COMMUNITY-CENTRED RESEARCH · POWER HELD BY COMMUNITIES
For communities.
We help communities hold power over research of their own. Communities hold knowledge institutions need, and working with us starts from that: paid roles, real influence, research you help lead.
Research keeps happening to communities. Time taken, stories taken, and little that lasts given back. Even where the intent is good, the outcomes are not. It does not have to work this way. Communities hold what research needs, and the work can start there.
That is where we come in.
HOW WE WORK
One model, three functions.
Every level of this work runs through one model: The Inclusive Research Collaborative, a practitioner-led intermediary between institutions and communities. It holds the work together in three ways.
Authentic participation
Your community holds genuine influence over what is asked, how it is decided, and where the research goes, as co-owners of the work.
Reciprocity
Knowledge, skills, resources and access to opportunity flow back to your community, well beyond payment for people’s time.
Lifecycle engagement
Your involvement is sustained across the whole of the work, from setting the question to sharing what it found.
Reflexive practice
We work with our own position and power in view, and hold ourselves answerable to your community.
01 / PROJECT
Get a single project right.
Some work is bounded: a session for your team, an evaluation you hold funding for, a bid that needs its research sections. This level is for those moments.
Funders, commissioners and partners ask community organisations for evidence more and more, and rarely give them the tools to produce it. We run practical, hands-on sessions with your staff, trustees and volunteers, built around the evidence you actually need to gather. You learn how to ask good questions, listen and record well, make sense of what people tell you, and turn it into a case a funder or commissioner will take seriously. The methods are simple, repeatable and yours to keep, so the next time you are asked for evidence you are not starting from scratch.
- A session built around the evidence you actually need
- Practical methods for gathering, making sense of and using insight
- Skills your team keeps and can use again without us
When you are leading research or an evaluation of your own, it has to hold up: to your funder, your board, and the community it concerns. We work alongside you across the whole piece. We help you shape a design that answers your real question and fits your resources, get the fieldwork right, and make honest sense of what it finds. You stay in the lead and keep ownership of the findings; our job is to make sure the method is sound, the analysis is fair, and the conclusions are ones you can stand behind and act on.
- A design that answers your real question, within your resources
- Support through fieldwork and honest analysis
- Findings that are yours to keep, defend and act on
Funders increasingly want a credible research or evaluation plan inside a bid, and a weak or vague one can sink an otherwise strong application. We write those sections with you: a clear question, a method proportionate to the grant, and a plan that shows the funder you know how you will learn what works, and that you could actually deliver it if you win. Done well, it strengthens the whole application and sets you up to deliver, not just to win.
- A research and evaluation plan the funder will believe
- A method proportionate to the grant, and deliverable by you
- A stronger application overall
02 / PRACTICE
Change how your organisation does research.
One piece of work does not change an organisation. A trained cohort of your own does, and so does independent advice when institutions come asking. This is where the commitment to share power becomes practical.
Research is stronger, and far more trusted, when the people it is about help lead it. We train local people as researchers with your organisation, in paid roles, using practical methods they learn on real projects rather than in the abstract. They come away able to design and carry out fieldwork, handle information responsibly, and hold their own alongside academic and institutional partners. The capability, and the people who hold it, stay in your community long after we have gone.
- Local people trained and paid as researchers
- Skills learned on real work, not in theory
- Research capability that stays in your community
When an institution asks your community into its research, the terms are usually set on their side of the table, and the value can flow one way. We sit on yours. We help you understand what is really being proposed, weigh what it will cost and give your community, and set terms that are fair: proper payment, a real say, credit for the work, and a share in what the research produces. You decide with your eyes open, before you commit to anything.
- A clear read on what is really being proposed
- Fair terms: payment, a say, credit and a share
- A decision made on your terms, not theirs
03 / SYSTEM
Research your community owns.
Some communities take this all the way: a research practice of their own, with its own trained researchers, its own methods and materials, and its own standing with institutions. Our founder has walked that path, from community researcher to directing a community research organisation.
The Inclusive Research Collaborative is being built so the path stays open: one point of continuity for communities, even as institutions, partners and teams change.
Become a community researcher.
Paid research roles open when projects begin. Leave your name, and you hear first. Researcher pay is budgeted at or above the London Living Wage on every project we deliver.
Working inside an NHS trust, university, ICS or funder?
Talk to us.
Tell us what your community is working on. Most partnerships start with a single training, and everything after that is built together. Every step here is one step towards health equity, built into the nation’s infrastructure.