26 Aug Guidelines on Action Research for Large Scale Piloting CEN Workshop Agreement published
The CWA 18123 on “Guidelines on Action Research for Large Scale Piloting” developed under Pharaon has been published in July 2024 and is now available for download on the CEN/CENELEC website.
Large-scale pilot projects often encounter issues like integrating diverse technologies, aligning multiple stakeholder objectives, ensuring ethical standards, and managing vast amounts of data. These challenges necessitate a robust, flexible approach that can adapt to evolving conditions and unexpected findings, which is where action research plays a pivotal role. Pharaon experienced a lack of guidance in this area, but at the same time the benefits that action research brought were clearly visible. The CEN Workshop Agreement “Guidelines on Action Research for Large Scale Piloting” has been developed as a guide for large scale pilots that conduct action research in their projects. Due to the complexities of a large-scale, real world setting and of action research as a time and resource intensive approach, it can be easy for large-scale pilots to lose track of the process. Specific attention is needed to make sure that stakeholders are truly involved as co-researchers, which can be difficult especially for those who are inexperienced in working this way. By providing concrete actions to be taken in each step of the action research process, the CEN Workshop Agreement aims to help large-scale pilots navigate the difficulties of action research.
The CEN Workshop Agreement defines Action Research and its role in large-scale pilots. It identifies the key stakeholders involved and outlines the necessary steps to conduct Action Research including for example setting up a project, training stakeholders and reflecting continuously. This CWA provides guidance on ethical consideration as well as addressing challenges and solutions like managing data, communication, and collaboration among stakeholders. It specifies ways to ensure the sustainability and scalability of the Action Research outcomes, as well as outlining the key competencies and skills required by the researchers and other stakeholders to conduct Action Research. The CWA establishes a framework for the identification of opportunities for future research and collaboration in this area. This CWA is mainly intended to be used by researchers and pilot managers but can also be useful to other stakeholders involved, like health and care providers, ethics boards, and technology providers
Download the CWA Guidelines on Action Research for Large Scale Piloting