News, Blogs and Events

Register for our launch event: Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry

From climate change to extreme poverty or social exclusion, participatory processes are vital to help better understand complex challenges, build solidarity and effect change.

Join the editors of the new SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry to explore further why participatory methods are needed, who they benefit and the real-world contexts they can apply to.  It is the first in our Participation Research Week series of events from 20 – 24 September.

Rajesh Tandon, PRIA founder, endorses handbook

"This new collection of articles on participatory research from new generation of researcher-activists is heartily welcome. With a wide variety of epistemological and contextual locations, the collection will inspire continued creativity and plurality in the elaboration of participatory research. Hopefully, the transformational potential of participatory research will begin to contribute to post-pandemic, resilient and fairer reconstruction of societies around the world."

Rajesh Tandon, Founder and President of PRIA (Participatory Research in Asia) and Co-Chair, UNESCO Chair on Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education comments on the forthcoming Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

 
 

UNRISD director Paul Ladd endorses handbook

"Participatory research has become a cornerstone of co-designing respectful and effective cooperation initiatives in the last twenty years. This comprehensive Handbook offers an invaluable compilation and review of how this can be approached in a multi-disciplinary way in different settings, and should be an essential and well-thumbed reference guide for students and practitioners alike."

Paul Ladd, Director, United Nations Research Institute of Social Development commented on the forthcoming Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

 
 

Andrea Cornwall endorses handbook

“This rich, inspiring collection is testament to the extraordinary creativity of those who have brought about a veritable revolution in research through participatory methodologies and approaches. Drawn from across the globe, contributors attest to the power of participatory research and inquiry its enduring value as a catalyst for change.”

Professor Andrea Cornwall, Pro-Director (Research & Enterprise) at SOAS University of London commented on the forthcoming Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

 
 

Yoland Wadsworth endorses handbook

"This Handbook makes a state of the art contribution to this popular field grounded in 50 years of in-depth experience and spanning to some of its newest insightful practitioners. A landmark achievement."

Yoland Wadsworth, author of Do It Yourself Social Research, former President of the international Action Learning Action Research & Process Management Association, commented on the forthcoming the Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

 
 

Amplifying sanitation and hygiene practitioner voices - get involved!

Dear friends and colleagues,

What is the reality of accessing sanitation and hygiene in tough physical environments?

We are looking for local practitioners to share their stories through a series of blogs or short recordings.

Our first theme is ‘tough physical environments’. We are interested in experiences and learning beyond technology focussed interventions, involving people in areas with difficult terrains, facing environmental hazards, or are located very remotely. For more information, read our Challenging Contexts Learning Brief.

We want to amplify the voices and perspectives of practitioners workingwithin countries at local and regional level through short written or video outputs which we will work on with you.

Practitioners could be:

SDG 6 in 2021: K-shaped development?

The Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of UNICEF and WHO has released the latest SDG 6 progress report on 1 July. This blog by Gian Melloni unpacks what it says and why it matters, with a focus on sanitation.

The scale of the data JMP gathered, analysed and the trends they monitored for this report is huge: the 7.8 billion humans who populate the Earth. Beyond an obvious feeling of awe, what comes to mind is the well-known joke of the statistician who lies with their head in the oven and their feet in the freezer, and says “On average, I feel comfortable!”. In other words, data and trends at this scale need to be unpacked and interpreted, as big, aggregated figures can hide as much information as they reveal.

Rejuvenate dialogue: Respond and reflect on child and youth rights

Lead by a team at IDS and UHI, the goal of the Rejuvenate project is to re-energise the field of child and youth rights in social justice processes through a growing networks of child rights actors and to further consolidate, evidence and develop the REJUVENATE principles.

Upon publishing the working paper Learning from a Living archive: Rejuvenating Child and Youth Rights and Participation in December 2020, the Rejuvenate team issued a call to action to academics, practitioners, decision makers, advocates, and programme implementers involved in working with children and young people to enter into critical dialogue with our work ‘as the start of an inclusive process of contributing to and building up international dialogue about children’s and youth participation and creating regional networks to share learning on concepts, rights, and goals’.

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