Changing the rewards: A framework for CBPR impact measures in promotion and tenure

CBPR is an effective approach to prompt social change and improved health in communities. However, traditional researchers and institutions resist CBPR, because it: distracts from discipline specific research, requires extensive community involvement, takes time away from teaching/ research duties, and may not lead to the types of products typically used to evaluate a faculty member's impact (grants, articles in “high impact” journals). If universities truly desire community engaged scholarship in their faculty, they must embrace CBPR and change promotion and tenure guidelines that currently inhibit community engaged research approaches. More research is needed to examine how universities use promotion and tenure guidelines to encourage CBPR in traditional researchers.

We examined promotion and tenure guidelines at one southeastern university recognized nationally for community engaged scholarship. We present a framework for how institutions can measure CBPR based on five community impacts (1) improvement in the quality of life in the community, (2) contributions to the development of new policies, (3) research skills development among community and academic partners, (4) strengthening of community voice in determining future policies and directions, and (5) extent to which the research knowledge was disseminated to academic and community partners and translated into systems changes. Community-impact versus scholarly-impact driven promotion and tenure guidelines are needed to elevate CBPR in the minds of institutions, communities, and traditional researchers. National recognition for community engaged scholarship does not translate to promotion and tenure guidelines driven by CBPR. Discipline specific promotion and tenure guidelines inclusive of CBPR impact measures must be established.