Dr Jenny Barke (She/Her)

My research focuses on three areas:

·       Ageing, social health and loneliness

·       The methods and ethics of co-producing research with communities 

·       Research impact and academic careers

I am a chartered psychologist and have expertise in a range of qualitative research methods. Much of my work has involved collaborating with arts practitioners, community organisations, and charities. I regularly consult on methods of co-production and design and facilitate training in co-production and working with communities.

Before joining the University of Exeter in January 2024 I was Head of Participatory Research at The Young Foundation, responsible for designing and delivering participatory research and community peer research training. I worked with a range of partners including universities, the NHS, charities and local/government. Research topics included youth violence, health equity, eco-anxiety, social infrastructure, access to healthy food and employment practices.

Prior to working at The Young Foundation, between 2015-2022, I worked on community engaged research projects at the University of Bristol including:

• Connecting Through Culture: Co-produced ethnographic research into the cultural participation and wellbeing of older people who were disabled, socioeconomically and racially minoritized.
• (PI) Lessons from Lockdown: Co-researched older peoples’ experiences of lockdown with a community action group to develop new guidelines for community engagement activity.
• Researcher Wellbeing project: Worked with academics, an occupational health professional and a counsellor to develop and evaluate measures to support researchers working on sensitive and challenging research topics.
• SPAN A hands-on History Project: Participatory historical research project which researched the history of a single parent community organisation, involved collaborating with historians, community development workers, evaluators, community researchers and artists. 
• Urban ID Project: Co-created a framework for diagnosing complex problems within key urban challenges and carried out a meta study interviewing partners regarding collaborative cross sectoral working.
• Alonely: Collaborated with a community research collective of older people over a series of projects to research loneliness, develop interventions and share findings through creative writing and monologues.

I have also worked for the University of the West of England with community evaluators on the Bristol Ageing Better research and evaluation: Age UK Bristol | Bristol Ageing Better and as an independent researcher with theatre companies and writers integrating research into devised and scripted productions.