UIC designs and delivers participatory research and evaluation that centres lived experience and produces credible evidence for decision-makers.
Community-led
Evidence produced with communities, not extracted from them. Built to stand up to institutional scrutiny.
Logos identify organisations Urban Insight Collective has worked with or alongside. They do not imply endorsement.
Every one of these is available from a dozen consultancies. What differs is who is in the room when the questions get set, and who is still there when the findings get written.
Research where the people it concerns are asking the questions. We recruit, train and supervise researchers from the community, and they stay in the work through analysis, not only data collection.
Learn moreIndependent evaluation that reports what did not work as plainly as what did. We assess where decisions actually sat, rather than where the terms of reference said they would.
Learn moreWe build the instruments that get past the official version of how a programme works, and we run the sessions where partners have to agree what the evidence means, including the ones where they disagree.
Learn moreLarge, scattered bodies of evidence brought into one usable picture, then the maps, briefs and interactive tools that let people explore it for themselves.
Learn moreWe train people to run enquiry in their own communities, to a standard that holds up outside them. Organisations keep the skills, the tools and the supervision model after we leave.
Learn moreTrust is usually described and almost never measured. We report it as something a programme board can compare over time, act on, and be held to.
Learn moreCommunity without evidence is anecdote. Evidence without community is extraction. Community, Inclusion, Trust and Evidence are not values chosen to sit on a wall. They are the structure the work is built from. Remove one and the rest will not hold.
Research that belongs to the people it is about.
We recruit, train and supervise researchers from the communities a study concerns, and they stay in the work through analysis. Findings go back to those communities first, not once a funder has signed them off.
Designed so that nobody is edited out.
Data is disaggregated far enough to show who is actually being missed, and methods are built for the people standard sampling routinely loses. Intersecting identities are the starting point, not a caveat at the end.
Earned slowly, and never assumed.
We are open about who commissioned the work, what it can change and what it cannot. Where an institution has damaged a relationship, the report says so. Evidence that flatters the commissioner is worth nothing to the people it describes.
Rigour that holds up in the room where decisions get made.
Mixed-method design, triangulated sources and a clear audit trail from fieldwork to finding. Community-led and academically credible are not competing commitments. The first is what makes the second true.
To cite is to name your source and give it credit. Research forgets to do that more often than it should.
This structure was built, not inherited.
Research that belongs to the people it is about.
We recruit, train and supervise researchers from the communities a study concerns, and they stay in the work through analysis. Findings go back to those communities first, not once a funder has signed them off.
To cite is to name your source and give it credit. Research forgets to do that more often than it should.
This structure was built, not inherited.
Urban Insight Collective was built in Brixton, where community knowledge has been produced without permission and almost always without funding since 1948. We work from the boroughs the evidence is about, not from a desk somewhere it is read.
Why Brixton mattersThe people closest to the problem were never short of insight. They were short of a budget line.
Two live programmes. Both are about who holds the decision, not only who receives the service.
17 years
The gap in healthy life expectancy between Tulse Hill and Herne Hill and Dulwich Park.
They are less than a mile apart.
Impact on Urban Health
Maternal deaths, risk relative to White women. Risk relative to White women. White: 1.0. Asian: 1.3. Black: 2.3. Source: MBRRACE-UK, Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care 2025, UK data 2021 to 2023.
MBRRACE-UK, Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care 2025, UK data 2021 to 2023
Maternal deaths per 100,000 giving birth, by deprivation. Deaths per 100,000 giving birth. Most deprived areas: 19.27. Least deprived areas: 10.25. Source: MBRRACE-UK, Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care 2025, UK data 2021 to 2023.
MBRRACE-UK, Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care 2025, UK data 2021 to 2023
Community researchers from the communities concerned are carrying out the fieldwork. They are recruited, trained and supervised as part of the delivery team.
A governance evaluation of how decisions are really made across a multi-partner health programme. Who sets the agenda, who can escalate, and who is simply told afterwards.
Anyone can run a focus group. What makes findings usable is the structure you assess them against, and we build ours.
Trust is usually described and almost never measured. We built a way to report it that a programme board can read, compare over time, and act on.
02Four tests applied to a decision-making structure. How authority is distributed, who is accountable for it, how visible the decision is, and whether the structure is able to change.
03Recruitment, training, supervision and quality assurance for researchers drawn from the communities a study concerns. Delivery roles, not participation.
04We use computational methods to handle volume. Community researchers decide what the data means.
Community-led and academically credible are not competing commitments. The first is what makes the second true.
From local NHS trusts to national funders, we partner with organisations committed to equity and learning.
Community researchers from the communities concerned are carrying out fieldwork on maternity experience. They are recruited, trained and supervised as part of the delivery team.
A governance evaluation of how decisions are really made across a multi-partner health programme. Who sets the agenda, who can escalate, and who is simply told afterwards.
A study of health scepticism in Brixton that treats it as a measure of how well healthcare works, rather than as a flaw in the people expressing it.
Funded by the King's Together scheme, King's College London
A think tank of young people from Brixton, trained in community research techniques and supported to work as researchers on questions they set themselves.
Evaluation of community mental health provision in North West London.
In-depth perspectives on community research, evaluation practice, and building equitable systems.
Why community distrust is valuable data, not a problem to solve, and how institutions can learn to listen.
Why community researchers are essential infrastructure, not short-term engagement tools.
Moving trauma-informed research away from box-ticking and towards relational, accountable practice.
Urban Insight Collective brings together researchers, evaluators, and community practitioners committed to producing evidence that matters, and ensuring it leads to action.
We combine academic training with deep roots in community work. Our team includes lived experience researchers, data analysts, qualitative specialists, and facilitators, united by a commitment to equity, rigour, and impact.
Learn more about our teamWhether you're planning a new project, seeking an evaluation partner, or exploring how to centre community voice, we'd love to hear from you.
Tell us briefly what you're working on and we'll respond within two working days.
