ECO-STAR North

A Digital Platform for Applied AI and Arts-Based Community-Based Participatory Research

Executive Summary

ECO-STAR North represents a novel convergence of digital technology, creative practice, and community development. It functions not merely as a business accelerator, but as a living research instrument—one that actively participates in the generation, translation, and validation of community knowledge.

By leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) within a culturally grounded framework, the platform democratizes access to high-level strategic planning while simultaneously generating new knowledge about how Northern, Indigenous, and rural communities articulate their economic, cultural, and social futures. ECO-STAR North operates at the intersection of Applied Artificial Intelligence, Arts-Based Research, and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), creating an infrastructure where communities are not research subjects, but co-designers of both tools and outcomes.

This document outlines ECO-STAR North’s role as a nexus for Applied AI and Arts-Based Community-Based Participatory Research (AB-CBPR), demonstrating how digital systems can support epistemic sovereignty, economic agency, and culturally grounded innovation in Northern regions.

An assessment report on the project’s Technology Readiness Levels can be found here.

1. Theoretical Framework: The “Third Knowledge System”

Innovation in Northern and Indigenous contexts cannot rely solely on imported economic models or purely technical solutions. ECO-STAR North is grounded in the premise that meaningful regional development requires a hybrid epistemological approach—one that honours lived experience while enabling participation in contemporary innovation systems.

The platform integrates three distinct but interrelated knowledge systems:

Indigenous Epistemologies

Drawing from Indigenous knowledge systems such as Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), the platform centers values of relationality, reciprocity, environmental stewardship, and intergenerational responsibility. Knowledge is understood as lived, contextual, and embedded in place, community, and practice.

Western Innovation and Research Models

To ensure economic viability and interoperability with existing funding and policy structures, ECO-STAR North incorporates established frameworks such as NABC (Needs, Approach, Benefits, Competition) and CO-STAR, alongside conventional research methodologies. These models are not treated as dominant truths, but as tools—useful when reframed and localized.

Applied Artificial Intelligence as a Third Knowledge System

Applied AI functions as a “Third Knowledge System”—not a replacement for Indigenous or Western frameworks, but a generative intermediary between them. In this role, AI:

translates narrative and cultural insight into structured formats
reduces the administrative burden of entrepreneurship and research
allows cultural values to shape economic and organizational structures

Rather than imposing logic, AI is used to mediate, synthesize, and reflect—enabling communities to navigate institutional systems without surrendering authorship or intent.

2. ECO-STAR North as a Living Research Instrument

Unlike static educational websites or one-directional digital tools, ECO-STAR North is a dynamic, interactive research environment. Each feature operates simultaneously as:

a capacity-building tool
an arts-based inquiry method
a data-generating research instrument

User interaction is itself a form of participatory research, producing insight into how communities conceptualize value, opportunity, and success.

Arts-Based and Participatory Inquiry by Design

The platform embeds arts-based research principles—storytelling, reframing, narrative construction, and reflective iteration—into its core workflows. These methods recognize creativity not as a secondary outcome, but as a primary mode of knowing.

Each tool corresponds to a distinct research modality.

3. Arts-Based Inquiry in Practice: Platform Tools as Research Methods

A. Narrative Inquiry and the Persona Creator

In traditional research settings, ethnography and community profiling often require months or years of observation and analysis, typically conducted by external researchers. The Persona Creator tool compresses this process into an accessible, participatory interaction.

Users describe their intended audience using narrative language—stories, lived observations, relational insights. Generative AI then synthesizes this input into detailed, empathetic personas.

Research Function:
This process constitutes a form of applied narrative inquiry. It moves participants away from abstract demographic categories and toward human-centered storytelling—central to arts-based research traditions. Crucially, the AI does not invent knowledge; it reflects and structures the user’s existing, intuitive understanding of their community, validating lived expertise and returning it in actionable form.

B. Cognitive Reframing and the Reframing Challenge

Artists frequently engage in the practice of “looking sideways”—challenging dominant narratives by shifting perspective. The Reframing Challenge operationalizes this artistic method through AI.

Users input a perceived barrier (e.g., lack of infrastructure, limited market access), and the system generates alternative framings that emphasize assets, relationships, and latent strengths.

Research Function:
This tool acts as a cognitive scaffolding intervention, encouraging participants to move from deficit-based thinking toward asset-based and strengths-based analysis. Over repeated use, it generates insight into how narratives of scarcity are internalized—and how they can be consciously rewritten.

C. Structural Rigor and the Methodology Generator

The Methodology Generator is the platform’s most explicitly research-oriented tool. It enables small, often under-resourced organizations to synthesize their own research and evaluation frameworks.

By combining the ECO-STAR structure with established academic methodologies—such as Participatory Action Research, Grounded Theory, or Arts-Based Evaluation—the tool produces rigorous, fundable, and locally owned research designs.

Research Function:
This constitutes a form of epistemic sovereignty. Rather than relying on external consultants to define how impact should be measured or success articulated, communities generate their own frameworks while remaining legible to funders and institutions.

4. Applied Artificial Intelligence as Democratization and Translation Infrastructure

Within ECO-STAR North, AI is applied not for automation, but for equitable translation and access. Its primary function is to remove the “hidden curriculum” embedded in grant writing, business planning, and research administration.

The Translation Layer

Artists and community practitioners often hold sophisticated, embodied knowledge but lack fluency in bureaucratic or institutional language. The platform’s AI tools act as a translation layer—converting artistic vision and community intent into structured roadmaps, logic models, and strategic documentation without stripping away meaning.

Scalable, Asynchronous Mentorship

In remote regions, human mentorship is scarce and resource-intensive. Applied AI provides:

infinite availability
consistent guidance
non-judgmental iteration

Users can engage in reflective practices—such as the Five Whys or Team Mapping—at their own pace, regardless of time zone, connectivity limitations, or geographic isolation.

This does not replace human mentors; it extends their reach.

5. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Mechanics

ECO-STAR North is participatory not only in outcomes, but in architecture.

Co-Design Through Prompt Governance

The platform includes administrative capabilities that allow prompts, language, and logic to be refined continuously based on community feedback. If a tool feels overly corporate, culturally misaligned, or conceptually unclear, the prompting framework can be adjusted centrally—updating the experience for all users.

This transforms the AI system itself into a co-designed research artifact.

Data Sovereignty and Ownership

Consistent with CBPR and Indigenous data governance principles:

users are encouraged to export their work (PDF, CSV)
intellectual property remains with the community
AI facilitates creation but does not claim ownership

The platform is designed to minimize data retention and foreground user control, aligning with OCAP®-informed practices and participatory ethics.

6. Outcomes and Research Impact

The integration of Applied AI and Arts-Based CBPR through ECO-STAR North produces impacts across multiple domains:

For Communities

Faster movement from idea to action
Increased confidence engaging with research and funding systems
Strengthened cultural and narrative ownership
Transferable strategic and AI literacy skills

For Researchers and Institutions

Higher-quality, community-validated research design
Reduced extraction and implementation risk
Rich insight into regional innovation imaginaries

For Regional Innovation Ecosystems

Broader participation in AI-enabled innovation
New models for creative and cultural economies
Scalable, place-based digital infrastructure

7. Conclusion: Toward Sovereign Creative Economies

ECO-STAR North demonstrates that technology need not be extractive, neutralizing, or culturally flattening. When applied intentionally, AI can function as public-interest infrastructure—supporting community autonomy, accelerating learning, and translating lived experience into durable social and economic outcomes.

By embedding Arts-Based Research principles—storytelling, reframing, relational design—into an Applied AI platform, ECO-STAR North creates space for Northern creativity to be operationalized without being commodified.

The platform stands as a proof-of-concept for a new era of regional development: one in which global technologies amplify local wisdom, enabling resilient, sovereign, and culturally vibrant economies rooted in place, relationship, and imagination.