Working meaningfully together: values of participation in interdisciplinary research

Research is seeing an ascendancy in the adoption of interdisciplinary and participatory approaches, but this is a fairly recent development. Horizons Institute Research Manager for Creativity, Partnership and Impact and Joint Acting Head of Interdisciplinary Research Inés Soria-Donlan explores how a critical mass is emerging in both, and what the potential of this development could be.

“At the point of encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know.”

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970

Looking for reflection

When I first joined the University of Leeds in 2017, after eight years of working on community-focused projects with diverse communities, locally and globally, in the arts, I came looking for reflection.

I had been ‘doing’ work rooted in creative, participatory approaches for so long and at such speed that, while I remained convinced of their value, I questioned whether any of us were really learning enough about the complexities that came with these approaches, being honest about when things didn’t work, and making space to think, with curiosity, about their integration with the wider socio-political systems we live within.

I wanted to gain a critical perspective on what participation meant in practice.

I soon discovered that there was a rich theoretical underpinning to this work and that questions and modes of participation were not limited to the arts but were also a priority for those working in health, education, transport, housing, policy, design, engineering and beyond.

Each discipline or sector may have a very different way of talking about and ‘doing’ participation but, when done well, the values we are all driven by are the same:

• Give more decision-making ownership to those the decisions will directly affect, ensuring people’s voices are “not just listened to but also heard”;
• Widen our definition of who we see as ‘experts’, valuing the unique perspectives of different knowledge systems and each persons lived experience
• Create safe and inclusive spaces for those who have traditionally not felt listened to, to reflect, articulate, challenge and share their own beliefs and perspectives, increasing skills and agency;
• Being prepared, as organisers, to ‘unlearn’ preconceptions we may have and acknowledge our privileges and prejudices;
• Name and dismantle existing power hierarchies as a result.

But I still sensed clear issues: despite efforts of various excellent action-research projects to join up critical thinking about participatory approaches, across research and practice, there remained little visible debate about the harms that come from the appropriation of participatory approaches for optics’ sake (cf. Participation: The new tyranny? (2001), eds. Cooke and Kothari).

Similarly, opportunities to discuss histories, ideas and methods of participation across sectors and disciplines remained limited. This not only curbed opportunities to collaborate on participatory work across disciplines (the language and framework of Public & Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) is vastly different from that of co-design in architecture, for example), but increased the risk of misappropriation (intentional or otherwise) by those seeking to integrate these inherently radical approaches to national or international policy agendas (see ‘What do Buzzwords do for Development Policy? A critical look at ‘Participation’, ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Poverty Reduction’, by Cornwall and Brocke).

I also sensed a lack of introspection about the impact working environments have on how participation is ‘done’; so often the values attributed to the work groups do with communities are not reflected in their own internal structures (Higher Education being a case in point).

How could participatory approaches really be used effectively, and with integrity, if the values they are based on are not being modelled within the organisations and people seeking to deliver them?

All of this placed a ceiling on the value interventions could have at ‘whole-life’ level for those we were aiming to ‘empower’; so long as participatory work was happening in silos, opportunities to connect these approaches together for wider change seemed limited. What good is ensuring peoples voices are valued in discussions around healthcare or culture, if the same cannot be said of housing and education?

A critical mass emerging

As I moved from one participatory research project to another at Leeds, eventually landing as Project Manager for Changing the Story, these issues were becoming increasingly visible in wider discussions around what participation meant within research — locally, nationally and globally.

Funders were, slowly but surely, recognising the value of participatory approaches not just for research projects but also for the ways they themselves operate. As these conversations opened up, academics across disciplines were successfully lobbying for more flexible funding structures, recognising the iterative and non-linear approach to project planning that true participatory projects invariably require. Within universities, conversations around participation were starting to be connected with those linked to decolonisation, diversity and inclusion, student education and interdisciplinarity, recognising its ability to disrupt the status quo. At Changing the Story, and alongside others, we worked hard to critically examine how our research methodologies were grown from and reflected back into our own structures and ways of working as a result.

It now feels like a more nuanced understanding of the spectrum of participatory approaches is emerging. For many, participation now belongs to “a cluster of approaches […] that describe ‘collaborative processes involving diverse types of expertise, knowledge and actors to produce context-specific knowledge and pathways towards a sustainable future.”, alongside ideas of co-production, co-creation or consultation. These ‘scales of participation’, where the participant has varying scales of project ownership, can help us refine and distinguish different approaches, understanding the strengths and limits of each and helping to guard against their instrumentalization.

Participation at Leeds

Seven years into my time at Leeds, I’m incredibly excited by the plethora of expertise and appetite for sharing participatory methodologies that exists at our university, from work on anti-microbial resistance, environmental decision making and socially inclusive cities to doughnut economics, cultural participation and sanitation.

As the University opens itself up further to cross-disciplinary and cross-function collaboration, bringing colleagues from all parts of the institution together, a confluence of expertise is emerging.

In the past six months, our School of Performance and Cultural Industries Participatory Research Group hosted their first symposium, the CENTRE (Community Engagement Network for Teaching, Research and Education) has launched, bringing together research expertise in this area with community engagement professionals across teaching and student services, and Leeds Social Sciences Institute have launched their Co-production Network, featuring resources and a new funding scheme specifically for co-produced research.

A critical mass is emerging, creating an opportunity not just to change the nature of academic enquiry itself, but the structures it is situated within at institutional, national and international level.

Participation and Interdisciplinary Working

So, what of participation and interdisciplinarity? The two seem increasingly connected, and in the recent UKRI cross-research council interdisciplinary research call, ‘reciprocity’ and ‘co-creation and design’ were named scheme objectives. But what values — and challenges — do these approaches share, and how can they work together to support a shift towards more equitable, nuanced and impactful challenge-led research?

The UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) states interdisciplinary research “achieve(s) outcomes (including new approaches) that could not be achieved within the framework of a single discipline […] it features significant interaction between two or more disciplines and/or moves beyond established disciplinary foundations in applying or integrating research approaches from other disciplines”. (This Horizons blog offers further definitions).

Both interdisciplinary and participatory approaches are about working better, with others, often through unlikely collaborations, to generate new understanding and innovative ideas. Just as with participation, when done well, interdisciplinary research inherently requires us to think of representation, inclusion, voice and hierarchical structures. Even with academia, some types of knowledge are valued more than others.

And, while not all interdisciplinary research is challenge-led, its potential to address today’s complex problems through its ‘multifacted, integrated approach’ has become increasingly central to academics and policy makers. Both also seek to tackle entangled issues through generating a more nuanced and diversified knowledge base. Both require those involved to listen well, adapt language to allow for shared understanding, admit their ignorance and be open to new ideas.

Both approaches also face blocks and limits within the current structures of higher education, whether that’s about where or how to publish your findings, or where and how to pay those involved. And wider issues around research culture, being increasingly challenged, are paramount.

So, does all good interdisciplinary working require participatory research approaches to work well? In short, no.

These are options within a catalogue of methodologies which must be chosen based on the needs, specificities and limits of a research question. There can be excellent challenge-led, interdisciplinary research that does not involve participatory research approaches. Similarly, there are world-shifting projects rooted in participatory approaches that are largely single discipline (though I would argue that a result of participatory enquiry is that other disciplines and methodologies are invariably welcomed in).

Interdisciplinary approaches can help us think in a more connected and accessible way about how participation is conceptualised, articulated and delivered across the current systems that shape everyday life, helping us = find more holistic ways to create a systems-shift for the benefit of society.

Similarly, whilst participatory approaches might not always be appropriate for the research aspect of interdisciplinary projects, the embedding of participatory values — embracing a diversity of voices, acknowledging existing power dynamics and relinquishing your role as sole expert — into the structures and mechanisms through which interdisciplinary collaborations are developed can create more inclusive, impactful and fulfilling work for all involved.

The emergence of cross-campus discussions around both these approaches is increasingly important if we are to successfully develop high-quality, challenge-focused research that makes a real difference to people’s lives.

After all, we are all attempting, together to learn more than we now know.

What do you think about the link between participatory approaches and interdisciplinary working? What support might you find valuable in working across the two, and how might the Horizons Institute be able to support you? Get in touch with us via horizons@leeds.ac.uk to share your views, examples or questions — we’d love to hear from you.