The paper develops a descriptive model of different aspects of involvement by academic staff in social planning; for example, involvement in different stages of planning, level of influencing decision-making processes, and involvement in development and action roles for promoting change. Using a structured questionnaire, research conducted in Israel compared the attitudes of 178 university academic staff members and 128 staff members of community organisations towards each aspect of planning. Significant differences were found between the groups--in most respects the community staff members take a more positive stand toward the involvement of academic staff members than the academics themselves do. (Contains 2 tables.)