Elizabeth Goodyear highlights how the unsung individuals—boundary-spanners, knowledge mobilisers, and empathetic leaders—are the hidden glue holding successful university-community partnerships together through their essential, often unrecognised relational work.
When we talk about the successes of collaborative, place-based partnerships between universities and communities, we often spotlight big achievements: policy shifts, sustainability wins, innovative health projects. But behind every glossy outcome or strategic framework lies a group of committed, skilled, and often under-recognised individuals who make the whole thing work.
These are the people doing the relational labour—the community connectors, knowledge mobilisers, boundary-spanners, and inclusive leaders—without whom no partnership would get off the ground, let alone succeed.
Beyond the Infrastructure: It’s Personal
Yes, robust systems, shared platforms, and dashboards matter. But what truly breathes life into partnerships is people. Real progress happens in the messiness of relationships—across institutional silos, cultural divides, and differing priorities. It takes empathy, listening, translation, negotiation. And those skills aren’t always listed on a job description.
Take knowledge mobilisers, for example. As Ward (2017) describes, these are not just information shufflers—they are translators of context, bridge-builders across academic and local worlds, constantly adapting to make research usable and meaningful.
The Magic of Boundary-Spanning
You’ll find them in university departments, local councils, NGOs, and community spaces—people who “get” both sides. These people can be academics, policy makers and professional services experts. They know how universities work, but they also understand local dynamics, sensitivities, and histories. They often hold no formal power, but their ability to influence is immense.
These “boundary-spanners” are vital in navigating complexity and keeping momentum in long-term partnerships. Their work spans disciplines, organisations, and sectors—making the invisible visible, and the difficult doable.
Leadership That Looks Like Listening
Forget the charismatic front-stage leader. What most partnerships need is the kind of leadership that facilitates, convenes, and steps back. Distributed, emotionally intelligent leadership fosters trust and participation, especially in communities where universities have historically been distant or extractive.
People who lead from behind—those who handle conflict, make space for unheard voices, and gently steer conversations—are central to making collaboration truly collaborative.
Why We Need to Recognise and Resource Them
Many of these individuals operate with fragile contracts, limited recognition, and unclear career pathways. Their skills are essential—but they are often developed informally and undervalued in institutional reward structures.
If we want collaborative partnerships to thrive, we need to stop thinking of these roles as “extras” and start seeing them as infrastructure. Just as we invest in data platforms and evaluation frameworks, we need to invest in the people who make partnerships work.
The Takeaway
Great partnerships don’t just happen because the strategies are sound, or the logic models are tight. They happen because someone stayed late to prep for the community meeting. Because someone listened deeply to the concerns of a local leader. Because someone translated a dense research paper into something people can actually use.
Behind every successful partnership are people doing the work that rarely gets celebrated—but always matters.
Ward, V. (2017) ‘Why, whose, what and how? A framework for knowledge mobilisers‘, Evidence & Policy, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 477-497.
This blog was written by Elizabeth Goodyear, Programme Manager at City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
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Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.