About this Session
The launch of the ISRAAC Research and Innovation Hub within a community setting in March 2026 was a major breakthrough for ISRAAC Somali Community Association based in Sheffield, as well as for the academic institutions and other organisations engaged in local research initiatives. It enabled ISRAAC to proactively play a leading role in research programmes taking place in Sheffield and beyond, and to play a vital role in contributing and connecting community knowledge and lived experience whilst working directly with relevant academia, professionals and practitioners. In this Research Room, Community Research Hubs, we’ll speak to the team who set up this inspiring space for collaboration.
The ISRAAC Research and Innovation Hub aims to support and help reveal the root causes and barriers to research participation and encourage engagement as well as inform understanding of the local needs so that, collaboratively with relevant stakeholders, we can all design and improve projects and programmes to catalyse change and have a tangible impact within underserved communities.
Areas of Exploration
Themes we will explore in this session include:
- The shift towards co-produced research, where community organisations are recognised as equal partners rather than mere subjects of study, leveraging lived experience to enhance academic and professional insights.
- Research and innovation in a community setting – often called engaged research or co-production – collaborating directly with local people and organisations to identify challenges and co-design solutions.
- The role such approaches can play in democratising knowledge and shifting power so that communities share ownership over research and its outcomes.
You might like to have a look at the ISRAAC website before you join the session. However, this is entirely optional. Do also feel free to just turn up and find out more.
Click on this link to register for your free place.
About Research Rooms
The Research Rooms series is a collaboration between national charity The Glass-House Community Led Design and The Open University’s Design Group. These events share learning, resources and anecdotes from the many research projects we have done together. In some sessions, we also invite others to co-host and share findings from their own projects, creating space for them to reach new audiences.
Research Rooms are informal online spaces for discussion with members of the research team from academia, practice and communities. Those attending can learn about the projects, their outputs and outcomes and the influence they have had on those involved. There is also space to share your own experience and explorations of the project themes.
More about the ISRAAC Research & Innovation Hub
The ISRAAC Research & Innovation Hub supports partnership working between the ISRAAC Somali Community Association, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield City Council – Public Health, NHS, Wolverhampton University, and Leeds Beckett University and a myriad of local people, groups and organisations.
Through a diverse range of research initiatives, it helps activate and support engaged research around a range of themes such as health literacy, mental health, dementia, cancer and other health conditions disproportionately affecting BME communities, Post‑Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and FGM.
About Our Co-hosts
ISRAAC Somali Community Association was established in 1981 by a group of Somali seamen, at that time working in the steel industry, and their families. The aim was to assist the Somali community in gaining access to a wide range of services in local society. Since then, they have widened our work and services to support and welcome all local communities in a deprived part of Sheffield and become a registered charity. They are based in the Sharrow area of Sheffield, on the border of Broomhall.
ISRAAC’s work enables people and communities to make social connections, develop social cohesion, find educational opportunities, promote their own wellbeing, gain support for housing and legal issues, develop social enterprises and empower themselves. As part of their aspiration to provide enabling opportunities to the community, they are also an enterprise hub. They host a high quality catering service as well as the Diaspora Multimedia Hub and offer a venue where local businesses and entrepreneurs can be based and develop.
For this Research Room, we will be joined by co-hosts Adam Yusuf and Prof Geoff Green (ISRAAC Trustees) and Abdirisak Egeh (ISRAAC Research Lead).