Sharing the findings from our strategy review and planning for the future

In October 2023, we launched our ambitions for the next five years. Called 'Creating Change Together: Our Direction 2023-2028’, it captures our vision for the future and our approach to achieving this vision. 

As 2026 marks the midpoint of ‘Our Direction’, Co-Production Collective team members Asma and Nicc – along with our collaborators Simon and Tom – spent four months carrying out a thorough review to assess our progress and identify opportunities for improvement.

Read the review

We've put our findings into a summary, available as a PDF or screen reader friendly Word document.

You can also read a more detailed review, which is available as a PDF or screen reader friendly Word document. Please complete our form to request access.

Aims

Our aims for this review were to:  

• Revisit our core values and ambitions from ‘Our Direction’ to see if they are still relevant    

• Review the key focus areas of Co-Production Collective and determine if anything is missing.  

As part of our review, we gathered insights from our community, our partners, UK research funders, the Co-Production Collective Allies Group, and our staff.  

Our findings

Here are five things we found during our review:

1. Co-Production Collective values and ambitions remain highly relevant.

Our community, partners, and research funders believe our current strategy is still relevant. Our Allies Group also stated that the current strategy, while relevant, needs a more explicit mention of our commitment to anti-racism. 

2. Promoting and embedding learning and facilitating culture change are key strengths.

Our community scored us highest for promoting and embedding learning. Our partners credited Co-Production Collective with changing organisational practices, helping them engage with communities and sustain their co-production work. The research funders we spoke to also identified opportunities for us and similar organisations to provide mentoring and support to facilitate culture change.

3. Greater transparency and accountability are needed.

Our community and Allies Group members called for us to be more transparent about how our decisions are made and how community input influences outcomes. Staff and co-producers also noted the lack of follow-up measures with partners to assess if improvements in their co-production practice are sustained long-term. Accountability could be improved through these follow-ups. 

4. Partnerships matter, but quality is more important than quantity.

Staff highlighted the importance of working with partners who are genuinely committed to co-production to foster healthier, more productive, and longer-lasting partnerships. We also found that partner organisations who had developed more significant relationships with us were more likely to be engaging in high levels of co-production.

5. Co-Production Collective should aim to be leaders in co-production.

The Allies Group challenged us to be more confident about being leaders in co-production, stating: "Co-Production Collective should be the drivers of change, not facilitators of it." 

The way forward

Based on the feedback we have received, we believe it is the right approach to keep our five core values: transparent, kind, inclusive, embracing of change, and reflective. We will also expand on our definition of ‘inclusive’ by more explicitly stating our commitment to being anti-racist and anti-discriminatory in our practice.  

Our new definition of ‘inclusive’ is: 

“Proactively promoting inclusivity by being equitable, anti-racist and anti-discriminatory in our approach, removing barriers, recognising people’s strengths, and supporting their development.” 

The wording describing our ambitions for the remainder of ‘Our Direction 2023-2028' has been edited as a result of the feedback received (new additions have been bolded): 

• Lead culture change: Set a positive example by our approach to co-production to inspire role models across organisations, research funders, and systems to adopt and embed co-production and put people at the heart of everything they do. 

• Promote and embed learning: Promote the benefits of co-production, contribute to projects, and share our learning with others. Challenge the barriers that prevent co-production from being valued and widely embedded. Encourage our partners to engage in reflective self-assessment in the months and years after working with us on co-production projects. 

• Plan for the future: Ensure our organisation’s long-term sustainability and provide support to organisations and co-production projects to assist them in making an impact through their work. Enable sustainable partnerships by developing a Co-Production Collective code of conduct that guides collaborative working. 

• Grow our community and live our values: Build a stronger and more diverse community and truly embody our values in all aspects of our work to make co-production more meaningful, equitable, and accessible to all who are interested. Share how decisions are made and how community input influences outcomes through various communications channels.

We will continue to monitor our progress for the remainder of ‘Our Direction 2023-2028.’ If you have any thoughts you would like to share with us, please contact us via email at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk. And if you would like to read more about the review we conducted, please fill out our request form and we will send you a copy of our full review.  If you have any thoughts you would like to share with us, please complete our feedback form or contact us via email at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

Thank you

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to this review, including our community, our partners, UK research funders, the Co-Production Collective Allies Group, and our staff. We are very grateful for your time, support, and contributions.