Skip to navigation | Skip to main content | Skip to footer
Menu
Search the University of Manchester siteSearch Menu StaffNet

Nature backs our call to rethink how research is co-produced

19 Oct 2026

Co-led by Professor Liz Richardson, the Co-Production Futures Inquiry champions a more collaborative and inclusive approach to research, supporting our Manchester 2035 ambition to be a university to partner with.

Co-Production Futures Inquiry

A major Inquiry co-led by Manchester is calling for change across the research and innovation system to help universities work more effectively with partners and communities.

The Co-Production Futures Inquiry explores how co-produced research can help generate collaborative, responsive and inclusive research that meets real-world needs. Its findings have been backed by Nature, which said they should be taken seriously “if the world is to give itself the best chance of responding successfully to unexpected crises”.

Led by the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield and jointly funded through their Research England Participatory Research Funds, the Inquiry brought together organisations from across research, government, funding and community-based research.

Over two years of collective learning and evidence-gathering, it identified positive approaches already emerging across UK higher education, alongside changes needed to better support co-produced research.

Its recommendations call on university leaders to recognise the contribution co-production can make to social value, place, growth and impact, and give it greater strategic priority. They also highlight the importance of closer collaboration between academics and professional services colleagues and enabling co-researchers to help determine how they work with universities.

This collaborative approach strongly supports Manchester 2035 and our ambitions to be a university to partner with – building relationships that enable people to work together on shared challenges and create meaningful impact – and to be one university, organised for success.

Colleagues can find further support and resources through our Engaged Research Hub, which brings together work to map and support engaged research practices across the University.

A thriving society

Professor of Public Administration and Inquiry co-lead, Liz Richardson said: “Co-production is a way to reaffirm universities’ social value. However, to do co-production well, the UK HE sector needs to step up and make major systems changes. Our Inquiry has mobilised across the sector behind this and sets out a way forward.”

Jaideep Gupte, AHRC Director of Research, Strategy and Innovation and an Inquiry Panel member, added: “The research endeavour is an essential component of a thriving society. And yet, if unchecked, knowledge production becomes an extractive, unequal and even an exploitative act. This Inquiry brings a timely focus on equitable methods of knowledge production.”

Discover more