A Model for Collaborative Research: Building a Community-University Institute for Social Research

This paper addresses the social relevance of research undertaken by academic geographers to find a model that integrates the community and the university into social research issues. The challenge we faced is that many involved in the practice of social and economic change within our communities have been disillusioned by a traditional scholarly model of research that appears to be disconnected from the service delivery and policy needs of the organizations and people they are ultimately intended to serve. This chapter provides one case study to address this problem by outlining the activities of a research partnership between the University of Saskatchewan and various government, community-based, and private-sector organizations in Saskatoon, Canada, entitled the Community-University Institute for Social Research (CUISR — see article at http://www.usask.ca/cuisr).