What is co-production?

Co-production in WISHES is based on a simple principle: disabled people should be involved in shaping research about disabled people’s working lives.

Our Co-production Leadership Team (CLT) works alongside researchers throughout the project, contributing insights, shaping decisions and challenging assumptions. This is how we ensure the research is useful, accessible, and grounded in real experiences.

Together, we are exploring how job crafting could improve work, health, and wellbeing for disabled employees, as well as for other groups facing disadvantage in the workplace.

Here are just some of the contributions of the CLT to the WISHES project:

• Creating accessible and inclusive job crafting workshops
• Identifying the outcomes that matter most from the trial
• Sharing our learning with disabled people and their organisations

About the co-production leadership team

The CLT brings together disabled people with lived experience, research, policy, and advocacy expertise.

It includes two groups:

Lived experience group (LEG)

People with experience of disability in work, or in seeking work, share insight into the realities of employment, health, workplace barriers, and support needs.

The LEG includes people from a wide range of backgrounds, health conditions, and impairments, involving people who are often underrepresented in research.

Disability research and policy group (DRPG)

Disabled researchers, policy specialists, and leaders from Disabled People’s Organisations contribute strategic and research expertise to the project.

The DRPG includes people from Inclusion Scotland, Speakup, Disability Rights UK, and Breakthrough Manchester, as well as independent research and policy experts with lived experience.

Co-production with employers

We work directly with our employer partners to ensure that job crafting works for their workforce and organisation. Find out more about becoming a partner employer for WISHES.

Why co-production matters

Too often, research and interventions around disability, health and work have been designed without meaningful involvement from disabled people themselves. 

Disabled people are much more likely to be excluded from the world of work. And they often experience inequality within the workplace.  We must do better to improve employment opportunities and outcomes.

Drawing on the social model of disability and the principle of Nothing About Us Without Us, we aim to centre disabled people’s knowledge and expertise about what works in employment.

Co-production is not easy. It takes time to get to know each other, to find out how to work together and to learn the best ways to share knowledge and expertise.  It is important to have enough time, and resources, to work in partnership together. 

We aim to share our learning about what works in co-producing Work and Health research with disabled people, their organisations and academics in the field of work and health.