GMCVO’s mission is to drive economic and social inclusion in Greater Manchester and support better decision making by increasing the accessibility and diversity of learning and insight.
Greater Manchester has significant inequalities across its towns and cities which shape its residents’ life chances. One way to reduce this inequality is by generating evidence and understanding about the communities most affected by these inequalities to help shape decisions that affect them. At GMCVO we want to make research more inclusive and accessible. This means ensuring that a diversity of voices are articulated through research, as well as empowering voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations to engage with and conduct research.
We work with organisations to use research to better understand communities and develop evidence for funders and policy makers. We can do this either by working with them to incorporate research methodology into projects and services or by conducting entire research projects on their behalf. We can also help by enabling academics, public sector bodies and VCFSE organisations to work more closely together, facilitating community-led research or by improving access to evidence that is already out there.
Our research services:
We have developed a range of services designed to make research more accessible and affordable for VCFSE organisations, and to connect VCFSE organisations with research led by statutory and academic bodies:
Support for VCFSE organisations
Most VCFSE organisations conduct impact and outcome-based analysis but often this only provides part of the picture. Incorporating a research element when planning the design and delivery of projects and services can help VCFSE organisations to:
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Better understand communities, beneficiaries and/or service users
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Enable a more informed approach to project/service delivery
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Provide more meaningful understanding of how projects have impact
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Improve evidence of need
However, not all VCFSE organisations have the resources or confidence when it comes to carrying out research in-house. We can design and deliver a full research project for you from start to finish, or we can help you conduct your own research by providing expertise with specific elements such as:
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Managing relationships with academics
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Design of project and/or methodology
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Project management
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Advising around ethical considerations
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Training of community researchers and supervising data collection
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Conducting data collection
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Data Analysis
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Writing up
If you are considering building research into your work and would like to chat through your options and our fees, please contact us.
Support for statutory and academic organisations
Encouraging the involvement and leadership of communities in understanding and addressing the issues that affect them is an integral part of meaningful research. We support academics and statutory organisations who want to engage communities and community organisations in research.
Our connections within academia and the VCFSE sector coupled with our proven track record in cross-sector research partnerships means that we are uniquely positioned to support academic institutions and policy makers by:
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Brokering partnerships between universities, statutory and VCFSE organisations and exploring shared interests
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Enable connections to local communities through organisations who have relationships and trust in those communities – to design research as well as collect data
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Facilitating and training community researchers to conduct research within their communities
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Co-delivering events designed to bring academics/policy makers and VCFSE organisations together
If you are planning a research project that would benefit from greater input from communities, please contact us for an initial conversation to establish whether we are able to add value to your project.
Access to research
Improving our understanding of the issues within our society is not just about improving research, it’s also about improving access to existing research. There are a number of ways that we improve VCFSE organisations access to published research and understand what they can do with the findings:
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We deliver events and briefings that explore specific research topics and what the outcomes might mean for communities
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We host the GM Third Sector Research Network which brings together individuals involved in collecting and/or analysing information of relevance to the VCFSE sector in Greater Manchester
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We can translate academic papers into accessible briefings
