We did a review of the research that had recently been conducted around community engagement and social entrepreneurship as part of our evaluation of the Hub Sandbox. The idea was to identify the lessons learned and early indications of success. Our findings were split into three categories:

 

• What characteristics best describe the program? While social entrepreneurship has students acting more as innovative consultants, community engagement takes its cues from the community as a partner in co-developing solutions. 

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• What are the student learning outcomes? Longer term coaching to build students' resilience and giving them the ability to 'apprentice with' a problem instead of rushing into a quick fix are two possible outcomes.

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• What is the role of the community? Different methods for determining whether initiatives are student-led or community-led are explored using real-life examples.

 

The review includes insights from several studies and concludes with two examples of how universities have developed hubs that put students and community members together to co-develop solutions to improve the life of the community. 
 

The review is here.