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There has been encouragement from funders, universities and academics to co-produce research. Co-production of research can be considered a methodology in its own right, or an underpinning set of principles for other methods. Co-production aims to reshape relations between the researched and the researcher. Yet, co-producing research rarely starts with a blank sheet, and is informed by antecedent power as well as prior experiences and expectations. Attention has been paid to practical barriers to co-production, such as time and resources, and there has been critical analysis of the claims made. The 'hidden politics' of co-production as a research approach have also been identified. This paper contributes to debates about such hidden politics of the co-production methodology in research. How leadership in research takes place matters, as it is a way of handling contestation over different aspects of methods, including the purpose and practices of research, and power differentials in co-production. This study was motivated by the experiences of the authors of a co-produced research project on participatory urban governance.

Street-level bureaucrats shape policy through using discretion in their interactions with citizens and service users in delivering public services. Discretion allows street-level bureaucrats to bridge between public policy and the complex, individual, human situations they encounter. Drawing on insights from feminist institutionalism, this article establishes gender as a relevant analytical category in understanding discretion. We set out three analytical propositions: street-level bureaucrats work in gendered institutional contexts that shape their discretion; street-level bureaucrats are gendered actors, whose discretion is shaped by their individual gendered dispositions; and street-level bureaucrats' discretion has gendered effects. We investigate these propositions through a case study of the early implementation of the classification of misogyny as a hate crime among police forces in England and Wales. In addressing this analytical intersection between street-level bureaucracy and feminist institutionalism, we bring a gendered perspective to street-level bureaucracy, and a focus on how rules are interpreted to feminist institutionalism, forging new ground in public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses a critical gap in extant theorizing of urban transformations by focusing on the political and temporal dimensions of how innovations emerge, develop and become institutionalized into alternative systems of the everyday such as social centres, community gardens or urban commons. Going beyond current approaches, we offer a new understanding of innovations as sociopolitical practices: sets of resourced activities aiming to reshape urban spaces to achieve social and political ends locally. Developing an original theorization of such practices, we identify and differentiate between three sets of activities designed to meet local needs: assembling innovations—identifying and employing a wide variety of local resources within a neighbourhood; extending innovations—broadening the scope of initiatives and making them last; and, institutionalizing innovations, anchoring them in a more formalized structure. Sociopolitical innovations require sustained practices whereby situated agents pragmatically push for change over time. While the ongoing development of systems of the everyday may have limited immediate transformative impact, the reshaping of local resources prefigures an alternative which breaks from, yet is embedded in, everyday urban life. Our theorizing is underpinned by an international qualitative study of neighbourhoods in four European cities: Amsterdam, Birmingham, Copenhagen and Glasgow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the barriers of getting evidence produced by academics into policymaking processes has often highlighted the lack of research on academics and what they do, as compared to what policymakers do. This was most recently highlighted in a systematic review of the literature (Oliver et al, 2014). This paper reports on research carried out with academics who were tasked with producing evidence reviews for the UK Department for Communities and Local Government based on research funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Using a novel co-produced methodology the academics were interviewed by an academic and a UK civil servant, with the analysis carried out by both. Using an interpretive approach, the findings identify specific meaning-making stories or practices that were enablers or barriers to producing evidence suitable for policymakers. The paper identifies three areas that affect academic behaviour at the nexus with policymaking: career biographies; disciplinary background; and the contradictory institutional pressures on academics. We conclude by arguing for a more collaborative approach between academics and policymakers. The co-produced approach also allowed us to identify the need for policymakers and civil servants to learn more about the different drivers of academics and the ways in which they work.

Co-production is not a new concept but it is one with renewed prominence and reach in contemporary policy discourse. It refers to joint working between people or groups who have traditionally been separated into categories of user and producer. The article focuses on the co-production of public services, offering theory-based and knowledge-based routes to evidencing co-production. It cites a range of "good enough" methodologies which community organisations and small-scale service providers experimenting with co-production can use to assess the potential contribution, including appreciative inquiry, peer-to-peer learning and data sharing. These approaches have the potential to foster innovation and scale-out experimentation.

Methods The remainder of this paper focuses on the results of a Q-methodology study that aimed to redress the dearth of empirical studies on leadership in co-produced research, and interrogated the alignment between the leadership preferences of respondents with experience of co-produced research. Some studies have centred on the contribution of particular leadership types or styles to co-production, such as relational leadership (Bussu & Galanti, [11]; Schlappa & Imani, [51]), others the modes of leadership that may be appropriate in different governance conditions (Tortzen, [54]). A five-step process for conducting a Q-methodology study This methodological appendix provides technical detail about how we constructed our Q-methodology survey, carried out the collection of the Q-sorts, and analysed the results. Keywords: Co-production; research; leadership; university EN Co-production research leadership university 1 21 21 12/20/22 20230101 NES 230101 Introduction There has been encouragement from funders, universities and academics to co-produce research (Durose et al., [15]). But, there was divergence in how far the leadership of co-production should seek to transform power relations; each viewpoint had a distinctive interpretation about whether antecedent power should be accommodated or redistributed, whether leadership should be primarily relational or subject to formalised structures, and who gets to take decisions and by what process. [Extracted from the article]

This article places those working for change in urban neighbourhoods at the centre of debates on urban transformation, directing attention to the importance of human agency in the work of assembling urban transformation. Drawing on cross-national qualitative fieldwork undertaken over 30 months shadowing 40 urban practitioners in neighbourhoods across four European cities – Amsterdam, Birmingham, Copenhagen and Glasgow – our research revealed the catalytic, embodied roles of situated agents in this assembling. Through exemplar vignettes, we present practices in a diverse range of socio-material assemblages aimed to address complex problems and unmet needs in the urban environment. The practices we studied were not those of daily routines, but were instead a purposeful assembling that included nurturing and developing of heterogeneous resources such as relationships, knowledges and materials, framed through an emerging vision to inform, mobilise and channel action. This article brings together assemblage-theoretical and practice-theoretical ideas, with rich empirical insight to advance our understanding of how the city may be re-made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.01737.x Byline: CATHERINE DUROSE (1) Abstract: One of the aims of this special issue is to 'decentre' a key facet of governance, namely networks. This article considers in particular the concept 'networked community governance', a key part of New Labour's reforms in local governance and, in particular, around neighbourhood-based working. This article draws on interpretive methods and analysis to explore the everyday work of front-line workers in contemporary local governance through their own stories. The article is based on empirical work in the neighbourhood management system developed in Salford, a local authority in the North West of England. Key to facilitating 'networked community governance', is front-line workers' own 'local knowledge', understood as the mundane, yet expert, understanding front-line workers develop from their own contextual experiences. The article explores the difficulties that front-line workers perceive themselves to face in their everyday work and how they use their 'local knowledge' to develop responsive, entrepreneurial strategies. Author Affiliation: (1)Catherine Durose is RCUK Research Fellow in the Local Governance Research Unit (LGRU), Faculty of Business and Law, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University. Article History: Date received 13 November 2007. Date accepted 4 June 2008.