How to achieve impact? CIPAST in Practice – Doing Citizen Participation Pierre-Benoit Joly, INRA/TSV

Many initiatives and think tanks on public participation Right 2 be heard Involve! Demos America speaks! Centre for deliberative polls (…) “PARTICIPATION WORKS!” 21 techniques of community participation for the 21st century

But what about the impacts of participation? Have the initiators enough value for money? Does participation fulfill citizens’ expectation?

1.Typology of public participation impact Some limitations of the notion of impact: –From « single decision » / « the one best solution » to policy process –From government to governance -Collective learning / Distributed intelligence -Interests / strategies / power games

Roles of participation in Tech. Assessment Raising Knowledge Forming Attitudes Initialising Action Tech/ Science Aspects Scientific Assessment (options,con- sequences) Agenda setting (influence and stimulate public debate, Introduce visions etc.) Reframing of debate (propose new initiatives – find new orientation) Societal Aspects Social Mapping (stake holders, conflicts) Mediation (help actors reflect and communicate – bridge building) Propose new decision making processes (new ways of governance – new debate) Policy aspects Policy analysis (explore objectives, assess policies) Restructure policy debate Decisions about: Pol innovations New legislation

3. How are various actors interested to be engaged / take on board the results of Citizen Participation? Costs and benefits for: –Policy makers –Research organisations –Stakeholders –Media –Etc.

Hidden agendas, Diversity of objectives Ambiguity as a major characteristic of participatory experiences

4. Learning from experience and use of best practices in the design of Citizen Participation Impact of participation has various faces: How to impact “public opinion” / public understanding? How to impact public policy/public decision making? Public participation and inclusive /distributed innovation processes

1.How to impact “public opinion” / public understanding? –How to maximise dissemination? –Which role of the media? –Which role of science museums?

2. How to impact public policy? –Keys to an increase legitimacy of Citizen Participation (equity, fairness, competence, independent evaluation, publicity, traceability) –Institutionalisation of participation / How can public authorities be engaged in a participatory exercise?

Introduce a legal provision? Obligation to « take into account » / detailed answer of the commissionner explaining agreement-disagreement and the link with decision making process.

3. Public participation and inclusive /distributed innovation processes: Co-operative research processes e.g.: OSS, role of patients associations, participatory research projects in plant breeding

Be professionnal! Don’t hesitate to invest a lot for high quality! Stick to the basic principle of participation! Think impact from the beginning of the participatory process on!