Symposium 2017

Third international symposium: Engagement, co-production, and collaborative meaning-making: collaboration in qualitative health research

Date and venue

• Tuesday 7 February 2017, 9:00-17:00
• Venue: UCL, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guildford Street, London, WC1N 1EH

Symposium theme

The third Qualitative Health Research Network Symposium brought together researchers from around the world to discuss how, in recent years, there have been increasing calls for collaboration between academia and the wider healthcare community in health research. As a result, traditional "lone researcher" models of qualitative health research have shifted to include research teams which are increasingly made up of qualitative researchers alongside quantitative researchers, members of the public, health professionals, policy-makers and other stakeholders. 

However, such collaborations may be complex and may create challenges. To date, there has been limited critical consideration of these challenges and little is known about the assumptions and effectiveness of these collaborations. In this Symposium, we explored and developed critical perspectives on:

• What 'collaboration' has come to mean, and the ways in which the concept is growing in prominence; 
• How collaborative relationships are established and embedded, and particularly how qualitative researchers are positioned in interdisciplinary teams;
• The production and reproduction of power differentials and inequalities in collaborative qualitative health research;
• How research designs, data interpretation and reporting are affected by collaboration;
• The role of the "lay researcher" and the extent to which they offer the views and experiences of the groups they represent, as well as how marginalised groups are accommodated.
• Examples of qualitative health research projects that are conducted in collaborative environments.

Conference proceedings

The conference proceedings of this Symposium have been published in BMJ Open, March 2017, Volume 7, Supplement 2 (link opens in new window).

Oral and poster presentations

A selection of oral and poster presentations are now available to view online. 

Supported by

This symposium was supported by the Wellcome Trust (link opens in new window).

Programme

Poster presentations

Culture, creativity and innovation in research

• Minn Yoon (University of Alberta, Canada): See me, hear me, heal me: A theatre-based approach to engagement, co-intentional dialogue and meaning-making
• Valerie Dunn (CLAHRC East of England, UK/University of Cambridge): Young service users, providers and researchers collaborate to co-produce a preparation programme for young people leaving child and adolescent mental health services at 17/18
• Rachel Taylor (University College London Hospitals, UK): Collaborating with young people to set the agenda for secondary analysis of the BRIGHTLIGHT dataset
• Kay Inckle (London School of Economics, UK): Team Players: Game-based approaches to collaborative research 
• Sarah Manns (University of the West of England, UK): The occupational therapist, the doctor, the researcher, the roboticist, and the artist
• Bridget Lockyer (University of Manchester and University College London, UK): Collaboration in museums and health research
• Evangelia Chrysikou (University College London, UK): Inclusive Urban and Rural Communities: The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment "Commitment" on the call for Commitments of EIP on AHA

Health services and systems

• Rebecca Wright (New York University, USA): Researcher-led Collaboration between Patients and Carers, Palliative Care and Emergency Department Staff: An Experience-based Co-design Project
• Mirza Lalani (University College London, UK): An Evaluation of a Patient Safety Collaborative using the participatory Researcher in Residence model
• Ngozi Akwataghibe (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Community linkages: a driver of effective immunization?
• Joanne Land (University College London, UK): Improving healthcare service delivered in Multiple Myeloma clinic - medicine meets health psychology to explore patients' views on a proposal to change routine follow-up
• Benjamin Tsofa and Sassy Molyneux (KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme; KEMRI Centre for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kenya): 'The Outsiders from Within' - Coping and Adaptive Strategies for Systems Resilience in the Process of Implementing Political Devolution within the Health Sector in Kenya

Making research accessible to marginalised and vulnerable groups

• Danielle Ferndale (Queensland Health and University of Queensland, Australia): Collaboration with deaf people in a hearing centric world
• Jessica Potter (Queen Mary University of London, UK): Collaborative meaning-making: Including non-English speakers in cross-language health research
• Sarah Carr (Middlesex University, UK): Working creatively to co-produce qualitative mental health research: reflections from two studies
• Fiona Fox (University of Bristol, UK): Insiders and Outsiders: the experience of co-researchers exploring autism in a Somali community 
• Linda Birt (University of East Anglia): People with dementia doing research: the challenges for participation and collaboration
• Zahira Latif (University of Birmingham, UK): Hearing the voices of marginalised groups: Reflections on recruiting and involving British South Asian patients with rheumatoid arthritis in a qualitative study

Theorising and reflecting on collaboration

• Matt Willis (University of Oxford, UK): Reproduction of the sociotechnical gap in mixed quant/qual health research collaborations
• Roman Kislov (University of Manchester, UK): Enabling collaborative health research: a qualitative longitudinal study of a large-scale co-production programme
• Lisa McDaid (University of Glasgow, UK): Dual Theoretical Synergy Framework: developing and refining a method for stakeholder engagement in intervention development
• Elspeth Mathie (University of Hertfordshire, UK): Research design boundaries for qualitative research, stakeholder and patient and public involvement, and why they matter. 
• Nicola Thomas (London South Bank University, UK): Involving patients and carers in research: the experience of older people in the shared decision-making process in advanced kidney care
• Nicola Boydell (University of Glasgow, UK): Meaningful and engaging, or tokenistic? Reflections on collaborative engagement in the process of designing sexual health interventions
• Mandy Cheetham (Teesside University, UK): "A fresh set of eyes?" Negotiating the realities of collaborative, embedded research in public health

This symposium is organised by the Qualitative Health Research Network (QHRN) with support from the Wellcome Trust.