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Sustainable and effective university‐community partnerships are not easy to create, yet they are an integral part of student community‐based learning as they are uniquely designed to educate students about their roles as members of their local, national, and global communities. The purpose of this paper is to review the extant literature on effective university‐community partnering and draw out key themes to assist practitioners and researchers who are involved in the design, execution, and analysis of partnership programs. Following the review, a model partnership program focused on increasing students' knowledge and skills in the area of international citizenship, called the global leadership and service project (GLSP), is presented as an innovative service‐learning design template.

The paper presents a review of the literature, key themes drawn from the literature, and a case study for use as readers consider, adapt, and integrate tools for effective, partnership‐based service‐learning projects into their curricula.

Sustainable, effective, and partnership‐oriented service‐learning projects are difficult to design and execute yet they are extremely effective at enhancing students' awareness, learning, and development as global citizens. The model presented through the GLSP provides a useful framework for adaptation in other university and professional settings.

The paper focuses on the community organization side of effective service‐learning partner‐oriented program design and provides a case study example of how such programs can be executed in a sustainable and contributory manner, each within the context of enhancing student learning as members of our global and interconnected society.

Corporate‐community partnerships, the collaboration between business and community groups, have risen to prominence recently. This paper seeks to examine how internal organisational factors affect the agenda of corporate‐community partnerships.

The internal factors considered in this research were the processes involved in the partnerships' agenda development and the attitudes of participating members towards the partnership and its social or environmental goals. Interviews were conducted with representatives from both the corporate and community members of two major partnerships in Australia.

The findings suggest that internal organisational processes and attitudes affect five major features of the partnerships' agenda: form, target, scope, stability and sustainability.

The study proposes a framework for understanding how internal organizational factors affect the various features of agenda formation in corporate‐community partnerships.

This research provides a practical understanding of corporate‐community partnerships in relation to the influences on agenda formation, and would be useful to both corporations and stakeholders, especially community groups.

This study stresses the increasing importance of corporate‐community partnerships and suggests that government policies should encourage the development of such partnerships.

The paper examines the influences on the agenda formation of corporate‐community partnerships through the voices of corporations and community groups.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that characterise effective school‐community partnerships that support the sustainability of school health initiatives applied within a health‐promoting schools approach.

The study used an explanatory case study approach of five secondary schools participating in a health‐promoting school programme, “The Logan Healthy Schools Project” in Logan, South‐East Queensland, Australia to investigate how school‐community partnerships support the sustainability of school health initiatives. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 16 deputy principals, school staff members, and community‐based partners, along with observations and a documentary analysis of Logan Healthy School Project activities. A thematic analysis was conducted on the data.

The factors that characterise effective school‐community partnerships that support the sustainability of school health initiatives include: a focus on building relationships between school and community partners, complementary capacities of school personnel and service providers, commonality of intent and shared goals between both parties, and competence of practice, primarily of the community service provider. These four factors were consistent at the school operational level and strategic programme co‐ordination level of the Logan Healthy Schools Project, yet varied in importance across the initiation, growth, and maturity of the school‐community partnerships.

The study adds to the limited body of knowledge that surrounds effective school‐community partnerships and how the features of these partnerships contribute to the sustainability of school health initiatives. The study highlights the importance of initiating, growing, and maintaining school‐community partnerships and provides insight into the factors that should be considered when planning and developing school health promotion initiatives.

Partnership has become a primary organisational tool for achieving overlapping policy agendas in local governance. But evidence shows that partnerships underachieve if they are not integrated into, and supported by, mainstream governance structures. Now recent legislation, the Local Government in Scotland Act (2003), sets out the intention of better integration of partnership into local governance. The Act establishes a statutory duty for institutional stakeholders to engage with communities in “community planning” to improve services and to meet community aspirations. This paper sets out to explore key issues to arise in the implementation of the Act.

The analysis is based on key informant interviews in three Scottish local authorities carried out in 2004 and 2005.

The research finds varying degrees of integration between governance structures and community planning, depending on the commitment, history and implementation of local government modernisation. Local authorities at the leading edge of modernisation are the most innovative in community planning and also demonstrate commitment to partnership working.

Because of its statutory basis, the lessons of the implementation of community planning are relevant to a wide variety of local governance structures and partnership initiatives.

The paper reports on the first systematic study of the implementation of a policy initiative in integrated local governance.

This paper aims to offer a New Zealand perspective on how business and community organisations engage to develop mutually beneficial partnerships to tackle pressing social issues. Specifically, the paper seeks to examine the collaboration motivations for business and community partners involved in seven business‐community partnerships in New Zealand.

The paper utilises data from in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with key business and community managers involved in seven partnerships in New Zealand. The transcripts of the interviews were analysed using elements of content and narrative analysis. Findings to be presented in this paper include: explaining what “partnership” is; understanding a business case; and community organisations' motivations for engaging in partnerships with business.

This research finds that, while partnerships involving business and community organisations may ideally be associated with shared societal concerns, in this study there was a very strong focus on individual community organisation goals and a dominance of business priorities. This was not balanced by an interest in the broader meta‐goals of the partnership.

This paper draws attention to diverse and often competing motivations that characterise business‐community partnerships. The research demonstrates that, while partnerships are often discussed in the context of societal benefits, individual organisations frequently form partnerships primarily for their own instrumental self‐interests. It is hoped that this paper will stimulate understanding of the practical challenges to developing business‐community partnerships, given differences among the partners in goal orientations and expectations.

The chapters in this book focus on how university-school-community (USC) partnerships are implemented in colleges, universities, school systems, and community organizations around the world. The purpose of these multi-disciplinary programs is to reform teaching and learning experiences for all participants. Using case studies and other empirical research, this volume presents a broad and in-depth overview on a variety of USC partnerships to assist educators in the process of transforming organizations using innovative approaches to improve community and school system development. This chapter will provide an overview to this volume and establish a framework for better understanding the nature of university partnerships to enhance community and school system development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Communities First, an area‐based regeneration policy in Wales to explore the barriers to community empowerment. Three related research projects provide data to inform the discussion of community empowerment and to consider the implications of delivery of the policy for theorising the relationship between the citizen and the state as mediated through regeneration partnerships.

Data from three related research projects are discussed. These are an evaluation of local delivery of the Communities First programme, the delivery of technical support to participating communities and a Joseph Rowntree‐funded case study of nine regeneration partnerships. All projects are concerned with exploring the experience of community members within regeneration partnerships.

The findings identify major barriers to the achievement of community empowerment including issues of community capacity, institutional capacity, organisational cultures and regulatory frameworks. The findings identify mechanisms for improving community participation and empowerment. The findings are also used to identify community actor agency within regeneration partnerships and to argue against an analysis of regeneration initiatives as a mechanism of social control and incorporation of community activism into a state led agenda.

The paper explores one specific policy within a UK devolved region and is not able to comment extensively on similar policy programmes in other areas of the UK. However, it uses this specific experience to comment on generic issues in the community empowerment field and to elaborate theory on the relationship between the citizen and the state.

The paper offers practitioners and policy makers insight into the community experience of participation in regeneration partnerships and proposes methods and policy refinements which can improve empowerment outcomes and assist community participation to achieve higher levels of influence over statutory partners.

While the paper identifies barriers to empowerment that are recognised in the wider literature, it demonstrates that such barriers can prevail even within a highly participative policy framework such as Communities First. The paper also provides evidence of a clear sense of agency on the part of community members of regeneration partnerships and counters models which suggest regeneration partnerships are simple mechanisms of social control which diffuse community activism.

The purpose of this paper is to describe in-depth a community-based social partnership, emerged in response to the financial crisis in Greece, with members from the private, public and civic sectors, using a case example of a grass-root self-organised national network.

Formal and informal interviews as well as written communication with members of the partnership mainly formed the basis for the analysis. Topics covered formation and implementation activities, outcomes, relationship issues, such as trust and links to social capital.

A shared community risk and a national media campaign to increase public awareness of the issue were catalysts for individuals’ sensitisation and participation in the partnership. The shared risk was the loss of community’s social cohesion, through poverty aggravated by the financial crisis. Self-organisation led to innovative relationships, whereas trust, collective action and collaboration show social capital attributes in the partnership enabling resilience development.

The research contributes in the fields of community-based partnerships and engagement in building community and crisis resilience. The findings are based on a case example. More evidence is needed in order to derive generalised statements about the partnership’s contribution to crisis resilience.

The partnership has shown impact on community engagement, health and well-being.

This paper presents a partnership type for building community and crisis resilience with the case example of one such partnership in Greece, formed to alleviate community distress caused by the crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new conceptual model integrating research, university-community partnerships, and an innovative undergraduate team approach to more effectively and efficiently address social problems while enhancing university-community relations and providing valuable learning experiences for students.

The paper describes the rationale for, and the key components, steps, and activities involved in piloting the conceptual model of university-community engagement. The model integrates research, community engagement, and undergraduate development and education along with ongoing evaluation by the relevant stakeholders.

As illustrated in a brief case study presentation, the model has significant promise in meeting several university and community objectives simultaneously. Specifically, it focusses on community needs by addressing a mutually agreed upon social issue, it builds and strengthens university-community relationships as a partnership of equals, and it promotes undergraduate development and learning in a way that integrates knowledge and service to society. Specific outcomes in each area are summarized.

This approach is a viable option for university and college professors interested in synthesizing several important foci: research, developing and sustaining university-community partnerships, and undergraduate development and learning.

The initial experience with the model indicates that it is an efficient and effective means for colleges and universities to simultaneously meet the goals of education, individual and collective citizenship, community engagement, and research productivity.

This paper aims first to identify key interorganisational partnership types among non-profit organisations (NPOs) and second to determine how knowledge sharing takes place within each type of partnership. Results explore the value of social media specifically in facilitating external relationships between NPOs, firms and the communities they serve.

Empirical qualitative analysis of exploratory interviews with 16 Canadian NPOs generates a non-exhaustive classification of partnership types emerging from these organisations, and their defining characteristics in the context of interorganisational knowledge sharing.

Overall eight categories of partnerships from the sampled NPOs emerged from the analysis of the data. These include business partnerships, sector partnerships, community partnerships, government partnerships, expert partnerships, endorsement partnerships, charter partnerships and hybrid partnerships. Using examples from interviews, the sharing of knowledge within each of these partnerships is defined uniquely in terms of directionality (i.e. uni-directional, bi-directional, multi-directional knowledge sharing) and formality (i.e. informal, semi-formal or formal knowledge sharing).Specific practices within these relationships also arise from examples, in particular, the use of social media to support informal and community-driven collaborations. Twitter, as a popular social networking tool, emerges as a preferred medium that supports interorganisational partnerships relevant to NPOs.

This research is valuable in identifying the knowledge management practices unique to NPOs. By examining and discussing specific examples of partnerships encountered among NPOs, this paper contributes original findings about the implications of interorganisational knowledge sharing, as well as the impact of emerging social technologies on same.