A dedicated space to discuss what it means to sustain and navigate relationships with participants over months and years.
<aside> 📢
We are delighted to share the call for participation of our half-day, in-person workshop at NordiCHI – Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Vaasa, Finland, 9:30-13:00, on 4 October (Sunday), 2026.
Express your interest via the form.
</aside>
This half-day, in-person workshop at NordiCHI 2026 brings together HCI researchers and practitioners to reflect on the realities of long-term research and exchange tactics for navigating sustained relationships with participants. Through case sharing, group discussion, and structured activities, we will surface the backstage labours, ethical tensions, moments of joy and guilt that rarely make it into our publications – and begin co-creating a working community guideline.
We welcome researchers and practitioners across HCI – whether your engagements have spanned years or months, or you are drawn to this kind of work but haven't yet found a way in.
All you need to do is share the experiences or questions that you would like to discuss in the workshop via a light submission form, before 1st September.
Early submissions are encouraged and will be reviewed on a rolling basis. A notice will be posted on the website and the submission form once capacity is reached. Submissions will be reviewed by the workshop organising committee and selected based on relevance of experience and motivation. Accepted contributors will be notified no later than 20 September.
Long-term research is widely recognised in HCI as essential for enabling meaningful participation, reciprocity, and ethical practice. However, researchers rarely have opportunities to collectively discuss the barriers to conducting such work or the challenges of sustaining and navigating relationships with participants over time. This workshop provides a dedicated space for open dialogue and shared reflection on the realities of long-term research. Through case presentations, group discussions, and structured activities, participants will explore the challenges encountered in their projects and share strategies and tactics for navigating them. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this workshop aims to deepen our understanding of the complexities involved in long-term researcher-participant relationships, while building a supportive network and sharing insights with the wider HCI community.
Questions we are interested in exploring during the workshop:
What are the potential barriers preventing people from doing long-term participatory research?
What are the motivations, values, or benefits of long-term engagement?
What are the practical challenges in navigating long-term researcher-participants relationships?
What are the strategies and tactics that we could learn from each other?
What kind of support or infrastructure we need from the institution or wider HCI community to conduct and report long-term research with care?
We invite submissions from researchers and practitioners with experience or interest in long-term participatory research. This includes engagement with individuals, organisations, or communities (e.g., care homes or community centres), lasting from one month to several years.