Participatory Science and Participatory Research for Impact

As part of the 18th Geneva Forum, this annual conference offers a high-level interactive workshop to be held on Wednesday, December 9, 2026 from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in Geneva, bringing together researchers, practitioners, organizations, institutions, citizens, decision-makers, entrepreneurs and funders around a common question: what conditions enable a participatory approach to become a genuine driver of impact? This event is organized in partnership with the Geneva Forum and the NGO Objectif Sciences International.

 Call for Contributions

We invite:
 scientific institutions, universities and research organizations,
 researchers, engineers, technicians and research teams from academic, public and private sectors,
 citizen organizations, NGOs, associations and participatory project leaders,
 local authorities, public administrations and public policy stakeholders,
 professors, teachers, trainers, facilitators and educators,
 science mediators and stakeholders in science communication and scientific culture,
 professionals in evaluation, monitoring and evaluation, and impact measurement,
 entrepreneurs, companies, Fab Labs and innovation stakeholders,
 foundations, donors, impact investors and other funders,
 development, international cooperation and territorial action professionals,
to contribute actively to identifying the mechanisms that enable Participatory Science and Participatory Research to produce concrete and lasting transformations.

Submit your projects, tools, results, challenges and feedback from experience!

This call for contributions invites the presentation of projects, approaches, methods, systems or analyses that help us understand how a Participatory Science or Participatory Research activity produces — or does not yet manage to produce — impact in the real world.

The objective is not to assume that a participatory project must necessarily produce immediately measurable impact, nor to impose a single definition of impact. The aim is to study, when such impact is sought, the conditions that make it possible to move from knowledge production and participation to its use, appropriation and effects.

You may submit:

 Projects that have demonstrated impact that is scientific, educational, social, environmental, economic, institutional, political or territorial, making it possible to identify the mechanisms that led to this impact.
 Promising projects that are still facing a critical obstacle, in order to identify what is missing between participatory research and the intended effect: data, partners, governance, adoption, business model, funding, access to decision-makers, organization or scaling up.
 Methods and tools for designing impact-oriented participatory projects, including theories of change, participatory design, co-construction methods, monitoring and evaluation systems or links with end users.
 Systems linking participatory research results to action, public policies, territorial management, businesses, international organizations, associations or the communities concerned.
 Economic and financial models making it possible to sustain, institutionalize or deploy Participatory Science and Participatory Research activities over time.
 Replication and scaling-up models: networks, alliances, standards, shared infrastructures, training, platforms, territorial or international systems.
 Critical analyses, failures and unexpected effects, when they help to better understand why a participatory approach does not produce the expected impact or produces effects different from those initially sought.

Selected contributions may be presented during the event’s conferences, workshops and round tables. They will be discussed with stakeholders from different professions and sectors in order to identify complementarities, partners, operational solutions, replication opportunities and, where relevant, funding or collaboration prospects.

• If you would like to propose a topic to present during the short presentations, please complete the form further down this page.
• If you would like to consult the workshop programme, please visit the page of the Annual International Conference on Citizen Science, Participatory Research, Crowd-Innovation and Fab Labs for Peace and Development.

 Workshop schedule

• 2:00 p.m.: Entry to the venue
• 2:30 p.m.: Welcome
• 3:00 p.m.: Introductory conferences (keynotes)
• 3:15 p.m.: Series of short presentations (10 presentations of 5 minutes) - see below
• 4:10 p.m.: Statement of the question to be addressed: what are the critical transitions between participation, research and impact?
• 4:20 p.m.: Work in sub-groups
• 5:25 p.m.: Interactive round table (feedback session)
• 5:50 p.m.: Closing remarks (Closing remarks)
• 6:00 p.m.: End of the workshop
• 7:00 p.m.: Networking dinner

 Workshop objectives - Why participate

Workshop objectives

 Identify the mechanisms that lead from participation to impact: Understand what enables a participatory research activity to produce scientific, educational, environmental, social, institutional, political or economic effects.
 Highlight the critical transitions in the impact chain: Identify the moments when projects succeed, slow down or fail between knowledge production, appropriation, use, decision-making, transformation, sustainability and scaling up.
 Connect skills that are usually separated: Bring researchers, participants, operators, educators, institutions, decision-makers, entrepreneurs, evaluators and funders together around concrete projects and situations.
 Share transferable tools and models: Circulate design, evaluation, governance, funding and deployment methods that can be adapted to other projects or territories.
 Generate collaborations and pilot operations: Enable the contributions presented to find the partners, expertise or resources required for their next stage.

Why participate?

By submitting your contribution, you will benefit from:
 A visibility platform to present your project, method, results or challenges to an international network bringing together research, civil society, institutions, businesses and funders.
 A space for interdisciplinary and cross-sector discussion allowing your approach to be examined from several perspectives: scientific, operational, educational, institutional, economic or financial.
 The opportunity to identify missing links that may limit a project’s impact, sustainability or scaling up.
 Connections with potential partners able to complete an impact chain: researchers, operators, data users, local authorities, international organizations, entrepreneurs or funders.
 The opportunity to contribute to an international reflection on the conditions that enable Participatory Science and Participatory Research to become sustainable instruments for knowledge, action and transformation.

This workshop is part of the Conference Cycle on Citizen Science, Participatory Research, Crowd-Innovation and Fab Labs for Peace and Development.

It proposes a shift in focus. After examining how to measure the impact of Participatory Science projects and how to organize large citizen alliances capable of acting at the international level, the aim here is to work on what lies between these two questions: the chain that connects a participatory approach to real transformation.

Participatory research can produce excellent data without those data being used. It can profoundly transform participants without immediately producing institutional change. It can change a local practice without managing to be replicated elsewhere. Conversely, an initially modest project can change a public policy, create a new activity, strengthen a community’s capacity for action or become the trigger for a much larger programme.

The workshop will therefore seek less to compare levels of impact than to understand the mechanisms through which effects emerge: who uses the results, what decisions become possible, what skills are created, which stakeholders need to be involved, at what stage, with what resources and according to what continuity model.

The Geneva Forum does not propose establishing a normative definition of Participatory Science and Participatory Research or certifying what would constitute a “good” impact. It offers an international space where different stakeholders can compare their experiences and jointly identify the conditions that make it possible, when impact is sought, to translate this intention into the very architecture of projects.

To put this approach into practice, 10 professionals from different fields will each have 5 minutes to present a case, method or challenge. Each contribution will be invited to make explicit the same sequence: project → participation → result produced → intended or observed impact → critical transition or condition for scaling up.

Participants will have received information in advance about the speakers and their projects. The presentations will therefore constitute not a succession of independent mini-conferences, but a set of case studies serving as material for the collective work in the second part of the workshop.

 General theme and thematic areas for reflection

• Central theme: Participatory Science and Participatory Research for Impact – How can we move from participation to transformation? Participatory research, Participatory Science, Citizen Science, action research, project-based learning, evaluation, public policies, business models, funding, innovation, scaling up, ...

• Scientific rationale: The development of Participatory Science and Participatory Research has considerably increased the possibilities for involving citizens, communities, students, professionals or territorial stakeholders in knowledge production. Yet the number of participants, the quantity of data collected or even the scientific quality of a protocol are not sufficient, on their own, to describe the transformations produced by a project.

Between a participatory research activity and its effects lie mechanisms that remain insufficiently documented: appropriation of knowledge, use of data, development of skills, changes in practices, integration into public decision-making, institutional transformation, creation of activities, continuity of funding, methodological dissemination or replication.

Understanding these mechanisms is both a scientific and operational challenge. It requires analysing not only the results obtained, but also causal chains, conditions for success, failures, unexpected effects and interactions between stakeholders.

The notion of impact will deliberately be understood here in a broad sense. It may concern scientific production itself, participants, education, the environment, health, professional practices, communities, public policies, institutions, the economy, funding, governance or a project’s capacity to be replicated and deployed in other contexts.

Disciplinary fields and research areas:

• Design of impact-oriented participatory projects: How can the future uses of results, beneficiaries, implementation stakeholders and intended transformations be integrated from the outset?
• Impact mechanisms and chains: What processes connect participation, knowledge production, appropriation, decision-making and transformation? What are the main critical transitions?
• Scientific impact and quality of knowledge: How does participation change research capacities, available data, scientific questions or forms of validation?
• Impact on participants and learning: What skills, knowledge, capacities for action or transformations in practices are produced through participation in research?
• Environmental, social and territorial impact: How can participatory activities be linked to observable changes in the situations studied?
• Data use and public policies: How do results from participatory systems enter information systems, territorial management, administrative decisions or public policies?
• Institutional and organizational impact: How does a participatory approach transform the practices of a university, public administration, NGO, company or international organization?
• Impact evaluation and evidence: Which quantitative, qualitative, participatory, narrative or mixed methods make it possible to document effects without reducing the complexity of projects?
• Business models and funding: What activities, resources and forms of funding enable effective systems to continue beyond one-off funding?
• Replication and scaling up: What conditions make a participatory method, project or infrastructure transferable to other territories, organizations or countries?
• Ethics, governance and value sharing: Who defines the intended impact? Who benefits from the results? How should decision-making power, data ownership, recognition and benefits be distributed among the different stakeholders?

Priority topics:

• Case studies making it possible to reconstruct a complete impact chain: From participatory design through to the effective use of results and observed transformations.
• Projects that have produced unexpected effects: Impacts different from those initially sought, shifts in direction, innovations or positive or negative externalities.
• Scientifically robust projects whose impact remains limited: Analysis of obstacles preventing data use, appropriation, institutionalization or scaling up.
• Systems directly linking Participatory Science and decision-making: Citizen observatories, alert systems, decision-support tools, data used by local authorities, businesses, managers or public administrations.
• Projects combining research, education and action: Systems in which learning and capacity development directly contribute to impact.
• Design and evaluation methods integrated from project launch: Theories of change, logical frameworks, monitoring and evaluation, participatory methods and continuous documentation systems.
• Business models for Participatory Science and Participatory Research: Services, income-generating activities, pooling of resources, public procurement, associative, philanthropic or hybrid models.
• Relationships between Participatory Science and Participatory Research and impact finance: Conditions that make certain projects understandable, assessable and fundable without distorting their scientific or participatory objectives.
• Replication and scaling-up systems: Training, operator networks, open standards, technologies, territorial or international alliances.
• Documented failures and limitations of current approaches: Situations that make it possible to identify the missing conditions between participation, scientific production and transformation.

 Submission procedures

• Nature of contributions: 5-minute oral presentation (with slide), sharing a case study, tool, method or practical feedback from experience. This will be preceded by information provided to the audience in advance, and followed by the publication of an online article.
• Common question for contributions: Authors are invited to explain, as far as possible: the project → the form of participation → the result produced → the intended or observed impact → the critical transition, obstacle or condition for scaling up.
• Submission format: Title + abstract (500 words max.), followed by the publication of an article (3 pages max. Figures and tables included; Calibri 11-type font, single spacing, 2cm margins).
• Accepted languages: French, English (simultaneous interpretation).
• Submission procedure: Via the online form below.
• Schedule:
  • Deadline for abstract submission: October 20
  • Notification of acceptance: October 25
  • Deadline for submitting the full article: December 1
    Submissions received after this date may be considered for a future Forum session. Please always submit without postponing.

(See submission form below)

 Expected results and outputs

• Compilation of proceedings from presentations and discussions,
• Publication of an online article by each speaker,
• Identification and documentation of Participatory Science and Participatory Research impact chains,
• Mapping of the main critical transitions between participation, research and transformation,
• Identification of transferable tools, methods, business models and governance systems,
• Drafting of a general Statement (Position Paper) following the workshop,
• Contribution to a collective reflection on a Participatory Research Impact Pathway,
• Connection of projects with scientific, territorial, institutional, operational or financial partners,
• Outlines of collaborations, experiments or pilot operations that may be continued after the conference.

 Evaluation of proposals

• Evaluation criteria: Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of their relevance to the theme, their scientific or methodological rigour, their ability to document an impact mechanism or critical transition, the value of the feedback from experience provided, their transferability and their potential for practical application. Contributions presenting challenges, negative results or unexpected effects may be selected when they provide useful insights for understanding the mechanisms studied.
• Selection process: Proposals will be evaluated by a multidisciplinary scientific and professional committee, seeking diversity in disciplines, field settings, forms of participation, levels of impact and speaker profiles.

 Practical information

• Logistics: The workshop will take place as part of the Geneva Forum 2026, organized from December 7 to 11, 2026. In accordance with the philosophy of the Geneva Forum, online participation is possible but not prioritized.
• Registration and Memberships: To participate in the Geneva Conferences and Forums, please select the membership of your choice. See the different memberships here.
  Once your membership has been validated, you will receive all the necessary logistical information, as well as the link to generate your event badge, a few days beforehand.

 Contact details

For any questions regarding the call for contributions, please feel free to contact the organizing team at: contact@geneva-forum.com

 Submission form