Standards of co-creation relate to participatory action research (PAR), which is an approach that brings together researchers (in this case, your feedback loop team) and members of the community (who are viewed as experts in their own experiences). The goal is to understand a problem or situation and find solutions to improve it. It uses a variety of methods, quantitative and qualitative, and has a number of definitions, but there are common elements:
- PAR puts a premium on local knowledge, compared to what the experts think. It is context-specific, concerning a certain community or group of people.
- It is often focused on social change, leveraging the practical wisdom of the community to address some inequality and promote democratic inclusion and pluralism.
- It is iterative, working in a cycle of research, action and reflection.
- Finally, there is an element of empowering or “liberating” the participants and community to take action, either due to a greater awareness of their situation or something else.
Note that PAR is a developing field of social science research and thus is deployed by scholars, academics and researchers in various contexts and situations far different from the relationship between a local authority and residents focused on here. However, its approaches and call to inclusion and action echo the goals of this feedback loop process, and its existence as a method of social research bears mentioning. Many of its approaches will mirror the interview, focus group and survey methodologies discussed in greater detail in Step 4.