HDRC South Tees · Community-Led Research
Our team
The Community-Led Research Programme is delivered by a small core team at Redcar & Cleveland Voluntary Development Agency (RCVDA), working alongside Community Research Associates (CRAs) based in community organisations and academic colleagues at Teesside University. We are research by communities, for communities — and the people below are here to make that work.
How the team is made up
RCVDA holds a subsidiary contract to deliver the Community-Led Research Programme on behalf of the South Tees Health Determinants Research Collaboration. The programme is steered by a core team, supported by Community Research Associates embedded in community organisations, and works in partnership with Teesside University as academic partner.
We work as a team rather than as a set of individual experts. Our shared point of contact is research@rcvda.org.uk — reach us there for anything about the programme or its research.
Core programme team
Joe Petch
Research Lead
As Research-lead for RCVDA Joe leads this programme — its direction, partnerships and day-to-day delivery — and holds the relationships that keep the work accountable to communities rather than to institutions.
Peter Neal
CEO
Peter is CEO of RCVDA, the organisation that hosts the Community-Led Research Programme, and contributes to the programme’s research — with a particular focus on data, funding analysis and local-authority evidence.
Eve McGeady
Researcher
Eve works on the programme’s research — supporting project design, fieldwork alongside community partners, and analysis — with a focus on keeping living experience at the centre of the work.
Community Research Associates
Community Research Associates (CRAs) are researchers embedded with community organisations under a programme grant or contract. They bring living experience and frontline knowledge into the research, and they keep it rooted in the places and communities it is about. The CRAs are central to what makes this work community-led.
Teesside University partners
Teesside University is the programme’s academic partner. University colleagues are seconded or assigned to specific projects, bringing research methods, academic rigour and supervision to the work while the direction stays community-led.
Where we sit: HDRC South Tees
The Community-Led Research Programme is RCVDA’s strand within the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) South Tees — a partnership working to build research into how local decisions are made, so they better address the causes of poor health. The partners are:
- South Tees Public Health — a joint public health service of Middlesbrough Council and Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council
- Middlesbrough Council — lead partner
- Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council
- Teesside University — academic partner
- RCVDA — host of the Community-Led Research Programme
This programme is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through the Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) South Tees. The views expressed are those of the programme and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
Work with us
If you are a community organisation, a person with living experience, or a researcher who wants to shape work that matters to your community, we would like to hear from you.