Participatory Research and the Open Research Agenda
Event details
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Thursday 14 May 2026 - 2:00pm to 5:00pm
Description
This workshop is limited to 30 participants. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If we reach capacity, we'll put you on a waitlist and be in touch if a place opens up.
About the workshop
University-led open research agendas can assume that openness is inherently beneficial, neutral, and universally applicable. Participatory research challenges this assumption. While participatory approaches are open in terms of process, accountability, and collaboration, they frequently resist forms of openness that risk harm, extraction, or loss of community control. At the same time, open research can raise important challenges around accountability, accessibility, and who gets to access and use knowledge.
This workshop aims to create a structured space for dialogue between participatory and open research communities to examine these tensions and develop a more credible, ethically grounded understanding of research openness and accessibility.
This workshop aims to:
- Identify tensions between participatory research and open research agendas, critically examining assumptions that openness is always desirable or ethical, as well as assumptions that participation is inherently equitable or accountable.
- Share practical strategies, workarounds, and boundary-setting practices already in use in participatory and open research projects.
- Develop a clearer, collectively grounded articulation of what “ethical openness” might look like in participatory research and beyond.
- Produce a shareable output that can inform future research practice, advocacy, and institutional discussions.
The workshop is organised by the Participatory Research Network and facilitated by Dr Sohail Jannesari.
Access
Room information: Design Studio 2
Building access information: Pam Liversidge Building
Facilitation Approach: The session combines critical discussion with creative and visual methods to enable multiple forms of participation. Activities are designed to move from diagnosis (frictions), to practice (what people are already doing), to proposition (what should change). Participants will be offered a choice of engagement modes within each activity, including at least one arts-based option.
We'll have comfort breaks embedded in the workshop.
Tea/coffee and cakes will also be provided.
Location
53.382657550565, -1.47774535
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iHuman
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