2009, ‘Developing access between universities and local community groups: A university helpdesk in action

In this article, the authors offer the University of Brighton’s Community-University Partnership Programme (CUPP) Help-desk as a model of an “enabling platform ” for university-commu-nity engagement. Despite the growth of practical and scholarly activity in this area, there is a relative lack of research focused on the processes by which higher education institutions estab-lish and sustain community partnerships. An account of the development of the helpdesk is related to a discussion of its role in capacity building, both within the university and externally. The authors review some of the organizational barriers to effec-tive university-community interaction and suggest that, while concrete models remain elusive in the literature, a mechanism such as the CUPP Helpdesk can help overcome the barriers that hinder the facilitation of engagement work