Citizen Involvement

Research Topic 5: Enabling and sustaining citizen involvement

There is evidence that citizen groups engaged in public dialogue processes have kept in touch with each other and the issue they were dealing with for months and years after the dialogue officially stopped.  They report having become more active in their local areas and more aware of how the governance of science and governance generally is done.  Current dialogue practice in the UK does not factor this reality in; in fact it is more likely that having participated, citizens will hear no more from the process commissioners.

The research will consider how to enable and sustain citizen involvement, and whether post-participation could usefully add another dimension to the inclusion of the public in policy making. This will include:

• collecting existing good practice in engaging people in dialogue and maintaining positive relationships beyond the life of a specific project
• generating guidance for policy makers and other commissioners on how to involve citizens, during and after a dialogue project
• generating guidance for participants on what they should expect from their involvement in a dialogue project and what is expected of them
• establishing a framework/foundation for a participant network and, if possible, engage participants from previous and existing projects in the network.

Diane Beddoes (one of the ERC Dialogue and Engagement Specialists) is leading this research