1. Community engagement and co-design
Peri O’Shea and Karen Fisher
December 2018

2. Community engagement in research
Why – engagement to participate and act on research
Expertise – consumers, representatives, community members
Research quality – relevance, validity, stakeholder ownership
Capacity building – public, researchers and policy makers
Sensitive to consumer needs, concerns, outcomes
Impact – policy, practice and social change
How
Governance, advisors, partners, researchers
Examples
UNSW Community Reference Panel reference-panel/
Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) Coproduction network

3. Context of academic research
Power relations typically asymmetrical
Excludes people from the process of framing their experience
Research initiated and funded by government, academics or community
Research purpose usually to influence government and practitioners

4. Changes to our inclusive research practice
Collaborate with NGOs and advocacy organisations
Pay people with lived experience to be researchers and advisors
Wider range of methods – observations, case studies, photos, films
Critically analyse role of support people in methods
Refine use of easy read materials in research methods and reports

5. What researchers need to do better
Invest in infrastructure to make collaboration happen
within research institutions – to develop mutual capacity
Between NGOs, industry, universities, government
Invest in relationships with NGOs
Invest in tertiary education of people with lived experience - pathways to research
Employ people with lived experience in research

6. Public distribution of research results
Why
Evidence based policy and knowledge translation theories
Stakeholder management in policy process
Public resources
How and challenges
Written – public report, summary report, academic publication
Interaction – presentations, workshops, training
Feedback to participants – accessible summaries
Example
HASI reports
Inform implementation, quality, policy

7. Resources Disability policy projects and publications
My Choice Matters evaluation
Maximising life choices of people with spinal cord injury
Cousins, J. B. et al. (2016) How do evaluators differentiate successful from less-than-successful experiences with collaborative approaches to evaluation? Evaluation Review. doi: / x

8. Resources Participatory research to manage policy conflict
Fisher, K.R. and Robinson, S. (2010), ‘Will policy makers hear my disability experience? How participatory research contributes to managing interest conflict in policy implementation,’ Social Policy and Society. 9(2),
Inclusive research
Evaluation toolkit
BetterEvaluation

9. Resources Research and evaluation plans, projects and publications
Peri O’Shea