CAN-DO: Research Consortium

The project’s current position and a clear rationale for progressing this work
Research Consortium
CAN-DO held a series of facilitated discussions with interested partners from VCSE organisations, local authorities, the Devon integrated care board and the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter to explore the functions and form of a research consortium and its relationship to existing research and evaluation networks, both formal and informal. These conversations were wide-ranging, collegiate and constructive, providing a space for relationship building and understanding of different perspectives.
This short briefing note captures the project’s current position in creating a research consortium and offers a clear rationale for progressing this work.

Briefing: towards a research consortium

Context

CAN-DO (Community Assets Network – Addressing Disparities in Outcomes) is a nine-month (March to November 2023) project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It brings together people providing community assets, health and social care providers, people with lived experience, commissioners, academics and public health experts across Devon to explore how mobilising community assets can address and reduce health disparities.
It is a collaboration of over 18 community, health, local authority and academic partners working towards:
  • creating a research consortium
  • scoping community assets to better understand how they are valued
  • developing models to understand how health disparities can be addressed through community assets.
CAN-DO is preparing the ground for future research to understand how community assets influence health disparities, how to strengthen and sustain community assets and the links between them and how community assets, health and care providers and the integrated care system can work better together to tackle disparities in health outcomes. Whilst this future work and consortium may be funded by an AHRC Phase 3 research grant, the decision by the research council will not be known until December 2023.
This briefing note outlines the project’s current position in creating a research consortium and offers a clear rationale for progressing this work.

Our approach

CAN-DO held a series of facilitated discussions with interested partners from VCSE organisations, local authorities, the Devon integrated care board and the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter to explore the functions and form of a research consortium and its relationship to existing research and evaluation networks, both formal and informal. These conversations were wide-ranging, collegiate and constructive, providing a space for relationship building and understanding of different perspectives.
What follows is a description of a potential CAN-DO research consortium.

CAN-DO research consortium

Guiding principles
The CAN-DO research consortium would seek to:
  • bring together, as equal partners, people providing community assets, health and social care providers, people with lived experience, commissioners, academics and public health experts
  • be sensitive to the different contexts within which we will work
  • work alongside/within existing structures, research and evaluation activity
  • adopt a complexity approach not a service lens 
  • acknowledge the power dynamics in the system always checking that any decisions made don’t reinforce imbalances
  • be honest about what is just not do-able right now
  • be flexible and enable the strengths of each organisation and individual
  • pool knowledge and resources and make connections and linkages.

Functions of the CAN-DO research consortium

A set of wide-ranging functions describes what partners thought the consortium could do:
Research
  • identify and understand community assets which are addressing health inequalities
  • understand how community assets create the conditions to engage different populations experiencing health inequalities
  • generate generalisable knowledge about how community assets address health inequalities and how they create local impact
  • create an economic framework to capture value where appropriate.
Building analytic and evaluative capacity
  • build analytic capacity in communities to support and develop ways of capturing and valuing the work that community assets do to address and mitigate health inequalities
  • develop methodological / analytical capacity to analyse stories
  • provide rapid evidence reviews (what works, what doesn’t work)
  • do analysis for others / train others in analysis.
Knowledge exchange
  • share learning: both locally and to inform the wider system including commissioning (how we commission activities that happen in communities)
  • create a shared repository for evidence including stories, data, intelligence (VCSE Assembly)
  • share academic knowledge that evidences the pathways between activity and health inequality.
Witnessing
  • create the space to witness the impact of inequalities on people’s lives
  • facilitate a space for witnessing first-hand the impact of decision making in both statutory services and community assets
  • use approaches that have currency within the system e.g. Outward Mindset, Appreciative Inquiry.
Convening
  • provide a broad platform that enables people to come together in a research context
  • structure collaboration as a way of drawing people in.
Innovating
  • develop a standard approach to capture, share and showcase impact
  • develop methodological approaches to health and wellbeing economic evaluations
  • develop and embed a simple and proportionate approach to evaluation.

Form of the CAN-DO research consortium

Discussions about the form of the consortium were more challenging perhaps because of the uncertainty about how the consortium could be funded. 
Different models of consortium and the characteristics of these were explored which are expressed in Figure 1: 
'Different models of consortium' (adapted from Network Design Model, Shuman & Twombly (2010), Vikalpa, Vol 35, No.1). 
Different models of consortium

Different models of consortium

One type of consortium (Centred on sufficient general / common interest e.g. understanding, through research, the value of community assets in reducing health disparities) Characteristics of each consortium Another type of consortium (Centred on delivery of a funded programme of work e.g. Phase 3 CAN-DO)
Common general interest / informal Unifying purpose Common delivery focus / formal
Shared interest? Value proposition Mutual self interest?
Uncertain Economic opportunity Clearly defined
Minimal / self-organising Organising mechanism Choreographed / governance
Minimal Collaboration intensity Significant
Low Risk High
 
 
 
Key enablers of the CAN-DO research consortium were thought to be: sufficient shared interest, a secretariat function to organise and administer the consortium, a small core group of interested people with authority to take decisions.
There was recognition that lots of consortia and fora exist across Devon, some of which will complement, overlap and benefit from a CAN-DO research consortium. 
Figure 2, 'Consortia constellation', seeks to combine the models of consortium discussed by partners and to illustrate the potential relationships and opportunities between an informal research consortium and existing and future consortia/fora. 
Consortia constellation

Consortia constellation

An informal research consortium with a common interest in understanding the value of community assets in reducing health disparities

Sitting alongside existing consortia / fora e.g. VCSE Assembly
A piece of work crystalises – e.g. what does good evidence look like, how do you capture value
A bid opportunity – e.g. a research council call
A funded programme of work – e.g. CAN-DO Phase 3
Spin off consortiums / working groups
Organised / formalised as appropriate to the purpose
Committed participation which may become more structured
Relationships may be formalised (e.g. partnership agreements)
A small core group of interested people with authority to take decisions
Wider participation ebbs and flows according to interest and contribution
A focus on relationship building and understanding different perspectives
Learning how to listen
Making links across the 'system'
An agreed way of 'being' together – creating the conditions that enable the consortium
Supported by a secretariat function
Bringing others in ...
How do I prove my worth? – a community asset
A space for others to bring specific challenges
A space for others to seek learning, knowledge and support
A space for others to bring knowledge and expertise
How do we capture process and outcomes? – Poverty Truth Commission

Rationale for continuing this work

There is much work ongoing across Devon that speaks to bringing partners together to tackle rising health inequality in the region but perhaps none with the same focus as the CAN-DO research consortium. The consortium will provide an equitable learning space for partners from across sectors and citizens from different places who have sufficient common interest in mobilising, valuing and evidencing community assets that address health inequalities.
Whilst the outcome of the Phase 3 bid is unknown, there is an opportunity to continue to bring partners together informally. Doing so would enable:
  • dialogue to continue, providing a space for relationships to continue to develop
  • sharing of different perspectives in a respectful environment with no-strings attached
  • debate and thinking through of shared challenges
  • sharing of knowledge and ideas for potential research work
  • shaping of the next CAN-DO phase (whilst waiting for the funding decision)
  • shaping of a potential piece of work that seeks to answer:
    • what does good evidence look like?
    • how do you capture value?
    • what would a framework look like that evidenced the work of community assets (addressing health inequalities) in a way that is understood and accepted by all partners.
To continue an informal research consortium, little infrastructure is required: an online meeting platform (MSTeams or Zoom), an administrator to organise calendars and a (rotating) chair to facilitate the conversation. It would continue to provide a space where partners can come together to think through shared challenges.