'How should decisions about heritage be made?': Co-designing a research project

Decision-making about heritage is changing and changing with it are definitions of 'heritage'. New legislation in the form of the Localism Act (2011), which aims to give more decision-making powers to local communities, can be located within a wider participatory turn which is questioning professional expertise and institutional legitimacy and is having the effect of pushing the definitions, knowledge, valuing and management of 'heritage' into new areas. To set a responsive research agenda for heritage studies and policy this project will co-design (Phase 1) and co-produce (Phase 2) research through creating new connections between the knowledge and perspectives of people from a range of organizations, communities, groups and perspectives who are situated in different places within heritage decision-making.

The project Research Team will work together in the Phase 1 co-design phase through a series of iterative cycles informed by the 'extended' or 'radical' epistemology (Schon 1995) associated with participatory and systemic action research approaches (e.g. Banks et al. 2012; Burns 2007). Ideas we have drawn on relate to valuing and creating space for different ways of knowing such as experiential; presentational; propositional and practical (Heron and Reason 1997), the different ways through which 'knowing' is produced through action, interaction, experience, conceptualization and reflection (after Kolb 1984; Burns 2007, p. 34) and the productivity of feeling confident in what you know (your own perspective and opinions) as well as the productivity of a sense of 'unknowing'(Vasudevan 2011).

Our co-design process will happen through a six-step process. In Step 1 'Entry points: Initial Reflections and Conceptualizations' the team will work with the PI to individually delineate their own positions and perspectives. In Step 2 'Workshop 1: Scoping the issues' the team will meet up and use techniques of storytelling and diagramming to scope the issues which will inform the final research design. In Step 3 'New perspectives: Experiential "unknowns" and Reflection', there will be a shifting of perspectives through the innovative use of 'day a life swap' which will see team members spending a day with someone else in the team and, through this, draw on the embodied learning than comes from being in unfamiliar places and contexts. In Step 4 'Workshop 2: Making decisions about the research project' a final workshop will draw on the experiential and reflective learning of Steps 2 and 3 to underpin the co-designing of Phase 2 research and Step 5 'Write and Collaboratively Revise final plan for AHRC'. The final step, Step 6, will see the submission of the 'interim progress report'.

The Phase 1 outcomes will be the new relationships formed between team members and the development of a broader network of critical friends for the project. The Phase 1 outputs will be the Phase 2 research design itself, an 'in process' blog and website and a 2 page PDF reflecting on and capturing the co-design process.

Looking forward to Phase 2, the Phase 1 Research Team will become the management group and will oversee the research direction. Indicatively we anticipate that we may identify a small number of parallel lines of inquiry that will give us targeted insights into different issues and questions related to the project's guiding question. Drawing on a systemic approach, we might deliberately site these inquiries in different places and use them to illuminate otherwise disconnected aspects of heritage practice and decision-making. These lines of inquiry could be led by any member of the Phase 1 Research Team and certainly might well be led by members of the Research Team not based in HEIs, with support from the PI. The connections between the lines of inquiry might be drawn out in workshops which will increase the reach of engagement and bring together the Research Team and wider academic, professional and community networks.

A central principle of action research is to complicate the relationship between 'research' and 'impact' and to see them as intimately connected. Drawing on Huw Davies' work, we are interested in the way in which 'new policy-relevant knowledge often come from collaborative processes that break down the distinction between roles - where technical expertise around data meets other forms of knowing rooted in experience or a sense of the possible' and the way in which 'research often has the most profound impacts [...] when it causes shifts in the language, concepts, conceptual models or frameworks that are used to define the contours of the policy landscape' (Davies 2012).

As such one of the principles of action research, especially that which takes a systemic view, is to constantly broaden out networks of peer feedback. At the heart of the Co-Design process are multiple chances - through conversations within our organizations, with each other formally through the two workshops and with our wider network of critical friends (e.g Kathy Cremin, Clore Fellow, Consultant withing with Bede's World; Nick Merriman, Manchester Museum/Chair, MA Code of Ethics; Georgina Young, Paul Hamlyn Fellow in Arts and Participation, Senior Curator, Contemporary London Museum of London) - to calibrate and recalibrate our Phase 1 design based on multiple readings of what might be relevant or carry resonance. We will track these through reflective blogs/confidential notes (depending on feedback and consent).

We have a firm impact strategy around Phase 1 in terms of learning about the process of Co-Design. We will facilitate this through active networking with the other Co-Design grant holders, an 'in-process' blog as well as a more formal University of Leeds hosted website and, at the end of Phase 1, a 2 side PDF outlining the process we went through. Indeed, we see the energy we can created around the projects as central to its success and the more people interacting with the project the stronger we will be able to make the Phase 1 design and the Phase 2 research. We will do this through actively using sector networks such as Civic Voice, Group for Education in Museums, Heritage Lottery Fund online communities, Museum Association, Museum Computer Group, Oral History Society, Royal Town Planners Institute, Social History Curators Group and NCCPE.

In terms of Phase 2, it is not possible to be definitive at this stage. However, we are in a strong position to create meaningful and targeted impact within the heritage sector and in terms of heritage policy and practice. We have a particular immediate interest in connecting in with the concurrently running HLF's community grants programme 'All Our Stories' (in partnership with AHRC). This is by no means duplication rather an opportunity to add value to both strands of funding through the reflexive and critical process outlined in this Community Co-creation and Co-design Research Development Project bid. This line of 'impact' will be facilitated by Karen Brookfield.

In designing the research in Phase 1 and indicatively in Phase 2 we will have an interest in considering influencing policy making and funders. We will do this through the inclusion in the Research Team of people actively involved in shaping policy for key organizations (National Trust; Heritage Lottery Fund). Throughout we will initiate conversations with relevant policy makers in our networks about the Phase 1 research design (Brookfield; Cowell; Courtney; Madgin). We make a commitment to track this through reflective logs where possible.

We are also planning to use Phase 1 to actively consider developing an international think tank for Phase 2, drawing on connections made by Callaghan e.g. Matt Reiley, Associate Director, Central Park Conservancy and Graham, e.g. Tracie Spinale, Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies and supplemented by deliberately building appropriate and targeted international networks.