NHS · ICBs · NIHR · Public Sector
Co-Production Research: Equal Partnership From the First Conversation
Co-production is not consultation with a better name. It is genuine equal partnership between communities and organisations, from setting the research question to deciding how findings are used. NHS England's co-production framework, NIHR funding requirements, and ICB statutory duties all call for this. We deliver it.
What co-production research actually means
Co-production research positions communities as equal partners in generating knowledge, not consultees, not advisory members, not participants who attend a few workshops and receive a summary of what the researchers found. Equal partners: involved in shaping the questions, influencing the methods, interpreting the data, and deciding what happens next.
The NHS has a statutory duty to involve people in decisions about their care and services. NIHR expects genuine PPI in funded research, not a box-ticking exercise. Integrated Care Boards are required to involve communities in commissioning decisions. Co-production provides the documented, defensible approach that meets these requirements, and produces better evidence in the process.
For more on the broader participatory research approach that co-production sits within, see our guide: What is participatory research?
Co-production vs consultation vs involvement
The distinctions matter: organisations that conflate these approaches find their NIHR bids queried and their co-production claims challenged
Consultation
Organisations present options or decisions and ask communities for their views. The agenda is set by the organisation. Communities can influence the outcome but do not control it. Consultation is a legitimate approach to engagement, but it is not co-production, and funding bodies are increasingly able to tell the difference.
Involvement (PPIE)
PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement) involves communities in research governance: advisory groups, materials review, steering committee membership. Involvement gives communities genuine input into how research is conducted. It is not the same as co-production, but the two are complementary and often combined.
Co-production
Communities are equal partners in generating knowledge. They help set the questions, shape the methods, collect data, interpret findings, and decide how results are used. Power is genuinely shared, not in theory but in practice. Co-production changes what gets researched and what gets found, because the questions are shaped by people who know the issue from the inside.
Co-design
Co-design creates things together: services, pathways, products, policies. It is generative rather than inquiry-oriented. Co-production research feeds co-design: communities generate the evidence about what is needed, co-design translates that into what is built. The two work well in sequence as part of a broader service improvement programme.
Where co-production research is needed
NHS and public sector contexts where co-production is not just good practice but expected
NIHR Grant Applications
NIHR scrutinises PPI sections for evidence of authentic involvement. A co-production approach, where community members helped shape the research questions and not just reviewed a protocol, provides the kind of documented, substantive involvement that reviewers expect to see.
ICB Commissioning Decisions
Integrated Care Boards have statutory duties to involve communities in commissioning decisions. Co-production research provides the documented evidence of genuine community partnership, not just a public consultation event, that ICBs need to demonstrate they have met those duties.
NHS Service Improvement
NHS England's co-production framework identifies co-production as central to service improvement. Research that co-produces understanding of what services are like from the inside, with the people who use them, provides the foundation for improvements that actually work, rather than redesigns based on professional assumptions.
Local Authority and Public Health
Local authorities, combined authorities, and public health teams commissioning research on communities are increasingly expected to demonstrate genuine involvement. Co-production research provides the evidence trail and, more importantly, produces insight that reflects how communities actually experience the services and environments being studied.
Third Sector Evaluation
Charities and social enterprises evaluating their own programmes face a credibility challenge: self-reported impact is harder for funders to trust. Co-production research, where the communities served by a programme help generate the evidence of its impact, produces evaluation findings that funders find significantly more credible.
Health Inequalities Research
Research on health inequalities is particularly prone to reproducing the assumptions of the researchers rather than the realities of the communities studied. Co-production research, where affected communities shape the inquiry, is more likely to surface the structural and social factors that drive health inequalities, and less likely to locate the problem in individual behaviour.
How we deliver co-production research
A structured approach that delivers genuine co-production, not the appearance of it
Establishing the partnership
We work with you and community partners to agree the terms of co-production from the start: who is involved, what decisions they share, how they are recognised and compensated, and what happens if the community wants to change direction. This is documented before fieldwork begins.
Community involvement in research design
Community partners are involved in shaping the research questions and selecting the methods. This is not a review of a protocol we have already written; it is genuine co-authorship of the study design. This stage is where co-production research diverges most clearly from involvement.
Ethics and governance
We advise on ethics requirements for the specific study context: NHS ethics approval, NHS R&D sign-off, honorary contracts, or standard research ethics. We support documentation of community involvement in ways that satisfy NIHR, IRAS, and other governance bodies.
Fieldwork and data generation
In-person workshops, focus groups, interviews, or peer research, in community settings, not institutional ones. Facilitated by experienced researchers who understand how to hold power-sharing in practice, not just in theory.
Collaborative analysis
Community partners participate in reviewing emerging themes and interpreting findings. Their knowledge of context corrects researcher misreadings and surfaces implications that would otherwise be missed. This is documented as part of the analysis process.
Reporting for multiple audiences
A full report for commissioning organisations or funders, and an accessible community summary for the people who participated. We can also support dissemination: presenting findings to ICB boards, trust committees, or NIHR programme teams.
Common questions about co-production research
Is co-production required for NHS research?
NHS England's statutory guidance creates legal duties for NHS organisations to involve communities in planning and decision-making. NIHR requires genuine PPI in most funded research. ICBs have statutory co-production duties under the Health and Care Act 2022. A properly structured co-production research approach provides documented, defensible evidence of meeting those requirements.
What is the difference between co-production and consultation?
Consultation asks communities for views on pre-defined options. Co-production involves communities in setting the agenda, making decisions, and owning the outputs. The difference is power: co-production involves genuine sharing of decision-making, not just the appearance of community input.
How does co-production research differ from PPIE?
PPIE involves communities in research governance: advisory groups, materials review, steering group membership. Co-production research involves them in generating knowledge. Both are valuable and often combined in NHS research programmes.
Can co-production research be used in NIHR funding bids?
Yes, and a documented co-production approach is increasingly what NIHR reviewers expect to see in PPI sections. We can advise on how to describe community involvement in a way that accurately reflects the co-production methodology and satisfies grant application requirements.
What is co-production research?
Co-production research is an approach where the people whose lives are affected by an issue work as equal partners with researchers and organisations to design, conduct, and use the research. It differs from consultation (where organisations ask communities for views) and standard research (where communities are data sources). In co-production, communities have genuine influence over the research agenda, the methods, and how findings are applied. NHS England's co-production framework and NIHR's involvement requirements are both built on these principles.
What is the difference between co-production and co-design?
Co-design is generative: it creates something together, typically a service, product, or policy approach. Co-production research is inquiry-oriented: it generates knowledge and evidence together. They are complementary approaches: co-production research can provide the evidence base that co-design then works from. Both involve genuine community partnership, but the output and the relationship are different. Co-production research produces findings; co-design produces designs.
How much does co-production cost?
Co-production starts from £9,500 for a focused project, from £19,000 for a full programme across several sessions, and from £36,000 for multi-community work. Recruitment, facilitation, analysis and fair payment for community partners are all inside that. Co-production costs more than consultation because it involves people for longer and pays them properly for it, which is exactly what makes the findings hold up. Build a rough estimate or tell us about your project.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
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