CARPP forges links with research centre for Leadership in Action at New York University
The School’s Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP) and the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University have recently formalised an ongoing collaboration arrangement.
CARPP and the RCLA have been actively involved together for several years, engaging in a range of research and educational activities.
CARPP’s Professor Peter Reason has served on the Research Advisory Board for the Research and Documentation component of the Ford Foundation Programme Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) since 2000 and has brought particular expertise in co-operative inquiry to the LCW project. Professor Reason has also conducted a series of graduate workshops in action research at the Wagner School with participation from faculty and students from other Universities in the New York area.
Professor Sonia Ospina from the RCLA and colleagues were guest keynote speakers at the tenth Emerging Approaches to Inquiry conference organized by Professors Judi Marshall and Reason at CARPP in 2005. Professor Ospina also serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Action Research and has contributed with Jennifer Dodge and Amparo Hofmann to the Handbook of Action Research (2nd ed.), both edited by Professor Reason. Professor Erica Foldy (RCLA) has also contributed to both publications.
Professors Ospina, Marshall, and Reason have shared platforms and contributed to each other’s symposia at international conferences (American Academy of Management; World Congress of Action Research; Stockholm Conference on Action Research and Social Construction).
Graduate students from both Centres have attended the other institution’s seminars and conferences.
In other areas, CARPP’s Dr Kate McArdle has explored practices of co-operative inquiry with members and associates of RCLA. Dr Geoff Mead and Chris Seeley, CARPP Visiting Fellows, have explored practices of co-operative inquiry for public service leadership with members and associates of RCLA.
The two Centres have much to learn from each other’s practices, which are both similar and contrasting. Both Centres and their associates are engaged in relatively long-term collaborative research with leaders in community-based, non-profit, public, and market-based organizations and are concerned with the integration of practice and scholarship. They both work actively with graduate students, collaborate widely with other academic and public service institutions and intend to develop action research practice in the context of scholarship.
Given this history of shared learning, CARPP and RCLA agree to more formally develop a shared research agenda focusing on the development and application of a variety of action research and qualitative inquiry approaches to leadership in action in communities and organizations. The Centres envisage that this will entail a set of informal and formal activities to build understanding of theory and capacity for practice of action research.
Notes to Editors
CARPP’s interest and concern is with approaches to action research which integrate action and reflection, so that the knowledge gained in the inquiry is directly relevant to the issues being studied; and in which there is increased collaboration between all those involved in the inquiry project. Our work aims at helping the individual practitioner develop skills of reflective practice and to help organizational members develop communities of inquiry, as well as contribute to wider understanding of the place of inquiry in the development of professional practice.
Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service was launched in August 2003 with founding support from the Ford Foundation. The RCLA promotes practice-grounded, social science-based, interdisciplinary research that will help strengthen both the theory and the practice of leadership in public service. RCLA generates data for this research through solving work challenges.
For further information / press enquiries, contact:
Liz Alvey, Marketing Officer
School of Management
University of Bath
Claverton Down
Bath BA2 7AY
UK
Tel:+ 44 (0) 1225 383526
Email: pr@management.bath.ac.uk
General Notes For Editors:
The University of Bath School of Management has consistently achieved both top research and teaching ratings in the UK's Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) assessments. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the School was rated 5th in the UK for management research.
We are one of a select number of international business schools accredited by EQUIS, the European Foundation for Management Development's quality inspectorate and the Bath MBA has been accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) since 1976. The School is consistently ranked among the top UK business schools by The Times, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times and The Guardian.
The centrality of research to teaching is an essential feature of all our programmes. The School offers a full range of programmes from undergraduate to postgraduate up to PhD level and post-experience programmes including the world-ranked Bath MBA. The School also provides tailored executive development programmes for middle and senior management.
The School of Management has a faculty of around 90 teaching and research staff, including visiting academics, with a support team of around 70 managerial and administrative staff. Research income averages £2 million per annum. There are approximately 2,100 students in total comprising some 200 MBA students, 460 Master’s students, 210 full- and part-time research students, and over 1100 undergraduates following BSc degrees. The School also runs joint undergraduate programmes with Departments in the Faculties of Engineering and Design, Science and Humanities and Social Sciences.
