Co-production in health research: Early Career Researcher Perspectives- Residency 3

In the final post of our LivingBodiesObjects takeover trilogy, Rachel Garratt discusses residency 3: Co-production in action: supporting and utilising early career researchers on interdisciplinary projects

LivingBodiesObjects (LBO) is a Wellcome Trust funded exploration of how Health research is conducted and how new ways of working can be established. The project comprised four residencies involving medical humanities researchers from the University of Leeds, a creative digital media company, and an external partner. A research assistant who was an Early Career Researcher (ECR) was hired for each residency. An ECR is a post-graduate researcher (either on the verge of completing or having completed their PhD within the last few years). Over the three days, three of the research assistants will provide accounts exploring how we’ve been learning from each other regarding an innovative way of using co-production as ECRs. 

The parameters of my role in LivingBodiesObjects were to conduct audience research for the content produced during the third residency. During this residency, LBO worked with the Bhopal Medical Appeal, a UK-based charity, to produce new digital resources for their campaign work. The Bhopal Medical Appeal funds medical care, education and community support for survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster and ongoing water contamination (Bhopal Medical Appeal, 2024). On December 2nd, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air. Residents suffered severe eye and lung burns. Half a million people were affected, and 25,000 died. More than 120,000 people still suffer from medical conditions caused by the ongoing contamination. There was never an adequate clean-up of the disaster site, and 40 years later, residents are still campaigning for justice.

During this residency, researchers, artists, writers, campaigners and digital content producers worked together to produce a Shorthand piece. Shorthand is a digital storytelling platform that allows users to include various content, including text, photographs, artwork and animations (Shorthand, 2024). A team of around a dozen people contributed to this work, telling the story of the Bhopal disaster and the ongoing water contamination.

I had read about LivingBodiesObject’s (LBO) principles of co-production in a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ document that Deyanna Ricketts, a research assistant on the Blueberry Academy LBO residency, had put together. An activity that exemplified the co-production ethos of the project was a creative ideas session we had with the transcripts, translated from Hindi, of interviews with residents affected areas in Bhopal, India. During this activity, we were asked to read the transcripts and think about what stood out and how that might be visually represented. We were provided with paper handouts of the transcripts and independently read them before discussing our ideas in pairs and then as a whole group. Those who were joining online were able to access the transcript digitally. 

As a historian, I was not used to thinking creatively or abstractly and felt quite self-conscious about my lack of experience. However, LBOs commitment to co-production meant that I was an involved and valued member of the discussion. I was reassured by LBO’s care around handling sensitive content, as we could quietly collect our thoughts on what we were reading and feel the weight of representing someone’s lived reality.

This activity worked for everyone on the day; however, there are some things to consider. Whilst I could read and digest the written testimony in the allocated time, it would have been uncomfortable for anyone who needed longer for this process. LBO is keen to offer activities away from screens, but it is important to consider that pen-and-paper tasks can be inaccessible.

This activity mirrored many of my experiences as an ECR research assistant for LBO. Co-production was not just emphasised regarding partners on the project, but those hired within the project as well. 

Looking Forward

We have each valued our time working with LBO. Coproduction, and finding new ways of employing coproduction, has been a key theme and benefit from each of our residencies. As ECRs, being valued and included in every step of the research, along with building a research community amongst us, helped us gain the confidence and learn from our experiences and give an idea for what we want to see moving forward. Over the last three days our ECRs have been delivering their accounts of their experiences on a research project where coproduction as researchers and with participants and different ways of doing this were paramount to the process of being an ECR in medical humanities research.

We each also found limitations within our approaches that could be explored further in future research. For example, effort had to be made to ensure that easy-read material was clear but not infantilising and that attempts to include ECR’s in work beyond their field was done in a supportive manner (see Luo (2025) and Ricketts’ (2025). We feel that coproduction should be an ongoing learning experience for any ECR as we each found it to be a useful tool to help us as we move forward with our research careers.

About the author:

Rachel Garratt is an early career researcher working on disability history. In 2023, she completed her PhD at the University of Leeds. Her doctoral research was conducted within the White Rose Electronic Soundscapes Research Network, an interdisciplinary network that focused on sound, hearing and sonic cultures. Her thesis focused on how d/Deaf and blind people engaged with new media technologies in 20^th century Britain.

References:

The Bhopal Medical Appeal. “Our Work.” The Bhopal Medical Appeal, 2024. https://www.bhopal.org/our-work/.

Shorthand. “The simplest way to craft captivating visual stories.” Shorthand, 2024. https://shorthand.com/.