0

Postgraduate Researcher

Call for Case Study Projects: Co-created Participatory Research for Community Action

Hello all, Let me introduce myself.
My name is Jade Cawthray-Syms and I’m a PhD student at University of Dundee, Scotland, UK.
I’m reaching out to the Action Research community, in a bid to identify projects for my PhD research.

My research is studying co-created participatory research processes and their role in creating community action. I am defining co-created as: professional scientists and citizens working together throughout the whole research process from identifying the research questions, through to interpreting and disseminating the findings. I am exploring how the research process and contextual factors influence the action outcomes of these processes and to what extent these processes are beneficial to and serve the communities involved.

In the first phase of my research I will be conducting interviews with projects that have already been completed.
I am looking for projects that meet the following criteria:
• Used a co-created participatory research process, where citizens work with researchers throughout the whole research process, from question identification through to data interpretation and dissemination of findings.
• Specifically aimed to achieve action outcomes from the outset.
• Were completed in the last 6-12 months.
• Focused on environmental or ecological sciences.
• Where it would be possible to interview the project manager/ coordinator who ran the project and a citizen scientist involved in the project.

Whilst this will cover the first phase of my research, the second phase of my research is likely to observe live projects in action. So I am also looking to hear about projects that meet the same criteria above, but which are active right now, or which will be starting within 2018.

At this stage I am just collecting together a list of potential projects and the relevant contacts. I will be making more formal invitations to participate over the coming month.

If you know of any suitable projects, I’d be very grateful to hear about them.
Please contact me at: j.l.cawthray@dundee.ac.uk