On November 5^th, 2025, several QCAP staff (Prof. Kathy Higgins, Dr. Andrew Grounds, Gavin Brewis and Dr. Neal Halforty represented Queen’s Communities and Place (QCAP) alongside our MDA community partners (Fiontann Hargey and Tracy Conlon) at All Together Now: Introducing the Centre for Collaboration in Community Connectedness (C4), which was held at the historic Toynbee Hall in London – a fitting setting for such an event given its legacy of inspiring social reform and community empowerment.

 

The event was opened by Rachel Rowney of Local Trust, and C4’s lead, Prof Sarah Pearson.  Together, they set a visionary tone, that spoke to C4’s aims of leveraging social connectedness as a form of infrastructure.   Indeed, this event was not simply about sharing ideas, but creating a foundation for tackling the material challenges of isolation, ill health and poverty that communities continue to face.  Their introduction framed the day as both independent and visionary, with a focus on how research can shape impact and policy while growing in partnership with local places.

Following the opening, Fionntán Hargey of the Market Development Association (MDA) in Belfast gave the first presentation, tracing the history and context of Market as a place – that such as its struggles against displacement, its strong sense of identity, and its deep-rooted and historic fight for community-led change. Dr. Andrew Grounds from QCAP followed, connecting this story to the practical, material and economic realities of sustaining such work.  There was recognition of the constant balance between meeting immediate needs and building long-term resilience.  Such reflections resonated deeply with the C4 ethos, that social connection and material improvement must develop hand-in-hand through  authentic collaboration community and academic partners. 

Prof. Kathy Higgins chaired the session and drew together the threads of discussion, highlighting how C4 can act as a live framework for collaboration between universities, policymakers, and most importantly, communities.  Speakers from Brixton and Darnall in Sheffield brought further depth, illustrating respectively, how local action, when properly resourced and supported, can transform both neighbourhood spirit through arts and leisure, and real community change through an emphasis on health and wellbeing.

Later in the day, the team attended breakout session's including one chaired by Local Trust introducing the Big Local programme – an incredibly powerful example of how community decision-making can reshape long-term investment in people and places.  A presentation from Taz Rashid of C-Change West London offered an inspiring story of how a community once struggling with fragmentation is now flourishing through grassroots leadership, creativity and trust.  As explained by Taz: ‘If you build it, they will come’ – a sentiment which captures the spirit of the C4 initiative.

Finally, the day concluded with a futures-thinking workshop led by Dr Chris Dayson from Sheffield Hallam University and the Darnall team.  Participants were invited to imagine multiple possible futures – some of which were hopeful, while others more cautionary – and to think collectively about how data from this exercise could inform the work of C4 going forward.  It was an energising and imaginative session, which underscored how data will only gain meaning when communities are empowered to both interpret and act upon it.

For QCAP, All Together Now reaffirmed the shared mission that runs through our work as a department: that place-based research, collaboration and community voice are essential not only for understanding the world as it is, but for envisioning what it could become.  C4 thus represents a chance to grow a network of learning grounded in people, practice and place, and where research and connection are not separate entities, but two sides of the same project, driven by real material change.