December update: Closing the year with momentum

In our last update blog of the year, we’re excited to share what we’ve been up to this month. From delivering keynote talks and co-production training to taking part in national conversations about anti-racism, there’s been lots happening across the team. Read on to hear about our activities over the past month, learn about our latest opportunity, and get to know the newest member of our team.

What we’ve been up to

Hania and Isaac gave a keynote and ran a workshop at The Health and Adult Social Care Commissioners’ Conference about anti-racism in co-production and how it applies to commissioning.

Nicc, Aleem and Priya attended a team learning day in Oxford as part of the NIHR UCL Policy Research Unit in Reproductive Health project.

Hania attended an event hosted by the Nuffield Foundation called ‘Racial Diversity UK: shaping racially just and inclusive futures’ – The Racial Diversity UK Fund is providing research funding to understand the barriers and pathways to a racially just and inclusive society. The event aimed to introduce the new funding programme and start to build community interest in its work. We heard from the four currently funded research project teams and discussed the direction of the programme.

The latest Allies Group meeting took place. The group discussed a variety of topics including, how to go about conducting a review of Our Direction 2023-2028 (our current ambitions for the future), the challenge of working to change culture (as we are) and the potential risks surrounding this type of work. Meeting notes will be shared shortly. The next meeting is scheduled for February 2026.

Hania, Asma and Vita delivered a co-production training session for UCL Grand Challenge of Mental Health and Wellbeing early career researchers.

Hania, Paul and Sam delivered co-production training for students at the British Heart Foundation Centre for Research Excellence.

Sarah and the rest of the COMMET team - who are working together to co-produce a mathematical model of Mpox - attended sensitivity training delivered by some of the co-producers involved in the project. We discussed Queer sex culture, language and the different ways inequalities can impact LGBTQI+ people. We will use this learning to inform how we design our upcoming workshops for people with lived experience.

Hania, Aleem, Jess and our co-producer team that includes Hollie, David Chloe and Shelina, attended the first full meeting partnering with The National Suicide Prevention Alliance. This work will embed lived experience into suicide prevention efforts and is funded by London’s City Bridge Foundation.

Meet our new team member

This month we welcomed a new team member to our team – Asma

Asma is driven by her passion for inclusive research practices to support the co-ordination of our projects. In particular, she enjoys connecting our community of co-producers with UCL researchers across disciplines.

In her spare time, she enjoys travelling around the world, trying new things – she is currently learning how to play the piano – and storytelling through different media, primarily film, poetry, and podcasting.

Coming up

After the first Anti-Racism Working Group meeting, we are working on three new workstreams and are now offering anti-racism in co-production workshops. You can read more about these workstreams and the workshops  in our latest blog.

Hania, Aleem and Isaac will be meeting with co-producers and a colleague from the IMPACT Centre at the University of Birmingham, to continue the anti-discriminatory work that is building on the Understanding Anti-Racism in Co-Production Spaces report.

Get involved

We’re working with researchers at University College London (UCL) and Tommy’s on a new project called RECENTRE, which explores how we can better prepare for and respond to future outbreaks for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or making health decisions for their babies.

We’re looking for members of the public to join the project’s advisory board and share their lived experiences, perspectives, and ideas. You can find out more about this project and how to apply in our blog. Deadline for applications 12 noon (UK time) Friday 5 December.

Co-Pro Cuppas

December Themed Co-Pro Cuppa

This week we hosted our first ever themed Co-Pro Cuppa on the subject of “How do we get others to understand what co-production really means?” This theme was which was chosen by a poll of community members from 3 ideas that were put forward in the 2024 Community Survey and Co-Pro Cuppa surveys.  The event was then co-produced by a team of community and staff members.

At the Cuppa we heard a poem called ‘A Shared Voice’ by community member Lee that expressed the essence and the power of co-production. We split into two groups to discuss the theme with others at similar levels of experience in co-production before coming back together to share learning and explore this all together.  

These are some of the key areas that were discussed:

• The importance of wrap-around care and how to support people when projects come to an end—especially when funding runs out.
• The need for people at all levels of an organisation to understand and commit to co-production. Middle-level staff, who are often responsible for carrying it out, can unintentionally become blockers even when senior leaders are enthusiastic.
• The idea that co-production should be everyone’s responsibility, much like safeguarding.
• Thinking about the impact of co-production not just in terms of a single project, service, or piece of research, but in terms of the wider ecosystem it sits within and the people it affects.
• Ensuring that the voices of people with lived experience remain at the centre—because without that, it isn’t truly co-production.
• Exploring the concept of co-production in the context of community-led, ground-up decision-making.

We also shared our newly co-produced ‘Community Commitments’ which are a new version of our ways of working that centre anti-racist principles and asked for people to provide feedback in the chat.  Look out for more opportunities to feed back to these in the new year.

Thanks to all who attended. Following on from this we are looking to how we can offer different forms of Co-Pro Cuppas in the future that would support different people’s needs and interests. If you have any thoughts on this please email coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Pro Cuppas coming up in 2026

Thanks to all of you who attended our Co-Pro Cuppas in 2025. These are next three dates for your diary for 2026.

• Thursday 8 January 1:30 pm (UK time)
• Tuesday 3 February 1:30pm (UK time)
• Thursday 5 March 11:00am (UK time)

Thank you

We would like to end the year by saying thank you to everyone in the Co-Production Collective team and community! Thank you for coming along to our Co-Pro Cuppas, contributing to, and reading our blogs and newsletters, sharing your stories with us and our partners, and co-creating ourselves as we learn and develop our community.

We are very excited for what 2026 will hold for Co-Production Collective. In the meantime, we wish you a restful holiday season – we are looking forward to continuing to co-producing and championing co-production with you in the new year!

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