Long-term Collective Student Research Programme (LoCoR)

Lead: Feng Mao (Cross-faculty Studies)

Staff team members: Jason Adams (Cross-faculty Studies), Surangi Jayakody Mudiyanselage (co-lead, WMS), Modupe Jimoh (co-lead, Engineering), Laura Lammasniemi (co-lead, Law), Bing Lu (co-lead, Arts), Gioia Panzarella (co-lead, Cross-faculty Studies), Jianhua Yang (co-lead, WMG). Student Project Officers: Chloe Barker (GSD), Elena Sokola (WMG), Naveera Abhayawickrama (Law), Madison Bracher (WMS), Alexa Sujatna (Engineering)

Year: 2024-2025, 2025-2026

Summary

The two-year LoCoR (Long-term Collective Research) project explored how students can move beyond producing assessment solely for grading purposes to becoming contributors to a cumulative body of disciplinary knowledge. Building on the successful first year of the project, Year 2 focused on embedding and scaling the LoCoR model through cross-faculty collaboration, digital infrastructure development, and dissemination across the University of Warwick and the wider higher education sector.

The project brought together academic staff and student project officers from multiple departments to co-design approaches that enable successive student cohorts to build upon previous students' work through ethically managed repositories of authentic student research outputs. Alongside piloting the model within participating modules, the project established an interdisciplinary community of practice that supported regular co-creation meetings, collaborative resource development, and institutional dialogue around student knowledge production.

Key achievements include: the substantial development of the LoCoR digital repository and LoCoR Showcase, expansion of the project into multiple departments, delivery of institutional dissemination activities including a thematic symposium on Students as Knowledge Producers, and conference presentations that positioned the project within wider discussions of research culture and educational innovation.

Collectively, these activities have demonstrated the feasibility of a sustainable model for transforming student work from isolated assessment products into cumulative educational resources that enhance learning, belonging and research engagement across cohorts.

Further information about the project is also available here: LoCoR