On 19 March 2026, the Futures Workshop “Co-creating Participatory Research at the University of Aveiro” took place at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences of the University of Aveiro (UA). The workshop was facilitated by researchers Bruna Batista, Raquel Branquinho, Ana Daniel, Cristina B. Domingues, Inês Duarte, Larissa Lima-Almeida, Patrícia Pessoa, and Xana Sá-Pinto.

The session brought together 19 researchers (both doctoral and non-doctoral) and academic staff from the UA, as well as members of two national civil society organisations, with the aim of reflecting on the practices, barriers, and opportunities associated with Participatory Research at UA.

The results indicate that participants recognise Participatory Research as a valuable approach for aligning research more closely with societal needs, engaging stakeholders, and developing solutions better suited to addressing real-world challenges. However, participants also identified several obstacles to its implementation and consolidation, including the lengthy, misaligned, and bureaucratic processes associated with GDPR and ethics procedures; the limited recognition of participatory research practices within institutional evaluation frameworks; insufficient interdepartmental collaboration; and the need for more structured and responsive support, funding, and communication mechanisms.

The recommendations highlight the need to combine immediate actions—such as revising GDPR and ethics procedures, increasing the recognition of Participatory Research practices, establishing a community of practice, and strengthening stakeholder engagement—with medium- and long-term structural measures. These include training opportunities, support platforms, dissemination of existing initiatives, and the integration of Participatory Research into UA’s institutional policies and strategic planning.
This workshop resulted in the development of a policy brief, which was presented to the University of Aveiro’s Rectorate.

Dublin City University has a commitment to embed sustainability at the core of the university, but has struggled to break free of the status quo focus on cost-benefit-based decisions and prioritising short-term interests over long-term sustainability. We partnered with the DCU Institute for Climate & Society and the Climate Justice Universities Union to focus on creating a sustainable DCU.

University researchers and staff are keenly aware that the climate, biodiversity, and social justice crises are real and immediate, and we need fundamental systemic change to address them; but our experience shows us that Universities are not leading the way in experimenting with and promoting transformation – and we want to change that!

This group has a long history of frustration in trying to change unsustainable and money-centric university decision-making. Our biggest challenge was getting people into a positive and creative mode of thinking and feeling. Several different elements were tried – turning challenges into positive ‘what if…’ statements, filling a flipchart with positive words, engaging with the ‘generations’ meditation, using templates to create a future roadmap/canvas/narrative, and together drawing a picture of the future they want for the university. No one of these techniques worked for everyone, but in combination all of the participants seemed to have an ‘ah-ha’ moment where they started having fun, feeling creative, and became ready to engage with a positive future. Bringing it all together into next steps was still difficult, but the group managed to come up with some solutions that can be started in the short term and have a big impact if carried forward.

I think the largest impact is in the realisation that the solutions proposed were mostly things that can be done today – they were all about relationships, community, and creativity. There are real structural challenges, but creating community is something we can all start now, and that will bring benefits for years to come.

In 2025, between June and September, Julie Winget-Power held a total of three Futures workshops with Early Years Educators as part of her PhD research, which aims to explore and conceptualise Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) by Educators in Ireland. The Futures Workshop served as a transformative solution to the disconnect between formal curriculum terminology and the real-world practice of Early Years Educators in Ireland. Following the 2024 revision of the Aistear curriculum, which introduced complex concepts like “slow relational and nurturing pedagogy,” the workshop provided a dedicated space for educators to conceptualise these ideals through practical application.

Key aspects and impacts of the Futures Workshop include:

• Empowering Marginalised Voices: The Futures Workshop is particularly effective for educators who often have policies imposed on them without the chance to participate in their creation. It offers a format where participants genuinely feel their voices are heard and valued.
• From Passive to Active Learning: By inviting educators to deconstruct and then reconstruct their understanding of pedagogy, the workshop facilitates a shift toward active engagement. Although “dreaming big” was initially a challenge, the supportive environment—free from the fear of being “wrong”—participants felt empowered to take control of their professional vision.
• Professional and Personal Growth: Participants reported feeling empowered and supported in their personal leadership. Many educators expressed a desire to integrate the Futures Workshop’s model into their own management practices.
• Bridging the Policy Gap: Ultimately, the initiative enables educators to advise policymakers on the specific supports required to turn curriculum ideals into reality, ensuring research and policy are grounded in actual experience.

The profound impact of this approach is captured by an Early Years Educator with over 20 years of experience, who noted that the workshop was the first time they had been asked to truly explore and discuss their pedagogy in a “safe, exciting, and enjoyable” way. The workshop helps spark new conversations, promote follow-through, and foster an “electric” atmosphere that leaves educators eager for more opportunities to engage with this innovative method.

The Futures Workshop was initially used as a research method to ensure genuine participation; however, an unexpected finding was that educators found the Futures Workshop model to be a very effective tool for professional development, providing them with space and time to engage in critical self-reflection on their professional practice.

In July, Skye Nguyen, a Teaching Assistant at Dublin City University’s Primary School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education Role facilitated a Futures Workshop in Binh Dinh, Vietnam, bringing together 14-17-year-old students from 12 different countries as part of the short course ‘Building Our Future’. This workshop offered a great opportunity for young people to collaboratively imagine and design sustainable communities. The event was a vivid demonstration of how Futures Workshops can engage youth in creative problem-solving across cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries.

The Futures Workshop guided students through four interconnected phases: Preparation, Critique, Fantasy, and Planning. Students began by creating collages envisioning positive community changes, which sparked discussions and helped identify key themes such as Cultural and Heritage Preservation, Transportation and Infrastructure, Waste Management, and Youth Empowerment. In the Critique phase, they examined the challenges facing their communities, fostering reflection and dialogue. The Fantasy phase encouraged creative thinking, using natural and recycled materials to transform challenges into ‘what-if’ visions, resulting in innovative designs such as tramlines connecting urban and rural areas and schools preserving minority languages. Finally, in the Planning phase, students mapped actionable steps toward their imagined futures, sharing feedback and considering real-world implementation, highlighting differences in civic engagement across diverse political contexts.

For Skye Nguyen, facilitating the Futures Workshop highlighted the importance of future literacy in 21st-century education. By providing young people with a safe space to imagine, collaborate, and plan, educators can empower them to become agents of change. She emphasised the importance of adapting the workshop to participant diversity, using a mix of visual and auditory instructions, and ensuring sufficient facilitator support for small-group collaboration.

‘The Futures Workshop is not just a tool for civic engagement in democratic societies,’ Skye noted in the project report. It is also an invitation for young people in more restrictive environments to believe in their capacity to shape a better future, for themselves and others.

With international participation and creative outputs documented through photos and recordings, this workshop serves as a model for scaling Futures Workshops globally, engaging young people in the co-creation of sustainable futures, one of the key objectives of the ENHANCE project.

The full report of the workshop can be found here.

In May 2025, teacher education students at Linköping University participated in a futures workshop on the future of teacher training. In 2023 the Swedish government made an inquiry to review teacher education programs. The current teacher education reform has been in place since 2011 and is now set to be reformed again. The new focus will be on subject didactics, cognitive science, and practical methodology. At the teacher education program in Linköping, students have long desired ‘more methodology’ to feel prepared for their future careers. In 2024, the university has been working on investigating how an approach with more methodology could be implemented and the reform is expected to be announced by the government at the end of 2025. The students came up with several creative ideas for a future vision of the teacher education programs, including more practical on-campus exercises, holograms, and interdisciplinary learning. The results will be presented to the Faculty of Education as proposals for the development of the new teacher education program at Linköping University.

The Democracy Research Network is a multidisciplinary, informal network of researchers at Tampere University. The network brings together approximately 100 researchers from all faculties of the university. The purpose of the network is to learn and share the different ways in which scholars across Tampere University are engaging with democracy in their research and strengthen the collaboration between researchers working in this field. The network also actively collaborates with stakeholders outside the university.

In the futures workshop, the network’s executive committee mapped out the future of the network. The workshop focused on both near-term activities and long-term goals and plans. This was done, among other things, by shaping utopias with playdough. The workshop helped to create inspiring visions for the future of the network.

The project focuses on embedding the equal opportunity policies in municipal services in the fields of education, healthcare, social security, culture and law enforcement for socially vulnerable groups such as LGBTQI+ people, single mothers raising a child with disability, immigrants from culturally different societies, formerly incarcerated persons. The Futures Workshops were run in four municipalities in Lithuania and gathered from 8 to 25 participants in each from December 2024 to April 2025. Some groups built futures narratives that broke silence on inconvenient topics such as LGBTQI+ needs, identified gaps in municipalities‘ approaches to studying local residents‘ needs through data collection and analysis and overall, as one of the participants noted, gave time „to reflect on culture in culture“.

On June 2, 2025, the ENHANCE project researcher Joakim Söderström hosted a dynamic and imaginative workshop at Linköping University that brought together six participants, ranging from university students in sustainability, urban and regional planning, and geography education to researchers in science and sustainability teaching. Despite not knowing each other beforehand, the group quickly formed a collaborative spirit as they explored how to transform a university campus into a greener, more inclusive, and biodiverse space.

With inspiring music from Joakim’s kitchen playlist setting the tone, the ENHANCE workshop proved that even a small group can generate big ideas for a more sustainable and student-centred campus future.

Between 22 and 24 April 2025, the Futures Workshop “Building the CIDTFF Future Together” took place at the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro. The workshop was facilitated by researchers Bruna Batista, Patrícia Pessoa, and Xana Sá-Pinto.
The workshop aimed to foster collective reflection on the future of the CIDTFF Research Centre, strengthen internal cohesion, and introduce participatory research practices inspired by the Inner Development Goals (IDGs).

A total of 14 participants attended the workshop, including 12 PhD students and 2 senior researchers holding doctoral degrees.
The workshop followed a structured Futures Workshop methodology over three days. Participants collaboratively explored current challenges, envisioned alternative futures, and applied backcasting to define actionable steps. This participatory process fostered open dialogue, creativity, and collective reflection. Key outcomes included the identification of priority challenges (e.g., integration of new members, internal communication, and workload management) and the co-creation of future-oriented visions and concrete proposals (e.g., digital communication tools, onboarding practices). The process also resulted in a report, synthesising findings and recommendations, which was presented to the centre’s leadership to inform future strategic decisions.

This workshop is part of a larger project that is examining climate, biodiversity and water across the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. Previous research has shown that businesses currently aren’t adequately considering climate change and biodiversity loss in their assessment of value chain risks. During the workshop, we will be asking businesses to think about the futures of their businesses, how their value chains could change, and what type of future they would like to create. The research goals will be two-fold: first, we want to get business leaders thinking about the connections between their business models and climate and biodiversity; second, we as researchers want to gain an overview of climate and biodiversity risks across a variety of sectors and get a sense of industry partners who we might want to work with during future phases of the larger project.

The ULALABS project aims to define a theoretical and practical framework for the implementation and operation of a European distributed Living Lab focused on urban challenges and climate change; a “Lab of Labs” perceived as a shared and interconnected R+D+I infrastructure among HEI partners to promote transformative innovation policies within and among European regions through the articulation of open and collaborative Learning Communities and shared Agendas.

This research is about an innovation network and aims to investigate how value creation and collaboration might be improved from a member perspective. We have so far been collecting primary data through interviews and meeting observations and have also started analysing secondary data such as network reports in order to better understand the perceived member value of individuals and member organisations. A futures workshop is planned for spring 2025 to co-design the future of the network. The research project is currently confidential.