Mapping support programmes to integrate community engagement into academic practice: Desk research findings and conclusions

The project Supporting Professionals and Academics for Community Engagement in Higher Education (SPACE) is a three-year project (2023-2026) funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme. In this report we provide the results of the initial activity of Work Package 2 (Micro-level: Integrating community engagement into academic practice), which was to carry out desk research at 4 partner universities to map what existing practices exist to help academic staff work on integrating community engagement into curricula, to identify gaps and weaknesses in existing approaches; and to draft methodological options for developing an innovative co-learning programme. Based on this report, the SPACE project team will organise co-creation workshops and virtual collaboration for defining the SPACE programme learning outcomes and co-creating learning materials for the programme (presentations, participative methodologies and evaluation methods).