Building Community for Labs4Change
Τι είναι
A co-creation workshop for naming the challenges a community really faces — and building the relationships to tackle them. A student core group each takes a theme, researches it, and facilitates an open discussion guided by clear questions.
Alongside the dialogue, the group maps the outside organisations and allies that could help, turning a one-off conversation into a lasting network. Students lead throughout, as researchers and facilitators rather than an audience.
Πότε να τη χρησιμοποιήσετε
- You want students to lead — as researchers and facilitators, not just attendees.
- You need to surface the real, intersecting challenges in your community.
- You want to build a network of allies and partners, not just a list of problems.
Πώς να την εφαρμόσετε
Students take a theme each, open the conversation, and map the allies who can help.
- Research
Prepare the themes
Split the core group; each person researches one theme (for example gender, accessibility, cultural diversity) and prepares guiding questions.
Παράγετε- A student owner and questions per theme
- Discuss
Open the dialogue
Facilitate an open, café-style discussion on each theme, surfacing barriers and lived experience.
Παράγετε- Named barriers and needs per theme
- Connect
Map the allies
Identify the organisations, units and initiatives — inside and outside the university — that could support each theme.
Παράγετε- A stakeholder map of allies and gaps
- Commit
Turn talk into action
Consolidate proposals and commitments into your Action Plan, and agree it continues as a student-led initiative.
Παράγετε- Proposals for the Action Plan
- A commitment to keep going
Best run after a first diagnosis, to open up the themes and build your network. It feeds naturally into dialogue and planning.
- World Café — the discussion format this method uses
- Living Labs Guidelines — to set up the student-led lab behind it
- Action & Sustainability Plans — to turn proposals into lasting action
Building Community Canvas
Use this canvas to name your community’s challenges and map the allies who can help. Print it at A3, or fill it in together.
Your themes
The 2–4 challenges your community faces (for example gender, accessibility, cultural diversity).
Theme owner
Which student or member leads and researches each theme.
Guiding questions
The open questions that will start each discussion.
Barriers & lived experience
What people actually experience — the barriers to name.
Intersections
Where themes overlap and reinforce each other.
Allies inside the university
Units and people that can help (equality unit, support services…).
Allies outside the university
External organisations, collectives and initiatives.
Gaps
Who is missing or underrepresented?
Proposals
The concrete actions that emerge.
Keeping it going
How this continues as a student-led initiative.
Πώς να συντονίσετε μια συνεδρία
A guide to running a Building Community session where students lead the themes, open the dialogue, and map the allies who can help.
1 Προετοιμασία
- Form a student core group and assign each member a theme to research in advance.
- Invite students and staff (about 5–15) and prepare guiding questions for each theme.
- Book a comfortable space; bring paper, markers and a wall for the stakeholder map.
- Agree who facilitates overall and who captures the map and the proposals.
2 Διεξαγωγή
- 10 minWelcome — why you are here, the themes, and how the session works.
- 15 minTheme intros — each student owner briefly frames their theme.
- 35 minOpen dialogue — rotate through the themes café-style, surfacing barriers and lived experience.
- 20 minStakeholder map — brainstorm allies inside and outside the university, and note the gaps.
- 15 minProposals — agree concrete actions and who might own them.
- 10 minClose — commit to next steps and to keeping the group going.
3 Παρακολούθηση
- Write up the themes, the barriers named, the stakeholder map and the proposals.
- Reach out to the allies you identified and invite them to a next session.
- Fold the proposals into your Action Plan.
- Keep the core group active, and invite feedback for next time.
4 Διαδικτυακά
- Give each theme its own board area and breakout room; students host their own theme.
- Build the stakeholder map together on a shared whiteboard.
- Use quick polls to prioritise the proposals.
- Prefer privacy-respecting tools, and keep the board open afterwards.
Παράδειγμα υλοποίησης από το έργο Labs4Change
The second Living Lab at the University of Thessaly used a structured co-creation methodology where a student core group, having first researched each thematic area, facilitated open World Café-style discussions guided by pre-defined questions on gender equality, disability and cultural diversity. This directly yielded concrete outcomes: the team mapped over 25 external stakeholder organisations for future collaboration, secured commitments from two local support centres (the Women's Support Centre of Karditsa and the Volos Municipality Shelter) to deliver guest workshops, and generated a final Action Plan with eight specific institutional proposals — including mandating inclusive language in university communications, improving physical accessibility audits, and formalising collaboration with UTH's Equality and Equal Access Units. A key decision was to embed these activities as a recurring, student-led initiative beyond the project's duration, driven by participant feedback such as one student's comment that "we rarely see our identities reflected in official forms or daily campus life," which underscored the urgency of addressing non-binary visibility gaps.
Several solutions to the three thematic areas arose and were translated into actions to be implemented by the university.
Εξερευνήσατε τους πόρους του Labs4Change; Μοιραστείτε τα σχόλιά σας
Οι πρώτες σας εντυπώσεις θα μας βοηθήσουν να βελτιώσουμε την πλατφόρμα, το Toolkit και άλλα αποτελέσματα του έργου, και να τα κάνουμε πιο χρήσιμα και προσβάσιμα για μελλοντικούς χρήστες.
Πόροι και αναφορές
- Reference CHESS Action Manual — Change Hubs for Ecosystemic Social Solutions (2025) On mapping ecosystems and student-led social innovation.