Abstract
Despite growing calls to increase diversity in research, methodological approaches that could address this issue remain underused. In this article, we argue that community-engaged research (CEnR), a framework that ultimately seeks to create genuine partnerships between researchers and marginalized communities, offers a solution for making psychological research more diverse while strengthening scientific rigor. We provide a practical guide for implementing CEnR principles across seven key research phases, from study conceptualization to knowledge dissemination, with different levels of engagement based on what researchers can realistically manage. Drawing from examples across five of our studies with diverse populations, including Black youth in Canada and the United States, Syrian newcomers in the Netherlands, and racial and ethnic minority university students in Canada, we illustrate how CEnR strengthens research quality and impact by fostering culturally responsive methods, building trust with communities, and enabling richer interpretation of findings. We discuss challenges in using CEnR, including the time and resources it requires and institutional barriers, while providing concrete guidance that emphasizes honest self-reflection and starting small. We conclude by highlighting future directions and emphasizing that developing CEnR skills requires ongoing practice, with the goal of building toward more collaborative and impactful psychology research.
The lack of diversity in psychological research, regarding both who participates in research and who conducts it, is a widely recognized issue in the field (Arnett, 2008; Atherton et al., 2021; Rogers & Meltzoff, 2017; Thalmayer et al., 2021). This long-standing issue has prompted numerous calls for change, including calls to diversify participant samples, to study the experiences of historically marginalized people, and to increase the representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color in authorship roles (Buchanan et al., 2021; Roberts et al., 2020; Santoro, 2023). Yet specific research approaches with the potential to address some of these diversity challenges have received comparatively little attention (Bogart & Uyeda, 2009; Collins et al., 2018).
We argue that community-engaged research (CEnR) represents one promising avenue for diversifying psychological science, especially in terms of its participants and authors. Rooted in a commitment to social change, CEnR approaches aim to foster authentic collaboration with marginalized and historically excluded community members, notably by involving them as cocreators of knowledge (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium, 2011; Israel et al., 1998; Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008; Moczygemba et al., 2023; Wallerstein & Duran, 2010).
In this article, we provide a practical guide for incorporating CEnR principles into existing research programs. We begin with a brief overview of CEnR, followed by a discussion of why CEnR is increasingly relevant for psychological science. We then describe how CEnR can be applied across different stages of the research process. We present examples from five studies across diverse psychology subfields to illustrate CEnR in practice, with varying degrees of success in embodying these principles. Last, we use our experiences to provide practical advice to support attempts to incorporate CEnR into research programs. Our broader goal for this article is to invite researchers who seek to better understand the experiences of historically marginalized communities to engage with them at each stage across the research cycle, supporting the diversification of psychological science’s participants and researchers while advancing the field’s capacity for social change.
Our perspectives reflect our experiences as a research team composed primarily of early-career researchers, ranging from an undergraduate student to recently tenured faculty. We bring varied experiences shaped by differences in race, culture, migration, class, queerness, and lived experience, occupying different degrees of insider and outsider status within the communities we engage within our research. Our team shares a commitment to including historically underrepresented communities in psychological science and addressing social issues in contextually relevant and responsive ways. Most of us were trained within traditional psychology programs, but our preparation for CEnR varies. Some of us have fieldwork, mentorship experiences, or formal training that emphasizes community engagement, whereas others have developed experience through ongoing research. This article reflects our process of integrating CEnR principles into our work and our commitment to learning. We also recognize that our perspectives are shaped and limited by our positionalities, institutional contexts, disciplinary backgrounds, and the specific communities with whom we have worked.
Overview of Community-Engaged Research
What is community-engaged research and where does it come from?
CEnR is fundamentally driven by a commitment to social change and to addressing structural inequities through collaborations with groups connected by shared geographic location, interests, or life circumstances (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium, 2011). It positions historically marginalized communities as equal decision makers throughout the research process rather than passive data sources and emphasizes equitable partnerships that center community-identified priorities to address structural power imbalances (Collins et al., 2018; Moczygemba et al., 2023; Payán et al., 2021; Viswanathan et al., 2004). Foundational work on this topic offers extensive discussion and analysis (e.g., Israel et al., 1998; Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008; Wallerstein & Duran, 2010). The CEnR approach has developed from diverse historical traditions across multiple disciplines and geographic regions. We provide a brief overview here, although these origins deserve fuller attention than this article can provide. The Northern tradition of the CEnR approach traces back to social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1946) and his development of action research in the 1940s. The Southern tradition of the CEnR approach focuses on participatory research and participatory action research; it was developed by educator Paolo Freire (1970), sociologist Orlando Fals-Borda (1979), and other scholars as an alternative to the extractive nature of traditional research in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Drawing from this work, feminist scholar Patricia Maguire (1987) incorporated participatory approaches into her research.
CEnR is also grounded in community psychology’s participatory tradition, which emphasizes helping communities build agency through research. Within this tradition, scholars highlight that interventions develop in environments shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political factors and that they require actions at multiple levels and collaboration with many stakeholders over time (Douglas et al., 2016; Rappaport, 1987; Trickett, 2009; Zimmerman, 2000).
Over time, CEnR has continued to evolve, drawing from fields such as social work, cultural anthropology, political science, and sociology. Growing interest in community-engaged approaches within public health in the 1990s further contributed to the development of community-based participatory research (CBPR), considered the most deeply engaged form of CEnR (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium, 2011; Moczygemba et al., 2023). Readers seeking more extensive historical treatments can find them in key works in the field (e.g., Collins et al., 2018; Israel et al., 1998; Minkler, 2005; Wallerstein, 2021; Wallerstein et al., 2017).
Within the CEnR approach, community involvement is understood as a continuum that can shift over time, shaped by the nature of the collaboration and the evolving trust between partners (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium, 2011). CEnR also calls on researchers to engage critically with their own positionality and take intentional steps to minimize harm, foster trust, and address power imbalances in their relationships with community partners (Fine et al., 2021; Grain, 2020). Furthermore, a CEnR framework supports the collection of data that inform basic science and contribute to the development of interventions, reflecting its emphasis on partnerships that benefit both researchers and communities (Wright et al., 2020).
Core principles of CEnR
The CEnR framework is currently structured around several core Principles of Community Engagement that guide its implementation (see McCloskey et al., 2025):
Define the purpose and goals of the engagement and identify the community that will be involved.
Develop a strong understanding of the community, including its history, culture, values, social networks, power structures, and prior experiences with external groups.
Acknowledge and appreciate the diversity present within the community.
Leverage community strengths and resources to support collective decision-making and action.
Recognize the community’s right and responsibility to self-determination.
Form trusting relationships by working alongside the community.
Create collaborations with the community to drive change and enhance well-being outcomes.
Promote collaboration and sustained commitment among all partners.
Practice integrity and transparency as the foundation for lasting and effective engagement.
Share control and remain adaptable as community needs and priorities evolve.
The current article highlights tangible ways to translate these overarching principles into concrete research practices that scholars who want to engage with CEnR can consider adopting. Given that community benefit is central to CEnR’s core principles, some scholars have argued that CEnR approaches should be reserved for research in which advancing community benefit is the primary objective (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008; Payán et al., 2021). However, we advocate for more flexible applications of CEnR for two reasons. First, such flexibility allows CEnR to be adapted to various research interests, resources, and career stages, enabling broader application across research contexts, including traditional psychological paradigms. Second, it encourages researchers to consider why they should integrate community questions and actively work to benefit community members in their research. This reframes the question from “Should we engage communities?” to “How can we ensure our community engagement is beneficial rather than extractive?” When done well, community involvement both strengthens research quality and builds community capacity, helping people better understand research processes and increasing representation in academic spaces.
How has community-engaged research been used in psychological science?
The adoption of CEnR approaches across psychological science has varied considerably by subdiscipline and research focus. For instance, less than 1% of all publications in mainstream psychology journals between 2004 and 2014 used CEnR approaches (Rodriguez Espinosa & Verney, 2021). Here, mainstream psychology refers to the dominant traditions within the field that emphasize controlled experimentation, objectivity, and the generalization of findings (Camic et al., 2004; Cronbach, 1957; Hartmann et al., 2020; Lewis, 2021). CEnR, however, has been more prominently adopted in community, clinical, counseling, and health psychology, subdisciplines with long-standing commitments to ecological and social justice perspectives (Rodriguez Espinosa & Verney, 2021). Much of this work involves collaborating with communities to develop interventions, such as community programs, that address mental- and physical-health disparities (e.g., Allen et al., 2014; Berge et al., 2009; Haapanen & Christens, 2021; Lewis et al., 2002; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2020; Trott et al., 2024). Despite these advances, the use of CEnR remains limited in mainstream psychological research, likely reflecting the field’s established research priorities and norms, which have historically limited opportunities for community collaboration (Grzanka & Cole, 2021; Rogers et al., 2024). By valuing lived experience alongside scientific knowledge, the CEnR approach creates opportunities for research that are more collaborative, contextually grounded, and socially relevant.
Why Is Community-Engaged Research Especially Relevant Now?
Community-engaged research holds promise for conducting psychological research with marginalized communities
The CEnR framework has become increasingly vital as psychological science reconsiders its relationship with historically marginalized communities. As scholars have previously argued (Collins et al., 2018), the framework pushes back against traditional research structures in which researchers retain control over knowledge production, instead promoting approaches that advance social justice while enhancing the rigor, relevance, and reach of scientific inquiry (Balazs & Morello-Frosch, 2013; Haapanen et al., 2024). In this framework, community partners actively contribute by shaping research questions, designing culturally responsive methods (Dutta, 2007), and contributing to the meaningful interpretation of results. Although psychology has made various efforts to diversify different parts of the research process, the CEnR approach offers a structured framework that addresses these goals consistently.
Community-engaged research builds trust and relationships
Historically marginalized communities have been exploited by researchers through extractive practices, often described as “drive-by” or “helicopter” research, that extract data without sharing findings with communities or providing benefits, contributing to deep skepticism toward academic institutions (Balazs & Morello-Frosch, 2013; Brenner & Manice, 2011). The CEnR framework developed, in part, as a direct response to these exploitative research practices (Israel et al., 1998). The framework seeks to build trust through transparency, reciprocity, and long-term relationship building, with researchers working collaboratively with community members across various research stages.
The CEnR framework recognizes that community members also possess knowledge and expertise, involving them as cocreators of knowledge and experts on their own experiences. This reflects a commitment to epistemic empowerment, which acknowledges that community members can interpret their experiences and contribute to research that reflects their realities (Haapanen et al., 2024). The framework strives for “knowledge democracy,” which challenges the assumption that academic institutions produce the most legitimate forms of knowledge, by valuing diverse ways of knowing (e.g., storytelling and poetry) as legitimate sources of expertise (de Sousa Santos, 2014; Haapanen et al., 2024). By centering these forms of knowledge, the CEnR framework aims to dismantle dominant hierarchies around who is considered knowledgeable and whose experiences are valued.
Community-engaged research creates meaningful outcomes
The CEnR framework creates meaningful outcomes at multiple levels, starting with its most important benefit: giving communities greater say in research that addresses their needs. At the individual level, when researchers actively seek community input, this may increase participants’ self-confidence and inspire them to pursue leadership in research, advocacy, community organizing, or civic engagement (Haapanen et al., 2024). At the community level, CEnR builds on existing strengths such as local knowledge and relationships while fostering colearning that increases collective knowledge and research investment (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium, 2011). At the institutional level, CEnR can improve research credibility through reflexivity, encouraging teams to examine researcher positionality, acknowledge power differentials, and address them through trust building and community involvement (Collins et al., 2018).
Community-Engaged Research Across the Research Cycle
Opportunities for using CEnR can be seen at various stages of the research cycle, providing multiple points of entry for collaboration with community members (Fig. 1). The level of engagement may vary, from low to high, depending on the goals of the project, the context of the research, and the capacity of both researchers and community partners. Variation in engagement levels within and across studies (Fig. 1) suggests that the key question is not whether to use CEnR but how much CEnR can realistically be implemented. By incorporating CEnR principles at any stage, researchers can begin building their CEnR capacity without needing to redesign entire research programs.
Flow chart of multiple points of entry for community engagement in research within associated benefits.
These stages include:
Research team development: involving community members in the research team
Research design/planning: community involvement in determining research questions, methods, and overall approach
Recruitment and initial engagement: involving community members in identifying, reaching out to, and welcoming participants or partners into the project
Data collection: community involvement in gathering research data
Ongoing engagement: continued involvement of community throughout the research process
Analysis: community involvement in analyzing data and making meaning of data
Dissemination: community involvement in sharing findings
What does community-engaged research look like in practice?
To understand how CEnR principles translate into actual research practice, examining concrete examples across different contexts and research stages can be helpful. Table 1 summarizes five studies from our research programs that vary in research aims, community contexts, study designs, and duration.
Summaries of Five Community-Engaged Research Projects Conducted by Our Team
Note: These brief summaries highlight the different ways in which we have applied community-engaged research principles across contexts. They are illustrative rather than comprehensive and do not capture the full range of possible approaches.
These five studies incorporate varying levels of CEnR implementation across different populations and contexts, including Syrian young adults in the Netherlands, Black and racial and ethnic minority youth in Canada and the United States, and racial and ethnic minority university students in Canada. Although a university-based study represents a different context than traditional community settings, it demonstrates how researchers can meaningfully engage historically marginalized communities within academic institutions, showing how CEnR principles can also be implemented in studies that often rely on university student samples. Table 2 contains examples of how community engagement strategies were implemented across five of our studies.
Examples of Community Engagement Strategies and Levels Across the Research Cycle
Patterns of community engagement across research stages
Our studies illustrate the varied ways community-engaged research practices are implemented. The Community Engagement Strategies column in Table 2 shows how community members contributed at each stage of the research cycle, from team development to dissemination, ranging from advisory roles and consultation to direct participation in data collection, analysis, and co-leadership in design and interpretation. These examples show that there is great variation in engagement levels across studies and stages. Like many researchers new to CEnR, we experienced different levels of success in putting CEnR principles in practice. This variation also shows that meaningful outcomes are possible even without high engagement at every stage, although deeper involvement often yields the greatest benefits.
The resource-intensive and relational nature of community-engaged research
Our examples highlight two critical aspects of CEnR that researchers must consider. First, CEnR approaches require substantial investments of time, funding, and coordination to engage with community partners. Each project reflected its distinct community context and level of involvement. In Karakter, resources supported maintaining a cultural advisory board, sending quarterly newsletters with tokens of appreciation (e.g., study-branded items), and facilitating community-facing activities extending beyond data collection. In Who We Are and Who I Aspire to Be, sustained dialogue with youth workers was maintained through trimester check-ins, collaborative workshops, and shared meals that fostered trust. In Giving Voice, resources supported community events, two advisory boards (faculty/staff/students and participants), and knowledge-sharing sessions connecting students, staff, and faculty. These commitments, although resource-intensive, underscore how CEnR requires sustained investments of time, funding, and coordination to organize events, maintain communication, and uphold mutual accountability with community members.
Beyond resources, effective CEnR is a fundamentally relational approach built on respect, reciprocity, and meaningful community input, even when engagement occurs at select research stages. In Roots and Dreams, advisory partnerships with school leadership were established before project initiation and expanded through regular meetings, participation in school events, and collaborative interpretations of findings shared with educators. In Giving Voice, collaboration began when racialized students approached one of the coinvestigators, then a newly hired racialized faculty member, to share their experiences on campus. These early exchanges inspired a grant proposal centering CEnR, followed by preliminary focus groups that identified relevant topics and, later, sustained collaboration as racialized students joined the research team to co-organize community events and support participant engagement. In Uptown Dreams, partnership began through conversations with youth workers about community strengths and needs and took shape as they sought support to develop new resources for local youth. It then evolved to ongoing, stipend-supported engagement with youth workers and youths themselves through regular meetings, shared analysis, and youth-led dissemination efforts. Across projects, these relationships set CEnR apart from approaches in which consultation is merely procedural, reflecting a genuine commitment to valuing and integrating community input into research decisions.
Implications for research quality and impact
These resource-intensive and relational commitments have tangible benefits for both research quality and community impact. In Karakter, input from Syrian team members improved translations, ensured measures captured participants’ realities, and provided feedback on analysis. In Roots and Dreams, research questions were developed in collaboration with teachers and school leaders, and feedback on analysis informed the creation of a new program for students. In Giving Voice, student researchers co-led the design, data collection, and analysis; coauthored outputs; and piloted measures. In Uptown Dreams, youth shaped research questions, provided feedback on analysis, and shared findings with community leaders and officials. Last, in Who We Are and Who I Aspire to Be, youth workers added research questions, provided feedback on analysis, and informed the development of a new construct. Collectively, these efforts enhanced research quality and impact through culturally grounded methods, stronger participation, and richer analyses, showing that investments in CEnR yield greater validity, relevance, and community benefit.
Benefits and challenges of community-engaged research
The previous examples illustrate the practical implementation of CEnR across five of our studies, but it is also important to examine the benefits and challenges that researchers can expect when incorporating CEnR at each stage of the research cycle. Table 3 summarizes the benefits, challenges, and some solutions associated with using CEnR at different points of entry.
Benefits, Challenges, and Strategies From Our Team’s Experience Conducting Community-Engaged Research Across the Research Cycle
Note: CRediT = Contributor Roles Taxonomy.
CEnR has advantages that vary across the research cycle, but one consistent benefit is the production of research that more accurately and meaningfully reflects participants’ lived experiences. The challenges, however, are more diverse and context dependent.
Relational challenges can emerge among researchers and community members. At times, community partners may have changing needs that affect how they engage in collaboration, whereas researchers may underestimate the time and flexibility required to respond to those shifts. Relatedly, academic researchers’ expertise sometimes seems broader or deeper than it is. This can come to light when researchers refer to unfamiliar jargon or refer to academic experiences that do not resonate with community members, or when community members request seemingly small changes in the project that fall outside of researchers’ areas and are difficult for them to implement. Conversely, community members may at times emphasize their individual experiences, offering important perspectives yet making it more challenging to identify collective priorities, whereas researchers may struggle to create space for multiple perspectives under constrained timelines or funding structures. These interpersonal dynamics can become even more complex when community members bring perspectives shaped by broader societal stereotypes, creating tension within diverse research partnerships. Researchers may also contribute to these tensions by failing to address power imbalances directly. Underlying many of these challenges, both researchers and community members may interpret difficulties through individual lenses, which can obscure the systemic factors the partnership seeks to address.
Challenges with material resources also make it difficult to implement CEnR. Building relationships with communities and involving them in shaping the research process often requires significant time and financial investment, resources that academic institutions and funders may not always provide. Karakter and Giving Voice demonstrate this tension, with weekly meetings, participant updates, and community-facing events demanding substantial effort alongside academic responsibilities. Similarly, Uptown Dreams and Who We Are and Who I Aspire to Be required sustained coordination with youth and youth workers to support ongoing feedback and participation, whereas Roots and Dreams involved repeated consultations with school leadership and stakeholders to ensure alignment with community priorities. These efforts deepened trust and participation but also required careful planning and significant time investments to be sustained.
At the same time, funding agencies do not always prioritize ongoing partnership development or collaborative processes central to CEnR (Duke, 2020). The time-intensive nature of this work, particularly the trust building it demands, often conflicts with pressures tied to grant cycles, tenure timelines, ethics approval processes, and academic calendars. This tension is compounded by academic cultures that prioritize publications and grant acquisition for career advancement (Nyden, 2003).
Across our projects, intentional communication, structured opportunities for feedback, and flexibility as priorities evolved were key to sustaining strong partnerships and balancing academic and community needs. Being deliberate about how information was shared and providing multiple ways for community members to engage helped maintain trust and participation, even within the constraints of academic timelines and grant cycles. We found that starting with smaller research projects helped build experience and relationships before scaling up to larger project collaborations, and collaborating with experienced CEnR researchers provided valuable guidance.
It is important to note that the CEnR framework is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Its success depends on several key conditions: whether community members want or are able to engage, whether the research methods allow for meaningful participation, and whether researchers have the necessary time, resources, and institutional support. Without considering these conditions, the CEnR framework risks reinforcing the very power imbalances it aims to challenge.
How Can Researchers Get Started With Community-Engaged Research?
In many ways, determining how to begin CEnR involves similar considerations as other types of research planning, including funding availability, time constraints, and the characteristics of the target population. At the same time, CEnR introduces additional complexities that prompt researchers to re-examine their relationship to the research. Our projects highlight different entry points that illustrate the diversity of possible beginnings. For instance, Karakter initially involved limited collaboration during funding and design but later deepened engagement during translation and measure refinement. Who We Are and Who I Aspire to Be involved early input from youth workers, whose engagement laid a foundation of trust for ongoing dialogue. Last, Uptown Dreams was community initiated, with youth workers identifying opportunities and challenges that guided the co-development of research questions and decisions.
Self-reflection and readiness assessment
Before engaging with communities, researchers need to undertake honest self-examination about their motivations, capabilities, and readiness for this type of work. We have observed early-career researchers who express enthusiasm for CEnR but seem motivated more by ethical unease, such as discomfort with the extractive or unidirectional nature of traditional research, than by the prospect of engaging in the relational, iterative, and sometimes challenging work that true community engagement entails. This might manifest as wanting to quickly adopt CEnR approaches without understanding the time required to establish genuine partnerships, the skills needed to translate and bridge academic and community knowledge, or the resources necessary to sustain this work. In such cases, CEnR may be viewed as a practical way to “fix” their research rather than as a deeper shift in their approach to partnership and inquiry. When this occurs, attempts to immediately jump into highly engaged CEnR approaches may not be feasible for or beneficial to either the researchers or the communities. Researchers can become overwhelmed by the relational demands, whereas communities may experience superficial engagement or face unmet expectations that erode trust.
Instead, researchers might draw inspiration from CEnR practices and begin with smaller steps, building their capacity over time. Establishing genuine partnerships sometimes prompts researchers to share aspects of themselves that are more personal, and sometimes emotional, than traditional research and helicopter models of data collection typically require. Not every researcher will engage in CEnR or can show up as a genuine partner, or not at every point in their career. An honest assessment of one’s capacity for relational work is part of ethical practice, and determining that one does not have the capacity to engage in CEnR is preferable to overpromising and underdelivering to communities.
That said, CEnR projects are not always smooth. Mistakes are inevitable when attempting to build more deeply engaged partnerships. Such challenges can be anticipated by establishing checkpoints and two-way communication paths that facilitate exchanges with community partners. Like other aspects of CEnR that make space for different forms of expertise, this reality also calls for humility, admitting when one is wrong, and a commitment toward repair in a context in which difficult moments with community partners and participants can impact real people and relationships.
When considering CEnR, researchers might ask themselves the following questions: “What motivates me toward wanting to use CEnR, and how might that motivation shape my approach, especially since I am not part of the community I hope to work with?” “What kinds of checkpoints and opportunities for feedback can my team and community partners establish?” “How will I address and move forward from inevitable mishaps and mistakes with community partners?” “Do I currently have the time, funding, and institutional support to engage meaningfully with communities, and if not, what could a project that fits my current capacity look like?” and “Have I communicated my available resources and limitations transparently to prospective community partners?”
Practical considerations and constraints
Researchers must maintain balance between realistic expectations and incremental progress toward more collaborative approaches. Transparency about available resources and deliverables is crucial when setting expectations with community partners, similar to the open science movement’s emphasis on acknowledging limitations. Researchers should be explicit with themselves and communities about their current capacity, communicating honestly about what they can offer rather than promising more than they can deliver.
Practical factors such as academic calendars can create communication challenges during busy university periods and may confuse community partners unfamiliar with these rhythms. Although it is possible to secure grants to fund CEnR projects, the grant process itself creates partnership challenges: Researchers must first engage with communities to develop collaborative proposals and then wait months for funding decisions without knowing whether they can move forward together on the proposed timeline.
It is important to acknowledge that many researchers work within universities and, despite idealistic aspirations for creating social change, operate within systems that have inherent limitations. Institutional requirements around research ethics and reimbursement policies present unique challenges for CEnR. Community-engaged researchers must navigate the tension between incorporating authentic community engagement in study design and meeting the specificity required by institutional oversight.
In traditional research, researchers typically determine research questions, design a study, obtain ethics approval, and then carry out their study with minimal changes. In CEnR, however, the ethical review process will likely be more iterative when working with community members. Researchers may collaborate with communities to determine research questions first, then submit to the institutional review board (IRB), and then later amend the ethics approval in response to ongoing community input. Additionally, ethics boards may struggle to understand CEnR approaches, sometimes interpreting genuine relationship-building activities (such as providing food, refreshments, or community events) as inappropriate hospitality rather than meaningful participant engagement.
At the same time, there is growing institutional momentum to address these barriers. For example, the Stanford School of Medicine adopted the Engage for Equity PLUS framework to assess institutional barriers and implement solutions. This initiative prioritized refinements to IRB procedures, streamlined post-grant administrative processes, and expanded training for researchers and community members (Rodriguez Espinosa et al., 2025). These efforts align with broader calls for institutional transformation and emphasis on strong leadership, resources, and training to strengthen equity-based community- and patient-engaged research (Adsul et al., 2024). At the University of Toronto, the Community-Engaged Research Faculty Discussion Club fosters faculty learning on CEnR, emphasizing relationship building and reciprocal benefits for communities and scholarship. Together, these efforts show growing progress toward institutional environments that better support the use of CEnR.
Researchers can also reflect on the practical aspects of engaging in CEnR. For example, under what circumstances and in what capacity might the community be able to engage? What conditions would need to be in place to support meaningful participation? If funding is needed, what would equitable collaboration look like during the proposal stage? How might the research team maintain communication and trust with community partners while waiting for funding decisions? What can be done to keep momentum and connection if the timeline for funding decisions does not align with community priorities or availability?
Starting small and building gradually
Researchers can begin incorporating research practices that build toward CEnR principles by taking gradual, intentional steps. Often the most accessible starting point involves reimagining dissemination, for example, by not only communicating research findings back to communities in accessible ways but also inviting meaningful discussion about them. This can be a valuable entry point on its own because it helps identify how community members interpret current findings, what needs they see as most pressing, and what alternate explanations or directions they would find useful to address.
Researchers seeking expanded engagement might next involve community members in data collection or the interpretation of findings. For even greater involvement, community members could participate in developing research questions themselves. One way to conceptualize this process is as an evolving research program in which community conversations emerging from dissemination inform subsequent research questions, thus incorporating community perspectives over time.
As researchers consider how to start small and build gradually, it can be helpful to reflect on what forms of community involvement are realistic and sustainable at their current stage. For example, what resources does the team have, and at which stages of the research phases can these resources support community participation? Are there sufficient funds to compensate community members for their time as they design and collect data, or only for their involvement in data analysis and interpretation? Can research activities be combined with ongoing community or organizational initiatives to reduce strain on both the team and community partners? Even when involving the community in design is not possible, can open-ended questions about participants’ experiences be integrated, and can the responses be shared with the community?
Timeline and relationship-building expectations
Although thinking big and aspiring to do transformative work is admirable, approaching CEnR as “the long game” rather than striving for perfection immediately is often far more sustainable and ultimately more beneficial for both researchers and communities. CEnR requires researchers to adopt long-term perspectives, which may come more naturally to some than others.
Additionally, although collaboration is a natural aspiration, it should not be expected or assumed from the outset. Like any relationship, parties must first become acquainted and determine compatibility before deepening partnerships. For researchers who are not community members, this means spending time within communities without expecting reciprocity, building trust, and gaining an understanding of what meaningful partnership could look like for both parties.
When planning ongoing community engagement, researchers should clarify their intentions and reasoning. Engagement may serve multiple purposes, such as monitoring participation, maintaining retention, building community, or updating communities on study progress. We recommend maintaining documentation that tracks the reasoning behind each planned engagement to preserve intentionality and prevent interactions from becoming routine or tokenistic.
As relationships deepen, researchers can reflect on how to build partnerships that are grounded in mutual understanding and accountability. For example: “What is my relationship to the community—am I a member, an invited contributor, or someone offering potentially relevant expertise?” “What aspects of my identity, experience, or role places me as an insider, outsider, or both, and in what ways might these positions shift over time as relationships develop?” “How can I avoid making assumptions about community priorities or my own appropriateness and instead engage directly with the community?” “How can my team spend time in the communities we hope to collaborate with to build trust and understanding?” “What kinds of community events, volunteer opportunities, or town halls can I participate in to build relationships and determine compatibility with the community?” “What can my team do to connect with community members and ask them directly: What do you find important? Does my expertise align with your needs? How can we maintain a record of our community building efforts? What mechanisms can we put in place to be accountable to each other as researchers and community members?”
Conclusion and Future Directions
Stronger psychological research requires greater diversity in both participants and researchers to capture the full breadth of human experience and interpret that experience with nuance and understanding. We argue that CEnR is an approach that addresses these critical issues, yet it remains underused in psychological science. Here, we provided an overview of CEnR’s foundations and implementation strategies, offering three main takeaways: CEnR offers a practical solution to psychology’s diversity crisis by transforming the researcher-participant relationship, its implementation can be flexible and adaptable across stages of the research cycle, and although CEnR requires intentional relationship building, significant resources, and navigating institutional constraints, these efforts enhance both research quality and community impact.
Looking ahead, psychological research has opportunities to expand CEnR in new directions. For example, the pandemic revealed possibilities for entirely online community engagement through virtual events and seminars. This is particularly valuable for communities defined by shared identity, such as diasporic or LGBTQ+ communities, in which connection is not bound by geography. For researchers already conducting studies online, adapting these digital approaches may make CEnR more feasible and accessible within existing programs of research.
Our perspective reflects our ongoing learning as predominantly early-career researchers with varied CEnR experience across specific institutional contexts and communities. Through this process, we have recognized that developing CEnR skills requires both hands-on experience and foundational knowledge through structured training or mentorship, supports that facilitate more effective and ethical community partnerships over time. We also acknowledge that our focus on research applications represents a limitation because CEnR principles have broader applicability to research training and clinical practice within psychology. Although we offer practical insights from our research experiences, we acknowledge that our understanding and implementation will continue to evolve through deeper community engagement.
We hope that the ideas presented here encourage broader dialogue about CEnR implementation across psychology’s diverse research areas, recognizing our examples as one set of approaches among many possible adaptations. Ultimately, the journey toward CEnR is iterative, relational, and part of a broader shift toward collaborative science that centers community empowerment and social change. The goal is not immediate perfection but to cultivate an authentic and enduring commitment to conduct research with and for communities in ways that are authentic, responsive, and transformative.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We thank Victoria Pringle, Daliah Marei, Elizabeth Long, Leif Anderson, and Colin Li for their feedback on earlier drafts of the manuscript.
Transparency
Action Editor: David A. Sbarra
Editor: David A. Sbarra
Author Contributions
