Students sitting on the steps of the Parkinsons Building at the University of Leeds

The ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship call for 2026 is open.
Apply to hold your Fellowship at the University of Leeds (9 months full-time or 18 months part-time).

EOIs due 17:00, 8 April 2026.

Full details can be found here:🔗 bit.ly/4764PAj

#WRDTP #Leeds #Postdoctoral #Fellowship

Ruth: Consider offering participants the chance to check their transcripts and your initial descriptive coding, if they want to. Gives sense of ownership of their data and how their words have been understood/interpreted #wrdtp

Ways to make participants feel more included: check what needs your participants may have. Share questions in advance, particularly with neurodiverse participants. Don’t be afraid to share some of yourself. Reassure that there are no right/wrong answers, that everything they say is useful #wrdtp

Syra responding to this point: rather than “seldom heard”, she would refer to it as “forced silence” #wrdtp

Our payment policy This payment policy has been co-created by the Co-Production Collective community and is for anyone who co-produces with Co-Production Collective. It sets out who we can offer payment to, in what circ...

Yes! Another theme from health co-production. Co-producer payment policies. (resources.coproductioncollective.co.uk/resources/ou... a co-produced payment policy). #wrdtp

Great reflection from an audience member: marginalised groups are often referred to as “seldom heard” in research. Are they seldom heard, or seldom asked? #wrdtp

Ruth: Pay people for their time and energy! YES, was waiting for someone to say this! #wrdtp

Liz: Echoes not over-promising, adds that having open, honest conversations is important. If participants say “this needs to change”, can you help them understand how/why the kind of change they’re asking for may/may not be possible, what else will need to change to enable this? #wrdtp

Paul / Syra: don’t over-promise for what your participants will get out of the research, how much input they will have. Even if you can’t co-produce to the extent that you’d hope, staying in touch over time can help participants know what impact their participation had #wrdtp

Ruth: Inclusion and co-production is an ongoing process, not something you can tick off and say “done”! Ongoing reflection and reflexity is crucial to the process #wrdtp

Liz: Inclusion can often be tokenistic. To avoid this, be open with your participants and ask them for feedback. Don’t make assumptions, ask if the ways you are trying to engage them are useful or not, ask them for suggestions of other ways you could do it #wrdtp

This echoes the issue of co-producing health and care services. There were lots of funding / commissioning related barriers. Funding systems needs reform to make a more inclusive system. (I co-authored a literature review on that. Interdisciplinary nature of being a health librarian). #wrdtp

Ruth: Inclusive, co-produced research not only makes better science and better knowledge, it’s also more fun! Would rather spend time engaging in meaningful ways with research participants than alone, in a lab or on a laptop! #wrdtp

Ayse: benefits of inclusivity - fresh perspectives! Some autistic folks refer to it as their “superpower”, the ability to see things in a totally different way and come up with insights no one else has #wrdtp

Syra’s own research is specifically about co-creation with students as a pedagogic tool. Investigating the barriers to success among students: the barriers they face are structural/institutional, and not in their power to solve, so co-production is a way to empower them #wrdtp

Ruth: we need to rethink how we structure research to enable inclusivity. Funders sometimes ask for evidence of inclusive practice, but the relationship building you need to do for this to be genuinely inclusive really needs to happen before the research starts, and this won’t be funded! #wrdtp

Liz: Big changes don’t happen overnight. How can we incentivise small, incremental changes? #wrdtp

Paul: institutional barriers to inclusivity. Universities are driven by league tables and other quantitative metrics. As much as those in charge say they care about inclusivity, ultimately it isn’t prioritised because it doesn’t count towards those metrics #wrdtp

Paul: Inclusivity is challenging for many reasons, not least because it is so variable according to people’s individual needs. Lots of variability by discipline as well #wrdtp

Ayse: calling for better education among doctoral supervisors and others involved in doctoral education about neurodiversity #wrdtp

Ruth: Following up on Liz’s comment, notes that *everyone* brings a unique perspective to research. It’s easy to “other” researchers from marginalised perspectives, but white/straight/middle class/etc is also a lens through which we see the world and will influence research insights #wrdtp

Liz: Inclusivity also means embracing who we are and what unique perspectives we bring. In her own research, being from the marginalised community she was researching was a real strength, and it’s important to acknowledge this. #wrdtp

Paul: Inclusive research is about who is doing the research. If we only recruit from a narrow slice of the population for PhD programmes, that limits the kinds of research and perspectives that inform research #wrdtp

Ayse introduces herself as a neurodivergent researcher, she was diagnosed as autistic and dyspraxic during the covid lockdowns. Reflecting on her own struggles during covid has informed her research on housing and neurodivergence #wrdtp

Ruth: phrase “epistemic humility” is resonant for her when considering inclusive research. How do we consider others’ knowledge in research contributions? How do we ensure our data collection is respectful and representative rather than extractive? #wrdtp

At an institutional level, what are we doing to disrupt the power structures and over-represented voices in academia? #wrdtp

Ruth: Researchers have a responsibility to ensure our research is both representative of and useful to the communities involved in our research #wrdtp

Liz also picked up on Syra’s “late to the party” comment, saying she started her PhD at 46 - it’s never too late to join the party! That’s reassuring for me: I turned 40 last week, and sitting here surrounded by mostly fresh-faced 20-somethings is making me feel a little 💀 #wrdtp

Oops, forgot the hashtag: #wrdtp

Liz: Inclusion is about ensuring those involved in our research are represented by it, their voices are listened to, they’re involved in the process and not being used. Can you involve your participants in the planning, in the thinking around the project? #wrdtp