Community Knowledge Matters Network Gathering 2025

Join us for a celebration of community-led research across rural and island Scotland and beyond on Tuesday 11 November 2025 in Inverness.

The 2025 Community Knowledge Matters Gathering will be a chance to:

• Bring together peers from rural and island communities, practitioners, researchers and policy-makers passionate about community-led research to connect and share practice. This includes spotlights with young researchers in OPEN Shetland and peer research at Moray Wellbeing Hub.
• Hear the launch of new findings exploring what priorities rural communities in Scotland have around being involved in mental health research based on our Co-Priority Survey, co-developed and analysed with a working group of diverse lived experiences.
• Continue to build a collective voice and advocacy as a network to shape policy and systems to make community-led research more equitable and sustainable.

The main Gathering will be held in Inverness at WASPS Creative Academy (see map here) between 10am and 5.30pm of Tuesday, 11 November, followed by a Sharing Cèilidh in the evening from 7pm until 11pm for food, informal networking and creative sharing along with a chance to dance the day out with the Science Ceilidh band.

For those of you who can’t join us in-person, many of the talks will be livestreamed on the day and recorded afterwards. Watch some of the sessions from last year here.

This Gathering is funded by The Ideas Fund, British Science Association and Wellcome.

Programme Outline

10am - 5.30pm: This includes the launch of the Doing Rural Research Co-Priority Survey, presentations from network members and partners, case studies of community-led research, Active Listening walks, wider discussions and an opportunity to inform future network activities.

7pm - 11pm: Dinner, ceilidh dancing and informal Sharing Cèilidh. You sign up to this when you register.

See the full programme above (see Agenda).

We will aim to live-stream selected elements of the main day for those who want to join online.

There will also be an opportunity to join additional workshops and activities on the previous and following days (Monday 10th and Wednesday 12th November).

Please pick the ticket that best describes the main role (“hat”) you will be attending the Gathering. We do recognise there are multiple hats that people have and you will have a chance later to share other roles and hats. This is to help balance the attendance for the network.

Community Bursaries

We are providing a limited number of bursaries with funding from the Ideas Fund to cover travel, accommodation and accessibility expenses for those who would not be able to attend otherwise. To apply for the bursary, please fill out this separate form here.

Expressions of interest for a bursary to attend the Gathering are now open and will close on 25 September. Final decisions will be shared by 9 October. To apply for the bursary, please fill out this separate form here.