Service — Public Engagement
Public Engagement and Participatory Research
We design and deliver deliberative workshops, citizen panels, inclusive co-design processes, and participatory action research for public sector commissioners. Our approach centres the lived experience of affected communities and produces evidence that holds up to ethical and methodological scrutiny.
What We Deliver
"The best public consultation doesn't just gather opinions — it builds the deliberative conditions for citizens to form considered views on complex trade-offs."
— Dr Stylianos Kampakis, Managing Director, Tesseract Academy
Effective public engagement is not a consultation checkbox — it is a structured research process that generates legitimate, reproducible evidence about public needs and values. Tesseract Academy designs engagement programmes grounded in deliberative research methods: we give participants sufficient time, information, and facilitated space to form considered views on complex policy questions, rather than capturing initial reactions. Our methodology aligns with Cabinet Office engagement guidelines and the Social Value Act 2012, ensuring that participation yields measurable community benefit alongside evidence generation.
Our participatory action research (PAR) approach treats communities as active co-investigators rather than passive data sources. This is particularly important when working with marginalised or vulnerable groups, where extractive research methods risk causing harm and producing distorted findings. We operate within a comprehensive ethical framework that covers informed consent, data minimisation, anonymisation, and duty-of-care obligations under relevant legislation including the Adult Support and Protection Act 2007. Our approach is consistent with NHS England patient and public involvement standards and MHCLG community engagement best practice.
Our public engagement team has delivered work spanning financial vulnerability research for a regulated FinTech, accessibility workshops for visually impaired communities at London Data Week 2025, and inclusive AI co-design sessions. All engagement work is underpinned by a sampling strategy — whether random, stratified, purposive, or snowball — that is documented and justified in our methodology sections to enable reproducibility. Outputs are formatted to meet the Office for Statistics Regulation's quality assurance standards and Government Digital Service (GDS) accessibility requirements.
We are registered with the ICO (ZB715782) and process personal data collected during engagement activities under UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) (public task) or Article 9(2)(j) (research purposes), with all processing documented in a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) before fieldwork begins. Services are available via Crown Commercial Service (CCS) RM6126, and our social value commitments are aligned with the Social Value Act 2012 requirements applied by the UK AI Safety Institute and DSIT-funded programmes.
Service Comparison
| Capability | Tesseract Academy | PR/Communications Agency | Academic Research Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deliberative workshop design | Structured methodology with pre-reg protocol | Events-led — limited methodology | Strong — slow delivery |
| Vulnerable group engagement | Specialist ethical framework, DPIA, ASPA 2007 | Not typically offered | Ethics board approval required — long lead |
| AI accessibility workshops | London Data Week 2025 — evidenced delivery | Not core capability | Possible — rarely delivered publicly |
| Participatory action research | Communities as co-investigators | Not offered | Methodological strength |
| UK GDPR / DPIA compliance | Integrated into every engagement | Basic consent forms only | Ethics board managed |
| Policy-linked outputs | Reports formatted for ministerial briefing | Press releases and summaries | Academic papers — long publication cycle |
Case Studies
Kalgera — Financial Vulnerability Research
Participatory Research with Financially Vulnerable Adults: ASPA 2007 Compliant
Commissioned by Kalgera, a regulated FinTech focused on financial vulnerability detection, we designed and delivered a participatory research programme engaging adults with financial vulnerability as defined by the FCA Consumer Duty. The research protocol was developed to comply with the Adult Support and Protection Act 2007 duty-of-care requirements, ensuring appropriate safeguarding measures were in place throughout fieldwork. Findings directly informed Kalgera's product development and contributed to their FCA engagement on consumer vulnerability frameworks. The research sampling methodology followed Office for National Statistics (ONS) harmonised question standards and HM Treasury Green Book guidance on evaluation design. The Alan Turing Institute and NESTA have both identified participatory research with financially vulnerable populations as a priority area for public sector evidence development. Innovate UK's BridgeAI programme has cited this kind of community-rooted research as a model for responsible AI adoption. The National Audit Office considers participant representativeness a key criterion for evaluating public engagement research quality.
ASPA
2007 compliant safeguarding protocol
FCA
Consumer Duty aligned methodology
DPIA
Completed before fieldwork commenced
London Data Week 2025 — AI Accessibility Workshop
Co-Designed AI Accessibility Workshop for Visually Impaired Communities
Co-organised with Vision Ability CIC as part of London Data Week 2025, we delivered a public workshop and demonstration on making AI tools accessible to people with visual impairments. Held at Chabad Islington Community Centre, the event combined inclusive co-design principles with practical AI tool demonstrations. Participants contributed to a lived-experience evidence base on barriers to AI accessibility, informing subsequent policy recommendations to the Government Digital Service (GDS) Accessibility Team. Skills England has identified AI accessibility for underserved communities as a priority skills gap in the public sector digital literacy agenda.
London
Data Week 2025 official programme
GDS
Accessibility recommendations produced
Co-design
Communities as co-investigators
How to Commission This Service
Public engagement and participatory research services can be commissioned through:
- 1
CCS RM6094 — Research and Insights
The primary route for public engagement, citizen panel delivery, deliberative research, and participatory action research. Covers all aspects of community consultation and user research for public sector bodies.
- 2
CCS RM6200 — Management Consultancy Three
Suitable for engagement work embedded within wider policy advisory or digital transformation projects.
- 3
Direct Commissioning (below £10,000)
Small-scale workshops, focus groups, and rapid engagement exercises can be scoped and delivered under direct award within four to six weeks.
To discuss your engagement requirement, contact fabio@thetesseractacademy.com. We will confirm our ethical framework, data handling approach, and proposed methodology in our initial scoping response.
