Measuring Success in Co-production: Learning by Doing Launch Event follow up and what comes next

Thanks to those of you who attended our launch event on 12 September of our Measuring Success in Co-Production: Learning by doing programme and funding opportunity (you can read more about in our previous blog). Please read on for reminders, recordings and understand why we want to hear about your interests in the programme and funding!

For those of you who missed our launch event, we were thrilled at the turnout with over 200 people on Zoom and fabulous participation and interactivity. From the beginning, it was such an engaging chat! There was plenty of connecting and, of course, questions which continued into the ‘Co-pro Cuppa’ style breakout session.  

With this blog we wanted to share recordings of the main presentations, provide some responses to your questions, and communicate next steps. There’s also some exciting news on additional funding!

We’d also like to ask you to fill out a short ‘Expression of interest form’ by 5pm on Thurs 5 October 2023 to help us plan for reviewing applications (we’ll explain the what and why it’s important below) and co-create our next session. This will help us offer the best possible experience.

Even if you couldn’t attend the launch event there’s still time to join the programme to see what it’s all about or start the application process if you are interested in the funding. In case you missed it, see our previous blog and the application pack.

Responding to your questions

As promised, we’ve updated our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document. We appreciate it’s always tricky to know whether, or how well, your project and collaboration fits the scope. We are trying to offer everyone a similar experience – level of response and support. In that vein, we have added to the FAQ document: any new questions, attempted to clarify existing ones, and included any relevant scenarios based on what came up for people in the session, chat, via email and from the feedback form (if you missed this form, it’s anonymous and only takes a few minutes – please help us improve the process for you!).

Expressing an interest

What do we mean by this?

Some of you may be familiar with this type of survey, some of you may not have done one before. We promised transparency in line with our values and are trying to make our criteria, assessment and support just that! If you could kindly share with us more details about the progress of your thought process and journey, specifically your plans for applying for funding. We are eager to learn more and offer assistance where possible. This information will not be used to assess your application. We also want to find out how we can help the process with our next session!

So, what do we need from you?

We hope to make this a different funding experience and this quick form will provide us with the following information to help us do that:

• Title or brief description and the area of your project.
• Potential collaborators/co-applicants (if known/willing to disclose in the case of lived/living experience).
• How far along you are in your thinking and how likely you are to submit an application for funding?
• How much money you are likely to need for your project?
• What (if any) are your main barriers/what would help you in submitting an application?
• Do you require help to connect with collaborators (community or research) or people with lived/living experience in your topic area?
• What would be most helpful for the next Connection Event to help advance your project?

What will we do with this information and why do we need it?

These forms will not be shared outside the co-ordinating team and will be treated confidentially.

By filling out the expression of interest form you will be helping us in the following ways in line with our values (human, inclusive, transparent and challenging):

• Help us to plan and ensure you benefit from the next interactive event and overall programme (all our values!).
• Gauge the number of proposals to prepare and resource an adequate number of reviewers to ensure we can give sufficient attention to each bid and provide constructive feedback (human and transparent).
• Determine who we need to form an appropriate review panel with the right knowledge, skills, experience (inclusive and transparent).
• Account for any conflicts of interest (transparent and challenging ourselves).
• Facilitate networking and connecting with others.

Connections event: Our next co-created interactive session using REMO – what to expect

In this session, we will be using a platform that is new to us - REMO. This online platform - similar to Zoom - allows more flexibility for participants to have control over where they want to go during the meeting, similar to an in-person event with multiple workshops. As everyone will be at different points in their journey and looking to benefit in different ways, we felt it was important to try something a little different!

Our team are currently co-creating this with your feedback. To support us with his please fill our feedback form and expression of interest form. We are hoping to offer something flexible and enjoyable that will make a difference for everyone. In this diagram are a few ideas we are considering:

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We appreciate REMO is a new programme to all of us so we will be offering an informal ‘drop-in and play’ session before the meeting to help everyone who registers familiarise themselves with it! Look out for this in the Eventbrite registration questions!

Please register for the Connection, Networking and Development session via Eventbrite as soon as possible to secure your place and help us plan!

For those who would like to apply for accessibility funding, please contact Vanessa (v.bennett@ucl.ac.uk) or Aleem (aleem.nisar@ucl.ac.uk).

Last but not least! Increasing funding to include more projects

We are delighted to thank UCL Grand Challenges for contributing an additional £20,000 to support an additional two projects under the mental health and wellbeing theme! We hope this will be particularly welcomed with the great interest in our first launch session.

Quick summary of things you can do!

1. Complete our feedback form for the launch event on 12th September
2. Express your interest in developing a project application and/or connecting - by 5pm on Thurs 5 October, 2023
3. Register for the Networking/Connecting & Development Session on 17th October

If you want to catch up!

These are all the additional links to the programme so far in one place in case you’ve missed them.

• First blog announcing the programme and funding
• Second blog providing the application details
• General programme and funding information document - available as a Word document, and as a PDF‍
• Application template (includes and Appendix guidance table) - available as a Word document, and as a PDF‍
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Video recording of the September 12th Launch Session

How else can we help?

We hope this provides enough information. If you have any immediate questions or would like more information on anything in this blog that may help you participate in this programme, please contact us on: coproduction@ucl.ac.uk

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