Why work with us?
Progress research projects with confidence by bringing together brilliant people and taking them through proven processes.
Build confidence and rapport amongst your research collaborators through creative activities that draw out everyone’s ideas and expertise.
Enjoy the benefits of creative activities without worrying about facilitation. Tell us who you want to work with, and what you want to achieve. We will do the rest.
In practice
The example below shows the facilitation of creative activities in practice.
Case Study: ActEarly – Holme Wood Place-based Cookbook
Research Context
Traditional research outputs often fail to reflect the lived experience of communities, particularly in areas like Holme Wood where socioeconomic and health inequalities are deeply rooted and complex. Researchers and community partners needed a way to surface what really matters, from within the community itself, rather than impose external priorities.
Facilitating creative activities
Within the ActEarly: Holme Wood programme, researchers adopted an innovative co-production approach that blended data science with community engagement, grounded in the principles of equality, agency, and reciprocity. Community members, researchers, artists, and local practitioners were brought together in creative food-centred gatherings and discussion events where food choices, health, and neighbourhood lived experiences became the lens for shared inquiry and storytelling.
Rather than producing a cookbook as a culinary collection, the team co-developed a “place-based community cookbook” of insights — a metaphorical and practical tool that translated conversations about shopping access, eating habits, safety, and wellbeing into recipes for change. This approach allowed residents’ voices to shape both the questions asked and the interpretation of data, weaving together community narratives with analytic insight.
Research Impact
The community cookbook process helped reshape how the research engaged with public health questions by rooting them in local experience rather than abstract metrics.
- It surfaced food access and choice as a priority issue linked to health behaviours and environmental factors — reframing research agendas through lived experience.
- It deepened trust and participation among Holme Wood residents by valuing their expertise and storytelling as research data.
- It created a shared language and set of community-generated insights that informed discussions with policymakers and service planners about more effective, people-centred interventions.
Working Together
Want to explore co-production methods like community cookbooks to make your research richer and more grounded?
Book a meeting with us now.