Research Report- UHI CLAN Knowledge Exchange Strategy Project

This project sought to advance the work of the Community Landownership Academic Network
(CLAN) through developing a Knowledge Exchange Strategy. The project incorporated representatives from across the UHI partnership (UHI Perth, UHI Outer Hebrides and UHI North Highland) active in the areas of land management, ownership and reform. We worked in partnership with industry body Community Land Scotland to ensure that the work was relevant, targeted and useful for both them and their membership.
In the original design of the project, the objectives were as follows:
1. To understand the experiences, needs and plans of asset-owning community organisations
with regard to their interactions with the academic/research sector;
2. To develop a strategy for engagement and communication between UHI CLAN and asset-owning community organisations;
3. To initiate platforms/mechanisms through which to formalise ongoing dialogue between
asset-owning community organisations and UHI CLAN beyond the length of the project.
Addressing these objectives would offer an insight into the past experiences of communities and researchers, the current state of this area of research, as well as inform a future Knowledge Exchange Strategy for CLAN. This would specifically include an initial research agenda and recommendations for communication mechanisms between researchers, community organisations and other stakeholders going forward. Tangible outputs from the project were to include a regular CLAN newsletter, a formal Knowledge Exchange Strategy and a peer-reviewed paper on the project.
This research report outlines the methods and findings of this project, followed by specific next steps in the development of CLAN’s Knowledge Exchange Strategy.