Through our evaluation of Energise Manchester, a pilot action research project funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, we have seen how working with trusted community networks empowers residents, builds trust, and makes energy-saving advice and practical improvements accessible to all.

Shortwork partnered with Camden Council to improve community engagement for street upgrades. Over 170 Camden residents engaged in community research sessions to co-design practical recommendations to build trust, improve accessibility, and boost participation.

Discover how our multi-year evaluation of the Heritage Lottery-funded Beverley Road THS captured the impact of an ambitious £1.6 million project to restore buildings, enhance public spaces, and celebrate community heritage in Hull.

Shortwork worked with Petworth House and the National Trust to engage 676 local participants through participatory action research, providing insights to shape more inclusive and meaningful audience engagement and programming.

Through our evaluation of Singing Mamas at Home, we’ve seen how singing on prescription can boost mothers’ confidence, wellbeing, and sense of connection, while providing an accessible tool for healthcare staff and women in the early weeks and months of motherhood.

Shortwork collaborated with the Design Council to design an overarching impact framework and toolkit, consolidating monitoring and evaluation across the organisation. The framework supports reflection, learning, and evidence-based decision-making while enabling flexibility for project-specific evaluation.

Discover how a pioneering Participatory Action Research project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, empowered community researchers to collaborate with Dulwich Picture Gallery. Together, they explored innovative ways to reinterpret Old Master paintings, making them resonate with South London’s diverse communities.

Through our work with the Memory Mapper team, we supported academics at UCL to make plans for the platform to become both economically self-sustaining and more open, accessible, and relevant to everyone who wants to tell stories of place

Through our work with the Design Council and Network Rail, we’ve seen how reflection, collaboration, and design-led learning can equip engineers and project managers to create a more inclusive, sustainable, and passenger-focused railway.

We worked with the British Council and the Internationalism Alliance to explore how international learning and exchange can expand opportunities, skills, and cultural awareness for young people and communities across the UK.

We worked with the British Red Cross and a group of refugee women across the UK to explore barriers to accessing information, rights and services. Trained as peer researchers, they engaged 48 participants from 23 countries, revealing the challenges of navigating complex systems — and co-designing solutions to build more inclusive, accessible support for refugee women nationwide.

We worked with the NHS in North Central London to put women and families at the heart of maternity service improvement. Training 15 local mothers as community researchers, we used participatory action research to gather the experiences of 179 parents across five boroughs. The findings informed key recommendations on access, continuity, and choice - and led to the co-creation of a people-centred training module for staff and new research addressing poor outcomes for Black women.