Freelance Research in the Community

Community research usually involves the evaluation of a voluntary sector project such as a refugee forum or family support centre. I've been involved in contract research for the past five years and during that time I have evaluated a number of projects, developed a set of benchmarks for social inclusion, investigated the need for a wet centre and examined how faith communities deal with substance misuse among other things.

Getting Involved

Community research usually means that you develop a relationship with the organizations you are working with and this can mean more than one project with some organizations. Generally speaking you always end up doing more work than you tendered for because that is the nature of the beast.

If you like people, want to help your community and would like to influence policy makers and funding organizations then you might enjoy a career in research, it's not for the faint hearted however. A career in research usually comes on the back of years of academic study learning and honing your craft with the help of supervisors and project leaders. It is however, extremely rewarding, like any other form of freelancing income is not guaranteed and it can be months between one project and the next - you can also spend days working on a research bid and not be awarded the project.

You do have to love your work, there's a lot of interviewing involved, data analysis and creative report writing. Just like anything else that is worthwhile you have to be prepared to put in a lot of hard work and accept that some of what you do is for love rather than money. But I have yet to meet a contract researcher or research consultant as we're sometimes known who would want to give up research.