Participatory Research

Community-led learning and knowledge generation

The Knowledge Workshop is where communities turn lived experience into credible knowledge that can influence decisions, policy, and practice.

We support community members to play an active role in how research is designed, conducted, and used. This includes setting the questions, gathering information, interpreting findings, and deciding how knowledge is shared.

Communities are not research subjects. They are knowledge holders.

At its core, the Knowledge Workshop is about learning in a systematic way - asking clear questions, gathering evidence, and using what we learn to improve outcomes.

Research is often treated as something technical or academic. In practice, it is simply a structured way of understanding what is happening, why it is happening, and what needs to change.

The Knowledge Workshop brings this process into community hands, while maintaining rigour, ethics, and credibility.

We work across:

  • Internal learning, to strengthen programs and decision-making

  • Public knowledge, so community insight can shape policy and wider conversations

Why this matters

Too often, research and evaluation are led by external consultants or institutions. They decide the questions, define success, and interpret the results - usually with limited involvement from the people most affected.

This creates a power imbalance. Community knowledge is filtered or simplified, and important insights are missed. Decisions are then made on partial or distorted information.

The Knowledge Workshop was created to change this.

When communities lead research:

  • The right questions are asked

  • What is usually overlooked becomes visible

  • Programs improve because they reflect real experience

  • Community voices carry more weight in decision-making.

What we do

Knowledge Workshop operates across three connected areas.

Participatory Research

We train and support community members to take part in real research and evaluation work, including:

  • Designing research questions and learning goals

  • Conducting interviews, focus groups, and surveys

  • Participating in action research linked to programs

  • Contributing to monitoring and evaluation processes

Research topics are shaped by community priorities, not imposed from outside.

This includes ethnographic approaches — spending time with people, listening deeply, observing everyday experience, and learning from context, not just data.

Public knowledge and policy influence

We support communities to turn local insight into knowledge that can travel.

This includes:

  • Reports, briefs, and insight papers

  • Submissions to government and sector bodies

  • Presentations and public forums

  • Direct participation in policy and sector conversations

Communities decide how their knowledge is used, who it is shared with, and what impact they want it to have.

Skills and pathways

We provide training and mentoring in:

  • Interviewing and facilitation

  • Ethics, consent, and data protection

  • Survey design and analysis

  • Interpreting and presenting findings

These are practical, transferable skills. For many participants, the Knowledge Workshop becomes a pathway into employment, consultancy, research roles, or further study.

Research in Practice

The Knowledge Workshop is embedded into real programs, not treated as a separate activity.

Examples include:

  • Exploring how youth wellbeing is shaped by identity, belonging, and connection across generations

  • Understanding how different forms of language learning support settlement and participation

  • Evaluating community mental health workshops and skills-based programs

  • Learning from participants who complete training or education programs

Each project starts with a clear question, uses evidence responsibly, and feeds learning back into practice.

Get Involved

Our focus right now is on building capacity - within communities and across the ecosystem - to do meaningful, ethical, community-led research well.

We are embedding research design into existing programs, strengthening internal learning, and laying the groundwork for broader collaboration.

We are actively seeking partners who share our commitment to participatory, community-owned inquiry.

We welcome collaboration with:

  • Community members interested in research or facilitation

  • Organisations wanting to embed participatory learning into their work

  • Universities, research bodies, and policy institutes aligned with community-led approaches

If you want to explore how research can be done differently, we’d love to talk.

📩 Contact us to learn more or partner with us