'Researching with You' - celebrating co-produced research at the ESRC Festival of Social Science

From increasing understanding and awareness of food poverty to co-developing new approaches to improving mental health and well-being, the public have a vital role to play in shaping and generating new research which tackles important real-world challenges.

An event entitled 'Researching with You' was held on 4 November 2019 at York Priory Street Centre dedicated to showcasing research at the University of York undertaken in collaboration with members of the public. The event was funded by and held as part of the 2019 ESRC Festival of Social Science.

The evening consisted of a number of illustrated talks which showed how public involvement can go beyond participating in trials, interviews and questionnaires, to fully partnering with researchers to decide which questions should be prioritised and co-designing different approaches and potential solutions.

Part 1 explored working together for food justice, community participation in health research & creative approaches to co-producing and included contributions from:

Maddy Power, Department of Health Sciences
Shahid Islam, Born in Bradford
Debbie Maxwell, School of Arts and Creative Technologies

Part 2 explored collaborating with the public and service users towards better mental health with contributions from:

Martin Webber, School for Business and Society
Amanda Perry, Department of Health Sciences

The venue was filled with a mixture of students, early career and more senior researchers, and members of the public; all keen on finding out more about the rich variety of forms which co-production of research can take and the range of benefits that flow from working in this way, including a richer understanding of the challenges and increased motivation to bring about change.