Partnerships: Questions and Challenges

We hope this document will help you think about your research partnership and some of the problems you might face. Other documents like What is partnership research? Key Ideas. and Is Partnership Research Better Research? explain why it might be a good idea to carry out research in partnership.

Every partnership is different so there are no rules for making a partnership work well. This means you will have to try to work out any problems you have as you go along. We hope you will find it helpful to read about some of the problems we have faced.

What is a ‘partnership’? Who says this is a ‘partnership’?
A 'partnership' has to be made or built, over time, it is not something you can decide will happen. Lots of partnership work involves asking people their opinions only when the research has already been planned. Sometimes, you cannot get round this problem, but it is a good idea to be honest about it. This may help to build a partnership which is more equal.

Some funding bodies will not understand why you want to work in a partnership. They will not understand why you want to make decisions as you go along rather than all at the beginning. You may need to spend time explaining the good things about working in partnership.

Does everyone in a ‘research partnership’ have to do everything together?
Some people believe that if you are going to do research 'in partnership' then everything has to be carried out together. In some projects this may be a good idea. At the same time, if you try to do this you may also face some problems.

You will find that working in this way takes a lot of time. This will mean you get less work done and other people may ask you why it is taking so long to do your project. If you are asking for money to pay for a partnership research project, you will need to think about how much time you will need and explain this carefully.

If you decide to do everything together you may find that there are disagreements about some things. The word 'partnership' makes it sound like we are all 'friends' but this may not be the case. Hopefully, any problems you do have will help you understand each other in the longer term. However, in the short term you may find that disagreements take up lots of energy and make you feel frustrated about the work.

Sometimes doing everything in partnership means that you cannot do things in the order in which you would like to do them. This is because you have to wait to make some decisions. At other times, you will have to decide things before you feel ready because other people think it is a good idea to 'get on with it'.

Making decisions in a group can be difficult (even if you do not actually disagree). Some of the problems are: People are asked for their opinion but then their opinion is ignored. People are only asked for their opinion when the issues are not very important. Everyone in the group agrees with everyone else because no one wants to upset anyone. This can lead to some bad decisions being made.

It might be useful to remember that some people in a partnership may not want to join in all activities.

How do you ‘build’ a partnership
You will need to be a very good listener if you want to work in partnership. This is because some people will find it difficult to give their opinions about the research or their role in it. Over time, if you listen carefully, you will learn about how they feel. Then you can encourage them to tell you more.

You will want to think about lots of different ways of helping people to join in. Sometimes asking people lots of questions can make people feel uncomfortable.

You will want to think about how to give people experience of different research activities so they can learn more about doing research by 'having a go' at it.

It is a good idea to spend lots of time talking about how people are getting on so that everyone can talk about any problems they are having.

As we have said before, you will also need to spend time getting to know each other so that everyone can hopefully feel relaxed.

Do you write a research contract at the beginning of a project?
There are good things about writing a research contract with your research partners near the start of a project. This can mean that everyone understands the aims of the project, who is going to do what, and what the outcomes of the project will hopefully be. You might also like to write in your contract what everyone will get out of the project. For example, if someone is not getting paid, how will they be rewarded for their work? (see Legal Issues - Benefits and payments)

One bad thing about agreeing a research contract is that things are decided that some people may not like later on. It may be a good idea to say in your contract that you will look at the contract again in a few weeks/months time. Then if anyone is unhappy about the contract they can say so.

Good luck with your project and please get in touch if you would like to say anything about the website.

References
Fisher, M. (2002) The Role of Service-Users in Problem Formulation and Technical Aspects of Social Research, Social Work Education, 21, 3, p305-312.