What is Empyrean Research?

Welcome to Empyrean Research.

We’re new kids on the block but we come with lots of experience and motivation to help groups and communities that are in need and to work with organizations that want to go in new directions.

I am the director at Empyrean Research. I come to this work with a background in community development, international development and academia. I have worked inside universities and think tanks. And while these organizations do a lot of good in their own way, they are like giant tanker ships. They ply the deep waters and dock at the large ports—but they never reach the small islands, the out of the way harbors, or the inland areas far from the coast.

I created Empyrean Research to give my collaborators and me the freedom to reach those other waters--by which I mean those communities and organizations that may be too small or too remote to have regular access to university researchers or think tank consultants. 

We work with the those who are struggling to make change wherever they are anywhere in the world:

• Community groups
• NGOs
• Non-profit/voluntary organizations
• Faith-based groups
  

We bring research tools and methods to help your organizations become more successful at creating good change in your community. We work in participatory ways using collaborative research methods. Don’t worry: the idea isn't to do research on your community or even for your group, but to do it with you-- to arrive at a better understanding by working and learning together so that in the end we leave your organization with the capacity to carry out similar analysis in the future on your own.

We also work with larger institutions that are looking for better ways to engage with and support their communities:                                                                                                                                

• Local governments
• Universities
• Private sector organizations
  

We provide models and tools for building better partnerships and collaborations. We help governments link more effectively with citizen groups and civil society, universities to engage better with their surrounding communities and businesses to create more meaningful corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

Our commitment is to careful listening and original thinking. We are not replicating or scaling up a one-size-fits-all model from some other context. We design context-specific research models and processes that are premised on the needs and realities of your community and your organization.

Through our projects we work to create transformative knowledge. We believe that transformative knowledge rarely comes from the outside—rather it comes from changes in assumptions and relationships inside of a community or organization. Our goal is to create within your group those new kinds of transformative understandings that open up new possibilities for action and change.

Please explore our website and the growing body of posts on this blog to learn more about how we work here at Empyrean Research. We look forward to your inquiries about how we can support your organization and your community.