5. Redefining research with care experienced young people

How can co-producing research with historically excluded groups drive impact? In Northern Ireland, a unique partnership between the charity Voice of Young People in Care (VOYPIC) and ADRC NI (Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland) has placed care experienced young people at the heart of research about their lives. These young people have shaped the research by defining priorities, providing feedback, and translating findings into engaging resources.

Guests Brenda Kilpatrick, Engagement Development Worker at VOYPIC, and Elizabeth Nelson, Public Engagement, Communications and Impact Manager at ADRC NI, share how this approach has amplified the voices of care experienced young people while improving the ethical and practical value of research. By involving those directly affected, the collaboration has set a new standard for inclusivity, trustworthiness, and accountability in data-driven decision-making.

This story of co-production offers important lessons for researchers, policymakers, and communities, showing how consulting historically excluded groups can lead to higher quality research and more meaningful outcomes for everyone.


Wondering what administrative data is? Visit https://www.adruk.org/our-mission/administrative-data/.

If we used any terms you're not familiar with, check out ADR UK's glossary at https://www.adruk.org/learning-hub/glossary/.

For information on the partnership with VOYPIC and ADRC NI, visit https://www.adruk.org/news-publications/news-blogs/involving-historically-excluded-groups-how-were-co-producing-data-driven-research-with-care-experienced-young-people/.

Find out about VOYPIC's work: https://www.voypic.org/

Read a blog from Liz on the collaboration: https://www.adruk.org/news-publications/news-blogs/embedding-co-production-in-data-research-how-internships-can-contribute/

Explore the young person's guide to co-production: https://www.adruk.org/news-publications/publications-reports/a-young-persons-guide-for-researchers-co-producing-data-research-with-under-served-groups/

Discover the public dialogue between ADR UK and Office for Statistics Regulation: https://www.adruk.org/learning-hub/skills-and-resources-to-use-administrative-data/public-engagement-in-practice/lessons-learned-from-a-uk-wide-public-dialogue/

Connecting Society is brought to you by ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK). Find out more about ADR UK on our website, or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn. This podcast builds on a pilot series known as DataPod, produced by ADR Scotland.

Transcript

Shayda: Hello, and welcome to Connecting Society, a podcast about how everyday data can shape our lives. I'm Shayda Kashef, Senior Public Engagement Manager for Administrative Data Research UK, or ADR UK to me and you.
 
Mark: And I'm Mark Green, Professor of Health Geography at the University of Liverpool. We are your co-hosts and guides around the wonders of administrative data.

Shayda: Today's episode is about how we co-produce data-driven research with historically excluded groups. Gosh, what a mouthful! But it's a topic close to my heart and something I regularly support ADR UK researchers with.

Now, I think we need a "jargon klaxon" at this point, as there are some unfamiliar terms for our listeners. Mark, what do we mean by co-production?

Mark: Well, academics love to give big, fancy words to what we do. So, "co" — you stick "co" in front of a word, and it kind of means working together. Just don’t ask me what the Latin root for that is. For me, what we’re really talking about with co-production is getting researchers, community groups, stakeholders, policymakers, and the public — and even more than just those groups — to work together.

Importantly, it’s about working together with equal power to create research that is meaningful and benefits everyone. So everyone’s views are taken on board and treated as equally important, rather than just researchers doing work based on their own thoughts or beliefs, which might not always be insightful or well-aligned.

Shayda: Exactly. It sounds tricky balancing the power dynamic, but it can be done. I think it can be easy to imagine how researchers who analyse administrative data might work with policymakers. Policymakers need evidence to make important decisions, and researchers use data to create evidence.

But for some people, but not listeners of this podcast, of course, it might be less obvious to understand how or why researchers — who often work with numbers — might want to work with communities or members of the public, or how researchers and the public can work together.

But as we’ve learned from our guests on this show, experts come in all shapes and sizes, and we’re all experts in our own lives, our jobs, how we interact with society. That’s truly valuable information.

For administrative data, without us, there would be no data. So, it’s important that we, as the public, are represented in research that uses public data.

In this episode, we’ll be exploring co-production with historically excluded groups — groups of people who, over time, have not been included or have been denied access to full rights or opportunities.

Mark: Yeah, I think that’s really important. If I were to quote the great philosopher, Homer J. Simpson: “I’m a white male, aged 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.”

I think that really gets to the essence of what we’re talking about in this episode. We need to talk to as many people as possible if we’re going to do research that is impactful and meaningful.

Not everyone is the same, and we might fall into traps if we apply data insights about one population group to another. If anyone has read the book Invisible Women, you start to see how much research in the past was based on the views of a minority of people and then applied to everyone as if it would magically work.

That’s why it’s important that we spend extra time talking to those groups that researchers have ignored, to get their thoughts on what we’re doing today.

Shayda: Invisible Women is a really powerful example. It makes me wonder if we should consider a side project hosting a data book club.

But for now, we’re joined by guests from Northern Ireland, which wraps up our tour of examples of work across the different ADR UK partnerships. So far, we’ve learned how charities, practitioners, and public panel members can work with data scientists to ensure their research improves people’s lives.

In today’s episode, we’ll hear an example of how data scientists from the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland partnered with a dedicated group of care-experienced young people, known as the Data Research Advisory Group, from the charity Voice of Young People in Care, to shape research from start to finish.

Mark: I think in honour of today’s theme, we should call this a “co-podcast” because it’s not just the two of us — we’re doing it with two wonderful guests who will help us create this hopefully wonderful episode.

So, we have Brenda Kilpatrick, who is the Engagement Development Worker at Voice of Young People in Care, and Liz Nelson, who is the Public Engagement, Communications, and Impact Manager at the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland.

Welcome to the show, both of you.

Brenda: Thank you.

Liz: Thank you!

Shayda: We’d like each of you to introduce yourselves to our audience. Please tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you got here—and no technical jargon. Brenda, let’s start with you.

Brenda: Yeah, so, we’re the charity for children with lived experience of care in Northern Ireland.

We work together with children and young adults to create a better care experience and improve life both in care and after care. We do this in a number of ways: through our advocacy and awareness-raising, by making connections, and through capacity-building initiatives. This includes our independent advocacy service, youth participation efforts, and co-production projects like this one. Our aim is to influence change through our policy advocacy.

Personally, I’m a care-experienced adult, so working for Voice of Young People in Care is something I’m very passionate about and have always wanted to do. Ensuring that young people and their voices are represented is very important to me and to our organisation.

The chance to be involved in groups and partnerships like this, which really put young people at the heart of decisions affecting their lives and research that is relevant to them, is something I’m very passionate about. I believe this approach not only enhances the overall impact of the research but also positively impacts their lives after care.

Shayda: Thanks, Brenda. I think it’s incredible how you use your lived experience to help others in care thrive. Liz, what about you?

Liz: Hi! I’m Liz. I came to this from a very long way away—we may as well get my accent out of the way. I’m from the States originally, and I’ve lived in Northern Ireland for 15 years now. Much of that time, I’ve been working with ADRC NI, the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland.

I started out over here working with young people, so this project really feels like coming full circle for me. I began as a youth worker, doing participatory research with young people through a charity called Public Achievement, and then made my way, through twists and turns, over to the data side of things.

While I consider myself a bit of a data nerd, I don’t actually work directly with the data itself—I’m not a researcher. My job, as I see it, is to find ways to talk to people and communities about data, how it’s used, and how they can get involved.

In some ways, I think there’s a strength in not being the person who knows how to run all the methods, models, and technical aspects of the data. It allows me to look at things from a different perspective. I love doing that, and I love working directly with communities.

So, when the opportunity came up to go back to working with young people, it’s been really exciting for me.

Shayda: I completely agree. There’s a lot of power in having people in the room who can offer different perspectives, and it’s fun to work together on that. For the listeners: Liz and I work on some projects together, so it’s great to have her on.

Mark: Super. We just want to ask you a few introductory questions to get to know you better. These are questions we’re asking most of our guests. The first one: is it day-ta or dah-ta?

Liz: Ha! Here's where the accent thing comes in. You go first Brenda.

Brenda: I’m just trying to think how I actually say it… like “Data Research Advisory Group.” So for me, it’s “dah-ta.”

Liz: I think I'd go "day-ta", but honestly, I’ve lived here so long I can’t even remember how I used to say it. It might’ve been “day-ta,” or maybe “dah-ta.” I know I used to say “ree-search” instead of “re-search” and “proh-ject” instead of “pro-ject.” So I don’t know. But I’ll go with “day-ta.”

Mark: I didn't know there was a "re-search" version, maybe for season 2 we'll start...

Liz: "Re-search" would be more here, but in the US we lean heavily on other syllables, so it's "ree-search".

Shayda: All right, another important question: pie chart or fruit pie?

Liz: Fruit pie. You guys don’t eat enough pie over here, and you don’t do cherry pie at all—which is an absolute travesty. You’re missing out massively.

Brenda: We’re going dessert? Fruit pie, then.

Mark: That’s the right answer, yes.

And finally, what’s your favourite statistic?

Liz: My mom was a public librarian when I was growing up, so I basically grew up in the library. This was the ’90s, and childcare wasn’t much of a thing.

The U.S. has more libraries than branches of McDonald’s. I’m very proud of that.

Brenda: Surprising!

Liz: I know, right? Although, on the flip side, I also discovered that we spend more money on salty snacks than we do on public libraries. But let’s just forget that part, okay?

Brenda: My favourite stat is that 11% of the world are left-handed. As a fellow lefty, that's my favourite stat.

Liz: I didn’t know that.

Brenda: Actually, it says that between 10% and 12% of the world's population is left-handed. So I think, it's definitely 11.

Shayda: So to jump into today’s episode, one challenge some researchers face when involving members of the public in their work, especially for the first time, is how to build that initial relationship. Liz, can you speak a bit about how your research team connected with Voice of Young People in Care (VOYPIC) and what came out of that relationship?

Liz: To start, this wasn’t something we initially set out to do. It grew.

I was trying to find people to join the project’s steering committee. Our goal was to ensure each project has community representation alongside policymakers and data custodians to advise, provide feedback, and help steer the research direction. I had worked years ago with Koulla Yiasouma, the Northern Ireland Children’s Commissioner at the time. I reached out to her to get her involved and get a sense of which organisations might be interested in this kind of work. I'd comes from youth work but it had been a number of years.

Koulla pointed me toward VOYPIC, which led me to connect with Alicia. Again at the time, it was just about discussing the research objectives, it was a different wave of research too, but we started talking about what the research was interested in discovering and whether that would be useful to them, we came to this mutual understanding that we should talk to young people about what this means for them because it's their experiences, they're the ones coming out of cares and looking for accommodation, we're talking about homelessness and challenges that face young people as they age out of care. It grew from that.

Unfortunately, COVID delayed our plans, so the original plan of holding it in 2020 was postponed, but we took it from there. We started talking to Lee first, then Brenda, on how to go about this. 

The great thing about partnering with an organisation who knows the group is you don't have to start from scratch, you're coming in at a point where there's already trust between the young people and the organisation. We developed a relationship first with VOYPIC. I think that part was really important, for you to get to know us, and us to get to know you, and for you to vet us.

Brenda: It absolutely was. Those initial meetings allowed us to align our expectations and build a relationship between our organisations before involving the young people. And obviously that went really well. 

Liz: I think it helps the researchers' confidence as well. You're not just jumping straight into working with the community, you're getting on the same page first and making sure everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Brenda: Yeah. And I think the thing about getting started, and again, from your perspective, you can let me know what you think, you have done the youth work thing before, so maybe not for yourself. But I know getting started, maybe with Aideen and Sarah and other people from ADR, they were daunted about working with young people. And some of us in the room were a bit daunted about working with researchers and working with data.

So, you're both going in kind of not really sure and trying to feel each other out. And the young people did have this: "research and academia is just so not something that I could ever aspire to be involved in", and really breaking down that barrier was so important. And I think from your guys' end, it’s that it’s very daunting to come in and talk to a group of young people, who are very sure of their experience, very knowledgeable about their experience. And very sure of what they do want, but also very sure of what they don’t want. And that can be daunting as well.

So I think it was really, really useful to have those initial conversations and build that relationship initially, so that we were walking into that kind of all feeling you're going in on a level playing field. There's something from each side that everyone's wanting to get out of it.

It is a relationship, and everybody has been fantastic. The young people have such a great relationship with you guys, you can see that in the work that's come out of it, the internships out of it, and the fact we're here three years down the line. Some young people have moved on and can't be part of the next phase, but they want to be seniors for the new young people coming on board. They love the group. It has been a journey, and there have been things along the way, but it's been fantastic and it's that initial thing of: we're all in this together.

Shayda: You've both touched on something really important there, which is how the core of relationship building is transparency and building trust.

And it's so true that when you are interacting with a person that comes from a background that is very different to you, it can feel intimidating even in a social setting, and so to be doing that in a professional setting can be hard to envision how someone so different to me wants to listen to me, or why they want to interact with me in the first place. And what do they want out of this?

Being really transparent about the reasons you're there, the aims and what you hope to get out of it is really important and I'm so glad to hear that the relationship has been so strong.

On that note, Liz, if I could turn to you—how did this approach differ from traditional research methods? And, Brenda, you touched on how your care experience has really brought value and feelings of empowerment in the work that you do. Can you also tell us a little bit about why this partnership was so important to VOYPIC?

So, Liz, we'll go with you first.

Liz: The first thing right off the bat that I think of is is that the difference here is that the researchers were having direct contact with the people that they're researching. The people behind the data.

There's a lot of qualitative methods that would inform this type of work, and it would be much more common, I think, within, say, health spheres. 

But it's not something we typically associate with data research.

It's big data sets. It's numbers, it's statistics. It's words that I don't understand, like regression modelling, and rarely, I think, do they get the chance to actually talk to the people behind that. It's asking researchers to look at a different type of knowledge than what they can gain by looking at data.

And it's asking them to put that knowledge and that experience at the same level as their own knowledge. 

Shayda: Thank you. And Brenda. What did it mean to you to have VOYPIC involved in research? 

Brenda: It's something that the organisation has historically been involved in and through different projects and we haven't been involved before with administrative data research and that type of partnership. And you know the the mission and the aim of VOYPIC is that all children and young people with a lived experience of care have a good experience when they're in care and that they go on to thrive into adulthood.

And that you know that really, that their experience of care doesn't make their outcomes any different from any other young person who hasn't grown up in care.

So being involved in a project that is looking at the outcomes you know, the health outcomes and the mental health outcomes, and you know the the different things that we've looked at throughout the project, and seeing that if young people have had contact with social services, how they do have different outcomes from the general population. 

VOYPIC just wants to be at the heart of discussions around improving the outcomes and impact for children and young people with care experience.

Lee, who's the Engagement Manager at VOYPIC, always likes to talk about: "The data gives the outline, but using people with lived experience, it colours it in and it brings it to life."

Mark: I mean, that's really important point. So just to pick up a bit about what you said, Brenda. I think one of the hardest parts of co-production is ensuring this equal power dynamic is, you know, it's shared across both researchers and the people that we're engaging with. 

And you've talked so far about, it is quite daunting, but you knew the importance of breaking down barriers, being insistent about making sure that voices are at the centre of a decision. So could you say a little bit more about how you ensured that young people's voices were meaningfully heard in the decision-making process around the research project?

Brenda: Initially, we all came together and talked about what the goal was. And I think during that initial meeting, talking to the young people and seeing where they wanted to go with it, and what they wanted to get from it kind of took it slightly in a different slant. And that was brilliant because one of the things that the young people in this particular group are very insistent on is sometimes the the data and the research can paint a more negative picture, and they want to focus on the positives, and make sure: yes, we're not going to shy away from some of the data that can be perceived as negative or challenging, but there are positives there, and with the right support, the right interventions, young people can go on and have the same outcomes. 

One thing about you know their voice, and being meaningfully involved, the goal of co-production is equal power sharing. But it's not always the case that that can happen a hundred percent of the time. So, for example, the young people were talking about, you know, wanting to see a dataset. And that's just not something that's possible.

The thing about specifically for young people with care experience, they grow up in a very adult world. Decisions are made for them and about them without consulting them a lot of the time. So for our young people, and something that we are very strong on, is managing expectations and keeping them informed.

So it is fine to say that is not possible. It is better to let them know and have the discussion that that is not possible, as opposed to just skirting over that and just saying, "Oh, no! Well, that can't happen." Just give an explanation. 

One young person was really eager to see a dataset. So it was like, "that's not possible. You know, there is training and stuff that has to happen for you to be able to do that, but we can show you a sample one". 

And just listening to them and taking their opinion on board. And you know that did come with wanting to make sure that the more positive things were involved each time. There is a lot of stigma associated with being care experienced. And sometimes statistics can just be headline grabbing, and people can just see that and run with it. They're like, "this is about us. This is about our lives."

Liz: That is such a good example, as well of the importance of having lived experience within these research projects, the shift that that can then make from people feeling like they're just numbers, and just like points in a dataset to being a part of that. 

And the phrase that always comes up, "nothing about us without us", without that input from the young people and saying, "we want this to be about the positive aspects of our lives", you know, the research that we're talking about here is around outcomes. I can't even remember what it was called beforehand, because the young people got in and helped us shift and change this way before the research even started, so it's always been known as positive trajectories for care leavers. 

And before that it was coming from this place of: "We need to understand negative outcomes so that we can prevent them". But that's not what the people who are actually going to be impacted by the research, the people whose lives are supposed to be improved by finding this evidence and bringing it into policy and service provision, that's not how they want to frame it. 

And that makes total sense, doesn't it? Because if you bring that negatively focused evidence to a policymaker, everything's going to go with that lens. If you have the people right there saying to you, "That's not what's going to make a difference. That's not what's going to make me feel like I'm a part of this." It's our duty to listen to that.

I think, as well, you know, you're talking about managing expectations. That was one of the things that we were the most worried about working with data. As we all know, it takes a long time to get datasets. And sometimes you think you're going to get something, and then it doesn't happen. And there were multiple times when we were like, "how are we going to explain this? What are we going to say to the young people? We don't have the data. We thought we would, or they really want to ask this question, and we can't". we just defaulted every time to "well, we just have to tell them this is how this is and say, this is our suggested workaround. Do you guys like that? Do you want to do something completely different? Here's all the options we can think of". Letting them lead wherever possible. 

Mark: What I'm hearing is that there's been a lot of benefits from this partnership and working together.

And when I was doing my notes for today's episode, one of the things that really stuck out to me was how the young people in the Data Research Advisory Group helped translate academic work into accessible content.

So I was wondering whether you could tell us a bit more about how this relationship helped to make content more relatable, and what this teaches researchers about effective communication.

Liz: So this is one of my favourite moments, one of the young people in one of the early sessions, I think, turned around and, completely unprompted, said, "See if I'd have known that it was going to be this, I would have come, but see if I had just gone by that flyer that you handed around, I would not have come, and I would have missed all of this. You made it sound so boring."

And I as the comms person, I'm sitting there going, "Oh, dear, I have some work to do", which is when I turned around to her and said, "Okay, do you want to come and teach us how to do that?"  And that was actually the first moment, the spark of what became the internship. The difference that that has made for the way that we approach, how we talk about our research, the way that we put it on our social media, the way that we put it in blogs, everything. I am delighted to admit that I frequently go back to the young person's version of a paper, the young person's guide to co-production, all of the young person's versions of things, and look at the way that they have taken something really complex, and distilled it down into something that makes sense, not just for young people, but for anybody who's not steeped in that language of data.

Brenda: I think, Liz, as well. You saying just you know about that and that leaflet. I think that shows the benefit of working with a partner organisation. Because if that had just been advertised on its own and you didn't have a partner organisation going: "look, ignore that. Come on ahead. We kind of know what it's about. We'll get once we're in the room and we talk about it. Come along to the introductory session. See what you think, and we'll take it from there."

In terms of the the young person's version, and you know that type of language, what's really brilliant - I don't understand the whole world of you know, research and data and all of that - but having the things that they were working on, they had the researcher who had written it, or who was very involved in the project, in the room. 

So you have the case of maybe, if there's a bit of a lack of understanding of what that means. You have Sarah and yourselves are going, "No, no, it's trying to say this", and them going, "Oh, no. Well, then, I wouldn't say it that way. I would say it this way, if that's what you're trying to get across."

As you said, yes, they are young person's versions, but it does just make research and data accessible more to the general public. And people who aren't in that world.

Shayda: Absolutely, and the young person's version of a paper actually inspired the ADR England partnership to develop their own young person's version of a paper this summer with a young intern. So we've really taken the lessons from this wonderful example. This is where speaking to the young people can be truly valuable. 

And, Liz, we definitely heard about how this engagement shaped some of the work that Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland then went on to do. And the broader ADR UK partnership, but Brenda, can you speak a little bit more about how the young people felt when they took part? And what were some like specific examples of particular things that you thought really benefited them in engaging with the researchers in this way?

Brenda: I think two really obvious specific outcomes are the two internships that were provided for two young people over the two summers, and they were just fantastic in giving the young people an insight into working in the field of administrative data research. And that was something that I know definitely, the group is now made up of four young people who have been there from the very first workshop, and haven't missed any of the workshops, and it was something that they would not have thought themselves capable of going into it.

I think something that they have all talked about is not seeing research and data as something that is unattainable. A lot of our young people, they're involved in these type of groups because they want to make care in Northern Ireland better for young people coming into care behind them.

And I think they really see the benefit of this group. They learn about the data that's there, with young people, with social services involvement and how that will have an impact and does have an impact in later life, and they want to be involved in showing that positive trajectory and how that's possible with support and intervention.

A specific example is their involvement and their commitment. They're still all involved two years later. Two of them went on to do an internship.

One is now in university doing psychology, and is really interested in the research, that was something that she didn't see possible for herself when she first went into this group. So there's some really amazing outcomes for them specifically, but also, I think, will have an impact on the care experienced community in Northern Ireland as a whole, because they're involved in this project, and they're involved in shaping the research and the data about their lives and the lives of other young people in care.

Mark: And that's that's really, really good to hear that there's been a very reciprocal relationship that everyone has benefited and everyone's learned from each other.

I have one final question from this kind of segment, and I think it's a really important thing to discuss.

So, working with historically excluded groups often means dealing with difficult subjects. Obviously, in particular in this example, talking about care experiences. But often we could be talking about difficult subjects like mental health.

How do you create a supportive environment that addresses these sensitive topics and treats them respectfully?

Brenda: So what we would do is we meet together initially and talk through the workshop. I would then link in with the young people. Where we haven't said that, you know we we might just due to something that's going on in one of their lives might change a workshop, I will contact them, give them kind of a rough agenda of what's gonna be covered. "Is there anything that you're concerned about, or anything that you want to chat about before we go into the workshop?" And where that's the case, we do that.

The beginning of the workshops. We kind of say, you know, "guys, if you know, you need to step out or you need to take a few minutes, you know. Just give me a nod, and you can do that. I will be out with you and have a chat with you about that."

We kind of then have a bit of a debrief when it's over. We have a bit of a chat and see how everybody is. And again, then we would link in with the young people in between workshops to see, was there anything that come up that they need support with or want to talk through? It can be quite, you know, intensive if there is something that has triggered, or there's something that has come up.

But we value and the young people value outcomes from this work so much that it is important to make sure that we give that time.

Liz: We would not have attempted to work directly with care experienced young people without VOYPIC, and that's one of the biggest reasons, we know that the subject matter of the research can be really sensitive. This is one of those places where this is their lead, and we follow it.

Shayda: Yeah, completely agree. And it's the approach that I take with our researchers as well.

So thank you both so much. This has been a really interesting conversation. And as we're coming to the close now, we'd like to end the podcast by discussing what's the point of all of this? 

And I'm probably a little bit biased, but I think it's clearly been quite inspiring today.

Brenda, you kind of touched on this just now, but if you can summarise in a sentence or two, what piece of advice would you give to researchers who want to co-produce with members of the public?

Brenda: Where possible, partner with an organisation who has that expertise, and can help facilitate that relationship.

Be as open and transparent as you possibly can throughout the process.

Manage expectations.

If it's something that people want to be involved in and want to be part of, they're already in the room you already have them there, bad communication or not keeping people informed, you know, is where you will lose people.

Some learning that we have had is kind of give more time at the beginning of this process for relationship building. Initially, we were meeting quarterly, I think there would be something to be said to have those meetings a bit closer together to really forge that relationship early on.

Mark: And one last question for Liz. It's the same question, really, what do researchers need to consider if they want to co-produce their research in a meaningful way?

Liz: I think actually, the first question that researchers need to ask themselves is why they're doing it. 

And I say that because a lot of funders are asking for public engagement, and there's lots of great ways to do public engagement. 

What we're talking about is a little bit different. But I think that researchers need to ask themselves exactly why they want to do it and make sure that their answer is because they want to learn a different way of understanding the issue that they're researching.

That their motivation is to be inclusive, to share power and ultimately to democratise access to something, data, that tends to be very far removed from people's lives. 

That for me is the most important thing. It's for me the most rewarding thing that I've ever gotten to be a part of, and I'm not even a researcher, but I just think it's great, and everybody should do it.

Shayda: Thanks both. And on that note that's everything from today's episode.

Thank you to our guests, Brenda and Liz, and thank you for listening.

Mark: So Shayda, do you want to tell our listeners what's in store for next episode? 

Shayda: The next episode is about data ethics, so we'll be expanding a bit on what we spoke today around the ethics of involving people in research, but also how to use data ethically in a legal sense as well, so the many faces of ethics.

Mark: Until next time, stay curious about how your administrative data might shape society.