Call for Applications: Child Citizen Lab Research Seminar

The application deadline has been extended for the international research seminar organized by VUB's Child Citizen Lab. You can submit your abstract until 22 March 2026 through this form.

In recent years, research involving children has increased significantly across academic disciplines. This development is strongly welcomed from the perspective of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which emphasizes children’s right to be heard and to participate meaningfully in matters affecting them. However, conducting research with children also brings important methodological, ethical, and practical challenges. Researchers often face dilemmas related to power dynamics, informed consent, safeguarding children’s rights, and the diverse realities of childhood.

To explore these complexities, share experiences, and strenghten good practices, the Child Citizen Lab will be organizing an international research seminar. Researchers at all career stages are invited to submit contributions to one of the following four workshops:

1. What went wrong? Lessons from research with children.
   Contributions highlighting challenges, mistakes, setbacks, or unexpected outcomes in research processes. The goal is to create an open learning space to discuss what did not go as planned — and what we can learn from it.
2. Impact of scientific research on children: empowering or harmful — who cares?
   Contributions addressing the short- or long-term effects of research participation on children. How do we balance empowerment and potential harm? Who evaluates this and whose voices are prioritized?
3. Child-friendly research methodologies: key design elements
   Contributions focusing on methodologies that genuinely accomodate children's perspectives, capacities, and contexts — whether through creative, participatory, or adapted research designs.
4. Diversities in childhood
   Contributions addressing how research methods must adapt to the diverse realities of childhood — spanning from (very) young children, adolescents, and you adults, as well as to varied living circumstances as residing at home, in youth care, in precarious conditions, or on the move. Papers that address cultural diversity in childhood and critically engage with Eurocentric perspectives and constructions of childhood are also welcome.

Submit your abstract through this form.
Deadline for submissions: 22 March 2026.

Submission Guidelines 

• Abstract length: max 300 words 
• Language: English