Why and how to embed coproduction in your organisation

Mark Fabian, William Fleming and Nancy Hawthorn

Abstract

Coproduction is gaining traction across the UK’s third and public sectors. However, while many organisations aspire to coproduce, fewer succeed in embedding it into everyday practice. This report draws on interviews with 34 coproduction practitioners, alongside academic literature and the authors’ own experience coproducing. The aim is a practical guide for those seeking to make coproduction a structure in their organisation: what coproduction is, why it matters, and how to do it. Our audience is principally practitioners within organisations, but we hope experts by experience can also use it to advocate for their own involvement. Coproduction is the most substantive form of involvement, underpinned by meaningful power-sharing. Coproduction refers to a wide range of participatory activities, across any stage of service, policy, or product development, where practitioners, technical specialists, and lived experience experts (LEX) work together to produce value. Crucially, it requires that those affected by decisions have real authority in shaping them.