Community-based research (CBR):

• is conducted with and for, not on, members of a community;
• is collaborative and change oriented; and
• finds its research questions in the needs of communities which often require information that they have neither the time nor the resources to obtain.
  
  (from Kerry Strand, Sam Marullo, Nick Cutforth, Randy Stoecker, and Patrick Donohue. Community-based Research and Higher Education: Principles and Practices. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003).