‘Inspiring Stories’ with Gary Hickey, Katie Porter & Lucy Green
Senior Public Involvement Manager, School of Healthcare, Enterprise & Innovation
Project Manager, School of Healthcare, Enterprise & Innovation
Faculty Head of Engagement
This is part of the Engaged Medicine ‘Inspiring Stories’ blog series. The blogs explore the stories behind outreach and patient-public engagement activities of staff and students from the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Medicine.
Working Together: Reflections on a training workshop on participatory and co-produced research
Lucy Green, Gary Hickey and Katie Porter held a training workshop on participatory and co-produced research on Wednesday 13th July for staff, students and public members. This blog is written by them to summarise and reflect on this event.
As advocates of participatory and co-produced research we know that for it to work well it requires a strong relationship between the partners, and for it to be on an equal footing. Developing relationships and sharing power between researchers and patients/public members in projects was the focus of a half-day event on Wednesday 13th July 2022 entitled ‘Working Together: A training workshop on participatory and co-produced research’. Attendees shared ideas and aspirations for better ways of working and were treated to a series of short talks from patients and public members, University of Southampton (UoS) and University Hospital Southampton NHS (UHS_NHS) researchers and civic partners (Southampton Voluntary Services), ending with a Q&A session with presenters.
The training workshop event was co-produced, using funding from UK Research & Innovation Research England (UKRI RE) Participatory and Co-produced Research scheme, by a planning committee of UHS_NHS and UoS researchers, Southampton City Council representatives, Southampton Voluntary Services representatives, and members of the public.
Attendees included public members, University and UHS_NHS staff, civic partners and students. The presentations focused on how to develop relationships and sharing power between researchers and patients/public members in projects.
Some videos from the event are below:
- Watch Adam Geraghty and Kate Henaghan-Sykes’ presentation about their experiences of working in and being involved with the ‘Finding Out Together’ outreach team and Sure Start team.
- Watch Kate Hough and Chris Satchwell’s presentation about the work they have been doing to develop a partnership between cochlear implant researchers and patients to enable lived experience to inform research and improve services at University of Southampton Auditory Implant Service.
- Watch Rob Kurn and Alex Ivancevic’s presentation on the work of Southampton Voluntary Services and how they engage with local communities.
- Watch Donna Lovelock’s presentation on how LifeLab works with young people to help shape research that involves and impacts them.
- Watch Heather Parson’s presentation on the work she has done with a school-based LGBTQ+ advocate group.
- Watch Olatundun Gafari’s presentation on her work on a multicentre UKRI-ESRC funded national project focusing on inequalities among ethnic minority communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Watch Ronda Gowland-Pryde’s presentation on the value of co-production from her perspective as Civic University Lead and a Senior Public Engagement Fellow at University of Southampton.
- Watch Tinashe Munyebvu’s presentation on about her experience of public involvement in a biomedical engineering context and highlights why she and her team advocate for co-production in a field that is widely technology driven.
- Watch the workshop Q&A session
- Watch the workshop highlight reel
The workshop highlighted a community of people in the Wessex region with an interest and an appetite to share knowledge and learn new skills in this type of research. It provided a much-needed place for people already working in co-produced research to come together and to share knowledge with others who wished to develop skills in this area. Key outcomes from discussions were a) to pursue the development of a forum for sharing experiences and expertise of participatory and co-produced research with the benefit of networking and skills development, and b) run an annual participatory and co-produced research event or workshop. We will be following up on these outcomes.
In the meantime, our new podcast series will launch in 2023. Each episode involves a conversation with a researcher and member of the public exploring how they have built and maintained a co-productive research relationship and used it to drive their research and solve health problems. We hope this podcast will highlight good practice and inspire others.
Read additional blogs on the workshop written by patients and public members:
Stay Connected! To find out more about the ‘Inspiring Stories’ series, Faculty of Medicine educational programmes and research, or to get involved use the links below or contact Dr Lucy Green.
University staff or students click here for the Engaged Medicine SharePoint.