Turning final-year research projects into community collaborations

In many STEM programmes, final‑year research projects are still decided based on laboratory availability, supervisor expertise and predefined topics. But increasing pressure on oversubscribed lab-based projects is forcing a rethink, as is the growing recognition that students need opportunities to develop the kinds of skills that employers value: teamwork, real-world problem-solving and research application beyond academic settings.

Community‑commissioned projects offer a powerful alternative. We embedded collaboration with external partners into core research assessment, where students move beyond hypothetical questions and begin working on issues that matter to real people. The result is a model that helps students to develop sophisticated communication and negotiation skills, as they must translate disciplinary knowledge for non-academic audiences and learn to balance academic aims with organisational expectations, timelines and constraints. Crucially, students begin to understand research as a social process, requiring relationship-building, responsiveness and ethical awareness. This shift moves learning beyond knowledge acquisition towards the development of professional skills and reflexive practice, better preparing students for complex, real-world environments. Here are recommendations to implement this approach across any discipline, speciality or level of study.

Use existing infrastructure to build partnerships

You do not need to build partnerships from scratch. Many institutions have a variety of programmes that connect students with the wider community. These are often underused for research-based learning. Careers services, work-related learning programmes and knowledge exchange networks do much of the groundwork in these partnerships. In our case, we worked through the students’ union Community Research Initiative, which connects community organisations with students interested in socially engaged research – such as through the Community Research Initiative Showcase. This provided an existing, trusted route into partnerships, rather than having to rely on informal contacts.

Let communities shape the research questions

Community organisations are often the first to spot inequalities and gaps in evidence through their day-to-day work, but these insights don’t always make it into academic research. Working with partners to co-develop questions allows students to engage with issues that genuinely matter, rather than choose topics in isolation or work on hypothetical problems.

Developing these projects requires balancing three things: what is important to the community, what is feasible within the time frame of a student project, and what would still meet expectations for academic rigour. 

This shifts how students understand research. Instead of seeing it as something driven purely by theory, they begin to recognise it as a process shaped by context, relationships and responsibility. More broadly, this approach helps position research as something that is not only academically rigorous, but also socially meaningful and responsive to the communities it seeks to serve.

Prepare students for collaboration

Working with a community partner requires a different set of skills from working independently on a traditional dissertation. Once projects are defined, students need to be supported in their roles as collaborators. 

Communication is often the biggest challenge in community‑engaged projects. Students may be confident in academic settings, but less prepared to exchange ideas with people from different backgrounds. To address this, build in short, interactive workshops and reflection sessions to support students to develop key competencies in partnership working. Sessions that we are hosting for students include a workshop on cross‑sector communication, an introduction to community-engaged methodologies and a peer reflection session on how to ensure that research outputs are useful and appropriate for a community context. These exercises help students practise explaining their work, responding to questions and adapting their communication style.

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• A clear vision for university-community partnerships

Use methods that enable responsiveness

Community‑commissioned projects work best when the methodology supports both feasibility and impact. In our model, systematic reviews were particularly effective. They allow students to respond quickly to identified evidence gaps, especially where primary research is limited. Instead of generating new data, students synthesise existing evidence to produce work that can be used by partners – for example, to inform advocacy or service design. This approach also reinforces an important lesson: research is not only about discovery, but about making knowledge accessible and relevant. 

A particularly important element is encouraging students to interpret evidence through an equity lens. This involves asking who the evidence applies to, where it may not apply and how it relates to the specific population they are working with. In the context of community collaboration, this becomes especially significant, as students are often engaging with groups whose experiences are underrepresented in the research literature. As a result, students must critically consider the limitations of existing evidence and reflect on how factors such as context, culture, access and structural inequalities may shape its relevance.

Frame collaboration as meaningful exchanges, not continuous contact

Using this approach, collaboration happens during high‑quality, purposeful exchanges at key moments – when the project is commissioned and when findings are shared back. This lighter-touch method of knowledge exchange allows students to be introduced to community-engaged research in a meaningful and impactful way without overwhelming them with the responsibility of a more dynamic partnership.

Community partners play a central role by defining the research question and grounding it in lived experience and organisational priorities. This is where knowledge flows into the university, shaping the direction and relevance of the work.

Students close the loop by presenting their findings and recommendations to the organisation. This is not just a presentation exercise; it is a moment of knowledge return, where students translate evidence into insights that can inform practice, advocacy or decision‑making. We invited a sketch artist to produce an illustrated summary that synthesises the key findings, recommendations and themes from the discussion and can be shared, included in reports, and used as an ongoing reference beyond the event itself.

These two points of exchange create a clear and structured collaboration, allowing community expertise to guide what is researched and ensure that findings are not left within the university, but returned in useful and useable ways.

What changes when collaboration is real

When final‑year projects are structured as partnerships, the learning experience shifts significantly. Students develop a clearer sense of purpose. They see how research questions emerge from social context rather than academic convenience. They also gain practical experience in communication, collaboration and working within real‑world constraints – difficult skills to develop in traditional project formats.

For universities, this model strengthens their role as civic actors, aligning research and teaching with societal needs.

If we want students to learn how to be impactful and civically engaged researchers, we need to let them experience these partnerships in authentic and supported contexts.

Done well, these community‑commissioned partnerships support both academic rigour and social responsiveness. Importantly, they also offer a scalable and replicable approach to embedding civic engagement within the curriculum, demonstrating how research-led teaching can contribute to wider societal goals while maintaining academic integrity.

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez is the vice dean of equality, diversity and inclusion in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. Molly McCabe is the community research initiative manager at the students’ union.

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