Peter Beresford is Visiting Professor, the University of East Anglia and Chair of the UK user led-organisation Shaping Our Lives. He is Emeritus Professor at Brunel University London and Essex University. He is a long term user of mental health services; an academic and activist who actively involved in the development of policy, practice and research through affiliations and strong networks with national (and international) government, research, policy, practice and service user organisations and structures. He has been centrally involved in the issue of participation as writer, researcher, activist and educator. His areas of particular interest are disability and Mad Studies, participation, palliative care, social work and social care, welfare reform, social work education and emancipatory research, publishing widely in these fields. His latest book is Looking After Each Other (co-editor, 2026, Bloomsbury).Jurgen Grotz PhD is Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has over 30 years' experience of applied research across the academic, public, private and voluntary sectors. His largely interdisciplinary work about volunteer involvement has a strong focus on participative approaches and public engagement. His latest book is on ‘Volunteer Involvement in UK Universities’ (2024). Collaborating with colleagues in the field to drive advances in Volunteer Involvement research he has co-edited the 'Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations' (2016), 'Volunteering, research and the test of experience' (2022) and 'Mobilising Voluntary Action' (2022). He co-authored the 'Patient and Public Involvement in Health and Social Care Research' (2020) and 'Volunteer Involvement: An Introduction to Theory and Practice' (2022). Recent reports he co-authored on 'volunteer's well-being' and 'employer supported volunteering', 'the role of volunteers in Social Prescribing' along with discussions on 'volunteering and democracy' as well as 'volunteering and ideology' can be found on the webpages of the Institute for Volunteering Research.Mel Hughes is Professor of Social Work at Bournemouth University (BU) and a national Teaching Fellow in recognition of her innovative teaching involving people and communities. She champions lived experience expertise through her roles as Academic Lead for the PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) Partnership and Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Seldom Heard Voices. She is PI and co-applicant on multiple local and national participatory research projects and is editor and co-author of textbooks including Poverty in the UK: The Lived Experience (2026); Social Exclusion in the UK: The Lived Experience (2022), and A Guide to Statutory Social Work Interventions: The Lived Experience (2019), all developed with contributors who have first-hand experience. Mel serves on the editorial board of the British Journal of Social Work and was Guest co-editor for its special issue on the voice and influence of people with lived experience (2023).Lia Levin is an Associate Professor at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University. Her scholarship advances the theorization, conceptualization, empirical investigation, and practical application of social justice, with particular attention to the intersections between knowledge, recognition, power, and influence. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes on the theoretical and normative foundations of accountable and transformative social policy and professional practice within contemporary public welfare systems. Prof. Levin is deeply committed to challenging entrenched hierarchies of knowledge legitimacy and to fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration among academia, communities, professionals, service users, civil society organizations, and policymakers.Bridget Penhale is a Reader Emerita at the University of East Anglia. She has academic, clinical professional and managerial experience relating to social work and social gerontology, as well as advocacy roles concerning the rights of older persons. Her research expertise is in violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of older adults, domestic violence and other topics concerning mental health and adult social care. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, published books and produced edited volumes on violence and abuse and other social issues relating to older people. She also has a commitment to participatory and inclusive approaches to involvement or older people in research.Fiona Poland is a sociologist and Professor of Social Research Methodology at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Her career concern has been to use, develop and innovate qualitative research methods and technologies to recognise wellbeing and participation concerns of individuals and communities particularly older people and carers and to support the agency and connectedness of disadvantaged and commonly-excluded groups. She seeks to promote collaborations and respectful working across voluntary, statutory, academic and policy boundaries. She is journal editor of Quality in Ageing and Older Adults and leads Inclusion Research in the School of Health Sciences, and UEA Volunteering Research linked to the Institute of Volunteering Research.Ewen Speed PhD is Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Essex. He is an author, academic and practitioner with over 20 years’ experience in inclusive involvement research, working with a strong focus on participative and inclusive approaches to researching persistently marginalised and excluded groups. His interdisciplinary research covers inclusion and involvement in relation to mental health service users, as well as more recent research in the context of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community groups. His research focusses on the political context of involvement and participation. He has published widely on topics of inclusive involvement in the context of health policy and practice. He has undertaken participatory research projects funded by (amongst others) the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research, and the UK Economic and Social Research Council.
