Session 80: The who, how, what, and why of participatory research: public engagement practices at LJMU

Abstract

Public engagement and participatory approaches are increasingly being employed as methods to achieve research excellence, and a route to impact. This session will be delivered by three PhD researchers who are currently involving the public in their research, and LJMU’s Public Engagement Officer. Together, we have designed this session to be an introduction to participatory research, a key element of public engagement with research, which supports our LJMU strategic aim: Research and Knowledge Exchange.

Prior to the conference, we will be sending out a survey to all LJMU PhD students, via the Doctoral Academy. The outcomes of this questionnaire will be used to shape the content of our session to ensure it relevance to our students, thus prioritising our LJMU strategic aim: Education and Student Experience.

Our panel represent a range of disciplines, methodologies, and external partnerships which we will showcase at this session. These partnerships are a key part or our LJMU strategic aim: Place and Partnership.

We found that whilst the people we engaged with (our “who”) and approaches (our “how” and “what”) were different, several themes underpin all our work including: building trust, working with communities, and ensuring that participants are listened to and not just heard. These notions form the themes of our session, encompassing the conference theme of Community. We also found that we faced similar challenges in our work, such as how to effectively build and sustain relationships (which takes time) whilst under pressure to deliver results in a short time, and how to speak the right language to effectively engage participants? We hope that by sharing our experiences, delegates will achieve a more thorough understanding of what participatory research is, recognise the value of engagement, and be inspired to join our budding community of engaged researchers!