Creating research with communities
Our Participatory Research Fund awarded by Research England was set up in 2021 to support researchers and non-academic partners to work together to co-create knowledge whilst sharing power and responsibility.
Since 2021 we have funded 51 projects through the Participatory Research Fund. These have covered topics including young people’s mental health, building courage amongst teachers and school students, health and safety policy, sustainable food choices, uncovering the effects of covid, and much more.
Round 5 is now open.
The Participatory Research Fund supports participatory or co-produced research, where researchers and non-academic partners work together to co-create knowledge, while sharing power and responsibility.
There are two awards offered under the call this year:
- An award for pilot projects that test experimental participatory approaches, of up to £10,000
- A follow-on award for projects that build on an existing participatory project or body of work, of up to £20,000
Key Dates:
- Application deadline: Friday 26 September 2025
- Decisions communicated: w/c 27 October 2025
- Project timeline: Projects will run from 1 November 2025 to 30 June 2026.
What's been funded so far?
Find out more...
- Case study: Responding to a community-based research needLead researcher Tracy Helliwell applied for Participatory Research Funding in 2022 to establish a project focusing on improving the mathematical learning experiences of students in a local secondary school, especially those who were most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Tracy worked with three mathematics teachers and several groups of students in Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9).
- Case study: Using creative methods to engage young peopleChris Jarrold and Meg Attwood from the School of Psychological Science applied for Participatory Research Funding in 2021 to work with young people and two partner organisations. They used creative methods throughout the project, and produced an exhibition of the young people's project outputs.
- Case study: Increasing the diversity of voices included in researchLesel Dawson applied for Participatory Research Funding in 2021 and 2022 to work on a co-produced resource on perinatal bereavement. Following feedback in the first round of funding, a key focus of the project in Round 2 was to bring new voices into the co-production process to make the final resource more inclusive.
- Case study: Training community-based researchersLead researcher Catherine Dodds applied for Participatory Research Funding in 2022 to work with community researchers with lived experience of blood borne viruses (BBVs). Aiming to impact the national policy agenda, they set up the Community Auditing of Risk Assessments (CARA) team to conduct an audit of local institutions’ health and safety policies.