I am a professor for participatory health care research at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. As a social and health geographer my particular interest lies in caring spaces and practices across the globe and locally. More recently, I have been exploring the nexus between care and participatory approaches in projects initiating caring communities to support healthy aging.
Seran Demiral is a children’s and science fiction author, as well as a Philosophy for Children/Communities (P4C) trainer based in Istanbul. A prolific writer, she has published over ten novels for children and young adults. With a background in architecture and sociology, she weaves social issues into her fiction while bringing her experience with children, youth, and older adults into academia. As an associate professor of sociology, she integrates arts-based methodologies and forum theatre into her research, fostering creative and participatory approaches to understanding youthful digital subjectivities and collective cultures. She also teaches children’s literature, sociological theories, and digital cultures at Bahçeşehir University (Sociology) and Boğaziçi University (Primary Education). She has been selected for an MSCA ERA fellowship at the University of Porto for her project InterGENerational Youthful Narratives: ARTs-Based Approaches to Digital Citizenship and Civic EngageMENT (GENARTMENT), which is currently in the final stages of approval. Within PAAR- net, she is a co-leader of Working Group 3, Technology and Innovation.
Anniriikka Rantala (M. Soc. Sci.) is a doctoral researcher in gerontology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Finland. She co-leads Working Group 2 ‘Community and Place,’ in the Participatory Approaches with Older Adults (Paar-net) COST action. Rantala is also a member of the executive committee of the Democracy Research Network at Tampere University and a member of the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare). Her research interests include the linkages between living environment and social inclusion, civic participation, communities, ageing in suburban neighbourhoods, and sociomaterial perspectives on ageing and neighbourhoods.
Isabelle Tournier, PhD, is a lecturer in psychology at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 (France). Her research focuses on the well-being and adaptation of older adults, with particular attention to areas such as social participation, routinisation, non-pharmacological interventions, and stigma related to ageing and dementia. She is especially interested in applied and participatory research. Isabelle was a research fellow on the EU-funded IDoService project, which aimed to co-design a service that supports participation in meaningful activities for people living with mild dementia. She co-leads PAAR-net’s Working Group 1, “Health, Care, and Support.”
Diane is an established social care researcher with a national and international reputation for research excellence, leading a novel portfolio of work that has generated new knowledge to inform social care policy and practice in Wales, United Kingdom. She leads impactful social care research with real world application, which has supported change in national social care provision (short breaks) for unpaid carers. Diane’s appointment to ministerial advisory positions, and national and international steering groups highlights the esteem with which her work is held.
Diane’s research and research infrastructure capacity building work has attracted external grant funding totaling £12.5 million over the course of her career, as a lead investigator, principal co-investigator, and co-investigator. Diane’s work is underpinned by a longstanding commitment to collaborative research to improve social care outcomes for older adults and their unpaid carers. Key to Diane’s work is the active involvement and engagement of those with living experience at all stages of the research process. Diane co-leads working group one Health, Care and Support, in PAAR-Net.
Responsive to new opportunities, Diane is delighted to join the new Wales Centre for Vision Services Research in 2025 and is committed to grow social care research that shapes policy and practice solutions in vision services with scientific rigor.
Diane is also Director of Research for the School of Health Sciences, Bangor University.
Tamar Yellon, PhD, RN, is a lecturer at the Jerusalem College of Technology (Lev Academic Center) and in the department of Nursing at the Hebrew University, and a clinical instructor at Hadassah Medical Center. A registered geriatric nurse, she specializes in cultural competence in healthcare and care for older adults, and works clinically with a participatory approach with cognitively-declined older adults. She works as a clinical supervisor for undergraduate and postgraduate [master] nursing students. Her research focuses on geriatrics, nursing education, and qualitative research, with active studies on physical activity of older adults and participatory research with older adults, professional education in geriatrics, and nursing students’ attitudes toward elder care