Mass Engagement

Research Topic 2: Mass engagement and ‘upscaling’ dialogue

This research responds to the growing interest in large-scale public engagement projects.  It can be argued that increasingly, there is a governmental preference for deliberative processes that involve very large numbers of people. 

 This is based not only on expressions of interest received by those carrying out such work, but also on projects that have been delivered over the last few years, e.g. America Speaks, Your Health Your Say, sciencehorizons, the nuclear consultation process etc.

This work will entail:

• understanding the drivers and motivations for large-scale public engagement
• beginning to establish the essential characteristics and types of processes in current use, including strengths and weaknesses of different process types
• providing guidance on how to maximise success in large-scale engagement.

Pippa Hyam (one of the ERC Dialogue and Engagement Specialists) is leading this research