“Community catapult” launch in Clackmannanshire will help build diversity and opportunity

The University of Stirling is launching a “community catapult” in Clackmannanshire as part of an ambitious £10 million project to improve diversity and opportunity across the UK.

The Centre for Collaboration in Community Connectedness (C4) will bring together regional and national partners from research, community, policy and civil society to develop and scale up successful community leadership approaches.

As part of the project, the University of Stirling will work with charity and voluntary support group Clackmannanshire Third Sector Interface (CTSI) as one of four community catapults to collect evidence on local activities that can support community connectedness and participation.

The aim of C4 is to find and share the most effective community action strategies in the UK, to provide insights for local and national policymaking that will help create equal opportunities wherever people live.

Led by Sheffield Hallam University, C4 is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Professor Peter Matthews and Professor Alasdair Rutherford from the University of Stirling’s Faculty of Social Sciences will lead the Clackmannanshire work.

Recognising and celebrating diversity

Professor Peter Matthews said: “Communities can often be assumed to be solely geographic or very homogeneous. However, the C4 centre explicitly recognises the wide diversity of communities, and the diversity within communities. Through this project, we will learn more about what works to ensure that this diversity can be recognised and celebrated, and that diverse people can work together towards common goals.”

Professor Alasdair Rutherford added: “The goal is to take the most successful regional community activities, and to establish the evidence to enable scaling up and replicating them across the country. We are excited that, through the new community catapult, Clackmannanshire activities can contribute to the wider project.”

Anthea Coulter, Chief Officer at CTSI, which supports charitable, community and voluntary action groups in Clackmannanshire, said: “It is a wonderful recognition of the steps taken by our third sector and communities in Clackmannanshire over the last few years, that we have something unique to offer to this research and learning that can be cascaded and shared across the four nations. I hope the C4 research project will put Clackmannanshire, with the support of the University of Stirling, on the map nationally and allow us to contribute to our collective learning on community development.”
 
The other C4 partners are: Darnall Wellbeing, Local Trust, London Metropolitan University, Queen’s University Belfast, The Brixton Project, Black Mountains College and The Young Foundation.