‘The evidence suggests that co-research can benefit the research itself and everyone involved – but what are some of the challenges and how can we overcome them?’
In 2025, a previous Ask IMPACT guide set out the potential benefits of co-research for people who draw on care and support and for the research itself.
However, members of our Co-production Advisory Group and other people who draw on care and support, practitioners and researchers who reviewed the draft guide also wanted to know more the potential barriers and challenges when undertaking co-research – and any insights from the evidence on how to overcome these.
We therefore re-analysed and updated the initial review to inform a second guide.
The evidence
We worked with the University of Birmingham’s Knowledge and Evidence Service to explore the evidence, and have created a helpful summary of the emerging evidence. The guide sets out some initial key terms, and summarises the evidence around potential benefits of working together, to both people and the research.
Other resources
As part of our search of the evidence, we came across a variety of other resources that might help you.
- Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) on what they call ‘public involvement in social care research’.
- The Dementia Enquirers programme has supported groups of people living with dementia to conduct their own research which is led and controlled by people with dementia themselves. They set out six standards for ethical research to help people work together in real partnership.
- Shaping Our Lives, produces lots of guidance on inclusive involvement, including materials from its work on partnerships between user-led organisations and Universities.
- Involve, a national advisory group who used to support involvement in NIHR research, has published guidance on co-producing research projects.
- The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration in Kent, Surrey and Sussex has produced a guide to co-production for researchers, services and commissioners.
- Kingston University have made a film about working with learning disabled researchers.
- The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) provide lots of resources around co-production more generally, many of which will also be relevant here.
- Research Better Together is a collaboration between University researchers, the voluntary/community sector and Co-production Works to share knowledge and good practice around participatory research.
Feedback
Have you used or shared this guide, or one of our others? Have the actions made a difference to your practice or life? Tell us!