About us

The Participatory Geographies Research Group (PyGyRG) is an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, artists, activists, and community partners committed to collaborative, engaged, and impactful geographical research.

The group brings together people working across participatory, co-produced, community-based, creative, activist, and policy-engaged approaches to address contemporary social, environmental, economic, and cultural challenges. Members work alongside communities, public bodies, NGOs, social movements, Indigenous Peoples, farmers, businesses, and grassroots organisations across diverse research and practice contexts.

PyGyRG provides a space for critically informed, theoretically grounded, and practice-oriented research that connects academia with real-world change. Rather than advancing a single methodology, the group supports diverse participatory and collaborative approaches, including participatory action research, co-design, citizen science, creative and arts-based methods, deliberative and democratic practice, community organising, collaborative governance, knowledge exchange, and transdisciplinary environmental research.

A core focus of the group is exploring how geographical research can work across messy, dynamic, and contested boundaries – between research and practice, policy and communities, theory and application, and local knowledge and institutional decision-making. Our members are often actively involved in collaborative projects with governments, civil society organisations, charities, international institutions, community groups, activist and arts initiatives, while remaining attentive to questions of power, justice, ethics, inclusion, and representation.

The group supports reflexive, relational, and experimentally minded forms of research grounded in dialogue, shared learning, and collaboration. Participatory action research remains an important foundation, alongside a broader commitment to socially engaged scholarship that contributes to meaningful social and environmental change.

We are always keen to welcome new members, including students, practitioners, community partners, and researchers at all career stages.

About the Research Group

The Participatory Geographies Research Group (PyGyRG) is a member-led international research network that brings together postgraduate researchers, early career researchers, practitioners, and collaborators working across participatory, creative, and engaged geographical research. It is one of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)’s 30+ research groups and working groups.

The PyGyRG is coordinated by a committee comprising sub-groups focused on publications, events, and communications, alongside a wider membership of ordinary members who contribute to the development of the network and its activities. The group currently has 18 named committee members and 9 ordinary members spanning the UK and internationally.

The committee supports the day-to-day running of the group, including organising events and conference sessions, developing collaborative publications, managing communications and social media, coordinating workshops and training activities, and supporting wider research collaborations. Members contribute in different ways depending on their interests, expertise, and availability, reflecting the group’s collaborative and participatory ethos.

PyGyRG meets monthly for one-hour sessions that combine formal agenda items and planning with more informal discussion. Meetings typically include updates on ongoing activities, event development, collaborative projects, and opportunities for involvement, alongside space for members to get to know each other’s research, spotlight individual researchers, share work in progress, and discuss emerging methodological and theoretical issues. The group also periodically invites external speakers from academia, policy, practice, and the arts.

Beyond monthly meetings, the group organises workshops, conference sessions, public events, away days, online conferences, and collaborative writing activities. Members regularly work together on conference programming, publications, blog posts, and interdisciplinary research initiatives, helping to sustain an active and supportive research community across institutions and disciplines.

what we do

PyGyRG is an active interdisciplinary network of postgraduate researchers and early career scholars working across participatory, creative, and qualitative geographical research. The group supports academic exchange, methodological experimentation, peer support, and collaborative research development across institutions and disciplines.

Our activities include:

• Monthly online committee meetings focused on events planning, publications, communications, and discussing members’ research.
• Organising conferences, workshops, away days, and public-facing events that bring together academics, policymakers, practitioners, artists, and community partners.
• Hosting methodological training sessions and skills-based workshops for postgraduate researchers, including a highly attended walking methods workshop at the 2025 RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in Birmingham.
• Convening and sponsoring up to 12 sessions annually at the RGS-IBG conference on participatory, creative, and qualitative methods and approaches.
• Developing collaborative publications, including co-authored papers, book chapters, and conference outputs.
• Co-writing blog posts and methodological reflections for Geography Directions and related platforms.
• Supporting interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration through online conferences, hybrid events, and ongoing research exchange.

Recent activities include the sold-out event Place-based systems change: re-situating participatory practice through power, people, and place, hosted at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in South Kensington, London. The event brought together policymakers, practitioners, artists, and academics to explore themes of temporality, participation as relational practice, and power. The event sold out within three days, and the event itself hosted vibrant, cross-sectoral interdisciplinary dialogue around participatory and place-based research.

You can follow our activities and upcoming events via our LinkedIn and Instagram pages.

Our Approach

PyGyRG emerged from longstanding commitments within geography to participatory action research, collaboration, and social change. Today, these conversations are more important than ever as researchers increasingly work across institutional, disciplinary, and societal boundaries to address complex environmental, political, and social challenges.

We recognise that collaborative research is often messy, contested, and shaped by unequal power relations. Participatory and co-produced approaches are therefore not simply technical methods, but ways of thinking carefully about relationships, ethics, responsibility, expertise, and the politics of knowledge production.

Across the group, members share commitments to:

• collaboration and mutual learning;
• critical reflection and ethical practice;
• inclusion and widening participation;
• valuing diverse forms of knowledge and expertise;
• supporting research with public relevance and societal impact;
• challenging unequal power relations and exclusionary forms of knowledge production;
• connecting theory, practice, and action.

We welcome researchers and practitioners working across all areas of participatory, collaborative, community-engaged, and policy-facing research, whether within or beyond geography.