Meeting people where they are: co-producing research with communities

This research, delivered with the Co-Production Futures Inquiry at the Universities of Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool, explored what a good experience of working with a university as a community researcher looks and feels like in practice.

We conducted a collaborative workshop and journey mapping exercise with community researchers and community-based organisations to understand their felt experiences of working with universities, what the research process looked like in practice, what helped or hindered them feeling valued at each stage, and what universities can do to improve the experiences of community researchers.

Our visual output and webinar reflects on what works well, what needs to change, and emerging initiatives already working to support equitable and inclusive university-community partnerships.

This piece of work informed the Co-Production Futures Inquiry's sector-wide recommendations to improve the conditions for participatory and co-produced research in UK Higher Education.