Food for Thought
− 1 min readThe Maastricht Platform for Community-Engaged Research held its first activity in the form of a brainstorm meeting on 6 June 2019. The event, titled “Food for Thought”, brought together around 50 enthusiastic researchers and support staff at Maastricht University involved in, or interested in doing, community-engaged research.
The initiator of MPCER, Marieke Hopman, first explained how she conceived the idea of MPCER after participating in the action-research competition organised during the Opening of the Academic Year in 2017. When she met the other contestants during the competition, she realised that she was far from being the only researcher at Maastricht University who was interested in engaging society in their research. The idea of creating MPCER was born that day.
Speaking next, Susan Schreibman, Professor of Digital Arts and Culture at FASoS, shared her experience in involving citizens in research projects. She told the story of her project Letters 1916-1923 and said that she found it so beneficial and rewarding that she “would never do a regular old research project again".
The brainstorm gathering continued with a speed-dating session during which the participants were invited to introduce themselves and tell each other why they felt that community-engaged research was important and why they were interested in doing this type of research. They also exchanged many ideas on what role MPCER could play to help them in their efforts.
The MPCER team thanks all the participants for their valuable tips and suggestions!