ENTER is pleased to announce the programme for its next webinar, which will be held on Thu. 23 October 2025, 5:00 to 7:00 pm CET.

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Click here to reserve your place and receive a link to join the webinar

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The theme, Next Generation of Researchers and Research, aims to highlight upcoming doctoral candidates, PhD students, and postdoctoral researchers who are in the early stages of their careers. The webinar will focus on:

 

• Innovative research ideas and future directions that include people with lived experiences

• Beliefs and values about the role of research together with people with lived experiences

• Opportunities for collaboration among doctoral students within the ENTER network

• Challenges faced by early-career researchers in involving people with lived experiences, and how these shape their research choices

 

These presentations will be followed by a joint conversation on the needs of the ENTER network:

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• How can the network support young researchers in working with people with lived experiences?

• What can the network learn from such approaches?

• How can dialogue with people with lived experiences help shape the future of the network’s collaboration?

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Programme: Nothing about us without us

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17.00 (CET): Welcome and introduction to what is happening in Europe and how can vulnerable groups help to shape the research agenda in ENTER v/ Vice-Chair of education and training in ENTER Lene Lauge Berring

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Presentation 1: Dr Shaakya Anand-Vembar, Research Fellow, VISTA. Ireland
Title: Reflections on enacting a novel Public and Patient Involvement process as a lived experience researcher in the VISTA research programme in Ireland

Background:
Poor public and patient involvement (PPI) practices can be tokenistic and marginal, with limited influence on research, knowledge translation, and implementation processes, and problems with equity and representativeness. To address these issues, we developed a novel PPI process within the Irish VISTA research programme, along with the integration of a lived experience research fellow (presenting author) on the team. VISTA is a cross-disciplinary funded grant focused on closing the policy-implementation gap in various areas of mental health service provision. 

 

Presentation focus:
This presentation aims to describe the novel PPI process adopted in VISTA, offer reflections on the presenter’s experience of being a lived experience research fellow implementing this PPI process, and synthesise key learning to assist the integration of similar processes in other mental health research programmes.

 

Dr Anand-Vembar will talk through her experience of co-designing and implementing strategies used to successfully enhance accessibility and diversity in VISTA’s PPI panel, such as a multipronged approach for recruitment, flexible application process, and stress-reduction strategies to enhance people’s ability to be themselves during interviews, as well as support structures for PPI contributors within VISTA. 
Our reflections can support other efforts to ensure that people from a wide variety of backgrounds and at different stages in their recovery are represented. 

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Presentation 2: Søren Dixen, mag.art. co-founder, member of the board, chief researcer, Maskine Maskine Amager
Title: Machines for Public Health: Establishing the Maskine Maskine Amager’s own Center for Patient-Driven Research.

In this presentation entitled “Machines for Public Health” we shall hear why and how the so-called severely mentally ill patients in their own peer-run recovery central try to establish their own Center for Patient-Driven Research. Fronted by a PhD-student of their own, supplemented by a group of assistant patient-researchers, and helped by the National Institute og Health and Region Zealand’s psychiatric unit research unit, we shall hear about the feeling that inspired the project, its organization, the three studies of the PhD-student, and the work of the assistant patient-researchers. Thereby the contours of this daring and state-of-the-art project should clearly stand out.

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Presentation 3: Margherita Bove, Italy
Title: Similarities between problematic Internet use and behavioral addictions

In recent years, attention toward the effects that problematic use of Internet-related tools can cause has grown significantly. Legitimated by the recognition of gambling disorder as a behavioral addiction in the DSM-5, an increasing number of studies have begun to investigate the similarities between problematic Internet use and behavioral addictions. Among the numerous implications for psychological well-being that may result from problematic use of cyberspace, this study focused on exploring the relationship with psychological distress and both positive and negative metacognitions. In designing the study, the decision was made to examine problematic behavior and its psychological implications exclusively in relation to two specific uses of the Internet: social media use and cyberpornography use. The total sample consisted of 552 individuals (67.6% female and 32.2% male). For this study, two reference groups were created based on a filter question regarding the use of pornographic material in the past 12 months. Participants who answered “yes” were included in the cyberpornography reference group, while those who answered “no” were placed in the social media group; the same dependent variables were used for both groups. Data for the study were collected through the completion of a questionnaire on the Qualtrics platform and analyzed using the statistical software SPSS. As for the results concerning the social media sample, the analyses confirmed a positive and moderate correlation between problematic use, depression, stress, anxiety, and both negative and positive metacognitions. Among these independent variables, the most statistically significant association emerged between problematic social media use and stress levels. Stress was identified as the strongest risk factor predicting problematic social media use, while depression and positive metacognitions emerged as weaker predictors. The results concerning the cyberpornography sample revealed the existence of a positive correlation only between problematic use and positive metacognitions; these also appeared, although with a weak association, to be the only variable that seemed to increase the risk of problematic behavior related to online pornography consumption.

 

Presentation 4: Cathy Francis, Australia

Title: Panarchy. Using an ecological theory to guide co-design in mental health research

 

Globally, mental health professionals, people with experience of mental health challenges, their carers & supporters, governments, policy makers and researchers can all have an interest in improving mental healthcare. Together, we form part of the greater mental healthcare ecosystem (as distinct from ‘the system’). Within that ecosystem, co-design is often a goal now where research, policy and service development is occurring, as it is a way of bringing people together to learn from expertise and experience to make things better.

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Ecology – as the study of complex environmental systems (ecosystems), of living organisms and their relationships to each other and their physical environment – is a field that is complementary to and can be drawn upon in mental healthcare. The Panarchy Theory, developed by a group of inter-disciplinary researchers, is a conceptual framework for describing and understanding complex, dynamic ecosystems. In this presentation we explore taking Panarchy from ecological theory to mental healthcare, including its potential applications and implications in practice, policy and research. In research, it offers a framework that highlights the essential need to be conducting research together with people with lived experiences as well as a framework for considerations in doing so.

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18.30: Plenum discussion
How dialogue with people with lived experiences can help shape the future of the network’s collaboration.