Thünen workshop "Participatory Research"

At the Thünen Institute there is great potential for increased cross-institutional cooperation on the subject of participatory research. Therefore, the workshop was organized in Braunschweig with the aim of getting to know other interested colleagues, exchanging ideas, networking and identifying common interests and needs.

The workshop had three objectives:

1. Classification:

• What does "participatory research" mean to us, which methods are already being used and what potential does the format have at the Thünen Institute?

2. Exchange of experiences:

• What are the prerequisites for successful joint research between society, science, practice and politics? How do you get stakeholders excited about joint research?

3. Needs analysis:

• Can common interests be identified? What do we need to design successful participation formats for our research?

The results of the workshop:

The interest in more participatory research at the Thünen Institute became clear. There is hope that, with the help of participatory approaches, socially relevant issues that are becoming more complex can be solved better / more acceptably in the future.
There is a large number of terms, concepts, approaches and methods that appear in the context of participatory research and are mentioned again and again but it is not clear that the terms have identical understandings. Clearer structuring and discussion as well as, if necessary, graphical processing of the connections are urgently needed here and should be created in the future.
Another workshop on the subject is planned for autumn. Information on this will follow soon.

Marie von Meyer-Höfer is available by e-mail for suggestions and questions.