Co-production: if you’ve heard of it, you probably agree it’s important, but what does it mean to you and what should it look like? If it’s new to you, what is it and why should you care? And how should funders, researchers and partners go about putting it into practice?
The Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) and CAPE (Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement) recently organised an online panel to discuss these and other questions, with the help of an audience who shared their ideas in advance.
What is co-production?
There is an increasing emphasis on the importance of the social benefits of research, and on the need for researchers to work closely with partners outside academia to help achieve that. ‘Co-production’ is a term often used to describe such collaboration.
Partners might be NGOs, policymakers, people with lived experience or others. Co-production is about that collaborative relationship through all stages of the research, from funding and design through to implementation and on to dissemination and impact. For more information and definitions, take a look at the work of the Co-Production Collective.
This was just the start of a conversation that could - and should! - continue over the coming months and years, because the one thing all our panellists firmly agreed on was that co-production is essential, and is now often expected by funders and research audiences. But what it means in practice and how it should be done are very much open questions.
What values underpin co-production?
It was good to see participants sharing their thoughts on what co-production is with us ahead of the event. They told us that co-production is a relationship between the researcher and their partners, and like all relationships is ultimately about mutual respect as well as give and take.
In CAPE’s toolkit ‘Co-production in regional academic policy engagement: developing optimal conditions’, the values highlighted as central to co-production are being human, inclusive, transparent, and challenging.
These align with a set of core principles: to build and maintain trust and equitable relationships; to work towards sharing power and decision-making equally; to ensure all types of knowledge, skills, experience and voices are included, listened to and valued; to maintain an ethos of reciprocal benefit and shared goals; and to embed reflective and reflexive practice in the work.
Power dynamics crop up in all relationships – and co-production partnerships are no different. That’s particularly important when co-production involves people with lived experience of an issue like modern slavery – approaches must be equitable, recognising structural inequalities, as well as trauma-informed.
In the context of modern slavery, co-production means taking seriously the unique expertise of those who have lived experience of the issue and ensuring that they are meaningfully included in research that will directly affect them, alongside policymakers and practitioners. Integrating the expertise and perspectives of each of these different groups is an essential part of co-production.
As one audience member commented, ‘Everyone needs to feel safe and confident working together, which can require a lot of leg work but can be done when a project’s funding structure takes that into account.’
The role of the project funder
Funding is a key consideration for co-production, of course. As both the PEC and CAPE have funded research, we recognise that it is funders’ responsibility to ensure that when they require or encourage co-production, their funding does everything possible to create and support the conditions needed for co-production to flourish. For example, an NGO partner on a research project needs to be properly funded and their contribution appropriately acknowledged, which can be challenging in a context of academic funding and its sometimes not-very-flexible rules.
Where possible, funders should also support potential partners to build their relationships before beginning a project. One of the challenges with co-production projects can be establishing a working relationship in a short space of time and under the pressure of trying to win funding. Although it isn’t always possible, it can be hugely helpful to ringfence time to do the work of building the relationship before the project begins as well as helping to enable it, as the PEC does through its Google Group mailing list, for example. The same is true of working out appropriate ways to continue the relationship after the project has finished.
Practical action
All our panellists picked up on this theme: co-production needs dedicated time and funding to deliver properly, because it’s difficult to do well. This might sound obvious, but it can easily be overlooked. We need to do more than pay lip service to co-production – doing it well means committing ourselves to a challenging process of learning and change.
So it’s all very well to think and talk about co-production, but what really matters is to take practical steps to make it happen, such as (to take one example) putting in place recruitment and payment arrangements to enable the meaningful inclusion of people with lived experience in a piece of research.
Making the case for co-production
In the research world we might agree with UKRI that co-production is a good thing to do, but that doesn’t mean that all research audiences are convinced of its value. We need to make the case to decision-makers that co-produced research is worth doing, because it leads to findings that are more robust and relevant to their needs (as research carried out by the PEC has confirmed is the case).
After the project ends
Co-production is fundamentally about sharing power in an equitable way – not just a transactional agreement. That means that what happens after a project is finished is still important. Projects shouldn’t just end with a handshake and a note of thanks. What about sustaining relationships into the future, perhaps to work on further projects? And how are project partners kept involved in the impact arising after a report is published? That’s particularly important when working with people who have lived experience of an issue and who will therefore have a personal stake in the results of the research being taken up and leading to practical changes.
But sustaining relationships after the end of a time-limited funding award can be challenging without dedicated financial support. It raises important questions around the responsibilities of researchers, their institutions and funders.
What next?
The importance of our event likewise lies with what happens afterwards. The conversation came up with more questions than answers, and it was clear that there is a real appetite to know and do more. So the real question now is: where do we go from here?
The Modern Slavery and Human Rights PEC remains committed to exploring good practice in research co-production (such as through our upcoming funded project on ‘Ethics in modern slavery research’, led by the Universities of Liverpool and Nottingham) and to sharing what we learn. The lessons learned and best practices distilled from CAPE’s experiences as a funder of collaborative projects can be found in our ‘Awarding Funding for Collaborative Academic-Policy Projects’ toolkit. In it, we try to address the practical issues faced by anyone who administers or facilitates the award of policy engagement funding and give insights to those considering applying for collaborative funding and seeking to develop a strong proposal. All of our work and insights in co-production will also be available through UPEN’s new website as well.
We would love to hear from you if you have thoughts or experiences to share – feel free to get in touch with Owain Johnstone, Partnerships Manager at the Modern Slavery and Human Rights PEC at o.johnstone@modernslaverypec.org.
