Renowned scholar, Prof Timothy Stanton, presented a seminar on the “The “how” of community engagement research.  Prof Tim Stanton is a Senior Engaged Scholar with Ravensong Associates, through which he consults on service-learning design and development in the US, Africa and Asia. He was the founding director of Stanford University’s Bing Overseas Studies Program in Cape Town (2008-14). Prof Stanton assisted Campus Compact in organising national faculty institutes on curriculum development for service-learning, coordinated The Research Universities Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN), and co-authored the online Research University Engaged Scholarship Toolkit (1991-2013). He served as an academic advisor and consultant to South Africa’s Community-Higher Education-Service Partnerships (CHESP) programme working with 12 universities across South Africa (1998-1208).

He presented an overview of how to go about doing an engaged research study and shared his experiences and examples of projects done by his students in South Africa. He concluded by sharing seven steps to do community-based participatory research that includes:

• Find a partner and form the partnership.
• Formulate the research question.
• Explore research relevant to the community context and plan the research.
• Conduct the data gathering.
• Share research findings in the community and in the academy.
• Take appropriate action.

His presentation is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DzEVlbBGje4. The research seminar was organised by the Mamelodi campus of the University of Pretoria.