How analysing co-creation during the Covid-19 pandemic offers insights on the simultaneous generation of academic, social and business value

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Dr Muthu de Silva from the department of Management gives an overview of the findings of two recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports, published with her co-authors, about the role co-creation played during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how it can shape innovation going forward.  

Co-creation is a mechanism of simultaneously generating academic, business and social value. During co-creation actors of the innovation ecosystem – such as businesses, universities, governments, intermediaries and society – act as collaborators to integrate their knowledge, resources, and networks to generate mutual benefits. The idea behind co-creation is that the joint efforts towards change or impact can lead to lasting and effective innovation.  

As an institution, Birkbeck is committed to delivering theoretically rigorous research with real-terms, practical impact, and a concept like co-creation is a really great way to facilitate this. Co-creating with non-academics enables academics to integrate needs and resources of both academic and non-academic communities, enhancing the reach and usefulness of their research.   

Over the years, I’ve published about 20 journal articles on the topic of co-creation and received eight best paper awards for these publications. In 2019, I was invited by the Working Party on Innovation and Technology Policy of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop a conceptual framework on co-creation between science and industry. This meant publishing a high quality journal article and leading their 2021 – 2024 co-creation project that directly influences the strategies of innovation agencies, and ministries of 37 countries who belong to the OECD, and a wider audience that benefits from OECD publications.  

This work resulted in two reports and a journal article designed to influence innovation strategies of OECD member states. It has also resulted in leading another project regarding the importance of university and industry co-creation for a societal and economic green transition.  

Based on evidence gathered from 30 COVID-19 co-creation initiatives from 21 countries and three international cases, the two reports showed that co-creation was widely used to respond to the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. What was evident through the reports was that existing co-creation networks enabled the rapid emergence of new initiatives to address urgent needs, while digital technologies enabled establishing new – and, where necessary, socially distanced – collaborations.  

For instance, co-creation of medical innovation relied on substantially larger existing networks due to the complexity of medical discovery and manufacturing processes involved in developing these innovations. The COVID-19 Türkiye Platform, the transnational Exscalate4CoV, and the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca initiatives are examples of this. Digital tools were also used in numerous ways. As an example, the COVID Moonshot project which aimed to develop antiviral drugs against COVID-19 by identifying new molecules that could block SARS-CoV-2, involved three scientists who organised a hackathon inviting researchers/virologists to submit molecules, donations and assays (testing) via Twitter, resulting in over 4 000 submissions.  

Aside from funding initiatives, governments engaged actively in co-creation by granting access to their networks, advising on initiative goals and offering support to improve quick delivery.  The role of civil society was important as well, and the socially impactful nature of research and innovation was a motivating factor for engagement. For example, the Austrian COVID-19 Pop-up Hub initiative; the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology co-developed the themes (Digital Health, Distancing, Economic Buffers and State Intervention) for public virtual discussion and participatory policy idea development taking place via the Hub.  

What emerged from the reports, were the following lessons for the design and implementation of future policy programmes for co-creation:   

  • Purpose is the strongest driver of co-creation; incentives to support co-creation should go beyond facilitating access to funding.  
  • Crisis-specific programmes may not be needed out of the crisis, but networks and infrastructures should be strengthened during “normal” times. 
  • There is room for building new collaborations between researchers and producers to accelerate innovation during “normal” times.  
  • Policy should support wider development and use of digital tools for co-creation.  
  • New approaches should be leveraged more to tap into the large pool of diverse and readily available capacities in the economy.  
  • Governments’ involvement in co-creation activities as network builders can help speed up solutions; enhanced agility in their operations should be encouraged.  
  • Public engagement in co-creation can help market uptake of new solutions. 

  Further information 

 

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Working with local council to reduce plastic waste

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Single-use plastic has become increasingly common in our news feeds, and not for good reason. Microplastics are now showing up in meat products and even in our blood. It will take a collaborative effort from government, business and individuals to tackle our plastic waste problem. We caught up with Dr Pamela Yeow, Reader in Management to discuss her research into ethical consumerism.

Image of a reuse logo

Tell us more about the Ethical Consumerism project

The project began in 2014 with my collaborators from the University of Essex and the University of Kent. We wanted to understand why households weren’t adopting certain ethical behaviors and what could be done about it. In our first paper on the topic, we explored the case study of bags for life and noted the role of both individuals and institutions in encouraging sustained behavioral change towards more ethical consumerism.

When the opportunity arose to further this research with funding from the Birkbeck COVID-19 Recovery fund, we decided to explore the role of the householder in tackling the reduction, recycling and reusing of plastics in a sustainable way. We chose to focus on householders because the decision as to what to do with single-use plastic waste in the home ultimately lies with individual consumers.

With the generous support of Haringey council, we were given the opportunity to interview a variety of stakeholders within their community. These included decision-makers at different levels and residents and householders living in that area. We found a few things:

  • Organisations and individuals have different and inconsistent views on waste

Our discussions with consumers and members of the council revealed different and sometimes conflicting prioriities when it comes to waste management, for example in the case of contaminated waste. Contamination results from the co-mingling of recyclable and non-recyclable products. This includes items that the processing facility cannot or will not accept or items that are acceptable but not clean. For the council, contaminated waste represents a loss of income, as it is no longer recyclable. For consumers, the co-mingling of waste at the point of recycling suggested that there was little commitment by the council to recycle.

  • Residents don’t agree on who is responsible for waste management

Our interviews uncovered that there was no clear line of responsibility for managing plastic waste. Opinions differed on whether responsibility rested with residents, many of whom were tenants, or landlords and housing agents. With a large, transient resident population in Haringey, there is also a need for continuous and consistent messaging to ensure recycling and waste disposal is done properly.

  • A collaborative approach is needed to bring together residents, local authorities and wider infrastructure

With many community champions who are keen to be ethical consumers who reduce or reuse single-use plastic, there are ample opportunities for the council to co-design campaigns and get whole neighbourhoods involved.

How will this research impact household recycling practices?

As a result of this research, Haringey council has pledged the following actions:

  • Put support in place to help all Haringey businesses reduce the sale and use of single use plastics.
  • Improve waste management infrastructure by auditing containers at street-based properties and properties with communal bins.
  • Review the council’s contamination policy and communications with residents to reduce contamination and ensure more waste can be recycled.
  • Encourage buy-in for recycling services from landlords and residents in Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) by ensuring representation of the waste team at the council’s HMO working group.
  • Gather up to date data on current use of waste and recycling services across the borough.

Councillor Chandwani, Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality and Resident Services said:“We are determined to exceed the Mayor of London’s target of recycling 50% of our household waste, but this can only be achieved by working with our communities to find solutions that will enable us to reach our joint ambition. To help achieve this ambition we have recently launched ‘Destination 50%’; a strategic campaign to deliver a range of initiatives co-produced with local residents.“Our partnership with Birkbeck, University of London has been an invaluable tool in the Destination 50% programme. Through their research with residents we have really important insights, exploring the complexities that come in an urban borough with a mix of housing tenure, architecture, socio-economic conditions and diversity of culture and languages. All of these aspects make Haringey a wonderful place, but it also means that our recycling targets can only be met if we match the range of factors in our borough.We are grateful to the Birkbeck Research team for the opportunity to access their skills and expertise that have led to in-depth conversations with residents, Veolia and Council staff objectively and independently. Without them we could not have had the candid dialogue needed. The findings have enhanced the innovative transformational approach of the programme with some changes already being implemented. I would also like to thank all the residents who gave up their time to engage in the research. Sharing their experiences, perspectives and ideas has been at the heart of this project and we will continue to listen to their views.”

Further Information

 

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The Trouble with Freedom: Imagining America’s Future in Turbulent Times

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Melissa Butcher, Professor of Social and Cultural Geography, shares insights into her latest research project ‘The Trouble with Freedom’, involving conversations with Americans across the USA on how they imagine America’s future.

In the last year I have listened to multiple speeches made by Donald Trump as part of his America First ‘Saving America’ tour of the United States, and the playbook has been much the same: a narrative of economic decline, humiliation on the international stage, record crime in Democrat run cities, the emasculation of ‘gender ideology’, and copious gasoline (at inflated prices) thrown on the bonfire of public education, followed by an overview of his achievements, and a call to supporters to keep the faith.

But Trump’s speech at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI, Washington DC, July 2022) was different. The narrative of decline and nostalgia for greatness was still there but most of the 90 minutes was dedicated to actual policy statements, with ‘Law and Order’ at its centre. Having spent the last year in conversation with a range of people from diverse backgrounds and political persuasions across America, I would have to concede that this is the best strategy America First Republicans could have devised. Violent crime, particularly in major cities, is rising[1], but more existentially, there is a general perception of disorder in America that ranges well beyond crime statistics. Even formerly ‘liberal’ strongholds like California are feeling the backlash.

A raft of pressure points on America’s cultural borders are causing them to buckle in ways that some argue is a necessary corrective, but others, particularly those identifying as ‘conservative’, are not comfortable with. As a global power in the 20th and early 21st centuries, America’s political, economic and social influence extended internationally, but the country now faces a series of challenges: competition from rising economic centres such as China; deindustrialisation and the shift to a digital economy; a democratic deficit with fractious governance; and polarised dissent in the face of ongoing racial injustices and shifting social norms, broadly dividing the country along generational, class, racial, rural/urban, and religious/secular lines.

These processes of internal and external change are generating questions about what it means to be American today, redefining American identity in a period of cultural flux, and highlighting a need for new forms of social cohesion as resurgent nationalism leads to exclusion and conflict. There are vanishing opportunities for contact that might generate the empathy and understanding necessary to narrow the gap between the extremes[2], and several authors, such as Stephen Marche[3], predict that it will end in tears, with another civil war on the horizon.

America’s political and social polarisation is exacerbated by divergence in core beliefs such as the American ‘master narrative’ of freedom. The historian Eric Foner has argued that freedom is a key organising principle underpinning America’s collective sense of identity. According to Foner, ‘No idea is more fundamental to American’s sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom’[4]. It is attached to a founding myth; enshrined in political discourse; and embedded within America’s global strategy, defending ‘the free world’ and promoting free markets internationally.

Yet there has always been more than one definition of this contested master narrative, and, therefore, of the United States. Freedom has been reshaped over time, with the boundaries between free and unfree moving beyond the absence of coercion to incorporate racialised, classed and gendered definitions, as well as aspiration, morality, law, religious, social, economic and political practices. As Tyler Stovall[5] outlines in his history of ‘White Freedom’ in America, some people have always had more freedom than others.

The contemporary battle for ownership of freedom is driven by the need to reconcile disorder that has emerged with recent ruptures in the American Dream. The idea of freedom embedded in consumer choice and the promise of an affluent future is disappearing in global financial crises and environmental collapse, the latter generally considered ‘nothing to worry about’ at America First rallies. Covid-19 mandates and vaccinations unleashed a Medical Freedom movement that has emphasised bodily autonomy despite risks to health (e.g. the right not to wear a mask, to not be vaccinated). That bodily autonomy does not now extend in many parts of America to the freedom to choose an abortion. Similarly, for some the freedom to own a semi-automatic rifle does not contradict support for the fall of Roe vs Wade in the name of preserving life. American culture leaps tall contradictions in a single bound.

The call to defend freedom features heavily in any America First rally, but what does freedom need defending from in 21st century America? Mostly, it seems, from an 18th century sounding ‘tyranny’, led by ‘leftists’/‘Marxists’/‘radical Democrats’/atheists/ a generic ‘evil’, and an unseen ‘globalism’ driven by the World Economic Forum and Big Tech elites amongst others. At the extreme end of conspiracy lies the imagining of a hidden global network readying itself to reset the economy in 2030 and enslave humankind. But this conspiracy is now part of mainstream political narrative in America. Trump’s AFPI speech announced his aim to not only ‘drain the swamp’ but to ‘root out the deep state’ by firing ‘rogue’, ‘incompetent’, ‘corrupt’, ‘unnecessary’ bureaucrats, who, in his view, blocked his political ambitions when in power. Trump references a ‘fifth column’ in his argument that ‘our biggest threat in this country remains the sick, sinister and evil people within’ … and then he name drops Nancy Pelosi. The global circulation of this populist rhetoric is evident in the UK as well: Boris Johnson referenced a ‘deep state’ conspiracy in one of his final speeches to the nation.[6]

What is unspoken at these rallies is the threat of demographic change that will see white Americans become a minority by 2050. This appears a more likely basis for the intense focus on defending ‘freedom’, particularly through the reinforcing of cultural borders in the teaching of history and the drawing of a hard line around gender. America First rallies, or any of the myriad of organisations that are part of a wider ‘National Conservatism’ movement (e.g. Turning Point USA, Moms for America, Look Ahead America, Advancing American Freedom, etcetera), rail against the miseducation of children who they believe are no longer taught a ‘proper’ version of American history and Judeo-Christian values on which they believe America is founded. Their vitriol goes as far as accusing teachers of ‘grooming’ children, and calling for the banning of books that reference race or sexuality in any way that might make parents feel uncomfortable.

While there is opposition on the ground to this politics, what is clear in conversations across the USA is that there is a sense of uncertainty in the future, not knowing if it will be a safe place physically, or existentially. There is ambiguity as power and culture shifts and people no longer know where the boundaries lie, getting things wrong in the process. There is a sense of powerlessness: no control over a pandemic, over China, over gas prices, no control over drought, and no stopping demographic mobility. There is no sense of control over the direction of change.

This discomfort is worked on by America First into a fever pitch of shame and humiliation, and years of research has taught me to never underestimate what people will do to avoid those feelings, including vote against what might be seen as their own interests. There can though be control over borders according to America First, in an America of ‘Law and Order’: a wall can be finished; ‘the homeless, drug addicts and dangerously deranged’, as described by Trump, will be removed to camps on parcels of land bought on the edges of cities; the death penalty will be introduced for drug trafficking; the unemployed will have to work; proof of citizenship will be needed to claim child tax credits; ‘illegal’ migrants will be sent back; the police will be given back ‘their authority, resources, power and prestige’, and Trump’s America will be ‘tough and nasty and mean if we have to’. Three times in his AFPI speech Trump explicitly called for more power to the President or Federal Government presumably led by him, in order to: have more ‘tools to combat unfair trade’; to override ‘weak mayors’ and ‘cowardly governors’; and to call in the National Guard to restore ‘order’ in cities he deems out of control.

Trump continues to shy away from making a formal declaration that he is running in 2024, perhaps waiting until after the mid-term elections in November, but it’s widely believed he will. Or if not him it will be his mirror image, possibly Ron deSantis, with less chaos and more focus. Whatever the timing, the Republicans under the guise of America First and national conservatism are sliding towards the removal of freedoms in freedom’s name.

Further information

References

[1] https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-yearend-2021-update/

[2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/03/democrats-and-republicans-live-in-partisan-bubbles-study-finds/

[3] Marche, S. (2022). The Next Civil War: Despatches from the American Future. USA: Simon & Schuster.

[4] Foner, E. (1998). The Story of American Freedom. NY: Picador. p xiii

[5] Stovall, T. (2021). White Freedom: the Racial History of an Idea. USA: Princeton University Press.

[6] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11025507/Boris-Johnson-claims-Labour-deep-state-seek-reverse-Brexit-hes-gone.html

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From improving assessment centres to preventing match fixing: Birkbeck’s business and management research

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All Birkbeck’s REF 2021 impact case studies in business and management were rated ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Discover our research case studies below. Full details can be found on the REF website.

Reforming governance in the UK non-profit sport sector

Following a series of scandals in the UK sports sector, research completed since 2011 by Birkbeck’s Richard Tacon and Geoff Walters has shaped significant reforms to the country’s sports governance landscape.

In particular, their work underpins the Voluntary Code for Good Governance, published by the Sports and Recreation Alliance in 2011 and revised in 2014; and through this, the Code for Sports Governance introduced at the recommendation of the UK government by Sport England and UK Sport in 2016. All sports organisations applying for UK government funding must comply with this code, which has therefore not only influenced the distribution of over £500 million between 2016 and 2022, but has also brought about significant change in individual organisations, who have reformed their governance procedures in order to comply with this essential requirement.

Numerous smaller, unfunded organisations have additionally signed up to the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s Principles of Good Governance, a voluntary code which is also based on Tacon and Walters’ research. Across the sector, governing boards are now better managed and more diverse. As such, this research can be seen to have shaped the entire UK sport sector and affected the lives and playing experiences of the millions of Britons who participate in organised sport each year.

Mobilizing the power of trade unions

John Kelly’s mobilization theory, first proposed in Rethinking Industrial Relations (1998) but refined and developed over the two decades since, offers an account of the conditions under which individual employees collectivise in response to problems at work (a sense of grievance, shared with fellow workers; a target to whom blame can be attached; and a belief that there are forms of collective action that will make a difference). The theory was taken up rapidly by trade union activists and has been widely used in trade union education programmes since 2004. In the period since 2014, major unions with a combined membership of over six million workers have drawn on Kelly’s work to educate union organisers and to inform the development of major campaigns.

In particular, Kelly ran and designed the ‘Leading Change’ programme for the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which ran between 2004 and 2018 and whose participants have gone on to become MPs, union general secretaries, and in one case the General Secretary of the Labour Party. Kelly’s work also underpins training programmes for the Public and Commercial Services Union, Universities and Colleges Union, and the NEU (National Education Union).

Kelly’s influence matters because unionized workplaces provide better terms and conditions, on average, than their non-union counterparts. The aggregated figures from the unions with which Kelly and his work have been associated tell us that between 2014 and 2020, millions of employees at thousands of workplaces received higher pay, longer holidays and better fringe benefits such as sick pay. Moreover, the achievement of collective bargaining over terms and conditions of employment means that these newly unionized workers now have more say in workplace decisions than would otherwise have been the case.

Don’t Fix It! Fighting match-fixing in European football

Match-fixing is a problem for professional sports because a perception of unfairness makes them less attractive to spectators, and because of the harm done to players (typically those who are younger, vulnerable, and less well-paid) who may be groomed or blackmailed into participating. It is also a wider social issue because match-fixing is typically orchestrated by criminal groups in order to fund their other activities. After a set of 2011-12 survey results revealed a worrying prevalence of match-fixing in the Eastern European football leagues in particular, Birkbeck researchers Sean Hamil, Andy Harvey, and Haim Levi were recruited in 2013-14 by FIFPro, the global football players’ union, to conduct research into football match fixing. Their work on the Don’t Fix It! project surveyed footballers from eight European countries and formed the basis for a code of conduct adopted by every key stakeholder organisation in European football, as well as a training programme that saw national associations develop and deliver anti-match-fixing initiatives in each of the countries concerned.

Don’t Fix It! also underpinned the development of the Red Button App for anonymously reporting match-fixing. Harvey and Hamil’s research identified the lack of a clear reporting avenue as a key impediment to reducing match-fixing and it is this that the app addresses. First developed with the Finnish football players’ union, this has now been adopted worldwide, with both FIFA and UEFA agreeing to recognise the app as a valid avenue for match-fixing reports. Another European project has seen the app expanded into sports beyond football, protecting both players and the sports they play.

Developing a co-creation model for innovation in the UK and EU

Working with major policy institutions such as the Big Innovation Centre, Innovate UK, the UK Intellectual Property Office, and the European Commission, Birkbeck researchers Brigitte Andersen, Federica Rossi, and Muthu De Silva have reshaped national and international approaches to the ways in which businesses and universities can best work together. Their research on knowledge co-creation has been a catalyst for major policy reform in the UK and EU. Andersen’s work as rapporteur for a 2012 European Commission expert group on open innovation fed directly into the delivery framework for the EU’s €80 billion Horizon 2020 programme, which has supported countless researchers and research projects across the continent. De Silva’s work with the Intellectual Property Office supported changes to the Lambert Toolkit, which is used by universities to set the terms for their engagement with business. Andersen and De Silva’s collaboration with HEFCE through the Big Innovation Centre (of which Andersen is CEO) helped to ensure the introduction of impact criteria into REF 2014, reforming the impact landscape in UKHE. And the Catapult to Success report, published in 2013, underpinned the development of the UK’s Catapult Centres and the distribution of over £1 billion in government funding.

Making assessment centres work for employers

The assessment centre process, in which candidates for a role or promotion are asked to perform a series of tasks under observation and evaluated on their performance, is widely used in employee selection, development, and promotion processes around the world. Work by Birkbeck researchers Duncan Jackson and Chris Dewberry has challenged received wisdom about assessment centre design, demonstrating that traditional dimension-based assessment (which seeks to measure candidates’ performance against specific skills or competencies) does not provide an accurate prediction of performance in-role. Instead, they propose a task-based model which replaces the abstract skill testing of a dimension-based assessment centre with a focus on candidate performance in specific, job-relevant tasks. This produces more consistent results which therefore allow employers to make better choices when it comes to promotion or recruitment.

Jackson and Dewberry’s work has been taken up by a variety of recruitment and HR consultants around the world, from America to Australasia to the Middle East. These consultancies have reshaped the tools they work with based on Birkbeck research and in doing so have improved their service to dozens of large-scale, multinational companies – providing economic benefits to the consultancies and their clients as well as benefiting the diverse customer-bases of these clients by ensuring that their service providers are run by the most competent candidates. Jackson and Dewberry have also worked directly with individual employers to improve their provision (including a London-based public service organisation which accounts for over 25% of the national budget for this service) and have helped to shape practice worldwide by contributing to the national and international guidance on assessment centres provided by British and international psychological societies.

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