Meet our founder
AB Research Consultancy was founded by Dr Abigail (Abbie) Bentley, a social scientist with more than a decade of experience designing and delivering research on complex social issues.
Abigail's work sits at the intersection of research, policy and practice. She has partnered with charities, NGOs, universities, funders and public bodies across the UK and internationally, helping organisations explore issues including violence against women and girls, trauma, mental health, migration, access to services and systems change.
She holds a PhD from University College London and has held postdoctoral research positions at both the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Valencia, where she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship.
Today, she leads AB Research Consultancy, working alongside a trusted network of specialist collaborators to bring together the right expertise for each project.
How we work
Every project begins by understanding the question.
Not just the research question, but the wider context around it. Why does this matter now? What are you hoping to understand? What decisions might this research inform? What would success look like once the project is over?
Only then do we begin thinking about methods.
That means no two projects look exactly the same. Sometimes the right approach is a large mixed-methods evaluation. Sometimes it's qualitative research that explores experiences in depth. Sometimes it's a survey, a rapid evidence review or a series of strategic conversations before any research begins at all.
Throughout the process, we work collaboratively. We share emerging thinking, test ideas together and remain open to where the evidence leads. We care about the quality of the research, but we care just as much about whether it's answering the question that matters.
We're equally thoughtful about what happens afterwards. Different audiences need different things from research, so we think carefully about how findings are communicated and how they can be used. The aim isn't only to deliver research. It's to leave organisations with greater clarity, stronger evidence and a clearer sense of where to go next.
Where projects require additional expertise, we bring together trusted collaborators with complementary skills and experience. This allows us to build the right team for each piece of work while remaining flexible, responsive and personal in how we work.
Our philosophy
Over the last decade, our thinking about research has gradually shifted.
We've become less interested in research as a way of generating knowledge, and more interested in what that knowledge enables. We've learnt that relationships matter as much as methods, that stories carry responsibility, and that the real value of research often lies in the conversations, decisions and changes it makes possible afterwards.
Increasingly, we've found ourselves thinking about research as an act of stewardship.
Every project brings together different forms of knowledge. Sometimes that's lived experience. Sometimes it's professional expertise, organisational insight or years of carefully collected data. Whatever form it takes, someone has entrusted it to us.
Our responsibility is to look after it well.
That means understanding where knowledge has come from, what it represents and what might be lost as it moves through the research process. It means asking not only whether our findings are accurate, but whether they remain faithful to the people, communities and organisations who made them possible.
Research often asks us to simplify. We reduce experiences into themes, statistics, frameworks and recommendations. Sometimes that's necessary. However, we've also learnt that simplification can sometimes obscure the insights that matter most.
People's lives don't fit neatly into categories. Systems rarely fail for a single reason. Change is often messy, uneven and difficult to measure. Good research shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Sometimes its role isn't to remove complexity, but to help people understand it well enough to work with it.
Stewardship also doesn't end when the research does. Research has a habit of being treated as the finish line. We see it differently.
Research forms part of an organisation's living memory. It captures things that would otherwise be lost. The experiences people have shared, the patterns beginning to emerge, the questions that haven't yet been answered, the ones that have, the knowledge that gets diluted over time as people leave and move on. Done well, it becomes something organisations can keep returning to, as a guide to what they should ask, challenge and explore next.
We think that's where the real value of research lies - in helping that understanding remain alive long enough to shape what happens weeks, months and years after it has been generated.
Let’s Start a Conversation
We enjoy working with organisations that see research as a necessary part of learning and reflecting and who are willing to ask difficult questions, engage with complexity and use evidence to strengthen what they do.
We believe the best relationships are collaborative. They create space for honest conversations, unexpected findings and shared thinking.
If that sounds like the kind of relationship you're looking for, we'd love to hear from you.