Co-INSPIRE

Participatory Artsbased Methods For Civic Engagement In Migrant Support Organizations

Contact: Umut Erel
Partners: Utopia Arts, The Magpie Project, Creating Ground, The Regional Refugee Forum Northeast, Praxis Community Projects

How can migrant support organizations use participatory and artsbased methods to support migrants' civic engagement? The project collaborated with migrant support organizations to train migrants in using these methods for participation, producing a toolkit and a short film.

Physical activity for health and wellbeing in the caring role

Contact: Nichola Kenzter
Partners: Carers, The Carers Trust

OpenLearn course co-produced with carers and endorsed by the Carers Trust. 

Co-producing The Day Doc

Contact: Ned Redmore
Partners: Autistic people with profound learning disabilities, day-service staff, family members and social care professionals

This project was to co-produce a tool to support autistic people with profound learning disabilities to have a bigger say in the day-services they are part of. 

The Body Politic

Contact: Peter Keogh
Partner: Alliance for Choice

The Body Politic is an intersectional feminist learning space that attempts to capture the rich tapestry of experiences, perspectives, skills and knowledges developed through feminist activism around abortion in Ireland. Our aim is to share these precious knowledges across time and space so that they can be applied to wider struggles

Citizens’ Voices, People’s News

Contact: Philip Seargeant
Partners: Institute of Welsh Affairs

Wales’ media faces a crisis: funding cuts, the closure of news services, and threats to public service broadcasting are signs of a democracy with a diminishing public square. To generate solutions, IWA and the OU in Wales commissioned a Citizens’ Panel of fifteen people to discuss these issues and come up with recommendations for solutions. 

Experience for Justice

Contact: Rod Earle
Partner: Academics with personal experience of criminal justice interventions

Experience for Justice is a group of academics who have personal experience of criminal justice interventions. We support each other in developing ideas and actions to change the criminal justice system for the better by recognising the value of our various experiences 

Covid Chronicles

Contact: Marie Gillespie
Partners: Researchers and people with direct experience of forced migration

This is a participatory project co-created by a group of researchers with direct experience of forced migration and/or have worked and lived with refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented people. In chronicling experiences COVID-19, we aimed at challenging the UK’s “hostile environment” for migrants by building solidarities, promoting a better understanding of the problems being faced, campaigning for the recognition of rights and social justice, and facilitating self-representation, civic engagement and community participation.

Degrees of Freedom: Prison Education at The Open University

Contact: Rod Earl
Partners: Prisoners and ex-prisoners

Co-authored by OU academics and prisoners and ex-prisoners, this is the first authoritative volume to look back on the last 50 years of The Open University providing higher education to those in prison, this unique book gives voice to ex-prisoners whose lives have been transformed by the education they received. Offering vivid personal testimonies, reflective vignettes and academic analysis of prison life and education in prison.

Wales REACH

Contact: Richard Marsden 
Partner: five communities across Wales

Wales REACH engages disadvantaged or peripheralised people with the heritage that 
matters to them. The project uses creative techniques to enable participants to learn about, and reflect on their cultural and 
natural heritage and produce creative materials to showcase their heritage. 

ALPHABETICA: Activating learning paths: holistic arts-based education and training for inclusion and cultural awareness

Contact: Sarah Crafter
Partners: For details on partners, see the project consortium page

ALPHABETICA seeks to provide effective solutions that allow children and young people from disadvantaged communities access to arts and arts-based education through co-creative participatory research actions. 

NEW ABC: Networking the Educational World: Across Boundaries for Community-building

Contact: Sarah Crafter
Partners: For information on partners, see project workstreams page.

NEW ABC carried out nine innovative actions co-created together with children, youth and other stakeholders in nine EU countries aimed at enhancing the inclusion of migrant and refugee children and young people in education.

Children Caring on the Move

Contact: Sarah Crafter
Partners: Young people from Red Cross (West Midlands) and Refugee Youth (London) 

Using participatory and creative research methods with separated migrant children and adult stakeholders, Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) investigates separated child migrants’ experiences of care, and caring for others, as they navigate the complexities of the immigration-welfare nexus in England.

Migrant Art Archive

Contact: Marie Gillespie
Partner: A range of partners

A digital space devoted to migrant self-representation and to migration research projects that use arts-based methods to explore experiences of migration. 

The Amar, bari, amar jibon (ABAJ) study

Contact: Manik.Deepak-Gopinath 
Partner: Bangla Housing Association (BHA), Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN)

The Amar, bari, amar jibon (ABAJ) was a co-produced study exploring the housing needs, experiences, and aspirations of 76 older Bangladeshi adults aged 50 years and over across four East London boroughs. Community co-researchers and community (Bangla) and professional research advisory groups participated from the outset to make research relevant, accessible, culturally appropriate, and transferable to wider practice and policy.

Scots Language and Culture - OpenLearn Create Resources

Contact: Sylvia Warnecke
Partners: Education Scotland and communities across Scotland

This Scots language and culture MOOC has been co-created by The Open University in Scotland and Education Scotland with communities across Scotland.

RGS Music Group

Contact: Kerry Jones
Partner: Unit Nine

Project in partnership with Unit Nine, a youth music development programme, which works with young people in challenging circumstances to evaluate their work,  grow as a company, raise their profile and win more contracts and grants to support young people.

Advancing and Implementing Public Health Approaches to Violence Prevention

Contact: Keir Irwin-Rogers
Partner: Scottish Violence Reduction Partnership, Metropolitan Police, Home Office, Scottish Government

The project aims to develop effective public health approaches to violence prevention, and work with a range of stakeholders at a local, regional and national level to advance these approaches in policy and practice. 

Co-produced resources for patients with dementia, heart failure, diabetes and their carers

Contact: Jitka Vseteckova
Partner: Carers in Northamptonshire, Integrated Care across Northamptonshire, NHS Foundation Trust Northamptonshire Reach for Health

Co-produced with Carers in Northamptonshire and iCAN (Integrated Care across Northamptonshire), a set of community assets working with patients with dementia, heart failure and diabetes and their carers.

Intergenerational Toolkit on Healthy Ageing

Contact: Jitka Vseteckova
Partner: Goyal Foundation, Generations working together, Age UK, Early Years Alliance, Centre for Social Justice, Ready Generations

Working in partnership with Campaign for Learning and University of Bedfordshire and funded by Hallmark Foundation, this is a pilot to develop an intergenerational toolkit on Healthy Ageing; a co-produced learning resource to empower families towards healthy lifestyles across the lifespan. 

Participatory Arts and Social Action Research (PASAR)

Contact: Umet Erel
Partners: Migrant parents, families and young people.

This research project addresses the UK social science community's need to better understand how participatory action research approaches engage marginalised groups in research as co-producers of knowledge. It combines walking methods and participatory theatre to create a space for exploring, sharing and documenting processes of belonging and place-making crucial to understanding and enacting citizenship. 

Challenging Abortion Stigma: co-creating learning materials with abortion care providers

Contact: Lesley Hoggart
Partner: Abortion Talk

Project to develop training workshops for health care professionals working in abortion care, as well as nursing and midwifery students. 

Reproductive Bodylore: the role of vernacular knowledge in women's contraceptive decision-making

Contact: Victoria Newton
Partners: Public Health England and The Folklore Society

Reproductive Bodylore is an interdisciplinary study which straddles folklore and health. The project explored the role of vernacular knowledge in contraceptive decision-making through participatory research with volunteer researchers. The OU team worked in partnership with Public Health England and The Folklore Society.

Why Riot?

Contact: Gabi Kent
Partner: Education Authority East Belfast Area Project, Education Authority North Belfast Area Project, South Belfast Alternatives, Lagmore Youth Project, St Peter's Immaculata Youth Centre, The ACT Initiative.

Co-creation and co-research with community workers, practitioners and marginalised young people in areas of contestation/division in Northern Ireland to foster critical thinkers and peaceful changemakers and support conflict transformation.  Projects include co-created educational interventions and the Learning from Why Riot co-research project with community partners. 

Communities in Action Collaboration in Northern Ireland: Poverty and Social Exclusion UK (PSEUK)

Contact: Gabi Kent
Partner: Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (Communities in Ardoyne, Cregagh, Belfast, Ballymena, Co Derry/Londonderry and Co Armagh)

This Participatory action research and 'purposeful storytelling' project was with 8 marginalised communities and 80 participants across Northern Ireland. The project aims were to support community groups to conduct local research linked with the ESRC funded PSE UK wide research on poverty (PSE UK Necessities survey and Living Standards Survey) and to assist communities in amplifying their findings through ‘purposeful storytelling’ ( short films) which they could use to lobby policy and decision makers about the issues that concerned them. 

Self-advocacy for people with learning difficulties

Contact: Elizabeth Tilley
Partner: This is a collaboration with Learning Disability England, with involvement from 11self-advocacy groups across England and Wales.

Building on previous research, this is an ongoing Knowledge Exchange project exploring self-advocacy for people with learning disabilities. 
 

Raising Awareness and Transforming Understandings of the Weavers Uprisings in 1826 and 1829

Contact: David Scott
Partners: Lancashire Cultural Services, Helmshore Textile Museum, The Weavers Cottage (Rawtenstall), Haworth Art Gallery (Accrington), The Whitaker Art Museum (Haslingden), Bacup Museum, Weavers Uprising Bicentennial Committee, James Fox (Textile Artist)

The project aims to raise awareness and transform understandings of the 1826 weavers uprising and Chatterton massacre. It will connect with community stakeholders to enhance public knowledge and understanding and facilitate a sustainable and lasting legacy through the creation of new learning materials and pedagogical resources that offer a fresh interpretation of the events from the perspective of protestors. 

Victoria and Stuart project

Contact: Elizabeth Tilley
Partner: MacIntyre, Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, Kingston University, Mary Stevens Hospice, Dimensions

Co-productive research focused on end-of-life care planning with people with learning disabilities. 

Growing Older, Planning Ahead

Contact: Elizabeth Tilley
Partner: British Association of Social Workers (BASW); Oxfordshire Family Support Network; My Life My Choice; Future Directions; Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services

An inclusive research project focused on improving support to older people with learning disabilities and their families. Collaboration between The OU, Kingston University and Manchester Metropolitian University.

Policing Vulnerability

Contact: Scarlett Redman
Partners: West Yorkshire Police, Two Yorkshire support organisations and one national sex work support organisation.

The 'policing vulnerability' project was a localised piece of research co-created with sex workers and police, examining and evaluating the role of the specialist 'sex work liaison officer' role in West Yorkshire Police

Visual Violence: Sex Worker Experiences of Image-Based Abuses

Contact: Scarlett Redman

Partners: Various stakeholders including English Collective of Prostitutes, SWARM, Sex Workers Alliance Ireland and Umbrella Lane.

The increasing digitisation of sex work presents both new opportunities and new hazards for sex workers. This research used participatory/participant-driven action research to understand visual violence as it is uniquely experienced by sex workers, within and outside traditional lenses of “revenge porn” and copyright. 

Place, Community and Connection in the Fens

Contact: Dan Taylor
Partner: Partners listed through the project link

A 2-year long community research project and partnership with communities across the Fens, eastern England, to critically examine the role of infrastructure, connection and local democracy in supporting place-making.

Wise Connections

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: Local Learning, Alive, and the Age of Creativity network (Age UK Oxfordshire). 

As we grow older, the opportunities to keep growing our creative capabilities and participate in social, cultural and economic life are reduced. Wise Connections is a project that aims to create ways to trigger socio-cultural interactions (‘seeds’) that grow ‘places’ within homes, public or professional spaces where people feel empowered to discover, integrate and develop what they value to do or be. 

Cross-pollination: Growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: The Glass-House Community Led Design, working in partnership with the Glasgow Urban Lab, locally-based partners in Merthyr Tydfil, and Clapham Junction in London.

Empowering Design Practices

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: The Glass-House Community Led Design, Historic England, Historic Religious Buildings Alliance

Empowering Design Practices is a five-year collaborative research project exploring how community-led design can help empower those who look after historic places of worship to create more open, vibrant and sustainable places that respect and enhance their heritage.

Creative Citizens

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: South Blessed, The Moseley Exchange

Media, Community and the Creative Citizen was a project with three strands (Hyperlocal Publishing, Community-Led Design and Creative Networks) exploring the value of creative citizenship. The project was part of the Connected Communities Programme.

Peace of Mind

Contact: Christothea Herodotou
Partner: The Verbal, Cedar, Inspire

An innovative youth mental health and wellbeing programme that will enhance emotional resilience in children and young people aged between nine and 25 in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland.

Scaling Up Co-Design

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: The Glass-House, Foss-box, The Blackwood Foundation, Silent Cities

'Scaling up co-design research and practice' is a research project that aims to unleash and build upon the intrinsic capacities of communities, community organizations and academic institutions in order to scale up their co-design practices and ultimately extend their reach and impact.

Valuing Community-Led Design

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: The Glass-House Community Led Design, Architecture Centre Network

'Valuing Community-Led Design' is a research project that aims to collate, articulate and disseminate evidence about the value of community-led design and bring the relevant stakeholders together to share good practice and form a research agenda for the future.

nQuire: a community citizen science platform

Contact: Christothea Herodotou
Partner: Full list of partners through the project site

nQuire is a community and citizen science platform you can use to design your own research or take part in research studies designed by others.

Creative Interactions Research Group

Contact: Christine Plastow
Partner: Broad network of collaborators

The Creative Interactions Research Group explores the powerful intersections between academic research and creative practice. As a group, we explore the ways in which engagement with creative practice can enhance academic research, and vice versa; we seek to open up new avenues and opportunities for what it means to do ‘academic research’ and what ‘research outputs’ should look like; and we advocate for making collaboration with creative practitioners more accessible and easier in practical terms within existing structures for funding and administrating research.

Mythic Storytelling and the Changing Environment

Contact: Christine Plastow
Partner: Theatre of Gentle Furies

Mythic Storytelling and the Changing Environment seeks to explore what intervention a theatrical production and series of workshops based in storytelling from a range of mythic traditions can make in ongoing discussions around the climate crisis.

Developing a sexual and reproductive justice agenda in Scotland (SRJ Scotland)

Contact: Carrie Purcel
Partner: IReSH, University of Glasgow, University of Edinburgh

This project developed a multi-stakeholder workshop which co-developed a potentially radical SRH agenda for Scotland.

Asset Mapping: Comparative Approaches

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partners: Details of partners can be found on project's partnership page 

Asset based community development (ABCD) is a powerful approach used with a diverse network of communities and community organizations across the UK Connected Communities programme to help uncover and utilize their hidden potential, their tangible resources (such as spaces, services and infrastructures) and intangible qualities (such as creative talents, skills, knowledge, social and emotional capital). 

Incubating Civic Leadership

Contact: Katerina Alexiou
Partner: The Glass-House Community Led Design, Knowle West Media Centre

A project exploring civic leadership and how different actors can be brought together to co-design ideas, innovations and actions that push boundaries and address challenges at a local and global level. 

REACT

Contact: Rebecca Jones
Partner: Frontline AIDS

Co-produced online training programme for REAct, a community-based human rights monitoring and response programme which documents and responds to human rights-related barriers that individuals experience in accessing services at community level.

Urban trees as a nature-based solution for heat-resilient green neighbourhoods

Contact: Leslie Mabon
Partner: Communities and urban planning practitioners in Glasgow (Scotland) and Taipei (Taiwan). 

Urban trees can act as a cooling strategy in extreme heat events. However, residents’ groups and civil society organisations argue that top-down planning approaches ignore residents’ experiences and entrench inequalities. This project works with communities and urban planning practitioners in Glasgow (Scotland) and Taipei (Taiwan) to collaboratively make sense of the social and cultural landscape to which environmental science-driven approaches to urban nature need to respond.

Evidence Cafés for Migration

Contact: Anne Adams
Partner: UK Police and African Migrant Communities

Originally co-created with UK Police and African migrant partners, this "Evidence Café" Open Educational Resource is a valuable tool for educational knowledge exchange.

Arts-based co-creation of sexuality education with young people in Aruba

Contact: Elizabeth Ascroft
Partner: International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) 

This research explores co-creative approaches with young people to develop sexuality education materials in Aruba, the Caribbean. It studys ways of knowing following an anticolonial approach to dominant forms of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) knowledge within the international development sector. The research considers how creative dialogic spaces influence knowledge production, whilst reflecting on concepts of participation, power and affect.