SIPS 2025 Budapest

Co-production/public engagement (PE) practices are being implemented in research as a reckoning with academia’s longstanding history of exploitative processes which have damaged the trust between researchers and the communities they research. When done well, PE can produce research which appropriately reflects the lives of those at the focal point of our research. However, for communities historically marginalised by academia, many still experience these endeavours as coming from a “tick box” mentality for individual career development, e.g tokenistic engagement of youth who use drugs in harm reduction research led to feelings of further marginalisation (Stowe et al., 2022; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00663-z). Drawing from theories of community organising and mutual aid, this “unconference” is a space for sharing best (and worst) practice. Together we will discuss PE approaches that decentre the academy, and re-imagine research as a tool for collective growth.