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Working together to promote open and engaged research in education.
As Director of Research and Innovation in the School of Education at the University of Leeds and as an open research champion, I work to reduce barriers to research participation, improve access to research for non-academic audiences, and provide opportunities for research co-production and partnership. Open research invites diverse audiences into the academic world of research whilst also supporting communities to conduct research and generate new knowledge. The vast umbrella of open research is home to a wide range of interrelated strategies and approaches. One of these is ‘engaged research’ (an umbrella within an umbrella!). At Leeds, engaged research is part of our open research ecosystem, and sits alongside practices such as public involvement, citizen science and participatory research, all of which help make research more transparent, relevant and inclusive.
Engaged research is a collaborative approach that actively involves stakeholders, such as community members, practitioners, policymakers, and external organisations, throughout the entire research process. It emphasises the co-production of knowledge by integrating stakeholder insights at every stage, from identifying research questions to implementing findings and evaluating outcomes.
University of Leeds, Open research hub, Open research beyond academia
Engaged research is not a one-off activity, it needs to be woven through cycles of joint enquiry, ongoing dialogue, reflection and review. It is a long-term commitment and benefits from sustained collaborative relationships. For engaged research in education to be truly meaningful, it is vital that universities, schools and other education settings form long-term partnerships. The potential value of this cannot be underestimated, indeed McGeown and Sjölund (2023) in their open access review of education research-practice partnerships across five European contexts, argue that
Research-practice partnerships encourage us to reflect on the purposes of university research - who is research for, what does research excellence look like and who judges the quality of research? (pg. 10)
Against this backdrop of open and engaged research, I am pleased to tell you about a new community of practice called the Community of Research Engaged Schools (CoRES) launching this month, which I hope you might like to join. This initiative is supported by the University of Leeds Research Culture Targeted Funding scheme and is led from the School of Education in close collaboration with steering group members from across the University of Leeds. The vision for this community is not pre-defined, rather in the spirit of co-production we want to work together to shape its activities and scope. In the short term, we invite you to work with us to map research priority areas and potential research questions for further consideration. This summer we will host a series of workshops (both online and on campus) designed to support this mapping process and spark collaborative possibility-oriented thinking. We will be covering staff buy-out costs to facilitate participation, with further details to follow soon.
Looking ahead, our intention is for CoRES to interconnect with programmes of study for education professionals, for example the new MA Inclusive and Special Education and the MA Deaf Education (Teacher of the Deaf Qualification), and with courses for teacher trainees delivered in partnership with Red Kite Teacher Training (the new BA Primary Education programme with Qualified Teacher Status (5-11) and the School Initial Teacher Training programmes). Module assessments, dissertations and placements can create rich opportunities for productive collaboration and close to practice enquiry. This new community offers a space for enabling education practitioners to commission projects that can be conducted in partnership with students and their supervisors. Furthermore, our community will include Doctor of Education (EdD) researchers (experienced educators conducting practice informed research) and there is potential to work together to develop collaborative projects suitable for future doctoral research. We look forward to exploring these possibilities, and many more ideas together.
Further updates will be posted in our LinkedIn public group. If you would potentially like to be involved in CoRES or would like to find out more, please get in touch via edu_cores@leeds.ac.uk.
