Managing sensitive relations in co-produced planning research

Abstract

Co-produced research is an increasingly prominent feature of universities. Collaboration can bring many benefits, offering unique and illuminating insights into the interface between theory, academia, policy and practice. Moreover, it often facilitates access to otherwise impenetrable fields of study. Yet it also brings immense challenges. This article describes the knowledge co-production process in a research project looking at national security, focusing on the collaboration between academia and government policy-makers. As demonstrated, critical tensions emerged in the commissioning process, in the conduct of the empirical work, and with regard to the dissemination of findings. The authors discuss various coping strategies employed to meet these challenges, which are applicable across other aspects of research co-production.

Notes

*We acknowledge this assertion is over-simplified (for a more detailed discussion see Becher and Kogan, 1992; Henkel, 2007; Karran, 2009).

*The results and findings of even publicly-funded research of intense public interest are often published in journals aimed at academics as opposed to professionals, practitioners and policy-makers. Under these circumstances, access to knowledge essentially becomes exclusive.

†Lee and Renzetti (1993, p. 5) define a ‘sensitive’ research project as ‘one that potentially poses for those involved a substantial threat, the emergence of which renders problematic for the researcher and/or the researched the collection, holding, and/or dissemination of data’.

*Others have reflected on how within controlled places such as prisons, researchers may be ‘subject to unique controls, taboos and restrictions’ (Cohen and Taylor, 1977, pp. 67–86).

†The rule is as follows: ‘When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed’ (see www.chathamhouse.org.uk).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul O’Hare

Paul O’Hare is a researcher in the Centre for Urban Policy Studies, University of Manchester, UK.

Jon Coaffee

Jon Coaffee is professor of spatial planning in the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, UK.

Marian Hawkesworth

Marian Hawkesworth is a researcher in the Centre for Urban Policy Studies, University of Manchester, UK.