Our wonderful collaboration as co-investigators and survivor panel leads with the University of
Birmingham continues to be a wonderful learning experience for our team and the women who have been part of our survivor panels. Together, we have contributed to a range of innovative research projects, ensuring that the voices and experiences of survivors remain central to the work.
WEPROTECT Research
The WEPROTECT Research we were co-investigators on previously has now been published and is also available in video format. The independent evaluation was commissioned by the Home Office, through the What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Fund, to assess how WEPROTECT performs in real-world policing environments and whether it delivers measurable safeguarding outcomes.
NIHR Global Health Research Group on VAWG
We were absolutely thrilled to be invited to become part of this major global research project, working alongside more than 50+ co-investigators from around the world including the University of Birmingham and University of Cape Town in partnership with the Lancet Commission.
In May 2025, we attended the first face-to-face meeting of the global research team, spending two days learning about the programme and meeting researchers from across the world. During the event, we delivered a presentation about our services and shared our experiences of working alongside survivors to co-produce meaningful and impactful research.
The research seeks to answer the question:
“How can we develop and adopt best practice in preventing violence against women and children in diverse, low-resource settings”
While survivor engagement and research evidence are increasingly available in high-income countries, there remains a significant lack of data and survivor-informed insights within many low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). The project will work across South Africa, Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Sri Lanka to co-produce trauma-informed research with survivor panels. The findings will help improve understanding of the impacts of violence in different contexts, develop recommendations for prevention, and strengthen local research capacity.
As part of this work, we established a survivor panel made up of women from our programmes. Together, we are supporting Work Package One, which focuses on developing diverse, representative and inclusive survivor panels. We are incredibly proud that the voices of women from WE:ARE will be helping to shape international research and influence future practice.
Other Research Projects
Optimising the UK Health Sector Response to Tackling Violence Against Women and Children.
Domestic Abuse Survivors’ Perceptions of Public Good and Harm in the Use of Administrative Datasets for Public Health Research (DASH).
In 2027 we will be involved in several research projects with Oxford University.
