Community co-production for more racially inclusive survey data

Nissa Finney

Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), The University of St. Andrews

The benefits of active involvement of communities in (social) scientific research is now widely recognised. But it can be extremely difficult to generate active engagement, particularly with marginalised groups including racialised minorities. There can be wariness of research: What are the intentions of the researcher? Can we trust them to represent us? There are questions about the benefit of research: What is this research going to do for us? And there are very pragmatic reasons that mean participating in research is not a priority in people’s pressured lives.

In 2020, amid the onslaught of Covid-19, and rapidly emerging evidence that racially minoritised communities were being particularly forcefully hit, the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS) was launched. In the context of an ‘ethnicity data gap’, EVENS aimed to document the experiences of ethnic and religious minorities during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

From the outset, the EVENS team recognised the need to engage the expertise of communities and community organisations. 13 partnerships were formed between EVENS and leading race equality Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations across Britain, including the Race Equality Foundation. Together, we were able to document the experiences of over 14,000 people, over 9,000 of whom are ethnic and religious minorities. Together, we produced a unique dataset and the largest survey sample of ethnic minorities in the UK.

Lessons can be learnt for the future making of racially inclusive data from EVENS’ experience of community partnership. 

The experience of EVENS taught us that effective co-production needs trusted relationships. The EVENS partnerships were particularly effective because many were built on prior successful relationships and collaborations. VCSE partners expressed a desire – and an emerging working practice – for longer term rather than reactive relationships with research collaborators.

I think what made a big difference to us when we were first approached [about EVENS] was the fact that we had some very credible names involved. So that immediately broke down a few of our inhibitions on who we are working with. So that is quite important to have that level of confidence in the individuals and researchers involved.

EVENS Partner

Underpinning the partnerships in EVENS was shared motivation and ambition. The EVENS collective was productive because it cohered around a common concern with the paucity of large-scale social data documenting the experiences of racially minoritised people.

We saw [EVENS] as being an important way of filling a gap in the evidence… So we were very keen to be involved 

EVENS Partner 

A further learning from EVENS is the need for clear agreements, management and remuneration for partnerships. Operationalisation of co-production principles in the large-scale, time-pressured EVENS project required the EVENS team to be adaptable and flexible to the ways of working of the partners, their resource and capacity and to take ideas from the partners into the project design with genuine conviction. Partners reported that being funded was vital to their ability to collaborate. Ideally, contracts should be established in good time to allow work allocation and recruitment within partner organisations.

We get so many requests through from people who want to engage with [our] communities and so many, like the vast majority, just don’t anticipate that we would ever need funding for it. But if we were just to do all those, we would just go out of business, we wouldn’t exist as an organization. So I think that [being funded] was like really, really critical, just wouldn’t be possible without it.

EVENS Partner

The EVENS partnerships benefitted the research in terms of making possible a unique, racially inclusive dataset. There were, additionally, benefits for partners, some of which were not anticipated at the outset. As well as new learnings and evidence to support their work, participation brought reputational value and a sense of pride for partners.

“I’m proud to have been involved with EVENS because I don’t think there’s really been anything like it. And the fact that it’s been seen as a model, I think that for me it’s one of the best models around. I think the team are really proud of the work, really proud of the work.”

“it’s a well-known survey, the results are being widely used and having been involved in it has sort of, what’s the word, collateral value for us as well because it reflects well on us.”

“we’ve been able to cite [EVENS] in our reports. So, it has added, you know, a third party voice to our own given which has been given credibility. So, in that sense that’s a very tangible impact”

“it was also very affirming to be funded to do something like that”

EVENS Partners

Overall, EVENS has demonstrated the potential of methodologies of co-production via community partnerships for large scale social data collection. Particularly, we have seen through EVENS that community co-production has the potential to generate more racially inclusive data. From this, we might envisage the establishment of a network of research capacity embedded within race equality VCSE organisations, such that community involvement in the production of social data becomes part of inclusive data infrastructures. 

EVENS voluntary and community organisation partners:

• Black & Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland (BEMIS)
• Business in the Community
• Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team (EYST)
• Friends, Families and Travellers
• Migrant Rights Network
• Muslim Council of Britain
• NHS Race and Health Observatory
• Operation Black Vote (OBV)
• Race Equality Foundation
• The Runnymede Trust
• Stuart Hall Foundation
• The Ubele Initiative

We are pleased to have partnered with Ipsos Mori, a global leader in survey research, to deliver EVENS and with Words of Colour for strategic communications.

The EVENS project was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) via the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), through the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity and the Inclusive Survey Futures project (grant number UKRI114). 

The Inclusive Survey Futures project was led from the University of St Andrews and undertaken by: Nissa Finney, Jo Mhairi Hale, Harry Taylor, Daniel Horn, Gauthier Dulout (University of St Andrews), Natalie Shlomo, Dharmi Kapadia (University of Manchester), Laia Bécares (King’s College London) and Magda Borkowska (University of Essex). 

Information and resources about EVENS can be found at www.ethnicity.ac.uk/research/projects/evens.