Research

Community Research

Bringing hard-to-reach voices into the research that shapes their lives

For over three years, Bold Actions CIC has worked as a trusted community research partner, connecting professional researchers with global majority communities across the West Midlands whose voices are too often missing from mainstream research.

Why researchers work with us

Some of the communities most affected by health, social and economic inequality are also the hardest for mainstream researchers to reach. Language barriers, mistrust of institutions, and a history of being studied rather than heard mean that vital lived experience is routinely left out of the evidence base.

Bold Actions CIC exists to close that gap. As a key community partner on research projects across the West Midlands, we open doors that institutions can’t open on their own, building trust, translating research aims into everyday language, and creating safe spaces for people to speak honestly about the issues affecting their lives and communities.

We don’t just recruit participants. We help shape the questions being asked, surface the issues that matter most on the ground, and make sure participants are genuinely heard and not just counted.

A trusted delivery partner

Since 2022, we’ve been a key community partner on research and engagement projects delivered in collaboration with:

Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (BVSC)
University of Birmingham
West Midlands Combined Authority
and other regional institutions and funders

Through this work, we’ve supported research into health, social care and community wellbeing, helping raise issues affecting people from the global majority communities in the West Midlands and ensuring their perspectives directly inform local services, policy, and funding decisions.

Ready to collaborate

Bold Actions CIC have qualified and trained Community Researchers embedded within the communities we serve. They bring:

Lived experience and established trust within global majority communities across the West Midlands
Training in ethical community research practice
The language, cultural insight, and relationships needed to reach people mainstream research methods miss

Our Community Researchers are available for new projects, secondments, and collaborations. Whether that’s co-designing a study, running community conversations, gathering qualitative insight, or supporting participant recruitment and retention.

How we can support your next project

We work alongside universities, NHS bodies, local authorities, and third-sector research partners. Services include:

Community access & recruitment – reaching participants from hard-to-reach communities
Co-design & consultation – shaping research questions and materials so they reflect real community priorities
Community Researcher deployment – trained researchers to run interviews, focus groups, and listening sessions
Trust-building & engagement – culturally competent facilitation that improves participation and data quality
Dissemination support – feeding findings back to funders, partners and communities in accessible, meaningful ways

If you’re a professional researcher or institution working on a project that needs to reach and genuinely engage global majority communities in the West Midlands, we’d like to hear from you.