Rebuilding the Research Ecosystem

One which recognised and valued different expertises to support the whole spectrum of co-production - from more equitable ways to be involved in research all the way to completely community-led research - to enable much more meaningful, high quality research and solve the local and global challenges of our time.

This in practice feels far away from our system overall now, at such a time of economic uncertainty for so many in the research sector, community and social infrastructure at an all time low, and a global context where the very basis of inclusive knowledge production and expertise is being fundamentally challenged in some places. 

There’s no doubt at least in the UK there is an increased recognition on the strategic levels at research councils for example which aims to move us towards this vision - championing the importance of genuine co-production with underrepresented communities, developing community-led research models and infrastructure, inclusive and decolonising research cultures.

Indeed, there are exciting examples of practice modelling new ways of working - some of which I’ve been involved with including supporting The Ideas Fund, which funds underrepresented communities directly to lead research partnerships along with building the wider infrastructure with our Community Knowledge Matters network, to the work of UKRI and Young Foundation developing Community Research Networks, and wider practice and thought leadership highlighted by communities showcased by a recent essay series. 

These examples build evidence around the real immediate impact this type of work can have - ranging from how research skills can build meaningful capacity for community members all the way to how peer research models means we can ask better questions, get better quality and more trusted responses, can analyse and sense-make better and understand the issues better. 

However, these pockets exploring different ways of working are still only enacted on project or even individual based levels where the pressure is put on practitioners, researchers and community organisations themselves who are working in spite of a wider system and status quo which makes this way of working challenging. 

I’ve seen this play out even in spite of the intentions - from the large gulf of distrust that goes both sides, communities who feel extracted from to Universities bureaucracies who consider grassroots organisations unable to safeguard or hold their own data to the inflexibility of an institutional ethics process which does not centre the needs nor realities of a community and assumes the university knows best. On the other side, I’ve also seen how researchers who are doing incredible work supporting their community partners have to circumvent processes about time allocations, and even be actively penalised by a rigid academic system which doesn’t value the community impact they have facilitated as much as the incredibly narrow view of what leadership and innovation is based on the number of publications and citations and being seen as Principal Investigator - despite the rhetoric of both their own institutions, the impact of REF and research funders like UKRI in their new strategy. 

So whilst spotlighting good practice as ways of working are important - and indeed, in this context, makes the better work even more remarkable - a collection of good and interesting programmes will not change the wider economic and political drivers which maintain the machine of research and wider social inequalities. There’s a useful parallel I think about with how we must collectively approach climate change. Individual actions - reduction, recycle, reuse - and even large programmes - green cities - are important. But it is also fundamental for us to grapple this as a systems issue and demand for more fundamental changes. And unfortunately, given the current research systems does benefit some (though arguably, at this point surely, fewer and fewer), there’s not always the incentive for this to change and absolutely the driver to encourage us to think our own efforts are enough. 

Funding for research still remains hierarchical, on one side being risk averse and requiring you to preempt and justify every outcome over a long period, and on the other side, often delivered within incredibly tight timescales and deadlines - both the antithesis of emergent, relational work which funders say they want. Institutional overheads are expected, high and opaque, and yet paying community partners is both difficult bureaucratically, undervalued and often an afterthought. And ethics and publication processes foreground the academic and not the communities involved in the research who may not even be able to access the findings themselves. 

How Universities themselves - not the only research actors but major ones - are currently funded and the wider economics and perspectives which consider research as competitive investments and markets more than a shared endeavour and collective knowledge commons. It’s how research is published and validated through biased processes, unpaid labours and line publishing company pockets. It’s precarity of funding and jobs for everyone in the system, whilst Universities continue to invest in accommodation and buildings rather than people. It’s the assumptions and market forces that researchers need to charge high overheads for their times, but community members and partners might get a voucher at best. It’s how ethics is controlled by the University and often feels more as a legal protection for the University rather than being about truly being ethical for and by the people who are most affected by the research itself. 

And whilst I very much believe more inclusive knowledge making and research is one of the key tools that can absolutely help society with it’s biggest issues of all time through much more meaningful involvement of communities which builds trust, insight, action and reinforce democracies. Until wider soiety is more equitable, we cannot expect higher education and research to be more equitable either. 

So how do we allow ourselves time and space to take a step back and think about and question the wider economics, politics and international contexts which has this disproportionate impact on what is even possible (or at least feels that way)? 

This is a massive question and to be frank, overwhelming.

But this is where taking time to find actual examples of where big systems have changed before, and are genuinely changing, from outwith the sector can be valuable. 

What does this immensely theoretical and elusive catch up “system change” actually mean and look like? What are its drivers? What can we learn and apply? And recognising the emotional labour, how does this give us hope and build solidarities? 

And based on these ideas, how can creativity and a suspension of reality help us reimagine and push the boundaries rather than just tinker on the sides? 

Some early ideas could look at things like how Universal Basic Income could completely change the economics of research, education, Universities and wider work, in general. Examples where there are 10 year funding cycles are enabled. International Development which trusts and supports local communities and agencies rather than importing in western organisations and is starting to unlearn the colonial power dynamics which centre aid.  And Governments committed to changing how they invest their funding to enable longer term, proactive, preventive spend and research which can improve health and society and reduce costs downstream. 

This is happening at a time where the wider sector is looking to explore this collectively through the Engaging Futures programme coordinated by the NCCPE right now as well as the movement-making we are doing with Community Knowledge Matters, Ideas Fund and Science Ceilidh. 

My work complements this by developing a podcast along with an open conversation series, these thought experiments are intended to bring genuinely new ideas, stories and hopeful futures which draw from and build solidarity from different sectors and amplify voices from the grassroots as well as those in senior positions to enact change.