When the Researchers Are the Community: Why Peer Research Supercharges Your Study
3-minute read
Third in our mini-series: catch up on Is it Research or Is it Community Engagement? and From Data to Dialogue: Practical Methods for Community-Led Research for the full journey.
Why Bring Peers Onto the Research Team?
The best explanation I know for peer-led research came from a volunteer who had gone from prison listener to co-facilitator in a Samaritans evaluation. After the very first focus group he whispered, “If I don’t ask the questions, half these stories stay locked up.” said Gbemi Babalola Impact and Evaluation Manager at the Samaritans.
That single remark captures the whole case for peer research: some doors only open from the inside.
In traditional designs, people with lived experience arrive after everything is fixed: questions drafted, tools chosen, ethics stamped. They are data points in someone else’s file. Peer-led work moves them to the front of the queue. They help decide what’s worth asking and, crucially, help decode the answers.
Take the Samaritans project for example. Peer facilitators didn’t just run the sessions; they sat at the analysis table. A phrase like “my pad mate was on the bell all night” looks negligible to an outsider. A peer co-researcher translated: constant use of the in-cell alarm means acute distress ignored by officers. That single gloss turned a footnote into an explicit service-gap recommendation.
When people with direct lived experience help design and run a study, two big things happen:
Instant rapport. Peer facilitators who occasionally share snippets of their own stories through gentle self-disclosure signal “You’re among friends” and participants speak far more openly than they might with an outside interviewer.
Richer interpretation. Peers can sit with the data and say, “Here’s what that really means in our world.” Their insights are able to move findings from abstract to actionable.
Our earlier blog, Investing in Peer-Led Research argued that capacity dividend is no accident; it is designed. Budgets and timelines must treat experiential expertise as equal to analytic expertise with the same hourly rate, same debrief space, same authorship credit. When those elements level-up, self-perception shifts from “former service user” to “subject-matter expert.” They all signal that lived expertise carries equal weight with academic credentials and when those signals line up, research becomes a collaboration, not an extractive transaction.
A Method, and An Intervention
Peer research is “a double action.” Because peer researchers stand with one foot in the issue and one in the enquiry, the work upgrades two systems at once.
Firstly, it upgrades the evidence system, providing richer data and sharper interpretation of data that rarely surfaces when outsider teams lead. This includes subtle interactions, coded language, and invisible norms.
Secondly, it upgrades the human system, providing skills, confidence and marketable skills (note-taking, facilitation, thematic analysis) that last long after fieldwork ends. For people facing barriers such as a criminal record, immigration status, or caring responsibilities, those lines on a CV matter. The listener-turned-facilitator at Samaritans now trains new peer researcher teams. A peer researcher on a Calgary project on cannabis use and mental health, once shut out of interviews and work by a criminal record, now consults to local non-profits on trauma-informed practice.
In other words, peer research leaves communities stronger than it found them; the opposite of extractive practice.
Trust: The Non-Negotiable Ingredient
Trust cannot be bolted on at recruitment, rushed or imported. It is built in tiny, repeat interactions. It starts with early involvement: asking peers to frame the research questions, not merely read them from a script. It deepens through shared ground rules about disclosure and wellbeing, so no-one feels pressed to relive trauma for the sake of data. It lasts when engagement is continuous, not a parachute visit that ends with a thank-you voucher.
A simple test you could apply asks: Does every peer researcher know exactly how their input changed the project? If that feedback loop is visible, then commitment deepens; if not, trust seeps away.
That insight underpins the habits below.
We’re being trusted with someone’s reality, that trust must be earned and re-earned through transparent, long-term partnership and how we change course when peers say stop.
Turning early excitement into lasting habit
Winning over a few senior sponsors is only half the job; peer-led practice has to settle so deeply into routine that the next study doesn’t depend on personal advocacy. The webinar surfaced three tactics that help peer work become standard, not special.
Early exposure, not final-hour persuasion
During Samaritans’ evaluation of its online-chat service, peer researchers were invited to every internal update with the wider team. Staff who had never heard the term peer research listened as a peer researcher explained why self-disclosure mattered and how double-coding safeguarded rigour. By the time the study reached the executive team, operational leads were already referring to the peer researchers as integral partners rather than external helpers. Any skepticism held had melted through repeated, lived demonstration rather than a single “ta-da” presentation.Peers present the findings themselves
At the final meeting where results were shared with the wider executive team, peer researchers took a prominent role. They were “front and centre, able to express what the research was telling us.” Staff and decision-makers heard the conclusions directly from peer researchers who had collected and analysed the data, rather than through second-hand summaries. That unfiltered perspective proved eye-opening for several colleagues who may have been sceptical about peer-led methods.Reverse mentorship and progress reports that show, not just tell
In another project, short progress memos paired headline stats with a paragraph titled “What peers are noticing.” That simple, repeated pairing normalised the idea that experiential observation is data. By the last steering meeting, senior staff were no longer asking why peers were involved; they were asking how many peer researcher days should be costed into next year’s budget line.
Each moment echoes a wider lesson from our earlier posts. Peer research spreads when colleagues are brought into the process early, hear community voices directly, and see lived experience insight documented alongside conventional metrics. Embedding those practices and peer methods move from experimental add-on to organisational habit.
These moves don’t just “invite power-holders into the kitchen” (as detailed in our previous blog From Data to Dialogue); they refit the kitchen so peer practice becomes part of the fixtures. Next time a project launches, the question isn’t why use peers, it’s which peers are available and how soon can training start.
Getting Started When You Don’t Know Where To Begin
Map the talent and assets already in plain sight. Who in your network carries lived insight and curiosity about research?
Budget accordingly. Peer roles are paid roles not ‘honorary posts’. Stipends for training days, reflection meetings, dissemination events.
Pair up deliberately. Each task, interviewing, coding, presenting, is handled by a peer researcher and a project team member together. Expertise flows both ways.
Celebrate publicly. Co-author names on the report, reference letters, LinkedIn shout-outs, public thanks at the launch event. Small gestures signal big respect.
Bottom line
Even a small focus group run by peer researchers often reveals more and builds more goodwill, than a dozen outsider surveys, and leaves behind emerging researchers ready for the next round.
Peer research and participation is not the soft option; it is the rigorous, human-centred option that turns research into a living conversation. It unlocks stories, grounds numbers in context, grows capacity along the way and communities leave with a clearer sense of collective voice. If you want findings that travel and relationships that last, hand the mic to the people who already know the tune.
Want more?
This piece captures highlights from a live Habitus webinar featuring Gbemi Babalola (Samaritans UK), Humaira Falak (United Way Calgary and Area), Lisa Elford (Habitus Canada) and Callum Ross (Habitus UK). Together they unpacked the practical and ethical tensions between “community engagement” and “community-led research.” You can watch the full webinar here.
Revisit our companion blogs:
Ready to design a peer-powered study? Habitus supports organisations across the UK, Canada and beyond to design, train and support peer-led and community-led studies. Let’s build something that works with communities and changes outcomes for good.
At Habitus, we have developed and designed successful community programmes for various charities and health organisations both in the UK and internationally.
We are accomplished in peer research, co-production, action-based and anti-oppressive research and evaluation. We are experts in helping organisations to engage wider community participation in their projects so that their work is more inclusive and impactful. Through this approach we are dedicated to increasing lived experience leadership.
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