Towards Coproduction in Mental Health Academia: A Cooperative Inquiry

Coproduction has emerged as an important means of effective mental health service delivery. Unfortunately, this term is commonly misunderstood, with tokenistic participation too often presented as coproduction. Funding and resourcing have been identified as significant, and often insurmountable, barriers to achieving coproduction. This paper presents findings from a cooperative inquiry project, addressing ideas and strategies for working towards coproduction within an academic unit. Three consumer/lived Experience academics and three nonconsumer academics (from Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Social Work) participated in a series of in-depth conversations to consider and identify potential strategies to advance the faculty's progress towards coproduction. Conversations were transcribed and analysed using a thematic approach. Five main themes were identified: importance of coproduction; preparing for coproduction; barriers to coproduction; the need for university transformation; and power. A belief in the inherent value of coproduction was shared among the group, and strategies were identified to clarify the level of participation. Radical transformation of universities, aligned with contemporary industry practice, is essential to achieving coproduction. Strategies such as allocating vacant academic positions for health professionals to consumer academics are indicative of measures required for genuine aspirations for coproduction to be realised and to address the seemingly insurmountable funding issues. Universities must recognise power differences and remain honest about their position according to participation ladders. These findings provide guidance for academics who acknowledge the value of coproduction to address the commonly identified barriers to its implementation.