We're in dire need of a joined-up, sector-wide reflection on the current conditions for doing co-produced and participatory research in UK Higher Education, and clarity on what universities, funders, and policymakers need to do to support it. The Co-Pro Futures Inquiry is a long-overdue intervention to actively transform the systems, policies, and processes that are currently making meaningful partnerships in research difficult. These barriers are felt across the entire research journey, from postgraduate to senior academic levels. I'm extremely excited to be a part of a project that is actively improving the way we do research, and is centred around a commitment to creating knowledge with and for, not on, those affected
Dr Bryony Vince-Myers
UI welcomes Dr Bryony Vince-Myers as Project Coordinator
In addition to managing the call for evidence, Bryony will review and analyse it, support our stakeholder workshops and social media profile on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Bryony is also a Research Associate with the University of Sheffield Participatory Research Network (PRN@TUoS), where she leads key initiatives to improve support and training for postgraduate and early-career researchers interested in or doing participatory research. She is also Editor-at-large at E-International Relations and co-editor of the Bloomsbury book series Global Dialogues: Non-Eurocentric Visions of the Global.
Bryony has a PhD in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at The University of Sheffield funded by the ESRC. Her PhD explored how the African concept of ubuntu is (mis)used as a tool for peacebuilding at the national, local, and everyday levels in South Africa. It outlined the potential and limitations of mobilising Indigenous knowledge for peace in post-conflict, post-colonial contexts and highlighted how Indigenous concepts are susceptible to romanticisation and co-optation in academic and political discourse.
Her research explores local and everyday approaches to peacebuilding with a particular focus on decolonial and participatory methodologies. Her research agenda broadly seeks to decenter colonial and Eurocentric understandings of and approaches to peacebuilding and international relations and is committed to improving the conditions for doing co-produced and participatory research in academia.