The Scholarship of Engagement for Politics: - Higher Education ...

The Community-Based Research Initiative at Oxford Brookes University
Ex-service personnel homelessness
The RBL is very keen to promote the issue of rural ex-service personnel
homelessness to key sectors in homeless service provision and policymaking.
Therefore we hope to be able to assist in the coming year. Our
willingness and RBL’s intent to work with us again has been
communicated, and we hope to progress towards new proposals in the
coming months.
Neighbourhood Police Project
We hope to remain involved in the area of consultation as we made such
positive contributions through our student involvement in the first year.
Structural implementation of the CBR initiative would allow greater
engagement in this area through survey analysis by students in research
methods modules in SS&L. We have continued to discuss various potential
research criteria and means of progression with the police.
Reflections and evaluation
In June 2009, Oxford Brookes hosted a conference to present and discuss
the student work and future proposals and to draw suggestions and ideas
for the coming academic year. The visual and written representations of
student research were well received by Oxford Brookes’ staff, community
partners and members of the public. This event portrayed a cross-section
of the initiative from proposals and rationale discussed by our partners
and ourselves, and then discussion with students on how their work
progressed and came to fruition. The event closed with a discussion on the
future direction of the CBR initiative. The issues and queries raised were as
follows:
• How does the work on the CBR initiative feed into the broader
issues of community life in Oxford such as social deprivation?
• Are and how are the coordinating team planning to ensure that
the research partnerships that recruit students for one or two
years at a time remain sustainable and longitudinal?
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