Brown Bag seminar: Building Knowledge Together: What Is Participatory Research?
In so-called participatory research, academic researchers work alongside people who, for example, live in the environment being studied or who engage with the research topic through their professional practice. When knowledge is built collectively, it becomes more comprehensive and is often easier to apply in practice. At the same time, this approach raises important questions: Whose knowledge matters, and what counts as knowledge in the first place? Who decides what should be studied or which problems deserve attention? How can conflicting perspectives be brought together? And ultimately, what is all this knowledge used for?
Event information
Time
Tue 22.09.2026 18:00 - 19:15
Venue location
Pakkalan sali, keskustakirjasto Saari (Kaarlenväylä 3)
Location
Join us at the Pakkala Hall in the Saari Central Library on Tuesday, September 22, at 6:00 PM to learn and discuss how anyone can take part in scientific research. This seminar explores what citizen science is, what benefits participatory research can offer, and how wide a range of topics can be studied using participatory methods. This Finnish-speaking Brown Bag Seminar is free of charge and open to all, and it is part of the University of Oulu’s Sustainable Development Week and the programme of Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture year. The speakers of this seminar are University Lecturer Heidi Enwald from Information Studies, Senior Research Fellow Tiina Äikäs from Archaeology, and Senior Research Fellow Sari Hirvonen-Kantola researching urban development together with Co-creation and Service Design Specialist Anna-Miia Suihkonen from the European University UNIC’s Centre for City Futures.
University Lecturer Heidi Enwald, whose research has focused, among other topics, on health communication, will discuss citizen science as a research approach and explore how participatory research has been applied across different disciplines, including information studies. She will also introduce How to Become a Citizen Scientist? A Beginner's Guide, a publication to which he contributed.
Senior Research Fellow Äikäs has studied industrial heritage with the help of citizens in the Piippumuistoja project. How can the memories and experiences of people who live near or visit former industrial sites help us understand the significance of industrial environments and plan their future? In what ways can citizens participate in archaeological research?
Senior Research Fellow Hirvonen-Kantola and Specialist Suihkonen introduce CityLabs workshops, where citizens, researchers, students, public officials, and companies co-create solutions. They will exemplify how anyone can help solve challenges in their own living or working environment, to further develop the city together. Many postindustrial cities have found new opportunities for renewal from services. Now let’s imagine and dream – which kind of services could there be in Oulu?
The Brown Bag seminar of the Sustainable Development Week will take place on Tuesday, September 22 from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m. in Pakkala hall in central library Saari (Kaarlenväylä 3). Register for the seminar by September 21. The event is free of charge and open to everyone. Please note that the seminar presentations will be in Finnish!
Note UniOGS Doctoral Researchers: You can add Brown Bag Seminars in your personal learning plan and once you have attended 10 Brown Bag Seminars, you can get 0,5 credits of doctoral studies.
The aim of the Brown Bag Seminars is to showcase University of Oulu’s research and to encourage knowledge-sharing and networking amongst our researchers. Once a month, we invite our researchers from different fields to talk about their research related to the same topic and to celebrate Oulu2026 Culture Capital Year we invite also all citizens. Brown Bag Seminars are open to everyone – come learn something new and join in the conversation!
