These recommendations focus on establishing the institutional conditions and relationships necessary for authentic community-academic partnerships.
1. Establish Institutional Commitment and Readiness
Meaningful and sustainable community-academic partnerships are founded on institutional commitment and readiness. Institutions may have a genuine desire to engage patients and communities. However, without the clear commitment, internal alignment, infrastructure, and investment needed to support this work, partnership efforts may remain fragmented, inconsistent, or difficult to sustain.
Community engagement and partnership are more effective when they are embedded as an institutional priority rather than dependent on individual champions, temporary funding, or siloed efforts. Establishing institutional commitment and readiness creates the conditions for meaningful collaboration, stronger partnerships, authentic engagement, and sustained impact.
2. Begin With Community-Led Needs Assessment and Shared Goal Setting
Strong community-academic partnerships center community-defined priorities from the beginning. Community-academic partnerships are most effective when institutions approach communities without predetermined agendas, assumptions about their needs, or prematurely proposed solutions. Instead, engaging community partners early can help identify priorities, define needs, and shape the direction of the partnership and initiative.
Recognizing the strengths, assets, history, culture, and leadership that already exist within communities is an important component of community-academic partnerships. Taking time to build consensus and align institutional and community priorities strengthens communication, understanding, transparency, and accountability and creates a stronger foundation for mutually beneficial partnerships.
“We managed to earn our community members’ trust by consistently focusing on their needs.”
—Albert Einstein College of Medicine faculty
3. Invest in Long-Term, Relationship-Centered Partnerships
Long-term, community-academic partnerships are built through relationship-centered engagement. These partnerships are grounded in reciprocity, consistency, respect, mutual benefit, and ongoing engagement that demonstrates investment in the partnership.
Relationship-centered partnerships can move beyond transactional engagement by maintaining a consistent presence even when community input, participation, or collaboration is not immediately needed. Strong partnerships are not defined solely by what institutions hope to gain, but also by how they contribute to community partners over time.