Membership

Chair: Gemma Wright and Paul Barlow.

WIE Team Link: Helen Wheatley.

Members: Alison Porter, Erin Stroud, Lynsey Cullen, Martin Price, Negar Riazifar, Ninna Makrinov, Rosanne Maguire, Zhiqiong Chen, Shahnaz Akhter, Kate Astbury, Nor Aziz, Claire Dancer, Adela Glyn-Davies, Sakina Haider, Inca Hide-Wright, Mark Hinton, James Hodkinson, India Holme, Eric Holub, Kate Owen, Sophie Staniszewska, Anna Tranter, Hardish Virk.

About us

In the ‘Co-Production and Communities' Learning Circle (previously known as Learning Circle 11) we seek to understand, innovate, mentor, co-fund, showcase, and promote various forms of collaborative, co-produced, and co-designed work undertaken at Warwick. Our work usually involves supporting Warwick colleagues working with off-campus, ‘community’ partners of all kinds, whether they are small/new community groups or more established organisations or businesses, or from the arts and heritage industries, local government, or education sectors. Fellows of this Learning Circle hail from research, teaching, postgraduate, outreach and academic services backgrounds across the university and the projects they engage in are accordingly diverse in nature.

Read more below to find out more about what we have achieved since our inception, and what we are aiming to do in future. If you wish to contact us for advice or support, or with suggestions and enquiries, then please email Gemma Wright.

Our future plans, 2024-25 and beyond

In March 2025 the Learning Circle will be hosting CO-LAB 3.0 focusing on participatory research under the working title "Involving communities in research". The Collaboration and Coproduction (C&C) Fund, will continue as the Circle reflects on the impact of previously funded projects. The Learning Circle continues its spotlight at each of its seasonal meetings.

2023-24

Learning circle spotlights for 23-24 have included: Revolutionary Vincentians, ININI Initiative, Community Ambassadors programme at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre and “Ghost Town”, understanding how different communities perceive themselves and the importance to them of not attaching pre-determined labels.

Collaboration and Coproduction (C&C) Fund, introduced a new way of working, staggering the bids to allow work to be more readily spread across the year and giving those who were unsuccessful in the first round the opportunity to refine their bids and resubmit.

In early 2024 we ran our next CO-LAB, 2.0. This was a relaxed and social occasion, but also an opportunity for Warwick colleagues from all backgrounds to explore, share, network, learn and explore various forms of collaborative, co-produced and co-designed work in a supportive environment.

2022-23

Members of the Learning Circle, attended and contributed to the support and training sessions for the Collaboration and Coproduction (C&C) Fund.

Helen has been working with Slate and Mortar Films to collate researcher-made video footage and conduct interviews, all of which will flow into a film advertising some of the best projects funded by the C&C Fund.

James Hodkinson and Gemma Wright worked together to deliver CO-LAB 1.0, which took as its theme ‘Creativity at the Heart’, examined the productive and deepening connections between STEM and Arts subjects, research and working practices. The event proved an effective way of brokering new relationships and projects – as reflected in the narrative feedback from the event.

During 2023 we also began gathering the insights gained from our online sharing space and elsewhere in order to present the cross-campus collaborative work we have found in an accessible and engaging format – all to showcase and promote the fantastic work being done at Warwick in this area.

2021-22

We have been instrumental in setting up and helping to run the WIE’s Collaboration and Co-Production Fund. This provides up to £3K for Warwick colleagues to establish new or deepen existing working relationships with off campus partners. We also contributed to the training and advice programme which colleagues can access in the run-up to submitting a bid to the fund.