If you want to be part of that change, we'd love you to join us for Learning for Change Cohort 2.
Running from December 2026 to May 2027, the Learning for Change programme will bring together up to 40 participants from research, community and VCFSE sectors across Greater Manchester. Participants will take part in six face-to-face workshops, collaborative mentoring, a WhatsApp learning community, micro-challenges and reflective learning activities.
Whether you are a researcher looking to strengthen community partnerships, a VCFSE organisation interested in influencing research, or a community member with lived experience who wants to help shape change, this programme offers an opportunity to learn alongside others who share a commitment to more inclusive and equitable research.
Applications are now open and close on 15 November 2026.
What is the Learning for Change Programme?
The Learning for Change Programme was first delivered back in 2025, in partnership with the Greater Manchester Research Engagement Network (GM REN), the programme was designed to support the implementation of the Greater Manchester Respectful Research Charter and explore what respectful, community-centred research looks like in practice.
What we discovered was both simple and profound: meaningful change doesn't happen through training alone. It happens through relationships.
Moving Beyond Participation Towards Partnership
Too often, communities are invited into research after the important decisions have already been made. Research questions are defined, funding has been secured and communities are asked to participate rather than shape what happens.
Learning for Change set out to challenge that.
Bringing together researchers, VCFSE organisations and community members, the programme created opportunities to explore power, trust, inclusion, accessibility and community leadership. More importantly, it created the conditions for honest conversations about how research is experienced from different perspectives.
Participants consistently told us that the programme helped them rethink traditional approaches to research and engagement. Many left with a stronger appreciation of the expertise that exists within communities and a greater understanding of the importance of shared decision-making and power sharing.
The Biggest Learning? Trust Comes First
One of the strongest messages from the programme was that trust cannot be rushed.
Participants reflected on previous experiences of research that had felt transactional or extractive. In contrast, Learning for Change prioritised relationship-building, psychological safety and creating spaces where different forms of expertise were recognised and valued equally.
When trust grew, conversations became more open. When conversations became more open, participants felt able to discuss difficult topics such as power, ethics and inclusion. And when those discussions happened honestly, stronger partnerships began to emerge.
This may sound obvious, but in systems often driven by deadlines, outputs and funding cycles, creating time for relationships can feel like a radical act.
The Spaces Between Matter
Perhaps our most significant insight was that much of the learning happened outside the workshops.
Through collaborative mentoring, WhatsApp conversations, reflective activities and informal connections, participants continued to learn from each other between sessions. These "spaces between" became just as valuable as the formal learning programme itself.
The collaborative mentoring model, in particular, challenged traditional ideas of who teaches and who learns. Researchers and community members were paired as equals, sharing knowledge, experience and perspectives in a reciprocal relationship. Participants reported increased confidence, broader perspectives and stronger cross-sector understanding as a result.
From Learning to Action
The impact of the programme wasn't limited to reflection. Participants developed practical tools to support respectful research, including resources focused on shared decision-making, accessibility, communication, ethical practice and power-aware partnerships.
Many participants also reported changes in how they approach engagement, partnership working and research design. There was a noticeable shift away from viewing accessibility as simply providing information in different formats towards understanding it as an ongoing commitment to responsiveness, trust-building and creating welcoming environments.
Others spoke about a renewed commitment to ensuring research creates genuine benefit for communities, recognising that successful research should be a reciprocal process rather than something that extracts knowledge for academic gain alone.
Perhaps most encouragingly, many participants wanted to stay connected beyond the programme, seeing the relationships and network created as one of its most valuable legacies.
The success of the first cohort has directly shaped the design of Learning for Change Cohort 2.
We've listened carefully to what participants told us. Cohort 2 will place an even greater emphasis on face-to-face learning, relationship building, collaborative mentoring and practical action. The programme has been redesigned to create more opportunities for connection while continuing to support participants to embed the principles of the GM Respectful Research Charter into their everyday work.
Together, we can continue building a research culture across Greater Manchester that is respectful, inclusive, community-led and genuinely focused on creating positive change.
Find out more and apply via GM REN.
Claire Haigh,