News
Catch up on the latest news from The Ideas Fund!
13 November 2024
Valuing Lived Experience in Research: A Q&A with Sally from Inspire Women
One of the projects we work with at The Ideas Fund is Inspire Women, an Oldham-based organisation that supports women with their mental health. We spoke to organisation founder Sally Bonnie about their community, how they’ve had to reinvent themselves after losing their centre during COVID-19 and the importance of valuing lived experience in research.
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10 October 2024
How peer research can have a big impact for local communities: A Q&A with Melody from Garelochhead Station Trust, and Christian from Men Behaving Dadly
Melody and Christian sat down with us to talk about their experiences of doing peer research in their communities, as part of The Ideas Fund. Melody is part of Garelochhead Station Trust, a charity that supports veterans, their families and the wider community in a rural community in Scotland. Christian is from Men Behaving Dadly, a group that supports Dad’s in Oldham to connect with their children through play.
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12 August 2024
Introducing The Ideas Fund Impact Framework
In our recent announcement about the The Ideas Fund being extended for a further three years, we shared that the next phase of our work will include an increased emphasis on gathering evidence and sharing best practice about community-led partnerships with researchers.
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02 July 2024
Harnessing the power of exercise for addiction recovery: A Q&A with Gary from ARC Fitness
One of the projects supported by The Ideas Fund is ARC Fitness, an organisation based in Derry, Northern Ireland, that offers practical support for people struggling with addiction and promotes healthy and sustainable recoveries through exercise and positive lifestyle choices. The project collaborated with two researchers, Dr Leanne Doherty and Dr Clare Puddifoot from Ulster University to conduct research into gender-specific recovery programmes. We spoke to ARC Founder Gary Rutherford, who told us all about the research, what it’s like being part of The Ideas Fund and more.
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23 May 2024
Using community research to better understand the needs of families affected by Acquired Brain Injury (ABI): A Q&A with P.A.U.L for Brain Recovery
One of the projects supported by The Ideas Fund in Hull is Supporting Family Members Affected by ABI (Acquired Brain Injury), led by the group P.A.U.L for Brain Recovery. We sat down with project lead Leigh and researcher Alex to talk about the project, the benefits of community-led research and how they’re using their findings to improve services for families affected by brain injury.
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27 February 2024
How community-led research is improving understanding of youth mental health in Shetland: A Q&A with Shannon from OPEN
Over the last few years, OPEN has collaborated with researchers on a number of projects aiming to better understand youth mental wellbeing in Shetland. We recently sat down with Shannon Boston, one of the peer researchers involved in the projects, to hear more about their experience of doing community-led research.
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29 January 2024
The Ideas Fund: In Conversation: Three researchers share their experiences of collaborating with community-led projects
Following the recent ‘In Conversation’ between James and Anna on their experiences collaborating with researchers, we invited three academic researchers to share their experiences of collaborating with community-led projects funded by The Ideas Fund.
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11 December 2023
Beyond projects: nurturing healthy systems
Read a summary of our latest learning conversation, focused on supporting systems change
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29 November 2023
The role of the broker
We recently explored the role of the "broker" in community/researcher collaboration with Will Hunter and Lewis Hou, and share some of our reflections here.
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08 November 2023
The Ideas Fund: In Conversation
James and Anna are from two projects involved in the Fund. Both have first-hand experience of collaborating with researchers to produce community-led research. We sat down with them to see what they made of their experience so far, the challenges and breakthroughs, and what advice they’d give to other groups interested in collaborating with researchers.
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22 September 2023
Request for Proposals: Ideas Fund Learning Partner
We're looking for a Learning Partner to support the next four years of The Ideas Fund. Find out more about our Request for Proposals.
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12 September 2023
Register for our Ideas Fund learning conversations
Over the last two years, The Ideas Fund team and partners have been gathering learning about the processes, systems and relationships needed to support community-led engagement with research and researchers.
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