Launched in late January 2024, the Democracy Collaborative’s Global Academic and Researcher Network (GARN) is a forum for engaged scholars seeking to advance both the literature and evidence base of Community Wealth Building (CWB) activity around the world. In enhancing the linkages between allied academics and researchers, TDC hopes that GARN will be able to assist the growth of CWB as a concept, practice, and social movement. Our vision is a global CWB ecosystem of students learning about CWB, academics advancing participatory, action-oriented scholarship, researchers developing and leveraging evaluative frameworks to analyze the efficacy of CWB interventions, research into new and improved policy and legislation required for successful CWB and practitioners’ technical and political efforts being deeply informed by a growing body of literature exploring the nuances of CWB interventions and strategies. 

GARN presently meets on a quarterly basis, with a core team of approximately 10 participants representing a variety of disciplines and geographies. From North America to Europe, sociologists, economists, philosophers, political scientists, and urban planners come together every few months to discuss a particular question or project followed by a presentation from one of their peers. For example, in April, two Canadian researchers, Audrey Jamal, Assistant Dean in the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph, and  Heather Hachigan, Assistant Professor at Royal Roads University, shared their work studying and mapping a diversity of institutional arrangements supporting CWB activity that enable communities to control their own assets. In August, Max Lacey-Barnacle, Research Fellow in Just Transitions at the University of Sussex, presented his research on the relationship between the energy transition and Just Transition frameworks as a way to understand economic system change from a sectoral perspective. 

In addition to co-creating these forum spaces, GARN facilitators, Neil McInroy and Nairuti Shastry, are working to build out a robust database of academics and researchers studying CWB to track research gaps and needs at a global level. To date, McInroy and Shastry have identified nearly 100 scholars from around the world studying various elements and/or conducting a wholesale of CWB. 

In the future, the Network hopes to: 

• conduct and publish a report outlining the gaps in CWB literature; 

• support scholars to collaboratively conduct research (and co-apply for research funding); 

• host place-based gatherings and/or study tours to build research partnerships and understand the granular work of CWB; 

• design and publish an open source academic journal to both disseminate and validate the work of CWB; and

• co-create an open source curriculum in line with the broader movement to support graduate students and study and, more broadly, advance engaged scholarship. 

Are you an academic or researcher studying CWB? Want to join the movement? Fill out our survey to share your work and be included in our database. Interested in learning more about and/or getting involved in GARN? Email Neil at nmcinroy@democracycollaborative.org. 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash