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What is Cooperative Inquiry?

silhouette of people against a blue sky

cooperative inquiry

The participants are fully involved in making decisions about the research – effectively co-researchers.

Inquiry creates a research cycle among four different types of knowledge: descriptive knowing (as in factual knowing), practical knowing (the knowledge that comes with actually doing what you propose), experiential knowing (the feedback we get in real time about our interaction with the larger world) and presentational knowing (the creative rehearsal process through which we craft new practices).

The research process iterates these four stages at each cycle with deepening experience and knowledge of the initial question, or of emergent questions, at every cycle.

About Collaborative and Cooperative Inquiry

  • Ever needed to discover responses to questions for which there are no answers?
  • Ever wanted to unlock more of your potential through authentic collaboration with others?
  • Are you struggling with not knowing the answers and seeking ways to engage in an innovative approach to prototyping possibilities?
  • Ever thought that it might be possible to develop people and your organisation while learning to act on real-time questions?

Our practitioners have worked in partnership with individuals, organisations and communities in what is a new form of applied research. At its core it creates networks of pioneering participants, working to catalyse new discoveries that can promote tangible results and foster deeper cultural change and transformation.

To research ‘with’ others rather than ‘on’ others can provide a radical approach that represents a significant ‘impact on investment’, blending leadership, learning and collaboration, equipping participants with reflective practice and new paradigm possibilities.

Collaborative/cooperative inquiry is one form of expression of Whole Person Learning that offers a potential tool for organisations looking to develop new methods of learning and to encourage new forms of leadership.

Recent inquiry and research projects

  • Frugal Innovation and Embedding Creativity in a £130m family business (six months)
  • Role and Personal Transformation – Scotland (six months)
  • Whole Person Learning in Practice (four years)
  • Globally Responsible Practice in manufacturing and retail business (six months)
  • Collaborative Leadership (five years)
  • UK Leadership (fourteen months).

Over the last 20 years, our inquiry initiatives have ranged from a global inquiry founded by the UN Global Compact and EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) exploring how to develop globally responsible leadership, to local research projects considering questions related to such areas as diversity, planetary citizenship and gender.

If you are interested in this aspect of our work, please contact us on 01937 541700 or by using the contact form.