Hi everyone - hope you have had a good summer and managed to get a break and some down time.

We are really excited to be starting our autumn series of co-design community meet-ups. Our first autumn session is on 14th September at 1.30pm with the following theme for our talk:

Reflections on the co-design process within Defra for its Environmental Land Management Scheme (E.L.M.) - presented by Ruth Little, Jess Lyon and Veronica White, from Sheffield University.

The talk will focus on three things:

(i) the benefits and risks of conducting co-design in an active and complex policy environment

(ii) methods of strategically adapting and reviewing the co-design process in response to challenges and participant feedback

(iii) engaging 'harder to reach' communities in co-design, policy development and policy engagement.

After the talk there will be time for discussion, and we also plan to spend the final few minutes of the meet-up discussing future themes, format of group and how we keep in touch between meet-ups.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Neville Cavendish

Head of Co-design, Defra Future Farming and Countryside Programme

Twitter: @nevccavendish

About our presenters:

Ruth Little is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield and leads an ESRC research project on Agri-Environmental Governance Post-Brexit: Co-production of Policy Frameworks

Jess Lyon is a Research Associate at University of Sheffield and works with Ruth Little in the ESRC research project as well as working with Defra's Test and Trials team to provide analytical and strategic support for their co-design activities,

Veronica White is a Research Assistant at the University of Sheffield. She has experience in social science and science communication.

About our community

This co-design community is for anyone who has an interest or experience in co-design. Currently it is mostly people from central or local government, third sector, academia and industry but anyone is welcome. It is an informal group, currently facilitated by Defra, that aims to being together like-minded people to share experience and lessons in co-design.

Co-design community meet-up