IATL Co-Creation Project Information
IATL has supported a wide range of projects through our Project Support scheme over a number of years. The scheme provides funding and practical support to enable staff and students to develop an area of practice aligned with Warwick’s Education Strategy and IATL’s strategic priorities. The scheme emphasises student and staff co-creation and the sharing of learning with the University community, including (but not only) through project information and outputs hosted on the IATL website. Below are examples of current and recent projects supported by IATL that have a common element of inclusion, including student-led action research projects, exploring experience of students with chronic illness, and legal outreach work in Widening Participation primary schools.
Designing for Inclusion: Student-Led Action Research Projects
This ongoing project focuses on empowering Warwick students to solve problems relating to equality, diversity and inclusion at the University and beyond. Led by a very diverse team of staff and students at Warwick and beyond, the project supports students to lead interdisciplinary action-research project teams, working with their peers and staff from across the institution to co-create and design innovative solutions for everyday problems. Support for the student-led teams includes a programme on a structured problem-solving process that explores design-thinking approaches alongside providing project management tools and funding to test solutions. The project is working closely with University services and staff to evaluate and develop the structured process, create a toolkit of resources from these student-led action-research projects, and embed the innovated solutions and design thinking further at Warwick.
Experiences of Students with Long COVID and Chronic Illness
Led by staff and students in the Psychology department, this recent research project explored the experiences of students at the University who have chronic illness (CI) and/or Long COVID. Recent research has highlighted that students with CI feel under-supported and undervalued as members of their university community, especially since these students’ fluctuating symptoms may set their support needs apart from students with other disabilities. The project used a co-created participation action approach, consulting throughout with students with CI and Long COVID. The project team are using their findings to develop guidelines for University students and staff on managing university life with a chronic condition, including to raise staff awareness of the impact of chronic illness and to provide students with advice and guidance on accessing support.
School Tasking
This recent pilot project was led by staff and students from the University’s School of Law, together with Principal Investigators from other institutions. The project delivered legal education outreach work in local Widening Participation primary schools, using activities based around the television programme ‘Taskmaster’. Activities engaged Year 5 children in learning about the law by doing legal ‘tasks’ and using specially designed resources looking at different aspects of the law. The aim was to encourage pupils in Widening Participation schools to consider law as a possibility for their future studies/careers. Following the success of the pilot, the project is in its second year of activity in the region, with plans for a national rollout in 2023-24.