New publication on collaborative working practices

Research for All focuses on research that involves universities and communities, services or industries working together.

Zanib’s article discusses her experiences as a community researcher with the Imagine project.

She explains the potential she sees for truly collaborative, ethically co-produced research to empower communities and bridge the knowledge gap between communities and universities, raising community aspirations.

The key messages from Zanib’s research are:

• Universities need to create more research opportunities for co-production with community partners to gain a better insight into community identities, faiths, cultures and histories, and everyday interactions and different ways of knowing.
• Co-production is a democratic form of knowledge creation and a more ethical way of working with communities that feels less like ‘doing things to communities’.
• Utilising creative arts methods is an effective way to engage the voices of marginalized women and girls by bringing them into research through artistic approaches, such as poetry, art, photography and drama.