/or dissemination.

Engaged scholarship is often multi-disciplinary, involving scholars and community partners across traditionally siloed disciplines and domains. This type of scholarship often integrates research, teaching, and/or service in ways that are hard to fit into traditional paradigms. In addition, the work can require significant relationship-building to create long-term trusting relationships or substantial investment in community work, to connect with various publics. 

Engaged scholarship generates a variety of products, some of which have not traditionally been recognized in the tenure and promotion process because they are not published in peer reviewed venues.

Although public scholarship like opinion pieces or news articles that interview and quote scholars are generally recognized as important contributions to society, there are less well established assessment standards for the scholarly products of engaged research – including reports, briefs, websites, maps and story maps, theories of action, social media campaigns, community-based convenings, community-based art and creative works, collaborative art and performance, engaged technology and tech solutions, and others.

In addition, engaged scholarly products may include multiple co-authors and co-conveners, including community partners who contribute to the work in significant ways.

View the unedited recording of our first Campus + Community event, Valuing Engaged Scholarship in the Tenure and Promotion Process. (Note, we had some technical difficulties at the start, which will be fully apparent in the video. Apologies, and thanks for sticking with us!)