From the Isles of Scilly to Sheffield: reflections on CiviCon 25

Leaving the Isles of Scilly to head for Sheffield meant the usual small expedition – plane, trains, and that feeling of crossing from one world to another. CiviCon 25, held on the 14^th and 15^th of October 2025, asked how universities and communities can work together, and more challengingly, how they can let communities lead.

I was there as a panellist on the UKRI and The Young Foundation’s Community Research Networks session on the first day, and stayed for both days of discussion.

Listening before leading

Universities have got better at talking about being ‘of their place’ rather than simply ‘in their place’; but practice lags behind rhetoric. Civic engagement isn’t outreach or branding; it’s about letting communities define what matters.

A recurring theme at CiviCon was that real collaboration starts with listening. Cardiff University’s Community Gateway project in Grangetown is a strong example. Instead of consulting the community on pre-set ideas, they spent three years listening, then built their work around nine priorities set by local people. The university responded, rather than dictated.

It sounds simple, but it's rare. As the Institute for Community Studies put it in An Equitable Future for Research and Innovation: collaboration too often stops at participation; equity means changing who gets to ask the questions. For universities, this is more than good PR – it’s about knowledge production. Knowledge meant to serve society needs society involved from the start.

The long commitment: a relationship, not an affair

Civic partnerships thrive on patience – something universities aren’t always built for. Funding cycles come and go; communities remain.

Cardiff is a decade into their 99-year partnership work in Grangetown, to match the 99-year lease on the Grange Pavilion. Their work hasn’t been about ticking boxes; it has responded directly to what residents had identified as priorities, from youth services to environmental projects. It’s a model that shows how universities can act on local knowledge, not just gather it.

At the other end of Wales, Wrexham Glyndŵr University has taken a similar approach in its co-created civic mission. To tackle social inequality, staff have spent years embedding themselves in community groups and organisational partnerships, supporting local festivals, hosting masterclasses, and helping facilitate new spaces to explore collective challenges. The focus is not just on outputs but on sustaining relationships – making the university a reliable presence over time rather than a short-term contributor.

UKRI also reflect this principle: their five-year funding period for our Community Research Networks programme allows partnerships to grow at the pace communities need. David Chapman, lead on the CRN programme and one of the chairs of the panel I was on, stressed that the value of community research often appears only after years of trust and familiarity, not within a single grant period. These examples all challenge the short-termism that dominates academic funding.

For island communities like ours, the lesson is simple but clear: collaboration has to outlast the grant. As Liz Shutt from Insights North East put it in her session: “it’s worse to end the funding period and close the doors than to have done nothing at all”.

When data meets experiences

Katharine Willis from the University of Plymouth made a point that felt familiar in her session: local government and local communities speak different languages. Councils need numbers; communities tell stories. The challenge isn’t choosing between them – it’s translating.

On Scilly, data might show trends in housing, transport or tourism, but it can’t capture the lived experiences – when the supply boat doesn’t sail, or when a neighbour leaves because housing has become impossible. A university that only counts misses the point; one that only listens risks losing rigour. Bridging that gap is where the work matters. Research has to speak both languages.

Anchors or Flotillas?

Universities have long been considered ‘anchor institutions’ – stable fixtures in civic life. It sounds reassuring. But as Kate Josephs, CEO of Sheffield City Council, pointed out on day 2 of the conference, anchors are designed to weigh things down and stop them moving. She prefers a flotilla – universities as big, slower-turning ships supporting smaller, more agile, community boats. It’s an image to aspire to – a reminder that movement, not constancy, is sometimes the deeper form of commitment.

Durham University’s Reimagining research collaboration: How Universities can help their local places thrive report also makes a similar argument: that “together is better”. It asks universities to stop seeing research as something they own and start seeing it as something they do with others. Knowledge, in this view, is not a product but a relationship – something that grows through shared inquiry, trust and the willingness for the work to be messy.

This is harder than it sounds. Universities have been used to plotting the course, and inviting others aboard once the destination’s fixed. But the best partnerships begin when they resist the urge to lead every conversation. Their real contribution isn’t authority; it’s capacity – the space, legitimacy and networks that make collaboration possible. It’s time to stop adding links to the anchor chain, weigh anchor, and let the community chart the course.

Closer to home: Exeter and the Isles of Scilly CRN

The Isles of Scilly Community Research Network brings together the Isles of Scilly Community Venture, the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, Five Islands Academy, and the University of Exeter in a collaborative partnership. Exeter’s Penryn Campus sits just under 90 km from Hugh Town – close enough to be tangible, far enough to remind us how removed we are from national academic conversations.

Our work with Exeter reflects the themes of CiviCon 25: rather than setting the agenda, the university adapts to our community’s priorities, providing space, networks, and expertise to help us explore longevity, belonging, and navigating larger systems. Individual academics have shown real commitment to place, willing to be guided by the community and share expertise when invited. Structural frictions remain – timelines, ethics processes, and institutional habits take time to adjust to a model led by the community.

Even so, progress has been made. Agreements have been signed, and work is underway. That forward motion matters more than perfection. It shows that with people willing to experiment and adapt, universities can be steady, flexible partners, supporting communities without overriding them.

After Sheffield

On the train home, I noticed how often the word trust appeared in my notes. Trust is built slowly and lost quickly. It depends on honesty about power and purpose – two things universities sometimes find awkward to talk about. But if CiviCon 25 showed anything, it’s that more people are ready to have that conversation.

For the Isles of Scilly Community Research Network, the next step might be deceptively simple: keep asking our community what we want research to do for us, not what researchers think we need. Then invite universities to help on that basis.

That’s the quiet revolution we were all discussing in Sheffield – not just a new methodology or funding stream (though my ambitions for this programme stretch that far), but a shift in who gets to ask the questions.