Skip to main content
Hayley Trowbridge

Dr Hayley Trowbridge

(she/her)

Cardiff Research Fellow

Overview

Hayley is a creative and participatory methods researcher in SPARK, specialising in approaches to co-production, lived experience storytelling, future-thinking and system change. She has a keen commitment to social justice, demonstrated by her career in the third sector and her research portfolio.

Hayley's work with communities to effect positive social change, began as a Volunteer at a media training centre for adults with learning disabilities in her hometown of Wigan in 2006. Since then, she has worked with people, groups and organisations across the UK and Europe to dismantle hierarchies and find more equitable ways of working in research, policy and services. This has included designing and delivering co-production activities in public services, rethinking local democracy with citizens in Europe and investigating social innovation from the perspectives of beneficiaries. More recently, Hayley has worked with the SPARK team to establish Cathays Futures. This programme of work situates itself across the research and civic mission domains, and uses design as a tool for local knowledge mobilisation between the SPARK and Cathays communities. 

Whilst working at SPARK, Hayley has co-founded the Creative and Innovative Research Methods Community of Practice - a Cardiff-wide community of researchers and practitioners who use creative approaches in their work. She also established and continues to run the Method Magpie programme that delivers short taster sessions on creative and participatory research methods. Working with the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences, Hayley has devised a Futures in Research module for postgraduate students in the social sciences, orientating them in how future-thinking can be used in research and policy influencing.

Outside of SPARK, Hayley is the CEO of People’s Voice Media – a social enterprise that works across Europe, using lived experience storytelling approaches in research activities, policy-making, service development, and decision-making processes. Hayley is passionate about supporting individuals and groups to have a voice on the issues that are pertinent to them, equipping people with the skills to use their lived and tacit experience to catalyse change, and facilitating spaces and processes that widen participation and diversity in research and decision-making. 

Publication

2024

2022

2021

2020

2019

2015

2013

2012

2011

Articles

Book sections

Research

Research Interests
  • Lived experience
  • Co-production
  • Future Studies 
  • Social innovation
  • Participatory, collaborative and creative research methods
  • Public services
  • System change and system leadership 
 
(Recent and Current) Seminars, Events and Groups
  • Creative and Innovative Research Methods Community of Practice (CoP) (June 2024 - Present Day): Co-convenor and founding member of a CoP that brings together including academic researchers, postgraduate students, third-sector professionals, public sector workers, and social entrepreneurs from Cardiff who are workign with creative and innovative research methods. We convene 4 in-person meetings per year. 
  • Collaborative and Participatory Methodological Special Interest Group, NCRM (Jan 2022 - Present Day): Group member of a community of social researchers from across the UK who are interested in, or carry out, research using collaborative approaches, participatory methods or a co-design approach. I support the delivery of the Critical Conversations series (2023, 2024). 
  • Futures in Research Seminar (November 2024): Organiser a half-day internal seminar in Cardiff University showcasing the use of future-thinking in research and policy development. Speakers included: Professor Laura McAllister, Professor Chris Taylor, Dr Dylan Henderson and Professor Calvin Jones. 
  • From the Margins to the Mainstream: Storytelling as a method for change in health, care and wellbeing services in Wales – A 1-Day Sandpit (July 2024): Co-organiser of WIN funded event with colleagues from Wrexham and Swansea universities that brought together academics, creatives, experts by experience, public health workers and third sector professionals to examine how storytelling is being used in health, care and wellbeing services in Wales.
  • Community Reporting Hackathon: The 6th Annual Community Reporter conference (May 2024): A NCRM Innovation Fora funded event that examined how Community Reporting and other methods of lived-experience storytelling can be made more inclusive and equitable. The event brought together academics, experts by experience, public and third sector professionals from across the UK. A summary video can be viewed here.
Research Projects

(Selected) Conference Papers and Sessions

  • Cathays Futures: Innovating approaches to knowledge mobilisation and co-production, Workshop delivered at MethodsCon, 2024.
  • Changing the world, one story at a time: An introduction to Community Reporting, Workshop delivered at Engage Conference, 2024.
  • Exploring the dynamics of change in local civil society: A case study of Camerados’ Public Living Rooms, Paper presented at Voluntary Sector and Volunteering Research Conference, 2023.
  • Rethinking democracy: Stories as a tool for future-thinking, Paper presented at 10th International Digital Storytelling conference, 2022.
  • Humanising the system – Using the knowledge of lived experience to co-create public services, Paper presented at Co-VAL & 30 RESER International Conference, 2021.
  • Changing the world, one story at a time: A methodological approach to curating stories of lived experience, Paper presented at 9th International Digital Storytelling conference, 2021. 
  • Working with the knowledge of lived experience: A participatory exploration of Community Reporting and Conversations of Change, Paper presented International Visual Methods Conference, 2019.
  • All Together Now: Female filmmakers and collaborative distribution in American independent cinema, Paper presented at Independent Film and Women Symposium, LJMU, 2015.
  • Brave New Films, Brave New Ways: An examination of online and offline grassroots media distribution, Paper presented at British Association of American Studies, International Conference, 2012.
  • The impact of media convergence on the distribution of American independent cinema: A case study of The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Anderson) and Hotel Chevalier (2007, Anderson), Paper presented at New Directions in the Study of American Independent Cinema symposium, University of Liverpool, 2011.
  • Blending, Mashing and Participating: A Study of Fox Atomic’s Marketing Strategies, Paper presented at British Association of American Studies International Conference, 2011.

 

Teaching

I do not currently teach any modules. I convene workshops and training as part of my role in SPARK, focusing on creative, participatory and co-productive methods in research. 

Method Magpie Programme (May 2023 - Present Day)

The Method Magpie programme explores an eclectic mix of creative, collaborative and participatory research approaches that can be used in formal and informal research processes. I established the pilot programme in May 2023 and have subsequently run two programmes per year, collaborating with a range of researchers and practitioners to deliver sessions on a range of methods including:
  • Ripple Effect Mapping
  • Dialogue Interviews
  • Most Significant Change
  • Three Horizons
  • Serious Play
  • Participatory Mapping
  • Creative approaches to data analysis
  • Storyboarding 
  • Photography 
Each session is 90-minutes and is a mixture of a short conceptual/theoretical presentations on the methods, practical ‘taster’ activities, reflections/group discussions, case studies and signposting to relevant reading/further learning. 
 
Futures in Research (November 2024)

Future Studies as a research field explores possible, probable, and preferable futures. It encompasses various techniques and methodologies to support people to think about the future, often referred to as foresight techniques.

This module introduced postgraduate students from the Welsh Graduate School of Social Sciences to the key concept and techniques in Future Studies. Over 2-Day attendees explored how future-thinking could be and is being used in research and policy, took part in taster activities of different foresight techniques and completed a group-task to design a research activity that incorporated future-thinking. 

I am currently reworking this module into an online, asynchronous learning option for postgraduate students across Wales. 

 

Biography

Education
  • 2015: PhD (Media and Communications, American Independent Cinema), University of Liverpool, UK
  • 2012: Certificate to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, UCLAN, UK.
  • 2008: BA Hons Screen Studies (1st Class Honours), LJMU, UK. 
Career Overview 
  • 2019: Present Day, CEO, People’s Voice Media.
  • 2015 - 2019, Project Manager, People's Voice Media.
  • 2015 – 2023: Consultant, Freelance.
  • 2013 – 2019: Executive Director, wehearttech CIC.
  • 2013 – 2015: Project Worker, Splendid Things.
  • 2013: Sessional Lecturer, LJMU.
  • 2012: Sessional Lecturer, The University of Liverpool.
  • 2008 – 2011: Project Worker, Soap Box Films.
  • 2008 – 2010: Lecturer, Hugh Baird College.

 

Contact Details

Email TrowbridgeH@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29225 10121
Campuses sbarc|spark, Room 03.14, Maindy Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Co-production
  • Lived Experience
  • Social Innovation
  • System Change
  • Futures