Creative Practices & Coproduction; a Special Issue for 'Evidence & Policy' - Lab4Living, Design for Health & Wellbeing, Sheffield Hallam University

In 2019, Policy Press journal ‘Evidence & Policy‘ called for special issue proposals. Evidence & Policy is an interdisciplinary journal exploring the relationship between researchers and the evidence they produce and the concerns of policy makers and practitioners in areas that include health and social care. A team led by Research Fellow Joe Langley responded to this with a Special Issue titled Creativity & Coproduction.

The creative design practices used in co-design, and the role these play in sharing, synthesising and mobilising knowledge, have been a significant strand of Lab4Living activity, led by Joe Langley, over the past decade. Co-design has been employed within health research to support and enable better translation of research evidence into practice and policy.

Through this co-design work, Joe had established a critical mass of colleagues from around the world with this shared interest, equally driven to continue to challenge, extend and grow the field. Joe convened a small group of interested researchers and describes below how they approached guest editing a special issue.