Phase 1 Unwrapped!
As we come to the end of Phase 1, and look ahead to the second phase of the programme starting in January 2025, here’s a glance at some of the highlights from the past 18 months of the Community Knowledge Matters network.
Community Check-Ins
As network members will know (too well!), we like to start each session together asking people what ‘hats’ they are coming in with and what communities they feel part of. As promised, we have amalgamated all of these ‘check-ins’ throughout the past 18 months and the results are in!
communities
We asked people who attended our network events what communities they felt part of, with the option to define ‘community’ as they liked: whether a community of geography, identity, experience, interest or other!
The bigger the word, the more frequently that word was used and so you can see that our network has strong engagement from the following communities: highland, rural, research, shetland, lgbt, parent, moray, mental health, youth work and community development.
This is based on a total of 624 submissions from those who have engaged with our various network activities over the past 18 months. As such, it gives a snapshot of those who have engaged most with our activities, and doesn’t necessarily represent all the communities in our network but we think it’s a pretty great set of communities to be working with in our midst! Can you see yourself in this?
community ‘hats’
In an attempt to break down the binaries between ‘communities’ and ‘researchers’, we asked people to what extent they were coming into our spaces, meetings and events as: community members, a person with lived experience, a researcher, a practitioner or service provider, or a decision-maker.
The graph below is a representation of all of the ‘community-hats’ exercises carried out through Phase 1 activities, combining to what extent all those who attended events identified with the various descriptions. Crucially people were able to identify with each of the categories to a more or less extent, acknowledging that people are able to wear more than one ‘hat’ at any given time. It also sought to encourage a whole-self approach, allowing people to move past their ‘job title’ or status and engage with others in the room through whatever ‘identity’ felt most appropriate to them at the time.
In general, the graph depicts that people most have engaged in our network events through the perspective of their own ‘lived experience’ and identity as a ‘community member’. This chimes with our belief that no matter our job titles or status in society, we all have lived experience and are all members of a community in one way or another.
To a slightly lesser extent, the graph shows that most people strongly identify with the label ‘researcher’. This again demonstrates that regardless of professional status, most people engaging with our network activities see themselves as ‘researchers’ in some form. Again, this echoes our belief as a network that we are ALL researchers, whether you’re based in a university or not.
The u-shape for the line representing ‘practitioners’ suggests that quite a lot of people either don’t identify at all with this term, or identify with it to a fairly strong amount. This might suggest that people either see themselves as a practitioner or they don’t, or that there isn’t a clear understanding of what we mean by this term.
Finally, the graph shows that most people don’t identify with the term ‘decision-maker’ at all, and only a very small number of people do. Again, this could be down to the fact that the term is ambiguous and people aren’t sure how to relate to it, or that people engaging with our network events don’t feel as though they have a huge amount of decision-making ability.
what we’ve learnt from this
People are recognising that they can bring in their different perspectives into the network activities, and that there isn’t a fixed binary between community-members and researchers, or other identities.
It would be useful to think about what we mean by the terms ‘practitioner’ and ‘decision-maker’: do these terms feel universally understood? Are there structural barriers to being able to identify with these terms? Who else should we be bringing into the room?
Network Members
Sectoral representation
The Community Knowledge Matters network is open to anyone with an interest in community-led research, but specifically aims to bring together: community members, people with lived experience, researchers, (mental) health practitioners, and decision-makers. This has been reflected in the way people have primarily identified when they joined the network.
This graph shows the different sectors that are represented in our network membership, with the following ratios:
35.5% from communities & third sector
27.9% from Higher Education Institutions & independent researchers
18.5% public engagement & knowledge exchange
6.8% ‘other’
6% individuals with lived experience
3.8% students
1.5% mental health / health practitioners
*we did not give the option for people to identify as policy or decision-makers in the network sign-up form and so it is not possible to tell how many have joined the network in that capacity.
geographical representation
The Community Knowledge Matters network is also open to anyone, wherever they’re based, but primarily seeks to support community-led research across the Highlands & Islands. This is reflected in our membership which is predominantly based across the region, with the majority being based in the Highland Council area, which is the most densely populated region in the Highlands & Islands. However we also have a national reach with our network, with the aim of using our learning from the region to influence policy across Scotland. This is reflected in the fact that nearly 20% of our members are based elsewhere in Scotland.
This graph shows the geographical representation of network members across Scotland, with the following ratios:
32% Highland
19.1% Elsewhere in Scotland
9.3% Moray
9.3% Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)
9.3% Shetland Isles
7.6% Orkney Isles
5.3% Argyll & Bute
5.3% Elsewhere in UK
2.7% Isles of Arran & Cumbrae
what we’ve learnt from this
Network Aims & Activities
The Community Knowledge Matters network was started in spring 2023 with funding for 18 months from the Ideas Fund to establish a network to explore the ‘infrastructure’ around community-led research. Our original aims for the network at this time were:
network building
peer learning
building capacity
policy and systems change
Below is a snapshot of some of the highlights from the past 18 months, against these aims.
network building
Our network has grown rapidly since we formally launched in August with 47 ‘founding’ members, and we now have more than 250 members signed up! Network members receive: monthly newsletters with network updates, blogs and sector-wide opportunities; direct calendar invites to our network events and a direct link to our online network members’ forum on Community Lab. If you aren’t yet a member, you can sign up here.
We have had more than 550 attendees at our various (public) network events, including our monthly communities of practice, conversation stations, information sessions and in-person gathering. This doesn’t include our regular working group meetings and project workshops.
Growing and sustaining a network isn’t just about bringing people to your own events, but allowing wider connections to be made outside of network organised events. We are aware of at least 23 independent connections having been made as a result of engagement with the network, including new community-researcher partnerships, peer-support partnerships and project partnerships. This has been echoed by feedback from network members in our members’ survey where the majority of respondents said that ‘building connections’ has been the most useful aspect of the network so far.
Most of our network activities have been online, given the wide geographical remit of our network across the Highlands & Islands and beyond. But in June 2024 we brought more than 100 people together in-person, at our gathering in Inverness. This included 35 bursaries to community members to cover their travel expenses and accommodation. Being able to discuss and learn together in-person has been so important for those of us based in the Highlands & Islands where distances often make travel prohibitive.
We appreciated the joy that can come from being together in the same room to share our thoughts on community-led research, hear examples of communities leading on research, enjoy good sustainable food together, dance the day off and offer other styles of learning at our informal sharing ceilidh. Many thanks again to all those who came and made it such a special day!
peer learning
Discussing and learning about the challenges and opportunities around community-led research is a key aspect of this network, and as such our monthly community of practice sessions are at the heart of our network activities. Over the past 18 months we have held 16 online community of practices, offering a chance for network members to meet one another (and make connections!), share learning and take part in collective reflection exercises, and discuss issues of interest with peers. One of our regular activities is the creation of a ‘Living Glossary’, where we have been analysing the words that we use around community-led research to better understand the power dynamics behind them.
As part of our advocacy work around community-led research, we have been keen to collectively build an evidence base of community-led research, to inspire others, show the value of research led by communities, and to share learning around specific methodologies or challenges. To do this, we launched our ‘Conversation Station’ series, inviting communities who had been involved in leading research to share their learning in an informal presentation and discussion. Over the past 18 months we have hosted 12 community spotlights, across our Conversation Station series and at our in-person gathering. These have all been recorded and can be viewed on on our website here.
Understanding the priorities of community members around how research about mental health can be done equitably was one of the original aims of the network. To do this, we created a working group made up of members of grassroots community organisations, people with lived experience, practitioners and university-based researchers to develop a co-priority survey. After co-developing the survey together, including creating a range of additional information material and accessibility aids, we launched an online survey in June 2024: ‘Doing Mental Health Research in Rural Scotland’. Following extensive publicity, including fliers, local radio appearances and a widespread social media campaign, we were delighted to have received 150 usable responses (double the amount received by the Scottish Government’s own consultation). Our working group has been analysing the results and we will be sharing the findings in phase 2!