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UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop: The iceberg and the view under the waters…
Dr Lidis Garbovan
21st Feb 2025
This blogpost contains Lidis’ impressions about and reflections on the UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop in Birmingham on 31 January 2025. Please also view our other blogs in this mini-series from Salma, Jonathan, Sarah, Farheen, and Alan .
Introduction
Thinking about an iceberg may lead us to think of ice and cold, which is an appropriate comparison to the cold winter day in the UK, as 31 January 2025 was – the Friday of the UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop, at The Exchange, the University of Birmingham. But the iceberg view is also often used to symbolise the importance of what cannot be seen, the much larger part of the iceberg which is under the water level. This idea serves well as a starting point for my reflections in this blogpost, as there was an immense amount of work, especially mental work and preparations required before the Hybrid Workshop took place.
Preparations…
The preparations started in October 2024, and ranged from finding a common date and time that would be suitable for all or most of the Citizen Panel members, finding an appropriate venue, planning the academic and creative content of the Workshop to achieve the objectives of the Citizen Panel concept, preparing pre-meeting activities and reviewing materials for the Panel members, to ordering and preparing stationery (Pic 1 below), catering and liaising with colleagues who made travel bookings and working with a visual artist as well as being the contact person for everything related to the Workshop. This was a huge amount of work and many times I felt nearly overwhelmed. However, I received a lot of support from other team members who offered to help with booking travel and accommodation, and senior team members who offered regular advice, consultation and guidance about the academic content of the Workshop. They also joined in-person and online on 31 January and facilitated the Workshop sessions and made me feel very supported on the day.
Pic 1. – Stationery ordered and received a few days before the Workshop
The day before the Workshop, when everything was ready, I decided to go on a short walk to the farm nearby my house (pic 2 below) to clear my head – and I found some lovely snowdrops on the field, which enlightened my day. I decided to collect some and take them to the Citizen Panel Workshop. These walks also remind me of the first few months of last year (2024), soon after I joined UK LLC, and started preparing the Citizen Panel project and its delivery. In my previous blogpost – in August 2024 – focused on setting up the Citizen Panel and the 1st meeting of the Steering Group (Garbovan, 2024). I mentioned at the end that my aim was ‘to continue being open and honest about the challenges of doing a Citizen Panel project aimed at inclusion of seldom-heard groups in longitudinal research for the first time’. This blogpost is indeed a continuation of my reflections on these challenges – this time focused on the Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop in Birmingham.
Pic 2 – Walk to the farm nearby – 30 Jan 2025
On the day of the Workshop
The Exchange, a central building at the University of Birmingham, was the final venue selected from a list of more than 10 venues in Birmingham, a location in West Midland situated mid-way between Bristol and Edinburgh and relatively suitable to travel to and from for the Panel members from different parts of the UK. The Stuart Hall room is on the 1st floor, next to the Benjamin Zephaniah room. When I looked for venues, I was impressed to see the picture of Stuart Hall and the room named after him. Stuart Hall’s work and intellectual legacy are fundamental to my own academic thinking and shaped my PhD research to a great extent. I felt very pleased to honour his work on Cultural Studies and cultural identity by choosing this venue.I reached there at 09.05am, to set up the room and the Zoom meeting, before the Citizen Panel members arrived at 10am. There were still many things to be finalised in the one hour left (pic 3 below), while also welcoming the Panel members as they started to arrive. There were many changes in the schedule of the Panel members, including unpredictable events or personal life events that prevented some of them from joining the meeting – or some were available to join only via Zoom.
Pic 3 – ‘Friday morning – to do list’
Katharine, my colleague from UK LLC based at the University of Bristol, arrived first in an otherwise empty and calm room (pic 4 below) and she kindly helped with setting up the room and offered emotional support as well for which I was so grateful!
Pic 4 – Stuart Hall room – 09.00am – Before the start of the Workshop
When delivering the Workshop, I adapted ideas from The World café method (Kinney et al, 2024)– by setting up two in-person tables for focused group discussions, one online table on Zoom, and one common table for sharing all the written notes. I also set up lots of materials for the Panel members to use for taking notes, writing down questions or drawings, if they wished, A4 and A2 papers, pens, markers, and fresh snowdrop flowers at each table to create a relaxing environment (pic 5 below).
Pic 5 – adapting the World Café method
The hybrid element (pic 6 below) meant that a third of the Panel members joined online and despite the friendly technical support of the IT staff from The Exchange, I felt nervous about it, and was not sure how it would work. My UK LLC colleague Kirsteen from the University of Edinburgh was the facilitator for the online meeting and Katharine was my ‘IT help’ throughout, especially as the ‘online table’ was invited to join in every time we shared common discussion points, to listen to the summary from the other two tables and to join at the start or end of a new session. The intermittent use of the mute button felt like a challenge for me but the reflections of the ‘online table’ members at the end of the meeting were fantastic as some said they ‘were made to feel like they were a part of the in-person Workshop’ and they had ‘the best hybrid meeting ever’.
Pic 6 – the Hybrid workshop – meeting in-person and online
The Citizen Panel members started the Workshop with sharing their hopes and expectations of the day (pic 7 below). Then they moved on having longer and focused discussions at each table, facilitated by UK LLC Co-Director, Robin Flaig, and Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley. They explored topics such as ‘reflections on the previous online sessions – October to December – what was interesting and how we could do it differently / better in future’, as well as the question of ‘public good and how can this be measured or assessed during applications to use the longitudinal data held in the UK LLC Trusted Research Environment’.
Pic 7 – Ice-breaking session – sharing hopes and expectations of the Workshop
Lunch time was followed by a walking and guided tour of the Vaults (pic 8 below), the room in -1 at The Exchange, previously used by the former bank to store valuable items. Everyone seemed to be interested in exploring this rather unusual place, filled with historical memories, and to listen to the information shared by the guide. All participants agreed and consented to clicking and sharing pictures and videos.
Pic 8 – Walking tour of the Vault – in the underground of The Exchange
The key ideas, questions and summaries of the Workshop sessions were captured visually and artistically by Ben, the visual artist who joined on the day. He used the 4th table in the room, mostly standing quietly, drawing and smiling. The Panel members found his work interesting and checked with him during the breaks, asking questions and clicking pictures.
Pic 9 – Visual and artistic work
After the lunch break, the Panel members returned to having focused group discussions at each table and the last session of the day was led by a Panel member. It was a reflective time to ‘Make a Zine’ – creative work using folded paper, writing and colouring pens and scissors (pic 9 below). The purpose of the Zine was for the Panel members to share final thoughts and feelings about the Workshop and hopes for a 2nd Citizen Panel using visual tools, not only writing. Some of the questions on the Zines that stayed with me were about ‘what happens next’: ‘Will these ideas be implemented?’, ‘Will we see a difference?’ and ‘How will we know?’
Some final thoughts from the Panel members that I remember mentioned that ‘the Citizen Panel was delivered in a way that I felt valued’; and amongst many ideas to learn from and implement in the future here are two interesting ones: ‘slow down’ and ‘be very clear on the outputs (of the Citizen Panel)’, but also broader considerations about what public good means especially in terms of health and economic outcomes and addressing cultural changes, diversity and inclusion.
Pic 9 – Making a Zine – Reflections on the UK LLC Citizen Panel
Looking into the future…
And what happens next? As the Panel members asked, the next steps in the work of the Citizen Panel are about firstly, sharing what we did, or co-producing outputs, such as blogposts, podcasts, summary reports and academic articles to share the learnings and the challenges to wider audiences.Secondly, we will be co-designing the 2nd round of the Citizen Panel, based on the findings of the Workshop. And to make the iceberg view a little bit more balanced for future blogposts, my hopes are high as a new colleague will be joining UK LLC very soon, helping out with the future work of the Citizen Panel and building on the enthusiasm and commitment of our current Citizens’ Panel.
References:
Garbovan, L. (2024), Reflections on setting up a Citizen Panel at UK LLC, blogpost 24 August 2024, available at https://ukllc.ac.uk/blog/2024/08/29/reflections-on-setting-up-a-citizen-panel-at-uk-llc.html
Kinney, D., & Kinney, W. (2024). Adapting the World Café Method to an Online Format: Insights From Novice Qualitative Researchers. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 5(3). https://doi.org/10.35844/001c.122576
Stuart Hall, https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/stuart-hall-hilton-and-connell.
Why the work of Professor Stuart Hall still matters today, https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2023/why-the-work-of-professor-stuart-hall-still-matters-today