What is Partnership Research? Key Ideas

Here are some ideas about why partnership research with 'service users' is a good idea. We have also included some important questions about partnership research.

The first question is about the words 'service users'. These are words which are used in Government documents (and in other places) to describe people who use the National Health Service, Social Services and services provided by other organisations. Some people don't like the words 'service users' because it makes it sound like that is all they do - use services. People will be and do many other things as well!

As you can see, even the words we use to describe people in research can be quite difficult. If you are beginning to do research you might like to talk about the labels that people have been given. You might like to think about other words to use. In this document we use the words 'research partners'. In other documents on this website we have used the words 'service users'.

What do we mean by 'research partners'? We mean all those people that as researchers we might work with on a research project. Everyone agrees at the beginning that they can learn from each other , and they want to work together in order to learn more. To read more about the idea of 'Partnership Research' see Phase 2 funding proposal)

The word 'partner' is a good word because it says that everyone can give ideas to the research. One of the bad things about the word 'partner' is that it makes it sound like everyone is equal. There may be lots of ways this is not the case. This can make doing partnership research difficult.

Next we give four good reasons to do 'Partnership Research' and then we say some things about why working in this way might be difficult.

1. All 'partners' join in the research all the way through the project.

• Those who have not done research before may find this very difficult.
• People have done research before may find it difficult to give up control of the work.
• Is there enough time for everyone to join in properly?

2. All 'partners' say what they think about the topic of the research and how the research is done.

• What happens if people don't agree?
• How do we make it easy for people to say what they think?
• How are we going to make decisions if there are disagreements?

3. Different 'partners' bring different things to the research. This means university researchers (for example) are not 'experts' in everything.

• Does this mean that we decide who is 'expert' in what?
• Is it better to say that no-one is an expert in this piece of research as every piece of research is different?
• Because someone has experienced something (e.g. living with cancer) does this mean they are an 'expert' in that subject?
• Is personal experience the only way of learning about things?

4. Instead of writing a report at the end of a project you might decide to write something which is easier to read and contains pictures/photographs. See Working with Pictures and Report with Pictures and Words) .

• Does this mean we forget to talk to people who make decisions about things if we only write 'easy to read' reports?
• Is it possible that this research makes problems all look 'individual' instead of thinking about how to change society? This is to do with the social model of disability. For more information on the social model of disability see: http://www.bcodp.org.uk For further information on the social model on this website see Politics and ethics of partnership research.

Some people believe that if we work in 'partnership' we can produce better research (you can see what we mean by 'better' in Is partnership research better research? )