Activist-in-residence programmes provide intentional institutional spaces for mutually transformative and enriching encounters between academics and activists, leveraging research as a tool for social change. The innovative pilot project through Queer@King’s has enabled the Faculty of Arts & Humanities to develop an evaluation framework that enhances the effectiveness of such programmes.
Dr Ed Stevens, Impact & Knowledge Exchange Manager in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities
04 December 2024
Researchers propose new evaluation framework for activist-in-residence models
Activist-in-residence schemes would benefit from a strong evaluation framework to ensure positive societal change, says a new paper by academics in King’s Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
‘Activism and the academy: implementing and evaluating activist-in-residence programmes’ is co-authored by Dr Ed Stevens, Impact & Knowledge Exchange Manager, Dr Sebastian Matzner, Reader in Ancient and Comparative Literature and Literary Theory in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and Nayana Dhavan, PhD student in the Department of Digital Humanities.
In the paper, they explore the experience of a pilot activist-in-residence programme between Queer@King’s and ParaPride, a charity advocating for LGBTQ+ disabled people. The pilot is reviewed alongside examples from other programmes across academic institutions in the UK and USA.
They devise and recommend the use of a reflexive process evaluation framework to encourage these programmes to become intentional spaces for rewarding exchange between academics and activists.
The pilot programme offered LGBTQ+ activists access to King’s resources, infrastructure and administrative support, alongside a budget of £1,500. Funded by the then Arts & Humanities Research Institute, the project supported activists to bring ideas for community projects and activism to fruition.
The success of the pilot led to the launch of an activist-in-residence fund in the Faculty, which has supported the development of four new programmes awarded £5,000 each through the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account. These programmes are being monitored and evaluated using the newly proposed framework, which aims to enhance their effectiveness and ensure they stimulate affirmative change in society.
What is an activist-in-residence?
Activist-in-residence programmes involve social and political activists residing in and working at academic institutions. The programmes stimulate knowledge exchange, allowing researchers and activists to collaborate on how to solve societal injustices.
For researchers, they can benefit from a stronger understanding of the lived experiences of people facing a particular issue and the ways in which research-informed activism can be used as a tool for impact in society and policy.
Activists’ participation enables them to leverage resources alongside the theoretical and/or empirical knowledge needed to inform their work.
These programmes disrupt the status quo both in academic practice and in society at large. As such, they lead to new ways of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ amongst both activists and academics alike. They address the critique of universities as ivory towers detached from society at large and are a great way to engaged external communities that have commonly been marginalised.
Dr Ed Stevens
Read the paper ‘Activism and the academy: implementing and evaluating activist-in-residence programmes’ by Dr Stevens, Dr Matzner, and Nayana Dhavan online, or find out more about current activist-in-residence projects in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
In this story
Impact & Knowledge Exchange Manager
Reader in Ancient & Comparative Literature and Literary Theory