Network Gathering 2025

Join us on Tuesday 11 November 2025 for a celebration of community-led research.

About the Event

Join us for a celebration of community-led research across the Highlands & Islands and beyond on Tuesday 11 November 2025 in Inverness.

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

  • bring together peers including communities across the Highlands and Islands and wider, researchers, practitioners and policy-makers passionate about community-led research to connect and share practice. 

  • find out and shape the activities across the network including the findings of our community-led rural mental health Co-Priority Survey.

  • Continue  our collective voice and advocacy 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 10.30 and 5pm of Tuesday 11 November followed by a Sharing Cèilidh in the evening from 7pm until 11pm for food, informal networking, hearing from different groups and 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.

the General Registration for the event (i.e. those who are not applying for the bursary) will be open soon.

Programme Overview

Tuesday 11 November

10.30am - 6pm (arrivals from 10am) Presentations from network members and partners, case studies of community-led research across the Highlands & Islands, interactive workshops and network advocacy building, panel discussions and reflections, an opportunity to engage with policy-makers.

7.30pm - 11pm: food and informal Sharing Cèilidh including community sharing and dancing.

We will be live-streaming selected talks from first part of the day for those who cannot join in-person.

Community Bursary Scheme

To help support a wide range of voices joining us for the Gathering, we are offering some bursaries with funding from the Ideas Fund to cover the costs of travel, accommodation and accessibility expenses to those who may not otherwise be able to attend. 

The expressions of interest for a bursary will open on Thursday 5 June and close on Monday 30 June 6pm. The decisions will be shared by Wednesday 30 July. *The General Registration for the event (i.e. those who are not applying for the bursary) will be open soon.

We will also host an information session on Thursday 12 June at 1pm if you'd like to find out more about the network and the bursary process.

Whilst we cannot guarantee that everyone who applies will be able to receive a bursary to join in person, many of the talks will be hybrid and live-streamed online and/or recorded - you can see last year's recordings here.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more about the event, please email lewis@scienceceilidh.com