News | Jam and Justice

Barriers to organisational co-production (sketch by Hannah Peake)

The GM VCSE Co-Production Assembly, convened by active co-producers, is home to an emergent community of practice. Hosted at the headquarters of Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the informal membership assembled for the second time at the end of March, having first met in December 2018.

Read more about Tyrannies, tribulations and action learning: Jam & Justice at #VCSEEngage

Jam and Justice learning exchange -- workshop 1 with Gothenburg Region

In March 2019, an 11-person delegation travelled from the UK to the Swedish city of Gothenburg for a learning exchange, supported by Jam and Justice and Mistra Urban Futures.

Iona Hine, ESRC Impact Officer for Jam and Justice, reports:

With 11 people in the delegation, we must have had at least 12 reasons for taking part in the exchange. When the Greater Manchester group met for a pre-trip briefing, we identified three core goals:

Read more about Sharing, Learning, Connecting: Gothenburg exchange, 12-15 March 2019

Who initiates co-production and why? - Beth Perry (University of Sheffield) sets the scene for a discussion of principles and values.

A report from Jam & Justice's second coalition-forging event:

This was a day of two parts, and each began with a viewing of the short video made to capture the essence of the first Coalitions for Change event.

Read more about Co-Producing Greater Manchester: a report from Coalitions for Change 2

Beth Perry (left) presents at the English Co-Production Network event. Slide (right) shows the covers of different outputs from Jam and Justice's ARC projects.

On 28 March 2019, people with a passion for co-producing gathered in central Manchester to explore the potential for an English Co-Production Network. The event was organised by Co:Create, a Sheffield-based outfit linked to South Yorkshire Housing Association and funded by the Department of Health to support co-production in commissioning.

Read more about Forming an English Co-Production Network

Jam and Justice action researcher Sarah Whitehead (photo c/o Salford Now)

Last week, Jam and Justice ARC member Sarah Whitehead was in Gothenburg, “looking at how communities, academics and businesses work together to produce solutions to the issues in communities.” The trip meant missing the Spirit of Salford award ceremony (where Sarah was nominated for Citizen of the Year), so we wanted to share some extracts from Salford Now's profile of Sarah & her work, as reported by Yann Robinson (14 March 2019).

Read more about Dinner with Madeleine Albright?

Snapshot: Andy Burnham's report to the GMCA

In June 2018, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority agreed a proposal to work with Jam and Justice and the wider Realising Just Cities programme to develop co-productive capacity.

Read more about Jam and Justice Input to GMCA Decision-Making

Sketching co-production: snapshot of responses to the drawing exercise

Despite cold wet weather, on 29th January 2019 three dozen people made their way to the Anthony Burgess Institute in Central Manchester for the first of Jam and Justice's events to build capacity to #CoproduceGM. Attendees were drawn from within and beyond Jam and Justice's networks, including academics, policy-makers public servants, charity workers, community group leaders and peer researchers. Many of those in the room were people who’d already engaged with some aspect of Jam and Justice’s action research.

Read more about Shaping the Coalition

Transdisciplinary projects using co-production (questionnaire dialogue box)

Do you have experience of co-production in partnership with a university? If so, we'd like to hear more about your notions of good leadership.

Who leads, for what purpose and how? The question of leadership in coproduction is often assumed or ignored. Jam and Justice researchers want to understand where people with experience of co-production agree and differ on what constitutes good leadership. To help us study this effectively, we've prepared a survey intended for those who have been part of co-production projects involving a university partner.

Read more about Take part: Survey on Leading Co-Production

Quotation from the Fawcett Society: women must be partners when policy is designed

After months of preparation (including a field trip to Barcelona to meet some of those behind the city’s democratic portal), the GM Decides project kicked off last month with the first meeting of its Partnership Group. The Group was formed and brought together by ARC leads Alice Toomer-McAlpine and Katie Finney. The first session introduced the overarching aim, drew on examples from existing work on digital democratic innovation, and identified how the project should proceed. What follows is extracted from a video shared with participants.

Read more about GM Decides: making digital democratic innovation work for Greater Manchester’s women

Moving towards hybridity--screenshot of the new SPA article

How do social scientists explain 'what works'?

Read more about New publication in Social Policy & Administration