Opening up Participatory Research

Today, I finished work on the initial stages of our Engaged Research Hub. What looks like a small section on our staff intranet is actually the first visible outcome of a programme of work I’ve been leading since the summer I joined 英国曼彻斯特大学 in 2023. This is part of but also somewhat on top of ‘the day job’…because if you know me, you’ll know meaningful engagement is my passion and it tends to creep into all I do.

The programme

I gave this programme the title ‘Opening up Participatory Research’ because it speaks to its origins. I wouldn’t for one second claim that everything within it is fully participatory or co-produced. It’s the first step in an ongoing and iterative process of getting to know the engaged research landscape at the University so we can better support good practice.

Like many universities that received an allocation of UK Research and Innovation Research England ’s Participatory Research Funds in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, we initially used it to supplement activity on existing projects, in order to get the money spent within the tight window we had. Moreover, when the funding was distributed, the funder referred to both ‘co-produced’ and ‘participatory’ research, without defining either, placing that ball firmly in the court of the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) that received it. They did indicate that:

?“Participatory or co-produced research strengthens research outcomes by involving the communities and users of research, better recognising their experience, needs and preferences, and giving greater agency to communities to implement findings.”

…a statement that includes many assumptions about quality, which I suspect we could spend all day unpacking. However, the funding and lack of definition did provide an impetus for us to take a close look at what participatory research meant to us as a university.

As part of this, we commissioned Dr Dominic Galliano, Dr Bentley Crudgington and Dr Charlotte Thorley to review/map the participatory research ecosystem at the University. This work uncovered a range of engaged research practices, which aligned with definitions of ‘participatory research’ to a greater or lesser degree. We aimed to identify a set of case studies based on key themes that emerged and create films about them. ?However, delays with the interviews and workshops meant that some of the films are based on research identified through the mapping, and others through separate workshops and my own growing knowledge of research taking place at the university.

The films

Working with Bentley (and me), the wonderful team at Modify Productions produced a series of films highlighting the themes that came through most strongly during the mapping - what people spoke about when we asked them about participatory research. David and Josh from Modify were youth researchers on a participatory research project some years ago, which really helped with the conversations and the sensitivity with which they engaged with those involved. You can see the results of their work and read more about why the themes were chosen on the Opening up Participatory Research films page.

Each film is approximately ten minutes long, which we realise is a lot, and they're not neatly wrapped up narratives. This is because we wanted to surface the complexities and difficulties of engaged research practices, rather than producing glossy films that suggest we – or, indeed, the Higher Education sector – have got it all right. Each film is designed to provoke discussion and debate about engaged research practices, their nuance and value, and how they are supported (or not).

The inevitable gaps and stumbling blocks

I believe it’s also important to be honest and upfront about the things that didn’t go well (and I’m happy to talk to anybody about those in more detail), so in a pre-emptive airing of dirty laundry:

• The film project itself met with many of the issues that dog participatory research. Ideally, the films would have been produced in dialogue with everyone involved but that didn’t happen as fully as it should due to funding timelines (see the holding page for the Over-Researched Communities film for more on that).
• The editing of our film about Ethics was fraught because researchers voiced a lot of complaints about wider issues with the university’s formal ethics process – not just participatory research. This meant we needed to strike a balance, so that the film acknowledged the challenges that formal ethics processes can pose to those undertaking participatory research, but didn’t feel like an attack on our professional services colleagues. We have a duty of care there, and those discussions are being taken forward through a project that’s taking place off-camera instead.
• There are significant gaps in terms of geographical coverage. The people who signed up for events and wanted to be involved have largely worked locally. I know there’s great work going on across the globe, which we can really learn from. However, I also know the hyperlocal is somewhere we really have opportunities – and an ethical imperative - to build those dialogical, sustained relationships too.
• The case studies are largely from the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This may be because that’s where this work is concentrated (and because there’s such a strong emphasis on PPIE in health research, as voiced in the Beyond Patient Involvement film), but I’m aware it may also be because of the language used to describe practices when we were trying to get people onboard. So that’s something we’re looking at.
• Last but definitely not least – diversity.? Most of the gender and racial diversity in the films is within the groups we work with rather than the academics undertaking the work. Why? What does this mean for the way we do and could work? That’s something we need to consider from multiple angles in terms of who is doing this work, the value placed on it and who spoke to us. But I wanted to flag it rather than pretending it isn’t there.

The celebration

Despite the many stumbling blocks and issues, the films capture an amazing range of practices and humans. They spotlight the benefits and rewards that make people persevere with engaged research despite the many challenges that come with it. They also make a more compelling case for supporting it than any paper could, providing a powerful starting point for our future work in this area. It would be easy to produce a much bigger list about the joys of delivering this project, the people I’ve got to work with along the way and the impact it’s had on me, but the films do a lot of that work for me. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more details about the individual films and some of the other outputs and outcomes of the programme, but for now, please take the time to watch them, share them and enjoy…