Within CLEAR, Codici supports eight national research teams of the consortium to design a Transversal Participatory Approach throughout the whole research process of the project. CLEAR aims to understand better the factors that affect the quality of learning outcomes across European Regions. Namely, it deals with measurable achievements that the learner gets from a learning activity, such as a training session, a seminar or an educational program. Implementing a Transversal Participatory Approach in this framework implies figuring out different activities and methods. The aim is to foster the inclusion of stakeholders’ points of view, policymakers’ positions and young people’s experiences in the research process and its outcomes.

Transversal Participatory Approach

The design of this Transversal Participatory Approach started with the 1st Consortium meeting in Münster (October 2022). The partners discussed the different meanings of the term “participation” by exploring its primary theoretical and methodological references, the main risks to be considered and the ethical issues related to social actors’ engagement in the research process.

From this moment on, Codici supported the consortium in finding solutions for integrating Participatory Activities into the multiple research lines of the project. Initially, a brainstorming process made the partners draft ideas for participatory activities through online meetings and practical tools, such as the visual collaboration platform Mirò. During the 2nd Consortium meeting (in Thessaloniki, March 2023), Francesca Zamboni and Cristina Cavallo from Codici sorted out a World Café – a qualitative data-collection technique that combines interviewing, drawings and narratives from participants – to discuss the points of attention needed when implementing a participatory process. The result was a common Vademecum, a document containing the main significant areas representing the most critical points when designing Participatory Activities.

In the upcoming meeting in Barcellona (September 2023), Codici will hold a workshop to guide partners in fine-tuning their participatory activities’ implementation.

Photo ☉☉ Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash