Our Brokering Service

Let's start some conversations!

At the Community Research Initiative, we can approach voluntary organisations, community groups, non-profits and social enterprises on your behalf - this is our brokering service.

It is often more successful than trying to contact yourself - think of how many students are in UCL and London as a whole!

If you already have a topic, organisation, or research idea in mind, this route will be right for you.

Need inspiration?

Get Googling! In the same way you would do a lit review to see the academic landscape, it's a great idea to research the landscape of organisations working on the topic you'd like to research.

Starting points:

• UK charity register. Search by keywords related to your topic.
• Use internet searches like 'London charity [topic]'. LinkedIn can also be a useful platform to see which organisations are active in the area.
• You can also check our Directory of existing Partners here. The Directory is full information about the organisations we already work with on student volunteering or research opportunities. Use this as inspo. It is not the same as our Noticeboard which is specifically for master's students working with us.

Requirements

If you identify a potential organisation by some other route than our Directory, our only ask is that you check the organisation is eligible (see below). We prioritise small-to-medium sized organisations.

You are allowed up to 6 brokering requests per year, but we recommend not submitting all 6 at once. Instead, try 2 or 3 and see what happens.

You must be signed up to the Community Research Initiative to use our brokering service. Check your Students' Union UCL student profile if you are not sure or sign up here.

Eligibility criteria

The organisation must be one of the below to qualify for collaboration:

• constituted voluntary or community organisation
• registered charity
• charitable incorporated organisation (CIO or SCIO)
• not-for-profit company limited by guarantee – they must be a registered charity or have a not-for-profit ‘asset lock’ clause in their articles of association
• community interest company (CIC)
• school, college, university
• statutory body (including local authorities, town, parish or community councils)
• community benefit society
• co-operative society – they must have a not-for-profit ‘asset lock’ clause in their society rules and also be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.
• social enterprise- following Social Enterprise UK definition, the business must

1. have a clear social or environmental mission set out in its governing documents and be controlled in the interest of that mission
2. be independent of state or government control, and earn more than half of its income through trading
3. re-invest or donate at least half of its profits or surpluses towards their mission
4. be transparent in the way they operate and the impact they have

Details about eligibility can also be found in the brokering form.

Checking if an organisation is eligible: 

• Check the England & Wales Charity Commission register to see if it's a charity.  

• Check Companies House to see if it's a social enterprise. Company type will be "Private company limited by guarantee without share capital".  

• Check the Mutuals Public Register for information about community benefit societies. These types of organisations may also appear on the Companies House register.