This document provides information about a research development workshop on connected communities, cultures, health and well-being. It discusses the goals of understanding changing community cultures and connectivity, and exploring how cultural and creative activities can promote health and well-being. The workshop aims to stimulate innovative, cross-disciplinary research ideas and new partnerships to address challenges in these areas. Funding opportunities are available for developing project ideas and follow-up activities.

1. Welcome to the
Connected Communities Programme
Communities, Cultures, Health & Well-Being
Research Development Workshop

2. Connected Communities Programme
Communities, Cultures, Health & Well-Being
Research Development Workshop
19-21 September 2011, The Angel Hotel, Cardiff, Wales
Gary Grubb, Associate Director of Programmes, AHRC
G.Grubb@AHRC.ac.uk
www.connectedcommunities.ac.uk

3. Connected Communities Programme:
Connecting Research for Flourishing Communities
Evolving Programme Vision
To mobilise the potential for
increasingly inter-connected,
culturally diverse, communities
to enhance participation,
prosperity, sustainability,
health & well-being by better
connecting research,
stakeholders and communities.

4. What do we mean by Community?
Evolving approach but see communities as:
“dynamic processes through which groups come together, through
choice or necessity, to share some common bonds or values or to co-
operate and interact over a sustained period of time in pursuit of a
collective need or interest in particular issues or outcomes.
Communities may be real or imagined, may share a virtual or
physical environment and/or may share aspects of identity (such as
location, race, ethnicity, age, history, practice), culture, belief or
other common bonds, connections or interests but may also
transform over time, be culturally diverse and involve significant
dissent and conflict”.

5. What do we mean by Community?
• Importance of temporal as well as spatial dimensions
• Recognise that there are many forms of community
e.g. ascribed, elective, imagined, transient, etc
• Consider both the positive and negative aspects
• Interested both in the relationships within
communities and the interactions between
communities (past and present) and their outcomes
for broader society and economy.
• Applicants expected to explain the ways in which
they are using the term community and thinking
about issues of connectedness and to justify why this
is appropriate for their proposed research

6. Why Connected? – Research Issues
Currently, in terms of the research:
• Improve understanding of both the changing connections between
individuals & groups within communities & the connections between
different communities and their implications for future society.
• Examine the connections between communities and their broader
cultures, histories, beliefs and environments (including spaces, places
and institutions) and how this can help inform future community-
based approaches.
• Explore connections between research issues often considered in
isolation to deliver more integrated understanding of the roles of, and
impacts on, communities.

7. A Connected Approach
• Connect UK and international
research.
• Connect researchers, organisations
and communities in the co-
production of knowledge and
knowledge exchange.
• Connect research funders to enhance
co-ordination and alignment of
activities and promote partnerships
and collaboration to maximise added
value from the currently highly
fragmented research field and
address strategic gaps

8. A Connected Approach
Currently, in terms of how the
programme will add value:
• Connect previous research (synthesis,
review, etc)
• Connect researchers, knowledge,
approaches and data from across
disciplines to deliver more integrated
understanding and promote cross-
disciplinary research
• Connect to RCUK Programmes (e.g.
Digital Economy, Lifelong Health &
Well-being, LWEC, Global
Uncertainties, Energy)

9. Incorporation of Distinctive Arts
and Humanities Perspectives
Religions – Beliefs – History - Custom – Ritual – Narrative -
Tradition – Law – Experience - Heritage - Values –
Attachment – Belonging – Feelings – Emotions - Ideas –
Purpose & Meaning – Ethics – Protest – Symbolism –
Iconography – Representation - Fashion – Design -
Culture – Consumption - Music – Performance –
Migration – Identities – Diaspora – Archives – Writing –
Beauty – Aesthetics – Art – Creativity - Critique

10. Addressing Cross-Cutting Themes: Understanding
Changing Connectivity & Communities
Some fundamental cross-cutting questions & issues:
• What are communities for in modern societies? How
have community values & identities changed over
time? How do they contribute to quality of life?
What do flourishing communities look like? What
can we learn from history & different cultures?
• Changing connections within and between
communities. Inter-relationships, identities, rituals,
narratives and networks. Ties to traditions,
institutions & places. Trans-national communities.
• Understanding communities as dynamic & complex
cultural systems
• Factors shaping changing communities – interfaces
between technological, environmental, social,
cultural & economic factors

11. Programme Themes & Activities
Understanding Changing Community Cultures and Histories & Patterns of
Connectivity within & between Communities
Current Reviews & 2011 Summit
Community Sustainable Community
Community
Community creativity community cultures,
values,
health and prosperity & environments, diversity,
participation,
well-being regeneration places and cohesion,
self-reliance
Creative spaces exclusion &
and resilience
Workshop & economy Possible conflict
ESRC/ AHRC
Follow-up workshop & workshop & UK/US
joint call
2011 follow-up Follow-up workshop
2011
2010 2012? 2011
Connecting Research on Communities
Summit 2011
Connecting Research with Communities & other Organisations, Stimulating Research
Partnerships and Enhanced Harvesting of Research for Impact
Partnership Activities & Summit 2011

12. Programme
Cultural Change
Themes Connecting Research with
Communities and other organisations Environmental Change
Overview Co-production Harvesting for Impact
Partnership Changing
Co-design Identities Civility Health
Language &
Beliefs Customs Power Narrative Communication
Democratic Renewal Virtual Communities
Community values,
Volunteering participation, Heritage
Community Arts self-reliance & resilience Sustainable Cultural
Conflict community Institutions
Understanding environments, Design
Social Innovation Changing places
Mobility
Community Community Cultures,
Summit 2011 Follow-Up Funding & spaces Beauty
cultures, Histories & Patterns of
1. Small Follow-up Grantsgg
Networks Adaptation
diversity, cohesion Connectivity within &
Youth
exclusion & between Communities Community Entrepreneurship
creativity
Diasporas conflict prosperity & Creative
Voice Community
Community regeneration
Crime Economies
health and
Gang Culture well-being Clusters
Political Ageing
Change Belonging Loneliness & Community Care Communities
isolation Mental Health
Social Change Cross-disciplinary International
Innovation Economic Change
Globalisation Collaborations
Connecting Research on Communities Technological Change

13. Key Features of Connected Communities
Projects
Some ideas from the Summit in June 2010
High quality research as a given, but also:
• Sustainable engagement with real communities from the outset
to beyond project life; communities involved in identifying
challenges and possible solutions; partnership working; innovative
approaches to co-production.
• Ideas of connectedness and disconnectedness, fluidity of complex
relationships between individuals, within communities and
between communities; both positive and negative dimensions of
‘connectedness’.
• Prepared to consider complex underlying issues and questions
such as ethics, power, rights, equity, nature of benefits and
burdens, sustainability, well-being.

14. Key Features of Connected Communities
Projects
Some ideas from the Summit in June 2010
• Grounded in deep understanding of communities as diverse &
complex cultural phenomena but seeking to draw wider
transferable or generalisable insights.
• Draws together insights from different research approaches
/different disciplines/ different research & policy domains.
• Crucial role of comparative and historical dimensions.
• Develops novel approaches to long-standing challenges or
understanding new cultural phenomena.
• Focus on communities (variably defined) as the prime unit of
analysis but not forgetting the ‘bigger picture’.

15. Key Features of Connected Communities
Projects
Some ideas from the Summit in June 2010
• Relevant to strengthening well-being in communities and to
policy & practice.
• Builds on past research, understanding and current evidence
base, ‘not reinventing the wheel’ but developing
transformative approaches.
• Focus on change and processes of change; forward looking
but informed by the past.
• Explores creative approaches – looking at ‘what could be’ as
well as ‘what is’.

16. Key Features of Programme Projects
Some further ideas from the 2011 Summit
• Exploits the benefits of inter-disciplinary research but not
interdisciplinary for interdisciplinary’s sake
• Innovative / something not done before / not boring! / some element
of ‘edge’
• Not constrained to produce predictable outcomes / allows for higher
risk research which may not produce the ‘expected’ results
• Ideas driven
• Sets new agenda
• Transparent methodologies
• Has relevance beyond the specific case studies
• Builds upon existing knowledge.
• Engages with stakeholders alive and dead
• Should have pathways to potential impact embedded within the project
• Methods to assess the impacts upon communities built into the design
• Benefits from insights from the arts and humanities

17. Aims and Focus for this Workshop
We hope the workshop will stimulate the
development of innovative ideas for transformative,
cross-disciplinary, community-engaged research
consortia, combining arts and humanities expertise
with other research disciplines and community, policy
and practice partners, to pursue the challenges and
opportunities of supporting enhanced health and
well-being in community contexts.

18. Policy and Research Context

19. Flourishing People, Connected Communities, A Framework for
Developing Well-Being, Department of Health 2009

20. Examples of Possible Challenges
• What role does participation in community-based cultural and creative
activities and ‘cultural connectivity’ play in promoting purpose & meaning
in life and in enhancing mental health & well-being?
• How can an understanding of community histories, cultures and values
inform more targeted and better designed community-based initiatives and
services that meet the health and caring needs of specific local or cultural
communities (e.g. youth, ageing, disability, ethnic, faith, diasporic
communities)?
• How can cultural and creative activities help to engage communities with
the challenges of promoting healthier behaviours and lifestyles (e.g. mental
or physical exercise, better diets etc), in the co-design, co-production and
co-delivery of services and in tackling addictive behaviours (e.g. drug and
alcohol mis-use)?
• How might it be possible to enhance the role that creative and cultural
institutions, community organisations and/or cultural heritage play in
supporting the health and well-being of communities and to better
understand any associated value and benefits for communities?

21. Examples of Possible Challenges
• Engaging with diverse cultural communities
in all stages of the research to develop
flourishing communities which support
enhanced health and well-being
• Innovative methods and approaches to
capturing and assessing in a more holistic
way the value and benefits (and any dis-
benefits) of interventions and community-
based cultural initiatives

22. The Challenges
• These are just examples. Aims of the workshop
are to identify challenges and develop creative
approaches to addressing them
• We do not have a pre-determined idea of the
types of projects or approaches, topics etc that
should emerge, but we do have an idea of the
types of things we are looking for in follow-up
proposals...

23. An Opportunity
To “do something different to make a difference”
An opportunity for:
• Creativity, innovation, imagination – projects should look
different from previous research (but build on current
knowledge & understanding)
• Novel cross-disciplinary / Cross-Research Council
collaborations including arts & humanities perspectives
• Exploring new partnerships with policy / practice /
business / voluntary sector & communities
• Putting communities at the heart of the research
• Co-design & co-production of research
• Projects with the potential to move beyond single case
studies to make a significant difference to research
landscape, policy, practice and communities

24. A Unique Funding Opportunity
• Longer and larger research projects (up to 5
years, £1.5m FEC) (plus co-funding opportunities)
• Development funding up to £15k to support
development of promising ideas for large
projects
• Follow-up funding up to £40k for other
development activities (scoping, piloting,
reviewing, networking, engaging, etc activities)
• Unconstrained by Research Council boundaries
but with Arts and Humanities research
perspectives playing a central role.

25. Follow-Up Funding
• We want to capture ideas and energy from the workshop
and exploit opportunities for collaboration & adding value
to our current portfolio
• Activities could include:
- networking events (e.g. seminars, workshops, on-line fora);
- knowledge exchange and dissemination activities (e.g.
conferences, joint publications, policy briefings);
- people exchanges / secondments;
- joint scoping studies / pilot projects (e.g. to test
exploratory research methods / approaches);
- joint reviews / syntheses of research;
- community engagement activities;
- collaborative training activities

26. Follow-Up Funding
• Funding up to £40,000 available to summit participants, to
start February 2012 and run for up to a year
• Should be cross-disciplinary, including a significant arts and
humanities contribution, but can cross the remits of Councils
• Stakeholder & community engagement activities expected
• Must involve at least two workshop participants & two
institutions but can involve any number of other
collaborators (academic/ non-academic, international etc...)
• Applications through Jes, closing date 23rd November 2011,
outcomes January 2012.
• Light touch peer review

27. Roles at the Workshop
• Speakers – Provide context, suggest ideas, stimulate debate...
• Facilitator -Simon Wilson – guide us through the workshop
and help us to get the most out of it...
• Participants – suggest ideas, be open to new ideas and
feedback, be prepared to take some risks and move outside
comfort zones, develop the research agenda, discuss
comment and question, provide and respond to feedback,
network, collaborate, enjoy ...
• Challenge Panel – provide advice on emerging ideas, help to
identify most promising ideas for development with the most
potential to contribute to the aims of the Programme,
provide feedback, ask questions, challenge...
• Research Council staff – help facilitate the meeting, advise,
answer questions etc.

28. Roles at the Workshop –
Challenge Panel
• Gary Grubb AHRC (Panel chair)
• Margret Meagher, Arts and Health Australia
• David Buchanan, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
• Phil Taverner, Assistant Director NETSCC - Public Health
Research and Health Services Research, University of
Southampton
• Mike Locke, Volunteering England
• Eleanor Marks, Welsh Government (Weds only)
• Katie Finch, MRC

29. Roles at the Workshop –
Research Council staff
• AHRC, MRC, EPSRC and ESRC staff - help facilitate,
link to other research activities and provide advice
• Adam Walker, Gemma Broadhurst and other AHRC
colleagues – advice on post workshop follow-up
funding application process
• Samantha Roythorne and AHRC colleagues –
logistical and workshop arrangements, T&S claims
etc.