2 Part 2: A practitioner’s toolbox: I work on small projects, may have my own processes or have done a lot of citizen engagement, so I am less interested in the science behind citizen engagement
Highlights
- Engaging with Mission Ocean & Waters can help secure funding, and engaging citizens in The Mission can help provide new knowledge AND empower the people involved to solve their local problems.
- However, people new to citizen engagement should ensure they have the appropriate knowledge to undertake effective participation. This guide can help you!
- Citizen participation is not necessary for all type of problems, and precautions should be taken for when, why and how to engage them.
- The steps of citizen engagement, from informing to empowering (Figure 3), are presented as a tool to understand when citizen participation is needed and not, and which level of participation is appropriate.
- This toolbox provides tools to guide you through your project planning including: Guiding questions to consider before planning and stakeholder mapping templates (Table 1, Table 2) and help towards strategic planning and evaluating your impact (Table 3, Table 4).
- More detailed background and advice is available in Part 3 of this toolbox.
- A range of citizen engagement tools is provided in Part 5 of the toolbox.
2.1 Introduction to engaging citizens with Mission Ocean & Waters
Modelled on the Apollo 11 Mission that landed people on the Moon, the European Union (EU) created five Missions (Cancer, Soil, Climate, Smart Cities, and Ocean) to tackle global challenges, with the help of society. Missions are about transitioning from sector-based to problem-based policymaking, mobilizing resources and citizens in the service of bold objectives that address the so-called wicked problems of our time.
Wicked problems are issues that are difficult to solve with scientific evidence or knowledge alone, due to the many interconnected, interdependent social problems that make finding a single solution impossible. Problems like climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity are good examples. Addressing this type of problem and advancing the Mission involves engaging a wider range of social actors, especially civil society. A social actor, or simply an ‘actor’, is a term used to describe a person (or organisation) who plays a role in the process / problem of interest. Climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity are typical examples of wicked problems that are global in scope, have contested understandings, and require collective action, from individuals to policy level.
The starting point for this toolbox is how to help projects advance Mission Ocean & Waters through strategic engagement with citizens and partners. The framing of the problem is already defined: The Mission has given its overarching goal (Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030, or restoration), to be achieved through three specific Mission Objectives, applied across four pre-defined European sea/river basins (‘Lighthouses’) (see Figure 1 below). The Mission’s objectives must be translated into relevant and actionable tasks that engage and motivate people. The Mission has outlined a list of eight specific target outcomes relating specifically to citizen engagement with Mission Ocean & Waters (listed in Appendix 4), that may be useful to consider when mapping how your project could be planned around the Mission ambitions.
2.1.1 Why engage with the Mission?
If you're applying for funding under the Mission, it's important to align your project with its three main objectives and target outcomes. This toolbox is designed to help you do just that. Ideally, you should define how your project supports these goals before you apply – that way, you’re more likely to secure the right resources to succeed. And more importantly, with a strategic approach from the start, we can collectively work towards solving one of the EU’s biggest wicked problems: Restoring our Ocean and Waters before 2030.
2.1.2 Why engage with citizens?
From the very beginning, the EU Missions have been designed with the underlying principle that their success will depend on the participation of citizens, appropriate to the issue at hand., To increase citizen knowledge, understanding of, and care for Mission Ocean & Waters objectives (or challenges), especially with local framing, can lead to bottom-up initiatives in line with the Mission. A collaborative approach to understanding and care from your project could lead to empowerment of communities to help restore their ocean and waters across different sectors and scales, from individual to policy level.
In general, when used in this toolbox, ‘citizen’ emphasises the non-specialist, non-elite nature of the individuals in question. This creates some distinction from the sometimes-overlapping term stakeholder (also often used throughout the Mission literature). Stakeholders, by contrast, may be either specialist, elite, have access to the Mission activities due to their employment, or some other form of contextual privilege. They also tend to be represented as organisations or interest groups, while citizens tend to be engaged as individuals. That said, the two concepts often overlap and, of course, individual stakeholders can also be citizens, and citizens may be stakeholders. And the tools provided in this toolbox can be applied to either or both.
The ultimate goal of this toolbox is to provide guidance that supports the citizen participation goals of Mission Ocean & Waters.
If you would like more details on the Mission, the theoretical grounding of this toolbox or more detail on tools, please see Part 3 of the toolbox.
2.2 Types of engagement to consider: Steps of participation engagement from informing, to empowering
Before planning any project, leaders like you must ask some key questions to ensure that your goals are achievable. In the case of engaging citizens in the Mission, we should first ask:
- When should we be targeting different citizens and / or stakeholders?
- Why are we asking them for their participation?
- What are the risks involved? both for those participating and for the project’s outcomes?
- Importantly, given the type of problem we're addressing or the kind of participation we're asking for: How likely is success?
Participation may entail a range of involvement, for example, from differing levels of communication (receiving information or voicing opinions) to directly impacting how we need to consider the risks involved, both for those participating and for the project’s outcomes a research process unfolds or what the outcomes are. While the avenues for participation vary in function and intensity, it is a widespread agreement that participation should grant a greater degree of power to citizens. The principles of participation are typically illustrated as a ladder which describe a spectrum of engagement depths and their corresponding levels of citizen power related to a decision that needs to be made (Figure 2 below). In the ladder, increasing levels of engagement means greater citizen power. At the top of the ladder, citizens have the power to define the problem, develop the solution and the process to get there. Note that we illustrate the ladder as a matrix (Figure 2).
This matrix, or the ladder of participation, can be used to ‘diagnose’ the level of engagement required for different participatory processes. While there may be good reasons to include citizen, it is important to underline that not all problems require the greatest levels of involvement – this depends on the type of problem at hand. If you would like more detail on types of problems and risks, see Part 3.
A diagnostic tool is provided in Figure 3 below to help you visualise the ‘steps of participation’ and assess when it is most appropriate to inform, consult or empower citizens. Overall, engaging citizens in the Mission aims to empower them to take responsibility and action for the ultimate goal: To restore our ocean and waters. However, the Mission is a complex, uncontrollable problem with ambiguous scope of risk; but which step does your project goal sit on these continuum, and what type of participation should you be you aiming for?
Reflecting on what we have learned about the ladder of participation, and the steps to empowerment, (Figure 2 and Figure 3), we can identify that traditionally many scientific projects may have tackled controlled, low risk problems, and then informed citizens about the knowledge they have revealed, in a one-way attempt to keep scientists informed. However, more and more transdisciplinary projects aim to solve more uncontrollable problems, with uncertain risks, by consulting, involving and/or collaborating with specific experts and knowledge holders, for instance in participatory science for fisheries management. As citizen science’s potential has peaked the interests of governments and scientists alike, as a way of both collecting information and involving society with more uncontrollable and ambiguous problems, we have the potential to empower citizens in their decision-making potential, if done well.
Part 4 provides specific examples of different types of citizen engagement working towards Mission Ocean & Waters, where projects may utilise different ‘steps’ across the ladder for different aspects of their project, depending on the type of inputs and level of engagement required.
2.2.1 Who? Tools for planning engagement
Careful planning of participatory processes is crucial—not only to prevent presumptions about citizen involvement or the risk of participant ‘burnout’, but also to protect the success of this project and pave the way for future initiatives. The preceding section introduced the idea there are many reasons to include different actors (citizens or stakeholders) in your project. Maybe different people will be involved at different stages, or maybe you require the same people throughout. This section can help guide you through a careful thought process to establish who you really need to engage with, and why.
In reality, multiple challenges often arise with participatory approaches, including who to include in which part of the process, how to include them, and are they interested in participating at all? This is often referred to as stakeholder or engagement fatigue in participatory processes. Reasons for this type of fatigue varies, but is typically related to time constraints, language barriers, different priorities (such as other things happening locally pressing on their time), poor personal reward (where they cannot see any self-gain) or perceptions that they have little capacity/power to influence decisions.
2.2.2 Questions to ask your project during planning stages
To minimise risks of stakeholder fatigue, and maximise chances of success, careful planning is required before you engage any citizens. You may already have ample experience engaging citizens; you may have a bank of existing willing participants, or a process that has been developed over 30 years of practise. In the last 30 years and driven by initiatives such as Mission Ocean & Waters, many funders (and therefore many funded organisations) have moved from informing citizens to trying to empower them through participatory processes. As project planners, we must ensure that we consider factors to minimise stakeholder fatigue, broaden our participant base, maximise the gain the participants get from involvement, lift our gaze from our own projects to also ensure that we deliver our promises to the public and a positive legacy for future citizen engagement.
Table 1 below provides a useful set of guiding questions for any project to help ensure that a clear understanding of itself from the start, and who should be invited to participate.
Table 1. Guiding reflection questions for preparing for citizen engagement. Download the table here.
| Guiding questions/suggestions | Comments | |
|---|---|---|
| Framing your project | What is the focus area of the project? | For instance, coastal zone planning or waste disposal? |
| What type of problem are you dealing with? | Controllable / Uncontrollable (See Part 3, Section 3.1.1 if you are uncertain) | |
| What is the scope of risk? | Simple/complex/ uncertain/ambiguous (see Section 3.1.3 and Figure 3). | |
| What do you hope to obtain by including citizens in your project? | Define your goals, objectives and expected results, for different parts within your project. (see participation goals in Figure 2) | |
| Planning who should participate | Map your participants to define the different relevant actors you need to provide different types of input, at different levels of participation. | See Figure 3 (page 14) and use the participant mapping template below (Table 2) to guide this. |
| Consider the Leave No One Behind principles | After mapping your participants, consider who might be left behind? Why? And is it appropriate to try to overcome these barriers of engagement? If so, how? | |
| If activities have a high level of complexity in terms of engagement, you may divide them into sub-problems with corresponding sub-activities | This will allow stakeholder identification and engagement at sub-activity level. | |
| Place activities in a timeline. Do some activities depend on the implementation of other activities? | At what stage should citizens be engaged in my project? Consider barriers, including stakeholder fatigue and external demands on their time. | |
Pre-planning for evaluation What is your desired impact? | Consider methods carefully | Are the methods selected appropriate? (see Part 5). |
| How will you know if planned engagement and methods are working well? | Think about essential metrics early – will you evaluate this qualitatively or quantitatively? | |
| What is the desired impact of the engagement process on project results? | How will you evaluate this? You can use different types of tools to gather this information e.g., e-mail, survey or workshop. | |
| What is the desired impact of engagement for participants? | How will you evaluate this? You can use different types of tools to gather this information e.g., e-mail, survey or workshop. | |
| How can you learn through the project, review and adapt methods / approaches / participants? | How? |
2.2.3 Mapping your participant needs
Mapping participants is important to get an overview of who you aim to include, and who you actually manage to include (see Table 2 below). Given the principle of Leave No One Behind (LNOB), effort should be taken to ensure gender and equality issues are reflected upon. For instance, if target participants are alone with small children, it can be difficult to participate in meetings during the afternoon; and if others don’t have a car, they may not travel far, and there may be identity/religious/historical reasons for avoiding buildings such as churches. It is also important to consider the ethics of their inclusion, whether it is appropriate to ask for their time and whether your method of inclusion or dissemination may fuel local conflict, which could risk the success of the project or reputation of your problem.
A more detailed stakeholder mapping template, which considers power and legitimacy more thoroughly, is available in Executive Summary
| Participant type | Name | Organization, network or interest group | Contact details (e-mail) | Brief summary of their stake or agenda | Motivation to participate | Type of input required (knowledge / experience & reflections / co-production and responsibility) | Level of participation (inform, consult, involve, collaborate or empower) | Where in project do you need participation? | When? | Barriers to participation? | Ethical considerations | Engagement types / metod? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intergovernmental | ||||||||||||
| Public National | ||||||||||||
| Public Regional | ||||||||||||
| Public Local government | ||||||||||||
| Sub-local | ||||||||||||
| Private sector | ||||||||||||
| Non-local NGO | ||||||||||||
| Citizen | ||||||||||||
| Who might be left behind? |
2.3 How? Tools for planning for implementation
This section covers a range of different citizen engagement tools with explanations of the step-by-step process of implementing them (preparation, during and after). Many of the methods may apply to both stakeholder and citizen engagement, as these terms often overlap. According to your Mission Ocean & Waters initiative and the problem you are to solve, some tools are more appropriate than others, and this toolbox is not exhaustive. Therefore, we recommend reflecting on the guiding questions in Table 1 before deciding on your chosen method. We also suggest exploring the wide range of stakeholder engagement methods guides that are available online,.
When implementing a method that involves several citizens or groups, it is important to consider the power relations between organizer/researcher and participants, and between participants (see detailed stakeholder mapping in Appendix 1: Additional planning templates to guide project planning). When inviting citizens to participate, think about the location that you choose for your activity. Aim for a place where participants feel comfortable. For each tool, it is encouraged to revisit your reflection on the Leave No One Behind principle and aim for inclusion and diversity in your informants.
Methods for citizen engagement included in this toolbox (see Part 5 and the following referred sections):
- 5.1 Survey
- 5.2 Citizen’s assemblies
- 5.3 Future scenario workshop
- 5.4 Semi-structured interviews
- 5.5 Walking interviews
- 5.6 Participatory mapping
- 5.7 Strategic ocean literacy as a way of working
In developing an engagement strategy, several key questions need to be addressed. Table 3 below may also guide you in choosing an appropriate tools tool for type of problem you are dealing with, and the level of participation you are aiming for. Table 3 should be used in conjunction with the guiding questions and participant mapping given in Table 1 and Table 2.
The participation level in Table 3 below depends on how your project decides to involve the citizens in the process and the level of decision-making power delegated to them, and the tools you choose to engage citizens to incorporate their input needs to reflect these points. For instance, if you decide to implement a citizens’ assembly, you may also delegate decision-making power in the form of voting, to the participants (Empower).
| Problem type/participation level | Controllable problem | Uncontrollable problem |
|---|---|---|
| Inform | Newsletters, flyers, campaigns, websites, social media etc. (traditional ocean literacy) | |
| Consult | Survey , Citizens’ Assemblies | Future scenarios , Semi-structured interviews , Walking interviews , Participatory mapping |
| Involve | Citizens’ Assemblies, Ocean literacy | Future scenarios , Participatory mapping |
| Collaborate | Ocean literacy | Citizens’ Assemblies , Future scenarios , Participatory mapping , Ocean literacy |
| Empower | Ocean literacy | Citizens’ Assemblies , Future scenarios , Ocean literacy |
2.4 Why? Tools for planning impact – monitoring and evaluating citizen engagement
Ideally, before inception or very early on in your project, you have considered the guiding questions provided in Table 1. Recall that as different Mission Ocean & Waters initiatives will aim to solve a variety of problems, they will all require different levels of participation and will relate to different contexts. Using the same tables before, during and after project start can be useful to reflect on your aims, and to better be able to evaluate whether those aims are met during and after the project start. Constant reflection and adaptation are a key to success in co-created projects. Co-creation refers to the collaborative process where diverse actors—such as citizens, scientists, practitioners and policymakers—jointly shape goals, methods and solutions, recognising each other's knowledge and experiences as valuable throughout the project lifecycle. So regularly revisit the answers you gave in Table 1 and Table 2, in conjunction with Table 4 below to plan your re-iterative evaluation strategy below.
| What do you want to know? | What evaluation methods will you use? | How will the evaluation be conducted? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning process | |||
| Engagement | |||
| Benefits/outcomes |
2.5 Evaluation in relation to Mission Ocean & Waters
It is useful to note that funders often require funded projects to provide a high level, summative evaluation of their approach and impact on wider society that specifically focus on aspects of their funding criteria. As we focus here on supporting the goals of Mission Ocean & Waters, Appendix 1: Additional planning templates to guide project planning and Appendix 2: Additional tools to help planning evaluation and monitoring provides a useful tool for planning and mapping your subsequent impact at high level on The Mission target outcomes, objectives and overarching goal. This simplified way of mapping can be adapted for any project goal, at any level.
In you are interested in more specific evaluation of your impact towards Mission Ocean & Waters, more evaluation tables are available in Part 3.
2.5.1 Evaluating impact on societal ocean literacy
Increasingly, funding calls related to the Mission ask for ocean literacy to be embedded in the project. Ocean literacy refers to the understanding of the ocean’s influence on us—and our influence on the ocean—and encompasses not just knowledge, but also attitudes, behaviours and a sense of responsibility. As a result, Appendix 2 provides a simple planning template through which you can plan the goals and anticipated outcomes of your ocean literacy activities and prompts to help you start thinking about the best methods of evaluation. Figure 4 below gives an example of how this can be used to inspire planning your activities around the known dimensions of ocean literacy (presented as a method in Appendix 4) and suggestions of ways to start more detailed formative evaluation.