Meet the first recipients of the Collaboration Kickstarter fund

Five projects have received funding from the pilot fund, which places co-production, collaboration and community engagement front and centre.

Imperial’s Public and Community Engagement team is delighted to announce the recipients of the pilot Collaboration Kickstarter fund; a new initiative designed to support engaged research with communities, representing an innovative approach to co-production and participatory research at Imperial. 

This fund, itself co-produced by Imperial staff and community partners, is supporting five exciting and ambitious projects with community and collaboration at their core. Each project places community voices and experiences at the forefront. 

Fostering community belonging 

"Our goal is to foster a true sense of belonging, where refugees genuinely feel it is 'my community' rather than 'their community'"

The funded projects are varied in scope and in who their community partners will be, with each sharing a common goal of giving voice and agency to groups who are often alienated from academic research.  

The Fostering Ownership for Refugee Integration project, whose Imperial Project Lead is Weston Baxter will be exploring the settlement journey of refugees in the UK, examining how refugees transition from experiencing a location as merely “the place I live” to “my community”. Using an approach that is both experimental and equitable, the project aims to empower refugees to actively shape their new environments.  

“Our goal is to foster a true sense of belonging”, said Dr Eiman Abdelmoneium Khidir, Community Partner from Abdul Mageed Educational Trust, “where refugees genuinely feel it is 'my community' rather than 'their community'.” 

Advancing cancer care research 

A key principle of the fund is to have active involvement and influence from partner communities in the research, addressing real-life issues and building the foundations for tangible, lasting change.  

One project will establish a community-led advocacy group comprising diverse patient and public representatives. The group will address concerns of equality, diversity and inclusion in cancer care and research. Piers Boshier, Imperial Project Lead, hopes this project “will mean that minoritised groups will have a greater voice around issues that affect their ability to access healthcare and research.” 

Transforming maternity care  

Discovery is at the heart of the fund – with the learning to become a community asset which others can use, share and build upon in future research.  

Break the Barriers, whose Imperial Lead is Sarindi Aryasinghe, will explore co-production and advocacy as a tool to improve maternity care for Black families, whose experiences of NHS and local authority provisions can leave them feeling unheard and unsupported.  

Rhianna Newby-Mayers, project community partner, said: “by working collaboratively with researchers, healthcare professionals, and community stakeholders, we aim to identify alternative approaches and solutions that will enhance the quality, accessibility, and cultural responsiveness of maternity services." 

Young people and digital wellbeing 

The fund has a focus on building new relationships and gathering novel perspectives, whilst putting research subjects front and centre. One of the projects is using co-production to do just that, addressing growing concerns around young people’s smartphone and social media consumption by positioning young, self-identified "phone addicts" as co-researchers alongside teachers and parents.  

“Bringing in [young people’s] lived experience at the design stage means we can ensure future research is meaningful, acceptable and feasible to future participants”, Imperial Project Lead, Rachel B Smith said. 

Supporting older adults in healthcare 

The fund is ambitious, prioritising support for activities that otherwise would not be funded and for groups who are traditionally underserved.  

Partnering with Open Age, a London-based charity championing an active life for older people, one project will investigate the challenges older people face during virtual healthcare consultations.  

Imperial Project Lead Tetiana Lunova hopes that the findings will inform the co-development of strategies to address these issues and will “give older adults more voice in research, by empowering them to set the research priorities and guide the direction of a future study”.  

A commitment to collaborative research 

The Collaboration Kickstarter represents a transformative shift in funding initiatives and research methodology at Imperial, further enabling community engagement, foregrounding lived experiences and prioritising collaboration.  

Read a full summary of the projects funded by the Collaboration Kickstarter Seed Fund here.