AIP Research Notes - bringing fresh eyes to links between research and practice

The AIP Research Notes column carries news and views of AI research issues, exploring the links between research and practice, between people working and people investigating, and often doing both. This is a pressing issue. As Appreciative Inquiry promotes thoughtful practice, we learn to look with fresh eyes at things we have taken for granted. This freshness offers much to research and practice, and is something we can share and build on as we seek to draw these worlds together. For a long time the worlds of practice and research have been distant from each other, and sometimes suspicious and hostile.

Research in an appreciative spirit

The ‘Research Notes’ column brings these two worlds together, by exploring research which is undertaken in an appreciative spirit, one that can be very different to the traditional research approach, where rigour often was assumed to mean a hypercritical stance. Using an AI approach changes this. Similarly the practice world has often been reluctant to embrace research, regarding it as irrelevant and/or misinformed. Bringing research and practice together, then, can be a complex and lengthy process, one that this column hopes to contribute to.

News or discussion pieces - we would like to hear from you

Sometimes the column has a specific focus or someone leads a discussion with a piece they have written (this may be followed by a full paper elsewhere). Commentators respond.

We would like to have input from readers on topics for the column or who would like to lead a discussion themselves. We would also like to hear from people with news of grants, funding publications or research degrees which have used Appreciative Inquiry.

So come on everybody - help to make these ‘Research Notes’ yours! Please submit your ideas and materials to lmholmberg@gmail.com and jan.reed@northumbria.ac.uk.