Co-Production Showcase

03 Jul 2024

Collaborative Futures: Exploring Co-Production in Research at Recent Faculty Event.

In recent years co-produced research in partnership with communities, organisations and other non Higher Education research partners, has become more widely used as a methodology. Equally, an increasing number of research grant calls now welcome or require embedded co-production and research partnership.

Whilst a great deal of co-produced research already takes place across the Faculty, we wanted to better profile it and bring it together at this event. Such collaborative working is not without its challenges, and we wanted also to provide an opportunity to look at the ways in which the Faculty might better, or more effectively support, this research methodology.

The event in May featured two panel discussions. On the first were Sophina Choudry, a Presidential Fellow from the Manchester Institute of Education who has co-produced a ‘call for action’ document with a range of community groups in the Pakistani community in Rochdale. She was joined by Patty Doran, a Research Associate in the Sociology department at SoSS, who has co-produced work on age friendly cities/communities in the Brunswick district of Manchester, and Helen Holmes, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Deputy Director of the Sustainable Futures Platform who has a great deal of experience in co-production through recent research projects.

A second panel included Dr Emma Martin, a Senior Lecturer in Museology in SALC, who was joined by Liz Richardson, Professor of Public Administration in the Politics department at SoSS, and Dr Simon Parry, a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Arts Management at SALC. They all shared their experiences of the benefits of co-production, but also its challenges. Many referred to the need for more flexible support systems from the Faculty and to the growing issue of ‘over-researched’ communities, and the pressing need to ensure that the benefits of research partnership flow in both directions between and amongst partners.