Born in Bradford Centre for Social Change at York

The Centre aims to work in partnership with young people, parents and community organisations to shape research from the outset. Current projects reflect this approach in different ways, co-producing survey items for the Age of Wonder study through workshops with youth apprentices, working with an Experts as Evidence panel of parents receiving social security to co-produce research on child wellbeing and co-designing an Inclusive Evidencing Framework with learning-disabled young people. Community consultation workshops are also being used to co-develop approaches to youth gambling harm reduction. This way of working extends to established specialist community partners, and to a co-learning model developed with Born in Bradford, using approaches such as zine-making to build shared co-production skills among researchers, BiB staff and the community.

Supported by The York Policy Engine, the Centre aims to enhance the mobilisation of evidence developed through the UoY-BiB research partnership to inform policy and practice at national, regional and local levels. 

The Centre’s strategy for policy engagement is underpinned by existing collaborations and focuses on creating impact at local, regional, and national levels. These include building on: 

1. local engagement with Bradford, including the Health Determinants Research Collaboration to co-produce evidence with partners on what works to improve public health, by leveraging staff access to specialist advice within the UoY/BiB partnership, and supporting skills-building in the routine use of evidence in policy.
2. regional connections with the West Yorkshire Scientific Advisory Group to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WYHCP).
3. national engagement through robust collaboration with Health Equity North and the APPG Child of the North where the Centre will work with partners to share evidence in national policy spaces about creating fairer futures for children and families in the North.

The Centre supports novel projects that drive the development of the inter-disciplinary expertise needed to address complex social issues and social change. Funded projects already reflect this range, spanning computer science, environmental science, music, psychology and education. This includes a research team in the Department of Computer Science building a working "research assistant" prototype that uses a fine-tuned large language model to help researchers navigate the Born in Bradford data ecosystem. Other funded projects are using sensor data to explore indoor environmental health risks, embedding DJing into school music curricula to support wellbeing, and applying advanced statistical modelling to understand adolescent loneliness. Together, these projects show the breadth of expertise the Centre is bringing together to address complex social challenges.