Building capacity in social care through co-produced research and a learning partnership

Social care is facing many challenges and, in a time where staff are stretched and resources are low, research can feel like a luxury rather than part of daily activities. Yet research is crucial for improving practice and finding innovative ways to overcome challenges. To increase capacity in social care research, academia and social care need to work together to understand each other and co-produce a programme that will fit with the workplace demands of social care and focuses on issues that hold meaning and value to those we are seeking to engage. The work that we co-produce will therefore lead to tangible practice change and/or a strengthening of the evidence for existing practice. The University of Portsmouth (UoP) and Portsmouth City Council (PCC) do not currently have a research learning partnership established, however our civic partnership agreement provides a strong impetus to build a learning partnership that will inspire, engage, and provide professional development for social care professionals in research, whilst providing academics with direct experience of co-producing research in complex public service contexts. Through this project we aim to develop such a research learning partnership.

Our overall aim is to build research capacity in social care through establishing a research learning partnership between the University of Portsmouth (UoP) and Portsmouth City Council (PCC) adult social care team, the public and other key partners, and develop co-produced research relevant to PCC social care practice and national issues.
We will achieve this via the following four objectives:

A. To establish a research learning partnership for social care between UoP and PCC which will provide learning opportunities for both partners and their associated stakeholders around the development, design, and delivery of research.
B. To identify and prioritise research topics for development for further grant funding opportunities, within social care and also in collaboration with other health and care delivery partners.
C. To undertake preliminary research activities (e.g. a systematic review, public involvement activities, and potential data gathering) on a prioritised topic in adult social care, which will underpin a funding application for further primary research.
D .To develop guidance on increasing capacity in social care research via co-production in collaboration with wider ARC Wessex social care research partnerships.