Austerity and Altered Life-Courses and Inspire Women Oldham: NCRM Impact Prize entry

The title of this application was Creative Co-Production Methods for Collaborative Social Change: Co-Developing our NCRM Methods Mini-Series. It was submitted by Austerity and Altered Life-Courses (AALC) and Inspire Women Oldham.

Summary of NCRM participation

AALC and Inspire were awarded an NCRM Innovation Fora Grant (2022-23) to co-develop and co-deliver a workshop series entitled “Creative and Authentic Co-Production Methods: Podcasts, Poems and Zines”. The aim was to promote creative and authentic co-production as method. In 2023 we delivered the three sessions to a group of participants in a public venue in Manchester city centre. Sessions were led by academic and community researchers, and volunteers from Inspire. Workshop participants (15-20) included a range of stakeholders. We selected people who would enjoy the workshops and would be inclined to introduce the methods into their research and practice. This included people from across academia, policy, third sector and activist groups.

Impact achieved

With this statement we outline the multiple impacts of our involvement with NCRM – namely, the co-creation of an Innovation Fora – for a range of people, groups and organisations, at a variety of scales and in a number of different ways. We arrange this around three themes: impact on our collaborative relationship and research progress; impact for volunteers; and impact for participants.

Impact on our collaborative relationship and research progress

The workshops represented the culmination of almost 5 years of collaboration between our teams, specifically between the academic researchers (AALC) and community researchers (Inspire). It was an opportunity to consolidate our research expertise and our relationship, representing impact on research progress. Co-creating the methods workshops, from design to delivery, consolidated our research praxis of commitment towards developing our work together and sharing what we know with a wider community of interested groups. As Diane, Director from Inspire explains:

"We have known Sarah since 2019 when Inspire had the opportunity to partner on a one of a kind Community Research Project – LIFT ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment’ with Oxfam and others. Sarah shared her learning with a team of Oldham women on their journey to becoming Community Researchers and giving our way of working validation with an academic lens. Co-developing this NCRM project deepened the relationship and allowed the women who had learnt skills/approaches in LIFT to bring them to life for others in wider circles. Working with the AALC team to plan the workshops, approach and delivery was inclusive and at the pace of the women – a great opportunity and celebration of Community Research."

As a result of designing and delivering the workshops together, working and strategic relationships between the teams have flourished, expanding to include a wider number of people within our teams which has led to cross-organisational impact. For example, as part of Inspire’s newly formed Friends of Inspire research group we are co-creating new opportunities to continue this work today, while consistently providing expertise and advise on one another’s research activities. This has in turn encouraged our research to progress individually and as a team:

"Working with the team from Inspire to design and deliver the workshops has been a genuinely transformative experience for me both personally and in term of my research and teaching practice. Sometimes our academic training limits our ability to communicate clearly with non-academic audiences. It was therefore so helpful to have community-based researchers to talk through ideas with to identity what was likely to resonate with our participants. Through this process of discussion and dialogue, we collaboratively devised ways of making the methods meaningful and useful to participants. I will take forward the lessons I have learned from our collaboration in my future research and teaching, and I look forward to future opportunities to work with Inspire." (Laura – AALC academic researcher)

"Being part of the creative research methods workshops helped me not only to help people see why these methods are important and why they should be part of research but it was the first time I went into a workshop where I was wasn’t a participant but a facilitator in a subject that I felt confident in." (Selina – Inspire community researcher)

"I loved designing the workshop; it’s the part where I can allow my creativity to go wild, anything is possible. Being able to use my ideas in conjunction with others’ ideas is fantastic and takes it to a new level. As a team we all made decisions about how the workshop would run and who would take the lead on which part. It was a joint effort from the start to the end and a true use of collaboration." (Lesley – Inspire community researcher)

Creating the workshop series enabled us to dedicate time and energy to developing our research materials, putting to paper all our learnings and knowledge to amass a wealth of resources. It is with these legacy resources (including workshop slides, activities, zine, methods how-to-guide, and slides from invited talks) that we plan to build on and progress our collaboration. We have indicated that we would like our workshops to become a regular training offer within NCRM, as well as seeking out additional collaborative community-based consultancy opportunities. This responds to a growing demand, since we have already received requests for the workshops from academia, policymakers and activists, including from the Universities of Lancaster and Manchester, the Poverty Truth Network team and the Common Threads Collective, a user-led organisation supporting mothers who live apart from their children. The workshops have also influenced future research plans, with Hall’s UKRI Future Leaders Renewal application including the delivery of these workshops within new research contexts.

Furthermore, the creative methods workshop series has resulted in policy impact via our invitation to several high-profile sharing opportunities within academia and policy-making circles. This includes being invited as speakers to the Department for Work and Pensions Social Research Learning Day (May 2023), where Diane (Inspire) and Sarah (AALC) led a session together for around 30 policy researchers and analysts on “Authentic Research Collaborations and Inclusions: Creating a Methods Mini-Series”. We were also invited to present in the Methods for Change Showcase event (Sept 2023), where Lesley (Inspire) spoke about the creative methods poetry session she co-designed and co-delivered to a varied audience of around 40 academics and policymakers.

Impact for volunteers

Another key impact of our NCRM related research has been the capacity-building of a group of four volunteers from Inspire. These volunteers were women who had not had prior experience of leading research or delivering workshops but were keen to learn new skills. Volunteers were assigned to each of the workshops to help with ideas, material creation and workshop delivery (including making reflective notes and offering critical feedback), supported by the lead academic and community researchers. Volunteers have reported that they enjoyed and benefitted from this collaborative learning experience:

"I loved doing the workshops I did feel included in everything that was going on." (Gemma, Inspire volunteer)

"I was quite nervous, not sure what to expect. I was involved in the session and really felt included. It was a beautiful venue and everyone was really friendly. I got a lot out of doing this and I really enjoyed it." (Barbara, Inspire volunteer)

"As one of the co-creators of the poetry workshop, I had a very active role, and felt very much included at all stages of the project. I felt inspired, excited and included at every stage of the project, from the original idea to its completion. I was given the opportunity to observe the workshop itself, and to produce a report outlining my findings. I particularly enjoyed doing this which helped with my confidence. I also enjoyed learning and rediscovering my love of poetry, and new and more creative methods of conducting research." (Catherine, Inspire volunteer)

Volunteers have since translated this learning and experience into practice, including organising a large Inspire event in Oldham (July 2023) on Women’s Well-being and Fun where they led or supported workshops around creativity and wellbeing. This represents societal impact as a direct result of our NCRM methods workshop series.

Impact for participants

Our creative evaluation within each workshop, and anonymous follow-up feedback once the series ended, confirmed that participants had benefitted from the workshops. They reported that the sessions helped to harness their experiences and opinions, empowered them to share their knowledge, and gave them confidence to teach others new skills and techniques. Notably, in the anonymous follow-up feedback, participants all expressed that they enjoyed the sessions, and would use the methods in their future work and practice, for example:

"Thank you for putting these on, it was good to have the time and space to think more about creative methods and see how these can be used alongside other ways of working – and to reflect on the value of including them."

"So very applicable! Very practical, friendly and inclusive."

"Yes I would hope to include zine making in the future as a reflective exercise."

"I will for sure use podcasting in my community research."

Overall, participants reported that the workshops were an opportunity to learn something new, namely about co-production research methods, as well as creative expression, grassroots activism, and techniques for effective communication. As such, our NCRM workshops had direct social, policy and knowledge exchange impact.