This book, aimed at academics and health and social care organisations, argues that the most meaningful and successful way to involve people is to engage them in researching their own lives. This book outlines a participatory, educational model of research which achieves this, and which impacts positively on the organisations' overall culture.

Mike Seal is Head of Criminology and Youth and Community Work, and a reader in Critical Pedagogy at Newman University Birmingham. He has worked in the social care field for over 25 years as a worker, manager, trainer and consultant. He has written seven previous books including Not About Us Without Us: Client Involvement in Supported Housing, as well as over 30 articles in professional and academic publications. He has conducted 25 major funded pieces of research, all of which were grounded in participatory approaches. He has spoken at more than 80 worldwide academic and professional conferences on co-production and participatory research, and conducted over 25 major pieces of consultancy work in the area.

List of figures; List of tables; Introduction: the de-mystification and democratisation of research; Part 1. The Co-production of knowledge with community partners: Dilemmas and debates; Chapter 1: Emperor's old clothes: re- contesting the involvement of community partners; Chapter 2: The tyranny of transformation: Debates and dilemmas within participatory research; Chapter 3: Peer research: epistemological symbolism, proxy trust, conscious partiality and the near-pee; Chapter 4: PPIR's Key Claim: Towards critical pedagogic reflective spaces; Part 2. Participatory Pedagogic Impact Research: towards a process; Chapter 5: Meaningful organisational impact: winning stakeholders over to the process; Chapter 6: Ethical considerations in PPCR: negotiating power and position; Chapter 7: Defining your terrain: Community member and Issue identification; Chapter 8: Methodology in action: transforming participant knowledge; Chapter 9: Analysis: grounding your data in community; Chapter 10: Dissemination and impact: accounting for and privileging process; Part 3. Notes from the field: research in action; Chapter 11: Reflection on peer and participatory research within a homelessness self-help organisation. (Simone Helleren); Chapter 12: Courage of our convictions: Peer research in the criminal justice system. (with Beth Coyne); Chapter 13: The Absent lens of the peer researcher: reflections on and beyond a research project into youth violence. (Richard Campbell); Chapter 14: From Relationships to Impact in Community-University Partnerships (Randy Stoecker, Karen Reece, and Taylor Konkle); Chapter 15: Using Volunteer-employed Photography: Seeing St David's Peninsula through the eyes of locals and tourists (Nika Balomenou & Brian Garrod); Conclusion: toward truly ethical co-productive research.; Index