‘We must hear everyone’s treasure’: Exploring how knowledge is co-produced within a multi-perspective research team

2014 Conference

Abstract: The term ‘coproduction’ has been increasing in use in health service delivery, development and research fields. However, detailed exploration of what this term means to people, their experience of it and its possible impact on the production of knowledge is still limited. In this qualitative research project we explored to what extent knowledge was coproduced within a multi-perspective research team. The setting was a large National Institute for Health Research-funded study looking at Peer Worker roles in mental health services.

The project looked at not only how service user perspectives shape the research process and findings, but also the impact of the involvement of clinical, university and other research team members. Using observation of team meetings, reflective diaries and individual interviews, the research aimed to understand how coproduction was experienced and what impact it has on the production of knowledge. In particular we were interested to explore how decision-making roles were distributed across the team.

The presentation will discuss the findings from the study and conclusions reached. These include:

• How members of the research team understood coproduction
• The experience of coproduction throughout the project life
• What factors make coproduction work
• What are the challenges to co-producing knowledge
• How coproduction impacts on the research process, findings and the team members involved

We conclude that coproduction is not just about decision-making – the process is
more nuanced and is influenced by the nature of the team, the people in the team
and the perspective they bring.