Creative Manchester are pleased to share a new report investigating and evaluating approaches to Arts-Based Participatory Research (ABPR) taking place in cultural partnerships with The University of Manchester.

Creative Manchester, an interdisciplinary research platform based at the University, champions research in creativity and creative practice. It brings together research communities with external stakeholders to explore new research areas and address strategic opportunities.

The report ‘Exploring Arts-Based Participatory Research Approaches in Cultural Partnerships with Creative Manchester’ was written by Prof John McAuliffe (Creative Manchester Director), Dr Leandro Valiati (Institute for Cultural Practices), Dr Henry McPherson (Creative Manchester Research Associate) and Dr Tessa Harris (Centre for New Writing) and included workshops and interviews with professionals from Made By Mortals, Cartwheel Arts and Platt Hall.

The research team recognises the unique expertise of skilled arts practitioners to enable research teams to address big questions holistically, maintaining academic rigor, while ensuring a duty of care and responsibility to those whose lives and experiences are being rendered in the research space. Arts-based participatory research collaborations can generate compelling, effective, impactful outputs, while championing responsible human-to-human connection. ABPR often leads to surprising insights, and can help make complex, often sensitive topics, more concrete and accessible to a wide range of people.

Genuinely collaborative partnerships can foster meaningful participation and promote more equitable research practices. Where arts-based methods are encouraged and supported, especially through sustained long-term collaboration with arts-sector specialists, public participants can have a clearer creative agency within research projects.

The academic team have compiled a set of recommendations on how The University of Manchester might better support arts and cultural organisations, artist-academics, as well as individual arts-professionals, within ABPR partnerships.

To cultivate trusting, meaningful relationships with non-academic partners, more work is required to ensure that institutional structures support arts-based participatory research methods, by which collaborative partnerships can develop fruitfully and responsibly.

• Read the full report here.