Explaining Change Laboratory to research funding and ethical review panels: Examples from studies in palliative care and healthcare

Abstract

This is a collection of ‘starter documents’ that I hope will be useful to others as they navigate funding and ethical review processes for studies that seek to draw on Activity Theory and Change Laboratory approaches. The documents are drawn from two different research studies: in both cases working up the content helped me to create a framework to (a) help people unfamiliar with Activity Theory understand the principles of the work and (b) provide me with ‘scaffolding’ for putting the theory into practical actions. They are not intended to be taken as the ‘right’ way to go about all research projects – rather to provide examples to help others think through where to start, particularly if new to using these methodologies and methods, after all it is often easier to react to something than be faced with a blank sheet from which to begin. There is some repetition between documents as I was required to present the information in different formats for different groups and purposes as noted in the document list below.