Lived and Living Experience Hub

Established as part of Work Package 1, The Lived and Living Experience Hub will host researchers with lived/living experiences of suicide, as well as acting as a point of connection, engagement and knowledge exchange. Overall, the hub is for anyone involved or with an interest in suicide research that engages with lived and living experiences. It will officially launch in Year 3 of the project (2026/27) and will grow over the course of the project (and beyond!)

'Lived/living experience’ is spoken about more and more as an important part of suicide research and prevention.

When we say lived and living experiences of suicide, we mean people who have or have had experiences of suicidality themselves, people who have been bereaved by suicide and/or that support or have supported someone experiencing suicidality.

The Discovering Liveability project strongly believes that listening to and understanding these experiences is vital if suicide research and prevention is to be meaningful. It also asks questions about exactly what the term ‘lived/living experience of suicide’ means in practice. Across the project, we and our collaborators will be critically and carefully exploring the different ways that lived/living experience is understood, represented and involved in different aspects of suicide research, practice, policy and prevention.

Finally, our focus on lived/living experience acknowledges the lived/living experiences of many members of the research team, and our recognition and interest in ensuring that our research is always informed by a critical consideration of our own – and others' – experiences.

What is the hub?

For an overview of the hub what it does, click through the pictures below or read the information in the drop downs below.

What is 'The Lived & Living Experience Hub'?
What is 'The Lived & Living Experience Hub'?
The hub will serve three main purposes
Connecting and Sharing Knowledge: delivering open events and resources to share existing expertise and experience and support networking
Creating new knowledge: supporting new researchers to do new research!
Sharing new knowledge and learning: sharing new learnings about methodological and practical considerations, involved in doing this work.

‘The Lived and Living Experience Hub’ will be a centre of connection, engagement and knowledge exchange for lived experience perspectives on suicide, building a network of organisations, activists and researchers from across the world.

The hub will serve three purposes:

Connecting and sharing knowledge: delivering open events and resources to share existing expertise and support networking.

Creating new knowledge: supporting new researchers to do new research!

Sharing new knowledge and learning: Sharing new learnings about the methodological and practical considerations involved in doing this work.

The hub will host a range of events that will bring people together who have an interest in suicide and suicide prevention both personally and professionally, to talk about our hopes, challenges and priorities for the future.

6 salaried research posts will be created for people with lived and living experience of suicide to develop and be supported to conduct their own research projects. These posts will enable people to pursue research ideas important to them and the communities they are a part of.

As the Discovering Liveability team of lived experience researchers develop their projects, we expect new learning to emerge about methodology as well as the practical tensions and challenges that underpin this kind of work. The hub will provide a space to share these learnings continuously and to talk about them with our wider network of hub supporters and collaborators.