I got an email through my contact form in mid-December. Would I like to spend a day teaching creative research methods to an EU-funded project team, at the University of Barcelona, in the middle of March – on a Friday?

Would I ever!

This was my first time teaching creative research methods to an EU-funded project team. However, I have been part of an EU-funded project team, and I work with EU-funded project teams as an ethics expert, so I am familiar with the terrain. It was also my first time working in Spain, and fortunately my client and his colleagues were able and willing to help me find my way through the maze of Spanish bureaucracy.

My client, Juan-José Boté, is a Professor at the University of Barcelona. He is also the project lead for GEDIS, which stands for Gender Diversity in Information Science, a project that began work at the start of 2025. Juanjo had a copy of my book on creative research methods which had led him to ask for my help. He wanted a day of awareness-raising, with some hands-on practice, and an emphasis on gender. So that’s what we did.

Juanjo kindly arranged for me to stay at a comfortable hotel very close to the university. On the morning of our session he came to meet me at the hotel to show me the way to the university and the room where we would be working. Before we got around to the business of the day, Juanjo showed me a marvellous three-dimensional ‘toolkit for librarians’ he had created with help from an artist, which is designed to fold down flat for easy transport to conferences.

There were 21 people in the group, who came from a range of countries including Czechia, Austria, Bosnia, Germany, Croatia, Spain and Mexico. I began, as I always do, by asking people to introduce themselves and say what they wanted to get out of the day. It turned out that most were quite senior, including librarians and Professors, and several were also teachers of research methods. I had a moment of internal ‘eek!’, wondering whether I had taken on an assignment I couldn’t fulfil, but it turned out to be fine.

Our day together came at the end of a week of intensive co-working, and everyone was tired, but they all concentrated hard and asked really good questions. The discussions were focused on how creative methods could help GEDIS, and the group generated some excellent ideas.

Juanjo emailed me the following week to say:

“Partners told me that they were really happy with the session. It reported to them new and fresh ideas, to use not only at GEDIS at some point but also to their projects. In my case, I enjoyed the session so much.”

I was particularly pleased, in this global moment, to be able to assist a project working to strengthen gender diversity. And on a personal level I was delighted to be able to spend the weekend in Barcelona!