FRAMEWORKS & MODELS
Practitioner frameworks developed from delivery, not borrowed from theory.
Every Elysium London engagement is grounded in four practitioner frameworks drawn from five years of direct delivery across NHS Trusts, ICSs, universities, and national funders. These are named, published, and applied tools that have been tested across approximately twenty projects and refined through hundreds of practitioner interactions.
CORE FRAMEWORKS
Four models that structure how the firm works.
The Interspace Framework
Navigating the space between institutions and communities
The Interspace Framework recognises that meaningful inclusive research happens in the space between institutional power and community experience. Practitioners operating in this space are not fully inside the system and not fully outside it. The framework provides a structured approach to navigating that tension: building trust across both worlds, surfacing insight that institutions would not otherwise access, and translating community reality into forms that carry institutional weight. It informs how Elysium London designs engagement strategies, manages researcher-community dynamics, and ensures that proximity to lived experience is maintained throughout delivery.
The RCA Model
Relationships. Credibility. Access.
The RCA Model is a practical framework for unlocking deeper, more authentic engagement, particularly in communities that are under-represented or over-researched. Relationships are built on genuine reciprocity, not transactional exchange. Credibility is established through cultural competence, lived experience, and a visible commitment to impact. Access follows from both, opening conversations and spaces that remain closed to conventional research methods. The model underpins how Elysium London designs community recruitment strategies, trains research teams, and moves engagement beyond extractive practice toward sustained partnership.
The Continuum Model
Embedding community voice across the research lifecycle
The Continuum Model outlines how to involve communities at every stage of the research process, from design and delivery through to analysis and dissemination. Rather than consulting communities at a single point and then proceeding without them, the model structures participation as a continuous function that deepens over time. Elysium London supports institutions to adopt this approach where the appropriate resources, timelines, and governance structures are in place, recognising that meaningful participation requires institutional commitment, not just methodological intent.
The Pracademic Translation Model
Bridging academic rigour and practitioner reality
The Pracademic Translation Model addresses the persistent gap between academic research knowledge and frontline practitioner experience. Academic insights often remain inaccessible to the teams delivering community-facing work, while practitioner knowledge rarely travels into the institutional processes that shape research priorities and funding. This framework structures the translation in both directions: making academic evidence actionable for practitioners, and making practitioner insight legible to institutional decision-makers. It is the connective tissue that allows Elysium London to operate credibly across academic, clinical, and community settings simultaneously.
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
Practice. Diagnosis. Operationalisation.
Elysium London’s intellectual contribution spans three papers, each building on the last. Together they move from conceptual clarity to structural diagnosis to operational standards.
PAPER ONE
Strategic Frameworks for Inclusive Research
2025 · Published
Formalised the four practitioner frameworks drawn from direct delivery: Interspace, RCA, Continuum, and Pracademic Translation. Grounded in five years of applied work across NHS, academic, and community settings.
PAPER TWO
The Inclusive Research Collaborative
March 2026 · Published
A structural analysis of why inclusive research remains fragile across the UK research ecosystem. Identifies four recurring failures and proposes the Inclusive Research Collaborative as dedicated infrastructure for South London.
PAPER THREE
Inclusive Research Standards
In Development
The operational layer. Defines the standards that underpin credible inclusive research practice and provides implementation guidance for institutional adoption.
Stay Updated with Future Publications
ACADEMIC FOUNDATIONS
Grounded in established research traditions.
Elysium London’s frameworks are developed in practice, but they are not developed in isolation. Each draws on established academic traditions that have shaped how inclusive research is understood, designed, and delivered.
Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed remains a central text in participatory and emancipatory research. His emphasis on dialogue, critical consciousness (conscientização), and the co-creation of knowledge between educator and learner laid the groundwork for many participatory methodologies. These principles inform the reflective practices, power-aware facilitation, and participant framing at Elysium London, where community members are positioned as knowledge-holders, not data points.
Community-Based Participatory Research
CBPR, defined by Israel et al. (1998), promotes co-learning, mutual benefit, and long-term commitment between researchers and communities. Its lifecycle-based structure, spanning co-design, co-delivery, co-analysis, and co-dissemination, directly informs the Continuum Model. CBPR also provides a methodological foundation for shared governance, capacity-building, and ethical accountability embedded in the firm’s approach.
Intersectionality
Developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw and expanded by scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins and Bell Hooks, intersectionality is a framework for understanding the layered nature of discrimination and power. In research, it helps avoid reductionist approaches that treat communities as homogenous. It demands attention to how race, gender, class, disability, and other factors intersect to shape lived experience, essential when designing inclusive research that seeks insight without erasing complexity.
Implementation Science and Boundary-Spanning
The PARIHS framework (Kitson et al.) demonstrates that effective implementation requires alignment of evidence, context, and facilitation. Greenhalgh’s work on co-creation and research impact (2015-2016) reinforces that durable relationships, shared governance, and long-term facilitative capacity are essential. The literature on boundary-spanning roles (Williams, 2002; Gittell et al., 2008) provides important validation for the Interspace Framework and the firm’s positioning between institutions and communities.
The firm’s published white papers also engage with the wider UK evidence base, including NIHR’s Going the Extra Mile review (2015), Wellcome’s What Researchers Think About the Culture They Work In (2020), Ocloo and Matthews (2016) on participation and power, Mockford et al. (2012) and Brett et al. (2014) on involvement, and the Marmot Review (2010; 2020) on the structural determinants of health inequality. This body of work collectively demonstrates that inclusive research cannot depend on goodwill or isolated panels; it requires institutional arrangements that embed responsibility for inclusive practice within the system itself.
Interested in how these frameworks apply to your work?
Every Elysium London engagement is designed around the specific inclusive research challenge an institution faces. A free thirty-minute scoping call is the starting point.