Building council-wide engagement around research

It is important to establish a baseline of how research is used and to understand training needs, as an early step towards becoming more research active. Between 28 April – 4 July 2025, HDRC Sandwell was able to engage with and support 617 colleagues to complete a baseline survey. The survey will complement insights from interviews with senior leaders to create a rich picture of the research capacity and culture in the council. The findings will inform the development of an internal research skills training programme, amongst other aspects of HDRC Sandwell’s work. 

Developmental work for the survey started in August 2024 across the 4 HDRC programme workstreams. It was designed to take 10-20 minutes to complete and included questions on: 

• Training – what training colleagues needed and in what format it should be delivered

• Research culture – questions around how colleagues currently used research in their roles

• Information sharing – where this currently takes place and any barriers

• Partnership – any research that had already taken place with partners

Through meeting with other HDRCs and attending subgroup meetings, HDRC Sandwell recognised that the engagement of council colleagues in baseline surveys had been found challenging. Therefore, a multifaceted approach was developed. The team produced an online survey and worked with the Corporate Communications team to publicise it, including mentioning it in weekly colleague bulletins, Chief Executive updates and on the council’s intranet.  

Additional to this, the team created ‘Survey Samosa events’ giving out free samosas and fruit to motivate colleagues to complete the survey. Initially, these were held in council buildings at lunchtimes on Wednesdays, but were also extended to Tuesdays and Thursdays as these days were identified as having the highest colleague footfall. To increase the engagement and success of the events, the HDRC Sandwell team walked around the building on the morning of the events, handing out paper surveys to colleagues so they could be completed and exchanged for samosas and fruit at lunchtime. This prompted a much better response and colleagues were enthusiastic about the offer of a free samosa! 

The team also held an event with colleagues at one of the council’s residential care homes, to capture intelligence from a range of areas within Sandwell MBC’s workforce. Originally the team had planned to collect the majority of responses at the events on tablets, with paper surveys for colleagues in departments which did not readily utilise computers; however, as learning increased throughout the process, the team found that they achieved the highest number of survey completions from using paper surveys. The key was to capture responses in the moment, and paper surveys were the most successful tool in achieving this. 

After approximately 6 weeks the engagement numbers at the ‘Survey Samosa’ events began to fall; as many colleagues had already completed the survey.  However, there was a third strand to the teams multifaceted approach - attending team meetings to carry out the survey with whole teams. Although planned at the start of the dissemination process, securing team meeting slots required up to 3 months lead-in time. The team presented the HDRC Sandwell initiative at Departmental Managers Team (DMT) meetings with executives, to secure slots at Senior Managers Team (SMT) meetings. At SMT meetings the initiative was presented to team managers within departments to secure slots at their individual team meetings, to carry out the survey with colleagues on the online platform. 

The team initially produced a presentation to accompany the survey completion at these meetings; however, it was quickly realised there was not enough time in the allocated slots to carry out both. Instead it was decided to opt for a brief verbal introduction to the survey and spend the majority of the time supporting colleagues with any questions they had as they completed it individually. 

The team found that a slot on the agenda at the beginning of team meetings worked best to ensure completion, or they could run out of time if previous agenda items ran over. With the lead-in time for securing slots at team meetings being potentially up to 3 months, and the survey duration being 10 weeks; the team were running out of time to attend all the different team meetings, as some were scheduled outside the survey dissemination window. As an innovative alternative the team requested stand-alone 30 minutes ‘Teams’ meeting slots instead, solely for completing the survey.  

The HDRC Sandwell team attended approximately 40 DMT, SMT and team meetings to deliver presentations and carry out the survey with council-wide teams. Additional to collecting valuable data, the survey engagement process also greatly increased the awareness of the HDRC Sandwell across the council; and the support now on offer.  

Taking the time to design a multifaceted approach, collecting responses in a variety of ways and being reactive to weekly survey completion rates has been a big undertaking from the HDRC Sandwell team, and demonstrates the amount of effort needed to build good engagement across a local authority.  

Next Steps 

Quantitative and qualitative data from the survey is now being analysed. The findings will be used to create a council-wide research skills training programme, and the team are also engaging with directorates around bespoke departmental research skills training. Additionally, there is a plan to develop training on topics such as utilising research in bid writing, commissioning and strategy development; as well as research skills training for councillors and the local voluntary sector in the future. 

Within the parallel culture workstream, the responses from questions that focused on the council’s current culture and understanding of research and evidence-informed practice will be used to shape initiatives to support cultural change towards the use of research in the council’s activity. These will include ‘Evidence in Practice’ support sessions; the creation of an internal research champions programme; and support in applying research as part of everyday practice. 

Lessons Learned  

1. Build relationships and engage in person – it was essential for the HDRC team to make personal connections with colleagues at events and meetings to encourage them to complete the survey. Taking time to speak to operational heads, managers and business managers was also vital in ensuring they could have time in meetings to talk about research. 

1. Be proactive - The team immediately followed up senior team meetings with emails to secure slots in delivery team meetings. Additional to this they forged relationships with meeting organisers to request slots at the start of meetings to help ensure adequate time for survey completion.  They promoted the Survey Samosa events using all available communication channels before they happened and spoke to colleagues about the survey in every interaction, even when passing in the lifts! 

2. Monitor response rates and adapt your approach - Throughout the engagement period, the team collected weekly reports on responses, and which departments had completed the survey. They were then able to respond quickly to target teams that were underrepresented. They also found that paper surveys worked much better than a tablet, so adapted their approach to use these to collect data; as colleagues could fill them in before the events and then exchange them for food. It was important to capture intelligence from colleagues ‘in the moment’ they were engaged. However, this meant that the team had to allocate additional time to input the data onto the online platform.  

3. Sell the benefits – Whilst attending a number of meetings to secure slots to complete the survey, the HDRC team highlighted the benefits of utilising research in decision making and processes at all levels – for the organisation, departments and individual colleagues, as well as local residents. 

The team identified that research would enable colleagues to work more effectively with limited time and resources. They also highlighted the professional development opportunities offered by the HDRC, and that completing the survey would help to create bespoke learning and development for council colleagues.  

This learning story was prepared with support from NIHR RSS Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by Newcastle University and Partners. With thanks to HDRC Sandwell for providing the content.