by Uisce Newton, REALITIES Early-Career Researcher As public services grapple with complex, interconnected, and cross-sectoral societal challenges, co-production has become an increasingly prominent ambition in policy and practice. By bringing lived experience perspectives into how problems are understood and responses are developed, it promises to make public services more responsive to the complexities and contexts of people and communities. In Scotland, this ambition is reflected in fifteen years of commitments to community empowerment and prevention (The Scottish Government 2011, 2025a, 2025b). However, inclusion does not guarantee systems change. We should be cautious about assuming that co-production alone has the capacity to transform the [...]

by Dr Helena Tunstall, REALITIES researcher The REALITIES research consortium cuts across give geographic locations in Scotland, each with their own community hubs, where third sector organisations and local council representatives have developed arts, gardens and other creative community projects. Within these REALITIES ‘hubs’ in Clackmannanshire, Easter Ross, North Lanarkshire, Dundee, and Edinburgh, community embedded researchers (CERs) are working with academic researchers to co-research how community projects can support health and wellbeing. The REALITIES consortium includes quantitative academic researchers working with statistical data describing local community resources. The research collaboration between REALITIES community groups and quantitative researchers has highlighted questions regarding the relationship [...]

By Kitty Chilcott, REALITIES community-embedded researcher (Dundee Hub) Note from the author: I wanted to contribute a more visual blog, because I think the images show what Ninewells Community Garden (NCG) is about and reflect the core aims of REALITIES – to facilitate and be part of peoples recovery journey in a kind and meaningful way by providing a space for people to connect with nature and creativity. My name is Kitty, and I am the Community Embedded Researcher for the REALITIES Dundee hub, which carries out work at Ninewells Community Garden. With the support of REALITIES, we are delivering the Flourish programme [...]

by Toby Lowe, Professor of Public Management at Manchester Metropolitan University and REALITIES Consortium member I’ve been advising the REALITIES project since its very initial stages, meaning that Project Lead Marisa and I have probably had more conversations about “learning” than either of us cares to think about. One of the brilliant aspects of the way that REALITIES is structured is that the Community Embedded Researchers (CERs) are people who are doing the work on the ground, in their contexts. As Shona Ulrichsen highlighted in a previous blog, this means that learning (or more formally, “research” ) isn’t separate from the day job, [...]

This output is part of the legacy work from the AHRC's place-based programme. On May 19th, the webinar The Value of Toolkits and the Issue of Scalability took place online. Bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policy voices from across sectors, the event saw a fantastic turnout, with 70 attendees joining to learn more about the development, use, and impact of toolkits in research and practice. The session featured four presentations, each offering different perspectives on how toolkits can support collaboration across academic, policy, and community contexts, while also highlighting their limitations and challenges. Alongside discussions of practical application, presentations explored wider themes of [...]

Beyond Groupthink: Tips for Thriving in Interdisciplinary Teams by Kimberly R More University of St Andrews REALITIES Early-Career Researcher, Index of Community Assets workstream Groupthink is a story as old as time, and I’m sure you’ve encountered it. It happens when a group prioritizes harmony over honesty and conforms to the status quo instead of questioning alternatives. This usually leads to poor decisions. Sometimes groupthink is relatively harmless, like settling on the same lunch spot yet again, but when it surfaces in working groups, organizations, or government, it can create an echo chamber where alternative and often better solutions are pushed aside to [...]

By Shona Ulrichsen Community-Embedded Researcher for the REALITIES Clackmannanshire Hub Honestly, being a Community Embedded Researcher – or CER – in the REALITIES research had messed with my head a little. I am not an academic, and have spent the last 8 years growing and nurturing a small, community-based youth organisation—Ochil Youths Community Improvement—firmly focused on relational practice as a way to improve outcomes for young people in Scotland’s smallest mainland local authority. I dipped my toe into the REALITIES world in the last funding cycle—REALITIES Phase 2—when another organisation in my area had invited me along, giving me a glimpse into the [...]

This exciting output, created by artist James Abell, emerged from collaborative work with the Binks Hub as part of the ‘REALITIES Translation Series’, which aims to communicate REALITIES findings in accessible and creative ways. While GDPR and data management can often perceived as dry subjects, they are critically important in their own right and as central to the REALITIES project. Ongoing challenges around interdisciplinary research, community engagement, and data governance prompted extensive reflection, discussion, and creative problem-solving. The REALITIES project manager once commented that it felt ‘like a Jenga tower’— where one misstep risks destabilising everything, highlighting the complexity and fragility of navigating [...]