Call for Contributions: Submit abstracts for the fifth Research Lounge on the topics of Participatory Approaches in Research until April 20, 2025.

The fifth Research Lounge will take place on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 from 2 to 5 p.m. on the topic of “Participatory Approaches in Research”, this time at the Central Institute Center for Cultural Techniques (ZfK) on Campus North. Organized by the team of the Vice President Research in cooperation with the HU office for “Knowledge Exchange with Society”, researchers from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and its partner institutions are invited to network at this event.

Knowledge exchange with society is becoming an increasingly important part of knowledge production in research through participatory and transdisciplinary approaches. While these approaches are standard in some research areas, such as sustainability and innovation research, there is less experience and exchange in other areas. Among other research methods, participatory and transdisciplinary research methods are seen as a particularly good way to contribute innovative solutions to current societal challenges. To this end, cooperation with citizens, organised civil society, culture or politics can open up new research topics and strengthen trust in science through their active participation.

There are many definitions, methods and experiences of participatory approaches to research, as well as a wide variety of actors and forms of participation. The Research Lounge “Participation in Research” therefore aims to promote scientific exchange and networking in this area and to highlight the diversity of current research activities and examples of success at Humboldt-Universität.

We welcome contributions from researchers at all career stages (R1-R4) and from all disciplines. The short presentations of 7 minutes can deal with empirical or theoretical scientific aspects of participatory and transdisciplinary research or with practical perspectives and experiences. The non-exhaustive list of possible presentation topics includes:

Research on participation and transdisciplinarity in science:

• Participation and transdisciplinarity research
• Theoretical and methodological reflections on the (further) development of participation in research
• Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
• Reflections from impact research, findings on impact and added value of participatory and transdisciplinary research

Approaches, methods, case studies:

• Concepts and methods as well as project/context-specific application of transdisciplinary and participatory processes in research projects and teaching
• Examples of participatory research projects and participation formats
• Experience from areas such as participatory action research, participatory health and social research, transformation research, artistic research, co-curation, co-design, Citizen Science, shared coding/computing

Challenges and principles of transdisciplinary collaboration with a focus on:

• Integration of heterogeneous types of knowledge, experiential knowledge, knowledge needs and expectations, project goals and desired research outputs
• Reflections on trust, ownership, emotions, power relations including reflection on one’s own role as a researcher in the participatory research process
• Theoretical approaches and application of quality criteria, evaluation criteria and evaluation methods

Procedure and further information

• The planned short presentations should not exceed 7 minutes.
• If you are interested in giving a presentation, please send an abstract (approx. 100 to a maximum of 250 words) to vpfref[at]hu-berlin.de by April 20, 2025 at the latest.
• The event languages are German and English.
• Speakers will be notified by May 6, 2025.
• The event will take place at the Central Institute ZfK (Centre for Cultural Techniques) and will be co-supervised by the HU office for “Knowledge Exchange with Society”.

If you have any questions, please contact the organizers of the Research Lounge at vpfref[at]hu-berlin.de or consult the event website.

Photo: Nadine Zilliges, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin