Blog and News

Prefiguring Social Action Inquiry Residency

december 2024

Network coordinators Lewis Hou and Lauren Pyott took part in the Edge of Tomorrow residency, on the theme of ‘prefiguring social action’. This was co-hosted by the Oasis Foundation and the Social Action Inquiry. The residency brought together change makers to collectively think about what system change might look and feel like, and about what may be on the brink of emergence for the systems of tomorrow.

The role of reflection within co-production: Highlights from our last CoP

december 2024

Our Communities of Practice (CoP) are regular sessions for network members to develop peer support and share learning around key themes of community-led research. We explored the role of reflection within co-production in our latest CoP on the 21st of November 2024. We discussed what do reflective practices bring to co-production and some challenges for embedding reflection effectively in it, including power dynamics and inequitable distribution of the mental load of the reflection. Several key ideas and reflections emerged from the session that are worth recapping. Read in this blog the highlights from our last CoP.

Funding confirmation for a second phase of the Community Knowledge Matters programme

November 2024

We are happy to announce that our application to the Ideas Fund to extend our infrastructure network funding for another 18 months was successful! This will allow us to continue building and strengthening the network, provide more capacity building opportunities for community-led research, and advocate for systems change that values different forms of knowledge, including community knowledge and that of people with lived experience. With this funding being granted, Phase 2 of our programme will properly starting in January 2025. 

Wider strategic work

November 2024

In November, we have been sharing our learning with the Network more widely over the last few months to help shape and make a wider impact around community-led research. This includes feeding into a new paper on ethics for citizen science developed with Young Foundation and UK Research and Innovation; discussions as part of the UK Participatory Research Network in Manchester and more internationally with Falling Walls Engage in Germany. 

Lewis Hou has also started being involved in the Engaged Futures Group process held by the National Coordinating Centre Public Engagement (NCCPE) which is reimagining what a more inclusive higher education sector could look like. We will be meeting in the next few weeks in-person to start planning and so there will be more updates to come. We very much encourage anyone who is interested to get involved in the Catalyst process which is open to everyone.

Reflections on inclusion: Thoughts from our last Community of Practice

November 2024

Our Communities of Practice (CoP) are regular sessions for network members to develop peer support and share learning around key themes of community-led research. Our latest CoP took place on 29 October 2024, where we explored what the word ‘Inclusion’ means from different perspectives through a Living Glossary exercise. Several key remarks and reflections emerged from the session that are worth recapping. Read in this blog the highlights from the session.

Community Knowledge Matters feeding into policy

October 2024

DEMOCRACY MATTERS, a public consultation around community-led action and stronger democracy, was open from August 2023 to February 2024, hosted in partnership between the Scottish Government and COSLA. Communities across Scotland came together to consider what local governance that involves communities more meaningfully should look like. We held a conversation as part of CKM and submitted our collective feedback in March 2024 as one of the 166 unique responses received. Read our submission here.

The Scottish Government has published the analysis of responses. Findings from consultation responses in which the Network contributed include the importance of overcoming barriers to participation—for example, by using language people understand—and a call for communities to have a funding model that allows them to take a long-term view and plan effectively. Regarding the resourcing of community decision-making, CKM highlighted problems with current approaches, including short-term and constraint-based funding, which make it difficult for communities to engage in genuine co-production and relationship building.

Study visit from Texas A&M University students

October 2024

We’ve been engaging with other stakeholders and networks about the work we’ve collectively been doing, including with a group of students from the Educational Leadership and Counseling Department at Texas A&M University in the United States. The study visit provided us with an opportunity to share and contrast our experiences of supporting community-led research around mental health between the Highlands & Islands and the State of Texas, prompting a fascinating discussion about the politics of distributing funding to rural areas, and the role that the third sector plays alongside government-run support services.

Sharing learning around ethics with wider partners and sister networks

September 2024

In September 2024, we shared some of our learning from Phase 1 with wider partners and sister networks, as we aim to help build a culture shift around more equitable community-led research. We took part in an Ethics Roundtable organised by our partners at the Third Sector Research Forum, and piloted our Participatory Ethics Toolkit at the National Impact Network: Leaders Forum.

Proposal for a second phase of the programme

August 2024

In a new blog our network coordinator writes about the key learning of the first phase of the Community Knowledge Matters programme and the plans for a second one.  We have been working on a proposal for a second phase, and have just submitted an application to the Ideas Fund to extend our infrastructure funding for another 18 months.

Network Member’s Survey

June 2024

As we work on the next stage of the network programme, this is your opportunity to help shape Community Knowledge Matters and contribute to what it might look like in the future. Share with us what training and support might you find useful for increasing capacity and confidence in community-led research. What do you think our priorities should be and who might we want to engage with in terms of policy impact?

September 2024 Update: This survey to evaluate and understand the impact of our work has now closed. Many thanks to all the people who filled and shared their thoughts about CKM. We will now work on analysing and disseminating the findings of the survey, which will help us to understand the needs of the network and set future plans for it.

How can community-led research enable more meaningful local decision-making?

March 2024

This is one of the key question’s we have been asking as a network overall, and with that in mind, we have fed into the recent Democracy Matters consultation. This had developed from a recent Community of Practice, along with a dedicated conversation in February 2024 and wider discussions with this network and the Highlands and Islands Climate Change Community Network. Read the submission here and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the network!

The First Six Months of Community Knowledge Matters

September 2023

In a new blog our network coordinator Lauren writes about the development and start of CKM. She reflects on the role that community engagement, participatory ethics and co-priority setting have played in the first six months of the network and what learning she will take into the next.

Join our Co-Priority Working Group

September 2023

We are looking for community members (either as individuals or representing community organisations) based in the Highlands and Islands who are interested in co-designing and co-analysing a priority setting survey as part of a new working group. Application deadline: 28 November 2023, 5pm. This survey has now closed.

2024 Updates

Many thanks to all the community members, practitioners and researchers that collaborated to produce a Co-Priority survey on Doing Mental Health Research with Rural Communities, and also to all the people who filled it and shared their thoughts on doing mental health research in rural areas. The survey received an incredible 150 rich responses! Our working group has also begun co-analysing the (plentiful!) results from this survey that we co-developed and ran earlier this year, as well as thinking ahead to what we plan to do with them. We’ll keep you posted as things develop and look forward to sharing the results with you soon!

Newly published Insight Report

August 2023

Community Knowledge Matters builds from The Ideas Fund programme, which started in 2021 exploring how communities can directly lead partnerships with researchers around mental wellbeing to ensure that lived, professional and academic expertise can work together more effectively to affect local change.

The Ideas Fund, who are also funding this network, have published their first Insight Report (2023), exploring the learning gained from supporting community-led collaboration with researchers across the country.

The Community Knowledge Matters Network will be launching on 24th August 2023

August 2023

Hi folks, Thanks to those who came along to our community of practice last week. We had some great in-depth conversations and some short exercises around what we could call the network ahead of our launch at the end of this month. We can't wait to reveal the new network identity then, but if you have any strong feelings around what we should be called or have on the new website do get in touch! You can also follow (and contribute) to the discussions we had via our padlets here {community of practice discussions} and here {network name suggestions}.

We'll be launching the network on 24th August 11-12.30 -- looking forward to seeing you all there!

3