Parti­ci­pa­tory research

A natio­nal study by Fach­hoch­schule Nord­west­schweiz (FHNW) studied how willing the people would be to engage in ‘joint rese­arch’. The study, entit­led ‘Parti­ci­pa­tory rese­arch in Switz­er­land (Parti­ci­pa­tionCH)’, came about in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Univer­sity of Zurich and thanks to finan­cial support from the Merca­tor Schweiz foun­da­tion. The study showed that about half of respond­ents could imagine taking part in parti­ci­pa­tory rese­arch, with 83% of the Swiss popu­la­tion even being willing to invest a couple of hours a month. When asked with which topics they would like to become invol­ved, ‘society/social issues’ at 55%, ‘environment/animals’ at 49% and ‘technology/science’ at 48% were parti­cu­larly popu­lar. The biggest hurdle stan­ding in the way of parti­ci­pa­tion in rese­arch was a lack of know­ledge. A total of 1,394 online inter­views were under­ta­ken for the survey, with house­holds without inter­net access comple­ting writ­ten surveys by post. 

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