University of Brighton and The Trust for Developing Communities Limited KTP 23_24 R6

A new partnership between the University of Brighton and a community development trust will build a paid, professional research team drawn from people who are typically shut out of public consultations and policy decisions. Most organisations that make decisions about housing, health, or local services lack reliable ways to hear from the people most affected by those decisions. Traditional surveys and focus groups often miss or misrepresent the views of excluded communities—people who are homeless, recent migrants, or those with limited English or digital access. This project treats that gap as a problem of research infrastructure, not just goodwill. It will develop a commercial "community research function": a trained, paid team of community members who design studies, collect data, and produce actionable recommendations for public bodies and charities. If it works, this model could change how local authorities and the NHS gather intelligence on hard-to-reach populations. Instead of relying on second-hand reports from frontline staff, decision-makers would receive direct, systematic insights from the communities themselves. The project is applied from the start—its goal is a self-sustaining service that generates income while improving the quality and legitimacy of public consultation.