Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research
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Welcome to the Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research Community. This community serves as a comprehensive repository of resources on participatory approaches, community-based research, and collaborative inquiry methods. Our mission is to foster knowledge sharing and support initiatives that empower communities to contribute to research, ensuring their voices shape the knowledge that impacts their lives.
Explore a wealth of materials, including case studies, policy papers, training guides, and research publications that highlight the practice and principles of participatory research worldwide.
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Item Participatory Research International networking memo, February 1, 1986(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1986) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)This networking memo, issued by Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) in February 1986, reports on the participatory research working group at the 1985 ICAE World Assembly of Adult Education in Buenos Aires. The group’s 45 participants, from more than 30 countries, discussed the aims and methods of participatory research and agreed that its principles stay common across very different settings. They saw the following years as a period of consolidation, with plans for documenting experience, publishing, building resource centres and exchanging ideas between regions. The memo then gives updates from the networks in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and North America, and closes with new publications and materials on participatory research.Item Participatory Research in Asia(1980) Tandon, RajeshThis volume represents a major step in the Participatory Research Project (PRP) in Asia and is the first publication of its kind in the region. It has now been a little over two years since the project was started by the International Council for Adult Education. The PRP has been implemented through the creation and strengthening of five regional networks, and I have been acting as the coordinator of the Asian Regional Network for the past 18 months. A statement of the objectives of the Participatory Research Project and Network is included as an appendix. This volume draws together emergent theoretical concerns of Participatory Research (PR) in Asia, a set of case studies illustrating some of the under-lying principles and methodologies, some short discussion notes, and key reports from regional and sub-regional meetings. The purposes of this volume are manifold: first, this volume will present to the members of the network as well as those interested in PR, the current 'state of the art' in PR: it is intended to initiate a series of such volumes in Asia which will reflect the evolving character of PR as a concept and methodology: second, this volume is intended to stimulate further writing on and documentation of PR. I believe that a significantly greater amount of work is going on in Asia than is represented here. This is a weakness of the present volume: it is heavily biased in favour of some countries, especially India, than others. I do believe that other countries of Asia have a lot of exciting material to contribute to PR. I hope this volume will stimulate a more active circulation of already existing materials. Finally, this volume is intended to be a report on what has been happening in PR in Asia through exchanges across the region. Already four meetings/workshops have been organized on PR in Asia, and it is planned to hold many more within and across the region in the coming years.Item Realizing sustainable development goals through higher education institutions. Vol. 60, No. 12, March 21–27, 2022.(Association of Indian Universities, 2022-03-27) Association of Indian UniversitiesSistla Rama Devi Pani opens this special issue of University News at a moment when the pandemic has strained the social fabric that Sustainable Development Goals are meant to repair, pushing higher education institutions to ask what their role in that repair looks like. The issue sets the ambition of a universal 2030 agenda against the harder question of how individual universities, working with limited resources and local realities, can act on it at all. Bringing together the AIU Vice Chancellors Meet deliberations, it moves across all seventeen goals through essays on gender equality, employment, clean energy, biodiversity, and inclusive education, alongside institutional profiles and thesis summaries. The contributions show how universities take up the SDGs within their own local contexts and resource constraints. Collectively, the issue frames SDG implementation not as a uniform institutional mandate but as an ongoing process shaped by diverse, locally grounded efforts across higher education institutions.Item PRA training report-cum-reference manual developed for Purvanchal Gramin Seva Samiti(Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group, 1995) Gorakhpur Environmental Action GroupThe PRA Training Report-cum-Reference Manual was developed for Purvanchal Gramin Sewa Samiti (PGSS) as a training and reference resource on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). The training was held at the PGSS Centre, Padri Bazar, Gorakhpur, from 31 March to 4 April 1995. The manual was prepared by the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) with assistance from UNICEF, Lucknow. It documents the training programme and serves as a reference manual for the application of PRA approaches in rural development and community-oriented work. The available title page does not provide sufficient information to specify the individual PRA methods or detailed findings covered in the manual.Item Relevance of community‑based participatory research in community medicine training(Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 2020) Krishnan, Anand; Tandon, Rajesh; Nongkynrih, BaridalyneCommunity-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach in which researchers undertake research in partnership with those affected by the issue being studied, for the purpose of taking action or effecting so-cial change. It can also incorporate those who will use the results to change practice and inform policy. The practice of CBPR is primarily fo-cused on "Knowledge for Change." Most research projects in such CBPR partnerships are funded through the academic partners. In many situations, academic and professional researcher institutions and researchers find it difficult to share the information and resources or to di-rectly engage with local community and other local stakeholders. In practice, finding an intermediary partner who has good rapport with lo-cal community and local government can be very effective. While there are good initiatives in selected medical colleges for community orien-tation of medical undergraduates and postgraduates in community medicine, these are not immersive enough to cause an attitudinal change. It is time that we exposed our graduates and postgraduates to CBPR concepts and practiceItem Programme Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT) & Critical Path Method (CPM) August 20-25, 2001(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2001-08-20) Bandyopadhyay, K. KThis paper by Dr. K.K Bandyopadhyay examines Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) as project management techniques for planning, scheduling, and controlling projects and helps in determining project duration, identifying critical activities, and managing flexibility in scheduling. The paper traces the historical development of both techniques, noting that PERT was developed in the United States during the 1950s to plan and accelerate ballistic missile development, while CPM was developed independently and focuses on obtaining trade-offs between cost and completion date. It introduces key terminologies for an in-depth understanding of PERT and CPM through an example of the budgeting process of an organization called DEEP, demonstrating how projects are broken down into jobs with immediate predecessor relationships and time estimates. Activity-on-node (AON) diagrams are used to portray these relationships graphically. The paper also explains how PERT calculates the expected value of activity duration as a weighted average and provides a formula for it. Further, it examines the concept of the critical path, or the longest path of the network project, arguing that its length determines the duration of a project and must be shortened to reduce project completion time. It analyses concepts like job slack and presents an algorithm for finding the Critical path. The paper concludes by demonstrating an example of a watershed project to identify the critical path.Item Economics among the road scholars(2017-12-22) Dreze, JeanJholawala Economics’ is a derogatory term that the urban elites use to dismiss the arguments of social activists without having to contend with them. However, some of the jholawalas are indeed first-rate economists and their arguments cannot be dismissed easily. Jean Drèze is a prime example. His book ‘Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone’ puts together the wisdom that he and his co-authors (especially Reetika Khera) have gathered while doing research motivated by the problems they found at the grassroots level. This article is a condensed version of the thought-provoking introduction to the book. The article is a vigorous defense of the possibility of combining research with action. The argument is not that mainstream economists just interpret the world while the activists try to change it. It is about the learning value of collective action and the role of economists in society. In a country where we tend “to climb the ladder from the top” – Drèze’s characterisation of the Bullet Train project – the contribution of activists-scholars to economic research has special value.Item On research and action(Economic and Political Weekly, 2002-03) Dreze, JeanThe value of scientific research can, in many circumstances, be enhanced if it is combined with real-world involvement and action. This approach should be seen as an essential complement of, not a substitute for, research of a more ‘detached’ kind.Item Participatory impact assessment: A pilot programme in South Asia.(Voluntary Agencies Support Scheme (VASS), 2002-03) Quinn, Marion; Clark, KevinThis report documents a South Asian pilot programme on Participatory Impact Assessment and argues that evaluation must move beyond expert-led measurement of outputs toward a continuous and democratic process in which communities themselves analyse change, define priorities, and shape future action. Drawing on experiences from India and Bangladesh, it shows how participatory approaches deepen both the quality and meaning of impact assessment by placing people’s lived realities at the center. Through methods such as group discussions, mapping, interviews, ranking, and reflective exercises, communities were able to examine shifts in confidence, leadership, access to services, household decision making, and collective organisation. The process also brought forward unintended outcomes, local constraints, and concerns that are often overlooked in conventional evaluations. A key contribution of the report is its insistence that impact assessment should happen throughout the project cycle rather than only at the end. When undertaken in a participatory manner, evaluation becomes not just a tool of measurement but a means of learning, accountability, and institutional improvement. It strengthens community capacities, deepens ownership, and helps organisations remain responsive to changing realities. This report is an important resource for understanding how people centered approaches can make development practice more accountable, reflective, and meaningful.Item Participatory impact assessment: Final report on a two-year pilot programme in South Asia and the Pacific(Voluntary Agency Support Scheme (VASS), 2003-06) Clark, Kevin; Quinn, MarionHow can development interventions become more accountable to the communities they engage with? This report presents the findings and lessons from a two-year Participatory Impact Assessment pilot programme carried out across South Asia and the Pacific with New Zealand NGOs, their regional partners, and local communities. Its central argument is that impact assessment must move beyond measuring short term outputs to understanding long term social change through the active participation of primary stakeholders at every stage of the project cycle. Across multiple case studies involving women’s empowerment, livelihoods, peacebuilding, and community facilitation, the report illustrates how communities can identify indicators, analyse change, and shape future directions of programmes themselves. It highlights key themes such as partnership, stakeholder involvement, gender justice, institutional learning, and the use of participatory tools including mapping, ranking, theatre, focus groups, seasonal analysis, and interviews. The report consistently emphasises that evaluation is not merely a technical review but a democratic and empowering process through which ownership is strengthened, unintended impacts are surfaced, and organisational accountability is deepened