From April 7 to 10, OpenLab.brussels welcomed 18 participants from 8 countries to the second edition of the Staff Week on Participatory Research organised by CIVIS. Hosted at ULB's USquare campus, the four-day programme brought together academic staff and researchers from across the CIVIS European University Alliance and the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles — an opportunity to step back from day-to-day work and think collectively about what it means to do research with communities, not just for them.
Voices that anchored the programme
Five speakers trained our attendees. Samia Ben Rajeb (AIA_BATir, ULB) opened with a grounding introduction to participatory research — its principles, its inherent diversity, and its challenges. Zara Gladman (University of Glasgow) anchored her sessions on a core question: how honest are we about the level of collaboration we actually offer to communities? From there, she guided participants through the practical conditions that make genuine participation possible, and on to communicating research with impact. Pablo Diaz (University of Lausanne) brought a sharp focus to ethics and inclusion, reminding the group that how you engage matters as much as what you find. Fanny Sbaraglia (Policy Lab, ULB) helped participants think through how participatory research can find its way into public policy systems and invited them to analyse their own cases in a workshop organised with Samia.
In addition to these more theoretical insights, a dedicated session gave the floor to three researchers sharing their own experience of participatory research. Florence Horicks (Pôle santé, ULB) presented The Symphony of Us, exploring the cancer care ecosystem through participatory research, Tom Bauler (Sonya, ULB) introduced COGITO — a project exploring futures through the lens of a just transition in Brussels — and Samia Ben Rajeb (AIA_BATir, ULB) reflected on the Collaborative Heritage Observatory she built in Tunisia.
A progressive journey
Rather than a classic conference format, the week was designed as a hands-on learning experience. Each participant progressively developed a participatory research project — from framing their why, to defining who and how, through to presenting a coherent project outline on the final morning. Working in groups throughout, participants challenged each other at every step, turning each session's insights into immediate, practical material — and assembling their work into a hand-crafted poster by the end of the week.
We warmly thank the speakers for their contribution and the participants for their trust and active participation throughout the week.
This training is a CIVIS collaboration, co-organised by the University of Glasgow, the University of Lausanne, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and the Université libre de Bruxelles.
