Partnership Research
Bookings for the conference have now closed. Back to the Programme.Date: Wednesday 19 July
Venue: Room 1, 1st floor, Arumugam Building
Time: 9.15-12.45
Title: The benefits and challenges of conducting research in partnership with service users
Organiser: Jo Frankham, University of Manchester
Aims of session: To provide background on the ESRC funded project: ‘Partnership Research: Negotiating user involvement in research design’ and the website that is based on that work; to describe the intentions and motivations for conducting research in partnership with ‘service users’; to discuss key questions and challenges in the conduct of partnership research; to encourage others who wish to conduct research in partnership and support their thinking about this way of working
Format: Short presentations, discussion of examples from research. Small group work.
Level: No prior knowledge necessary
Session Programme
Chair: Jo Frankham, University of Manchester
Other speakers: Kathy Boxall, University of Sheffield; Ian Kaplan, Daniel Docherty and Patricia Phillips, University of Manchester
| 9.15-9.30 | Introduction |
| 9.30-10.30 | Dilemmas of partnership working - group discussion and activity to raise key issues for consideration |
| 10.30-10.45 | Coffee/tea |
| 10.45-12.15 | Questions and challenges in partnership research Daniel Docherty and Patricia Phillips will outline some challenges they have experienced in carrying out research in partnership. These include: how to make decision-making genuinely collaborative, the importance of relationship-building, and dealing with disagreements. Jo Frankham will raise a series of theoretical/methodological issues in relation to partnership working. These issues relate to ‘troubling’ some of the more comfortable portrayals of ‘partnerships’ which can appear to be leached of questions of power and privilege. A number of silences will be interrogated in order to open up debate about what is not usually said about partnership research. Ian Kaplan will describe the benefits and challenges of doing fieldwork and writing in partnership. He will focus on recognizing and reconciling partners’ different contributions to research. |
| 12.15-12.45 | Why work in partnership? Kathy Boxall will outline a number of arguments for undertaking research in partnership with service users. These include policy directives and requirements from funders as well as methodological and epistemological arguments for service user involvement in research and the production of knowledge. |