Urban Institute Visiting Practice Fellow Dr Al Mathers and University of Sheffield Postdoctoral Research Associate Dr Bryony Vince-Myers have co-authored a new case study report for Local Trust, examining what it takes to build genuine, lasting partnerships between universities and the communities they are part of.
Progress happens at the speed of trust draws on four in-depth case studies - including the long-running alliance between the Urban Institute and Arbourthorne Community Primary School in Sheffield's South East - to explore how universities and their local partners have navigated the complexities of cross-sector collaboration, and what conditions are needed to make this work sustainable, equitable and impactful.
The report sets out what universities, funders and national research frameworks need to do differently - from recognising relational work in academic career structures, to reforming how the REF values participatory and community-engaged research - if these partnerships are to become the norm rather than the exception.
It examines four partnerships, chosen to span different types of universities, geographies and approaches:
- University of Reading and The Whitley Researchers: a community-led participatory action research network where residents work alongside academics and students to investigate what matters most to their neighbourhood, and turn findings into policy change.
- University of the Arts London and Spring Community Hub: a university public engagement team building long-term community partnerships across South London, where students and graduates co-design and deliver creative workshops with local voluntary organisations.
- Wrexham University, Wrexham CBC and Cyngor Gwynedd: A public authority–university partnership, bringing together Public Service Bodies (PSBs), commissioners, communities and voluntary sector partners to improve community well-being across North Wales.
- The Urban Institute and Arbourthorne Community Primary School: a civic school-university alliance in Sheffield built on shared values and a belief that schools can be genuine anchors for community-led change.
The Sheffield case study is one the Urban Institute knows from the inside. Professor Beth Perry's long-running alliance with Arbourthorne Community Primary School and its headteacher Vanessa Langley offers one of the most vivid illustrations in the report of what sustained, values-led collaboration can look like over time. Since 2019, this relationship has developed into a genuine model of co-production, one where families who might once have experienced school as something 'done to them' have become active shapers of change in their neighbourhood.
The Arbourthorne partnership illustrates that this kind of work is built not through formal structures or large grants, but through consistent, honest relationship-building sustained over years – a central theme of the report.
What the report argues
Across the four partnerships, the report finds a consistent set of conditions for university-community partnerships to succeed, including: a strategic commitment from university leadership that embeds civic partnership into institutional strategy; long time horizons; relational investment that is named and resourced; community-led framing in which universities arrive with curiosity rather than pre-formed answers.
The report calls on universities, funders and those leading national research frameworks to act together. For the REF in particular, it argues that assessment criteria must be developed that recognise and reward community-engaged and participatory research, valuing co-produced outputs and the slower timescales this work demands. Without this, national frameworks will continue to undermine what universities are being asked to prioritise locally.
Read the report
Progress happens at the speed of trust is published by Local Trust and available to read in full online. It was researched and written by Dr Al Mathers (Visiting Practice Fellow, Urban Institute, University of Sheffield) and Dr Bryony Vince-Myers (Postdoctoral Research Associate with The Co-Production Futures Inquiry and Participatory Research Network, University of Sheffield).
The report was commissioned by Local Trust to accompany a national event in June 2026, bringing together universities, community organisations, funders and policy stakeholders to identify good practice and explore what genuinely makes community-university partnerships work.