Anglia Ruskin University

Changing Our Worlds:examples of user-controlled research in action (This report was commissioned by INVOLVE and written by Alison Faulkner.)

This report is intended to increase the understanding and awareness of user-controlled research through exploring in-depth seven examples of research where service users or disabled people controlled the research process. The report provides a description of the seven examples and a summary of the role and value of the user-controlled research.

Dr Darren Sharpe features in the report (and video footage) commenting on his work at the Young Researcher Network on the benefits and challenges of Youth-led research in health and social care settings.

Changing Our Worlds (MAIN FILM)

Young Researcher Network Case Study

Reflections on Youth-led Research

Researchers study child protection volunteers

Research has been carried out by Anglia Ruskin University to look at the benefits of training volunteers to support families with children at risk of serious harm and subject to child protection plans. This research has been presented to the Children's Minister, Tim Loughton. The full article can be read online.

Anglia Ruskin Research Conference

On Friday 2 September the CYRI had a table at the Anglia Ruskin research conference where university-funded research was presented. During the conference we displayed our May newsletter, leaflets, folders and seminar information to give people an overview of what we have been doing since the Institute was launched. If you would like copies of any of this material please contact Natasha Chandler on 0845 196 3506.

Macmillan Prize for Children's Picture Book Illustration, 2011: Cambridge School of Art students win again

For the second year in succession, an MA Children's Book Illustration student from Anglia Ruskin University has taken the £1000 1st Prize in this prestigious national competition. This year, however, the 2nd prize of £500 also went to another student on the course, as did five of the thirteen Highly Commended awards.

After Mike Smith's success last year with Edward Hopper and the Carrot Crunch, Gemma Merino's The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water took the award this time with Elys Dolan's Weasels as runner up. The Highly Commended entrants whose works will share wall space with the winners at the forthcoming exhibition are: Jemima Sharpe, Vanya Nastanlieva, Harriet Muncaster, Caroline Tye and Tonca Uza. The exhibition of the winning entry will be at the Gallery at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road from 24 - 27 May. This year's judging panel included the million selling author-illustrators Axel Scheffler and Emily Gravett and the Guardian's children's book critic, Julia Eccleshare.

The winning students will shortly be meeting with Macmillan editors to discuss possible publication and the chance to join MA Children's Book Illustration graduates now signed up to Macmillan such as Kazuno Kohara, Mike Smith, Rebecca Patterson, Paula Metcalf and Marta Altes.

"Innovation itself needs to innovate": Social Innovation Education in Europe:

Social innovation in education is a priority for the Europe Commission (EC) who is focused on improving the training and skill base of Europe's established and emerging labour force. Speaking broadly, because Europeans must now compete in contracting information and knowledge based economies innovation in education and training is essential for all our futures. I am a strong advocate of user led and participatory research in the classroom and community to help tackle issues that matter to people, to deepen understanding and also build skills. As a result, I was invited to attend an expert brainstorming meeting at the Madou Plaza Tower of the European Commission in Brussels to unpack the issue of social innovation in education with representatives from Kennisland (Netherlands), Furture@school (Germany), Education Business Connection (UK), and The European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning at the Madou Plaza Tower of the European Commission in Brussels.

There was recognition by all in attendance that a platform for social innovation is needed. A platform in which knowledge and experiences can be shared, in which people can find each other and in which the bridge can be built between research, policy and practice. The Social Innovation Coalition can fulfil exactly this need. An important success factor for this coalition is that it is inclusive, open and participative. The brainstorm meeting exemplified these ideals and allowed for an exploratory discussion organised around three central themes:

• Understanding the concept of social innovation?
• How can social innovation be relevant to work at EU level in education and training?
• Good practice in social innovation applied to education and training?

The conversation was grounded in the Life Long Learning Strategy 2020. We discussed at great length the concept of social innovation with an eye on how to structure and stimulate social innovation, particularly in education. The significant challenge faced by the EC is where and how to best position horizontal policy directives in order to maximise on the growth and sustainability of social innovation in education. However, much of the discussion pointed to the organic, context specific and collaborative nature of social innovation that cannot be so easily legislated for. For instance, Frauke Godat, from the Future@Schools, emphasised the point of agency in how social innovation is a community-learning process and thus parents and communities must be part of social innovation learning spaces. Change agents in the school system (e.g. teachers, principals, parents, students) should be supported with leadership and entrepreneurial training. Furthermore, they should be connected to other change agents in other organizations in all the three sectors.

Furthermore, Chris Sigaloff, from Kennisland, identified that it is not just about agency but also empowerment: "Good education is mainly realised by good teachers. This is where a lot of the innovation should come from. Teachers need to be motivated to be change agents, to be social entrepreneurs, real learning professionals. Research could be a very powerful way in getting teachers behind the wheel. Teachers could do research around issues they find relevant. This will enhance their skills and it will lead to innovation".

As a consequence, the nexus of the discussion came down to how you can best steer bottom-up (emerging) innovation. The EC was particularly interested in this. The answer was that the EC should not try to steer grass route innovation but that it can definitely stimulate it. Possible strategies are:

• providing room for experiments,
• showcasing best practices,
• give a voice to teachers,
• create a support system for social innovation,
• set up a program to enhance user driven research (as alternative to evidence based research),
• share knowledge on social innovation, and
• connect practitioners.

Based on my experience of working in Higher Education in the last decade, I think there is quite a lot of good practice in education and training for social innovation, especially in new universities in England that have pursued the widening participation agenda. Unfortunately, these universities do not have the tradition, funds and mechanisms to promote their work widely. Whilst elsewhere in Europe delegates report that many years of trying to innovate education has not led to the desired results. Both approaches have their pitfalls. As a result, Chris suggests a new socially innovative approach is needed. Innovation itself needs to innovate. A more fruitful approach is to stimulate innovation from below (and within). Instead of innovating top down the education field needs to increase its innovative capacity. To summarise, we concluded at the event that bottom-up innovation in education should:

• be sustainable;
• be likened to collective empowerment;
• be contextually read and is not necessarily transferable to different contexts;
• bring together different stakeholders;
• not to be undermined by ideals;
• confront difficulties that arise with connecting different parties/stakeholders;
• avoid imposition of structure when it is often a fractured and fluid creative process;
• involve communities;
• promote open systems;
• promote participatory leadership;
• contain an entrepreneurial dimension;
• confront the challenges of merging economic and altruistic interest in the one project
• perhaps being part of an emerging fourth sector.

To conclude, the brainstorming event certainly left me with plenty to consider as I embark on new areas of work with young people in and outside of formal education. Innovation in education is not an end in itself but provides for some learners the whereabouts to take charge of their own learning and for educationalists how to educate as the practice of freedom.

By Dr Darren Sharpe, Chri Sigaloff and Frauke Godat
Childhood and Youth Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

Tam Sanger co-facilitating networking event

Tam Sanger, in her capacity as an Early Career Forum convenor for the British Sociological Association will be co-facilitating an early carer networking event for social scientists with C-SAP (the Higher Education Academy Subject Network for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics) on 30 March in London. She is also going to be part of a panel at the BSA conference in April looking at the impact of impact in the upcoming REF. She will be speaking alongside the president of the BSA as well as other senior academics in the field.

Zoe Jaques awarded British Academy Funding for project on 'Lewis Carroll's Alice: A Publishing History'

Zoe Jaques has been awarded British Academy funding for her project on 'Lewis Carroll's Alice: A Publishing History'. The award has been made through the British Academy's Small Grant scheme and will cover the costs of rights and reprographics for twenty images to be included in the book. The book is co-authored with Eugene Giddens and is due to be published with Ashgate in 2012.

By Darren Sharpe - Beyond Said's Orient: Young People Volunteering in Saudi Arabia

On 4 January 2011 I was invited to speak at Prince Sultan College of Tourism and Business, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The theme of the event was on young people volunteering. The tragic events in Jeddah on November 2009 saw more than 112 individuals lose their lives in floods, the worst in decades, and an unprecedented number of young people took to the streets helping survivors in badly affected communities. The legacy of this event has been an emergent desire to continue this process of voluntarism seen within and beyond the confines of the Quran's call for divine voluntarism.

So for me, I focused on the themes 'resilience', 'competences' and 'challenges' experienced by young people who volunteer in the UK. The parallels I drew upon were young people's civil participation and the desire to help others - true altruism. So this was not a 'West knows best' talk but a carefully balanced exploration of how past and present governments have supported young people in the UK to make a positive contribution, achieve social inclusion, and have a say on matters that affect their lives through volunteering. Such high ideals have been captured, translated and put into practice by organisations such as V-inspired, National Union of Students, and Princes Trust etc. They are all beacon organisations that have empowered young people to make a real difference at home, in the community and wider society. We can all learn from them.

While nearly 6,000 young people in Jeddah wish to continue volunteering, no social contract has been formulated or body erected to help organise, accredit and provide volunteering opportunities for them. This is where the Prince Sultan College and other interested parties in attendance at the event come in. They wish to build a new culture of youth volunteering in Saudi Arabia and confront the challenges of building the infrastructure and to resource young people head-on.

The event came at the end of a personal journey were I negotiated my consciousness across what has historically been written to construct the Orient, the practice of Islam, Bedouin culture and the ever present label of terrorism. So, hearing young people speak of volunteering from this context gave me new insight into an old story of misrepresentation but also hope for a better future for young people in this part of the world.

By Dr Darren Sharpe, Research Fellow, Childhood and Youth Research Institute

Ministry of Parenting Consultancy

Dr Darren Sharpe from the Childhood and Youth Research Institute has been working together with Rob Shorrock from the Research, Development and Commercial Services at Anglia Ruskin University to provide consultancy on the pilot programme Understanding Each Other ran by the Ministry of Parenting. The programme is delivered in partnership with schools in Essex and designed to promote empathy in children. The hope is that improving empathy will improve academic performance but will also decrease bullying, poor self-esteem, anxiety, depression, social exclusions, violence in teenage relationships. The consultancy provides a diagnostic of the current business position and future models of working in order to mainstream the programme.

For more information see: www.theministryofparenting.co.uk

Training young people in research skills

On 26 November 2010, 19 children and young people from all over the country gathered together in Grantham for their first full Children's Commissioner's Advisory Group meeting. Dr Darren Sharpe from The Childhood and Youth Research Institute trained the advisory group in survey design skills and techniques. A questionnaire was devised by the group to attempt to find out the sorts of things children and young people want to own and why. The group will report the findings to Reg Bailey's review of commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.
More information can be found on the Children's Commissioner website.

Dr Tam Sanger has submitted a funding bid to the British Academy's small grants scheme

The project is a study of homophobic bullying in the UK and USA and will be conducted with Dr Denise Donnelly of Georgia State University, Atlanta. The aim of the research is to uncover attitudes and experiences of young people, parents and educators through diaries and focus groups and to formulate ideas about what can be done to decrease the incidence of this type of bullying. A larger amount of funding will be applied for once this phase is complete, in order to explore the issues in more depth with a larger number of participants. Tam is also working on an edited book about intimacies with Dr Yvette Taylor of Newcastle University and writing a number of journal articles based on her PhD research with trans people and their intimate partners.

Wordle - Represents the most frequent words in the Questions for Question Time at the External Launch