Challenging institutional barriers to community-based research

Those of us attempting to develop truly equal partnerships with communities and community organizations, using the method of community-based research, encounter many barriers. These barriers revolve around who sets the schedule, who determines the labor pool, who controls the product, and who gets the funding. In this article, a case study shows how those barriers exert themselves, and evaluates the success of strategies to challenge those barriers. It ends with a set of recommendations for changing university overhead policies, developing university quality control practices, refining the university IRB process, institutionalizing a flash seminar structure, and training community members to control the research relationship.