Everyone is welcome to join Q’s Co-production Special Interest group with Gary Hickey (from the National Institute for Health Research’s INVOLVE) for a twitter-chat on the ground-breaking topic of Co-producing research.

The chat is a great opportunity to help NIHR/INVOLVE to develop its emerging guidance on this topic, and to discuss this trailblazing branch of co-production.

What is co-production?
Co-production is a concept which has been used to describe a partnership between the public and service providers as they jointly design and/or improve health and social care services.  Increasingly, co-production has been applied to research. One of the main principles of co-production is equity of power; does this provide the potential to fundamentally shift how we think about and do research?

However, co-production is a slippery concept, reflecting the wide range of disciplines from which it emerges and the – often loose – way it is applied. So what do we mean by co-producing research?  What are the key principles and key features involved in co-producing research?  And what are the challenges?

This NIHR draft guidance, written for the public, researchers and other professionals, has been developed via a round table discussion and a workshop (both of which involved members of the public, researchers and staff from the National Institute for Health Research) as well as a literature review and research.

** Here is the document to read before the tweet-chat: Draft Guidance on Co-producing Research (NIHR)**

To join the chat follow this hashtag: #Qcopro (and include it in your tweets)

This is an opportunity for us all to comment on, debate about – and improve – this draft guidance.

Questions we’re likely to use in the tweet-chat are:

1. Does this draft guidance capture the key principles/features involved in co-producing research?
2. What are the challenges/barriers to co-producing research?
3. What practical advice would you give to someone thinking of co-producing research?
4. Has anyone been involved in training on co-producing research. If so, what went well?
5. What are the dangers of not co-producing research?
6. Does you have ideas for research projects?

‘Co-production – why and how’
The co-convenor of Q’s co-production SIG recently blogged: “Co-production – the best, if most elusive, version of ‘patient involvement’ – is gaining ground as an idea. In fact, there is a growing acknowledgement that co-production is simply the right thing to do, both for people who use services and for their families.”

Read her full blog here: https://q.health.org.uk/news-story/co-production-why-and-how/