On Citizen Engagement and Co-Creation

We have been working hard to foster citizen engagement through participatory approaches and citizen science, integral to the core of GoGreenRoutes. The highlight of the year so far was the first consortium meeting hosted in the beautiful and lush Versailles in May 2022.

Our team members Naomi and Áine helped to plan a three day conference of catch ups, workshops and talks. This was the first chance for all 40 partner organisations to meet, share what they have been working on and exchange knowledge. As part of Work Package 3, we organised a co-creation workshop, mapping internal interdependencies and linkages between Work Packages of the overall GoGreenRoutes project.

Following Versailles, we worked closely with Cultivating City Partners to prepare for their seedbed interventions. Our hosting of a workshop with City Partners allowed for brainstorming potential challenges in the planning and implementation of their seedbed intervention and how to overcome them. We shared tips on how to ensure that events are as inclusive as possible. This allowed City Partners to develop insights and consider:

• Is my event designed to be as accessible and inclusive as possible to people from a wide range of … ?
  • Ages
  • Genders
  • Education levels
  • Ethnicities
  • Abilities
  • Language proficiencies (as necessary)
  • Technical literacy levels
• Did my event outreach include underrepresented parts of my community? What is the diversity breakdown of my city?
• Is the language in my flyers and materials accessible to a diverse range of audiences?
• Is the timing of my event inclusive to as many people in my community as possible? Things to consider: childcare needs, work, college etc.
• How will I ensure all groups feel that their input is encouraged and valued in small group discussion?
• Are live translation services necessary to encourage diverse participation?

Cultivating City Partners were encouraged to undertake varied and targeted forms of outreach, using existing networks that reach citizens and the snowball effect of sharing online and in email.

We will share with you some details in the next couple of weeks about our ‘Community Champion Engagement Guide’, a handy guide that seeks to increase the level of public engagement by providing guidance to those carrying out a nature-based citizen science project. We are also looking forward to our next consortium meeting in Barcelona in November. Stay tuned and sign up to our newsletter so you don’t miss out!

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