Draw Your Research - PRN Creative Participatory Methods Workshop

This interactive workshop invites researchers to explore drawing and illustration as a creative tool for understanding, analysing, and communicating their work. No art skills needed, just your ideas, your data, and a willingness to experiment.

In the first half of the workshop, we will discuss how drawing can help you familiarise yourself with your findings, reveal patterns, explore meanings, and share your work with wider audiences. We will look at examples of how drawings have been used in previous research and what we can learn from other disciplines and practices such as fine art and graphic design.  

The second half will give you space and support to engage with your own research through drawing or in other creative, expressive and embodied ways. This may be around how you visualise theories or your own research questions, ways that you can display your data, or how you might communicate your findings and recommendations to both academic and non-academic audiences. 

This workshop is suitable for researchers at any level who are curious about drawing-based data collection, analysis, or dissemination.

If you can, please come with research questions, concepts, or findings in mind to work with. 

Sign up here

Add to your calendar

If you experience any issues, please contact prn@sheffield.ac.uk.

About the facilitator 

Dr Zoe Cox is a tutor in social care and social work at Manchester Metropolitan University and a freelance illustrator specialising in working with academics to develop creative methods of teaching or communicating their research. 

Accessibility 

We'll have a 10-minute comfort break before the second half of the workshop.

Tea, coffee and cakes will be provided.

The Wave building access guide

Our 2026 Creative Participatory Methods Workshop Series (PGRs & ECRs) 

We recognise that participatory and collaborative research can be especially challenging at the doctoral and early-career stages. These workshops are designed to provide a supportive space for PGRs and ECRs to:

• Reflect on the potentials and challenges of using creative participatory methods
• Discuss ethical considerations and practical applications for data collection, dissemination, and analysis
• Gain hands-on experience with each method to develop ideas for your own projects

The workshops will be run by expert facilitators who will reflect on their experience using creative methods to co-produce research in doctoral and early-career projects.