Table 7 Challenges and Recommendations

1. Expectation setting

Spend as much time as possible clarifying the aims and outcomes of a workshop, e.g. whether a workshop is primarily a space for knowledge exchange, research prioritisation, or setting up of a new research project, etc. These aims will influence participants’ expectations and support them in forming ideas about what their roles and contributions could be

2. Roles in workshop: are you employed to be there or not?

Participants are likely to turn up with different agendas, expectations, and ideas about the use of their free/employed time. Creative activities and an external facilitator can be valuable in moving away from workplace agendas and creating space to explore new ideas

3. Bringing community needs into research

Within higher education, translating community-driven ideas into funded research projects faces capacity challenges, particularly relating to funding and researcher time. This type of creative workshop lends itself well to research prioritisation around themes and may be most appropriately used in (1) informing future funding bids, (2) research prioritisation around themes at the start of new funding

4. Support available to researchers aiming to pursue co-produced research projects is limited

Researchers are time-poor and work put into developing community relationships is not typically rewarded within the career pathways of academia. Co-production could be further supported by increasing researcher access to training, resources, networks and funds. Evolving and sometimes contradictory terminology (for example see debates between [33, 34] is also a challenge (participatory; co-produced; co-created; collaborative) which training and increased interdisciplinary working might reduce

5. Making space for productive discomfort

Collaboration and relationship building can be a time-intensive process that requires building trust and removing barriers to equitable participation. To some, this process may feel like losing some power or agency. Managing expectations of all participants is important

6. Equality between co-production participants is not visibly self-evident

Not every participant in a workshop will contribute the same way or amount. Some may prefer to speak less than others. Confident facilitation can encourage participants to contribute in a way that suits them

7. Setting up a safe respectful discussion space—the value of a skilled facilitator

Revealing identities or lived experience may cost some participants more than others. Researchers involved are likely to feel more comfortable discussing a topic, while public-participants may require more facilitated support to engage

8. Co-production needs to work for everyone

Deconstructing power dynamics can be an important process in co-produced research. It’s important that researchers do experience agency in the process of building research projects or knowledge exchange. However, this should not come at the expense of public contributors’ ability to set the agenda. A clear process and training around different approaches to co-production are likely to be beneficial

9. Developing a sense of ownership

Deconstructing power dynamics can leave participants without a sense of ownership when it comes to taking ideas forwards. This links to recommendation 8; further facilitation is then required to support reconstruction of new roles in emerging follow-on projects

10. Further dedicated staff time needed to pursue follow on projects

Build in staff time to follow up ideas and support further collaboration. Make use of research support staff such as public involvement and engagement professionals who can balance and bring together different ideas and agendas, and have the time to set up further workshops

When working online, pay attention to creating space for informal relationship building (and potential exchanging of contact details) which is likely to happen organically at in-person events