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Happy New Year! As we embark on the new year, we’d like to use this opportunity to celebrate our achievements in 2025, look forward to 2026 and remind you of some of learning you shared with us in our blogs over the past year.
What we achieved together in 2025
The launch of our new website in January
At the beginning of 2025, with your support we were delighted to unveil our new website, co-produced with members of our community to better reflect who we are, what we do and how people can get involved in our work. As well as providing more information about who we are and our governance, in our new ‘About us' section it also has a section called ‘What we offer’ that is dedicated explaining what we do and providing case studies to support this.
In addition to this, in response to feedback we got from our community surveys and community members that co-produced it with us, it also has two new areas dedicated to making it easier for people to find the information they need about co-production and get involved in what we do. If you haven’t explored these yet, this is an overview of what they contain:
Championing Co-production
In this section of the website, you can find out more about ‘What co-production means to us’ as well as helpful resources including our:
- Value of co-Production research project
- Measuring success in co-production: Learning by doing programme
- Co-Pro Stories – a bank of 100 videos created with People’s Voice Media where people share their co-production experiences and insights.
- Resource library that contains a multitude of information from different sources about co-production. (We are always looking to add to this so if you have any thoughts on resources we should add please email coproduction@ucl.ac.uk)
Get Involved
In this section of the website is dedicated to ways you can get involved in what we do:
- Browse and respond to opportunities on our Current Opportunities board.
- Find out more about our monthly Co-Pro Cuppas and sign up to join us
- Explore our policies and ways of working.
If you have any feedback or questions the website, please email coproduction@ucl.ac.uk
The launch of our Anti-Racism report in February
Following on from the conversations we held in 2024 with 37 individuals from racialised backgrounds about their experience of being involved with co-production, we launched our “Understanding Anti-Racism in Co-production Spaces – centring the voices of racialised individuals” report in partnership with People’s Voice Media. The report contains the following key recommendations:
- Centre the voices of racialised individuals
- Create spaces for open dialogue about race
- Commit to anti-racism as an ongoing process
- Empower Global Majority leadership
Since then, we have been working hard making plans to help become a reality. You can read more about this in our blog.
The launch of our 'Measuring Success in co-production: Learning by doing' reports in May
In May, we published a range of resources that share learning and insights from the Measuring Success in Co production: Learning by Doing programme. These include:
- An introductory video to give you a flavour of what the programme is about and explain the outputs that have been developed.
- Measuring Success Report Summary describing the key elements of the programme as well as significant findings and intended impacts.
- Measuring Success Extended Report - an in-depth report about the programme how we learned from the eight funded project teams, detailed narratives around the conditions for co-production and evaluating co-production as well a brief summary of the eight projects involved.
- Measuring Success Reflective Learning Resource – a practical resource to help co-production journeys regardless of stage, expertise or experience.
You can read more about these and other resources we have available from the Measuring Success programme along with links to accessible versions in this blog and on the ‘Outputs’ tab of the Measuring Success Programme website page.
The programme was supported by Co-Production Collective, Co-Producers with a range of lived experience, The Evaluation Exchange (a collaboration between UCL and Compost London), and representatives from two of our co-funders (UCL Grand Challenges and The Academy of Medical Sciences), who supplemented our Research England funding for this programme.
Updated co-production payment policy in July
Building on a pilot we ran in 2024, we listened to your feedback and updated our payment policy to make the payment rates we had been testing become standard. We also made some further changes to options of how to get paid. You can more about these changes in our blog and access accessible versions of the new payment policy on the policies page of our website.
Celebrated our fifth birthday in October
We celebrated our fifth birthday with a week of social media posts that highlighted the things we've achieved with your support over the last five years and asked people to share their reflections.
Held our first themed Co-Pro Cuppa in December
Following on from feedback we received in the 2024 Community Survey and Co-Pro Cuppa surveys, we co-produced our first ever themed Co-Pro Cuppa on the subject of “How do we get others to understand what co-production really means?”.
Get involved
Opportunity to review our 2025 Impact Report
We are starting to put together our 2025 Impact Report and are looking for five co-producers to review this year’s content and give feedback in the week beginning 10 February 2025. This should take about two hours and in line with our payment policy we will pay you £60 for this. If you would like to be involved, please email: coproduction@ucl.ac.uk by 9am (UK time) on Friday 6 February.
Looking forward to 2026
These are some of the things we are looking forward to working on with you in 2026:
- Launching a new section of our website which will have all our previous Impact Reports in one place
- Involving you in the midpoint review of ‘Our Direction 2023-2028’ our vision for the future and our approach to achieving it
- Getting further feedback from you on our new Community Commitments document, a set of guidelines for session facilitators and attendees that centre anti-racist principles.
- Co-producing outputs from our Community Member Journey Project
- Developing different forms of Co-Pro Cuppas that support different people’s needs and interests.
- The launch of our new safeguarding statement that has been updated from the one we launched in 2023 to better reflect the recommendations from our “Understanding Anti-Racism in Co-production Spaces – centring the voices of racialised individuals” report.
Looking back at 2025's blogs
Finally, in case you missed them, these are some the highlights from our lessons in co-production blogs from 2025:
Recognising and Acknowledging White Privilege: My Journey in Becoming an Ally
The importance of co-production in neurodiverse communities
Co-producing a magazine with people affected by dementia
From patient involvement to co-production: Reclaiming power in research and reproductive justice
When experience becomes evidence: Co-producing mental health research
People, meaning, impact and cake: A few thoughts on co-production
The power of connection: Lessons from co-producing the Parent2Parent Support programme in Greece
Image Credit: Canva
Meeting notes
Other news you might be interested in
January update: Celebrating what we have achieved together in 2025 and looking forward to 2026
The latest news from the team and our community plus updates about our ongoing projects and upcoming opportunities.
People, meaning, impact and cake: A few thoughts on co-production
In this blog, Amy Wizard Ponter shares her thoughts on the key ingredients of co-production. Drawing on a huge range of experience across the co-production space. She has seen the good, the very bad and certainly some of the ‘delicious’ when it comes to co-production cake!
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When experience becomes evidence: Co-producing mental health research
In this blog Kelvin Opiepie shares his personal journey from silent struggles to shaping global mental health research through his role as a member of The Global Lived Experiential Advisory Board (GLEAB) for The GALENOS project.
Celebrating Black History Month: Honoring the legacy and joy of Black communities
This Black History Month, Co-Production Collective wants to celebrate members of our community and some of the brilliant contributions and achievements they have made to our work.
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From patient involvement to co-production: Reclaiming power in research and reproductive justice
In this blog Neelam Heera-Shergill founder of Cysters shares why she believes there is a need move beyond traditional patient public involvement and engagement into co-production in order to be inclusive, build meaningful relationships, share power and honour the realities of the communities she works with.
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Race, power and alternative futures
In this blog co-producer Isaac, Hania & Nicc reflect on the recent far-right protest in London. A protest that was marked by anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, and led by organisers known for anti-Muslim views. They highlight its impact on all racialised communities and call for solidarity, collective care, and action against rising hate and racism.
Sharing Power, Shaping Change: Lessons on Inclusive Co-Production in Sexual Health Research
In this blog co-producers Julion and Melvina reflect on creating culturally sensitive sexual health films with young people especially from Black Caribbean communities as part of the LUSTRUM2 research project and shares lessons for more equitable and community led research.
Co-producing a magazine with people affected by dementia
Danny Ratnaike and Antonia Kanczula from Alzheimer’s Society share how they’re involving people with lived experience in creating Dementia together magazine and podcast. Their latest special issue was co-produced with the Young Dementia Thematic Group, continuing their effort to work more meaningfully with those affected by dementia.
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From Participation to Power: Rethinking Co-creation in Dementia Research
In this blog, Katrina Messiha, an academic researcher at the Vrije University Medical Center, in Amsterdam reflects on the things she has learned as part of her work investigating how co-production and participatory research has taken place in the UK, focusing on work with people who have a higher risk of dementia.
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An introduction to Co-Production in Research - Reflecting on delivering a training session for UCL students
This blog shares learnings about a UCL workshop led by Naheen, Nicc, and Tania (with baby Maxim), aimed at helping students explore how to meaningfully co-produce research with people who have lived experience. It emphasized values like inclusivity, respect, and reflection, while addressing power dynamics, barriers, and the importance of genuine collaboration in academic projects.