Approaches to inclusion, diversity, and partnership: Reflecting on institutional policies of student-staff partnership in research across 15 institutional schemes in the UK

Abstract

Equipping students with the necessary competencies to navigate an unpredictable world is becoming an important purpose of higher education. Approaches to centring students in learning and teaching have been suggested to evolve from research on students, to facilitating students as partners (SaP) in research. Student-staff partnership in research (SSPnR) provides a sophisticated approach to building partnerships with authentic processes and outcomes. Many studies have showcased SSPnR regarding implementation, administration, benefits, challenges, and risks in practical schemes. However, relatively few studies have explored SSPnR issues emerging before schemes recruit participants, such as those in policies and documents available to the public. This study addresses the importance of institutional contexts in SSPnR by teasing apart the governance of SSPnR across 15 institutional schemes in 14 British universities. Two main themes emerged from this qualitative thematic analysis, including the vagueness in defining and supporting inclusion and diversity, and four distinctive patterns of achieving partnerships in British universities: co-creating ideas, co-constructing projects, co-leading direction, and co-changing future. This study is an initial step in exploring approaches to rethinking power relationships and to improving inclusion and diversity through SSPnR, based on institutional contexts from the policy lens encompassing institutional values, conceptual structures, and political heritage.