Doing Research Differently: Principles for equity in creative and participatory research settings

In April 2025, a group of researchers, practitioners and creatives came together at a Method Hackathon hosted by the Creative and Innovative Research Methods Community of Practice and SPARK. The event focused on reimagining how creative research methods can be more equitable, inclusive, and genuinely participatory. From this event, six guiding principles emerged, they were: (1) Redistributing power throughout the process (2) Promoting agency and control (3) Recognising and actively reducing participation barriers (4) Having multiple ways to support expression (5) Building in flexibility and responsiveness and (6) Creating the space to hold brave conversations.

In this post, Hayley – one of SPARK’s Research Fellows – shares how they’ve been using principles 1 and 6 in their work since the hackathon…

Redistributing power throughout the process

When designing a participatory research project involving older people in custody, I wanted to move beyond using participatory methods just to gather lived experiences and also use participatory approaches in the analysis stage as well. The researcher often leads the analysis process and an awful lot of power is situated in how we interpretate data. Here researchers generally decide what counts as insight and how experiences are understood. To try to circumvent this and address (partially) some of the power imbalances at play, I designed an analysis process that used creative methods to enable participants to shape the data’s meaning.

Therefore, in addition to adopting photo-elicitation, body-mapping and peer-to-peer empathy interviews to gather people’s experiences, we will be using poetry as a tool for analysis. Participants will work with their own words and stories to create poems, which will then inform the coding framework for the study. The intention behind this activity is to embed people in custody’s perspectives into the interpretive process. By doing so, I hope that the analysis more accurately reflects the lived realities of the storytellers and shows nuances that might otherwise be overlooked by conventional thematic coding practices. I’ll share a fuller blog on methods used in this project in Spring 2026 – offering some reflections on how effective they were in supporting voice and agency in research.

Creating the space to hold brave conversations

In a recent event – Adventures in public engagement across the social sciences – we ask attendees and contributors to work with us to create a co-learning environment, where honesty and challenge could coexist with respect and care. We referred to this as a brave space – an environment where participants are encouraged and supported to speak openly, even when doing so may feel uncomfortable or a little bit risky (Arao and Clemins, 2013; Strano, c.2016, ScottBey Jones, c.2017).

In the opening section of the event, we explained what a brave space is and why it was being used. We shared core behaviours to support it, outlined practical ways to challenge comments or actions if the space was disrupted, and identified people who could offer further support on inclusion and wellbeing issues at the event (if they arose). In terms of the practical tools to help create a brave space, we asked people to use the following (where they felt able and secure enough to do so):

• Call Ins: Drawing on Nova Reid’s (2021) and Loretta J. Ross’s (2025) work, a ‘call-in’ is when we want to challenge a comment or action to create understanding, not to punish the person making it. It’s a way to contest what someone has said or done, without making it a personal attack. It gives space for people to reflect on their words or behaviour, rethink them and make amends. Here’s an example – “I felt [insert feeling] when you [insert what happened], did it land differently than you intended?”
• Calling It Off: Ross (2025) also advocates that at any time we should also be aware we can end a conversation if it is progressing negatively or in a harmful way. Here’s how you might do that – “The direction/content of this conversation isn’t something I’m comfortable with continuing. I would like to [insert your boundary/what you want to happen].”
• Checking In: This is when you think someone might have been negatively affected by the content of a conversation. It simply involves recognising that this might have happened and asking what is needed (if anything) to support them. Here’s how you might open that conversation – “I wanted to check in after [insert simple overview of why you are checking in – i.e., after that conversation] to see if you wanted to talk about your experiences of it and is there anything you need right now?”

This intentional framing and talking through of ‘tools’ people can use to create the environment desired, shifted the tone of the event and asked everyone to play a part in creating a brave space. This approach helped to create a more ‘human’ and ‘informal’ feel to the space, which attendees largely saw as a positive. We also used decoration (i.e., campfires, bunting, picnic blankets) and catering (i.e., marshmallows, pizza etc.) to help create this vibe. More so, people felt that highlighting these ideas at the start set a welcoming and supportive tone. Whilst this worked well during the event, upon reflection another useful technique to adopt would be to have a separate room available that people could use to ‘take a minute’ away from discussions. This would be a space for people to collect their thoughts or to spend some time in a less sensory-overloading space, and then re-engage with the event and its activities.

These are just two examples of how I’ve been working with the principles created in the Method Hackathon. So, how might you embed these principles in your next research activity or event? If you do use them, it would be great if you could share your experiences of applying them with me (email