Since 2019, the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (CC-DEMOS) has been working together with the Directorate-General for Environment to strengthen the engagement of citizens in addressing the decline of wild pollinating insects, one of the critical problems of the biodiversity crisis. This follows one of the priorities of the EU Pollinators initiative, which aims to promote ‘Raising awareness, engaging society-at-large and promoting collaboration’. Over the last 5 years, CC-DEMOS has run several pilot projects to test different participatory formats, methods and tools. The main outcome of this activity is a Toolkit, which includes materials and guidelines for anyone who wants to organise a participatory process on the topic of pollinators’ decline and biodiversity. This work also supports the Youth Assembly on Pollinators Decline, which is currently being implemented. Continue reading to find out more about this work and explore the resources developed. 

About pollinators, their decline and the role of citizens

Without bees, butterflies, hoverflies, moths, beetles and ants – but also birds, bats and reptiles – many wild and domesticated plants would not be able to reproduce. Without these plants, animals (including human beings) that depend on them for food or shelter would be threatened with extinction. Without pollinators it would also be difficult, and in some cases impossible, for us to grow many food crops. Consequently, when the decline in the number and diversity of insect pollinators was noticed, this raised an alarm among the scientists, activists, policymakers and citizens. The reasons behind their disappearance are many: land use change, intensive agricultural management practices (including pesticide use), environmental pollution (including light pollution), invasive species, climate change, diseases... 

To date, many initiatives to address these declines have started at global, continental, national, regional and local levels. In the EU, the European Commission has adopted the EU Pollinators Initiative to coordinate research and nature conservation supporting pollinators. The Initiative also recognises that to be successful, we will all need to collaborate: scientists, policymakers, businesses owners, farmers and citizens. Involvement of citizens, and farmers among them, is crucial. For once, we are producers and consumers of foods which depend on pollinators. Secondly, we affect the way urban and rural green spaces, whether public or private (which are habitats for pollinators) are used. Last but not least, we hold valuable knowledge about local biodiversity problems and real-life impacts of nature conservation actions. Consequently, involving citizens and farmers can significantly improve research, nature conservation actions as well as policymaking and policy implementation. 

Resources for organising participatory processes: Citizen Engagement Toolkit

Based on several pilot projects, we have developed a complete guide to participatory processes focused on the protection of pollinating insects. 

It’s for anyone who acknowledges that complex problems need more than just a technical fix – ordinary citizens, with their experience and ideas can bring novel perspectives to developing and implementing interventions to halt pollinators decline. You might want to do something for pollinators together with your neighbours in your street. Or you might be a group of passionate people wanting to start a city wide initiative to create a pollinators corridor. You might be a nature NGO wanting to do a project with local inhabitants, taking into consideration their needs and concerns. You might be a municipality employee in environmental department who wants to explore with citizens the trade-offs involved in developing a pollinators strategy for the city. You might be a housing association looking to revitalize green spaces… For all these possible projects – and more – you will find guidelines, tools and methods, as well as inspiring case studies.

Following the links below you can explore four sections of the Toolkit. The Introduction presents the rationale for engaging citizens in the topic of pollinators decline. The Protocol takes you step-by-step through all the stages of a participatory process, including preparations before and follow-up after the event, offering guiding questions and principles. The Activities Database offers a carefully curated selection of participatory activities that can be combined to develop a participatory event. Finally, Blueprints are a collection of real life case studies of participatory process. This is the section that will help you imagine how such processes look in real life, both from the perspective of the participants and the organising team – perhaps also giving you some inspiration for designing your own process.

How to use the Toolkit? We suggest you don’t read it in a linear fashion – rather, explore it as a network. You might start with a quick glance at the Protocol, to get an idea of the whole process. Then move to the Blueprints, selecting one closest to the process you might want to design yourself, taking detours via the Toolbox to better understand the specific activities described. After this initial parkour, come back to the beginning and dig into the details. Throughout, you will also find ready-to-use templates – like for instance printable posters for brainstorming sessions – that you can use in the activities with citizens. 

Everything you find here is free and you can adapt it for your needs. We are however happy if you acknowledge the source of inspiration. And if you do organise a process based on these materials, do reach out to us on EU-CITIZEN-ENGAGEMENT@ec.europa.eu. The toolkit is a living document that will continue to grow as new projects are being implemented, so we are always open to new ideas, case studies and insights. 

Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators

Starting in 2025, 100 young people aged 18-29 from across the EU will come together as part of the Young Citizens Assembly. They will meet in Brussels in September and December 2025 and March 2026, as well as online. The Assembly will provide young people with the space and time to learn together, share knowledge, visions and experiences, and deliberate over key problems related to pollinators’ decline. Throughout the process, the participants will be involved in issue framing, articulating the terms of the debate around contentious issues linked to the decline of pollinators, developing recommendations on the issue responding to policy needs, and ultimately exploring ideas on policy implementation..  

Citizen assemblies are processes that bring together a number of citizens, chosen through a random selection process in such a way as to mirror the diversity of the society, to deliberate on issues of social importance and to develop recommendations that can support the policymaking process. Citizen assemblies are part of a recent wave of democratic innovations aiming to bring citizens closer to the decision-making processes and involve them into the political life beyond elections. 

The Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators is a pilot project funded by the European Parliament and follows spirit of the Conference on the Future of Europe and European Commission’s European Citizens’ Panels to the extent that it explores new ways to bring co-creation and deliberative practices into the functioning of the EU Institutions. As such, beyond providing recommendations on the topic of pollinators, this Assembly is also piloting a more direct involvement of young citizens in the ways biodiversity issues are governed in Europe. 

Very soon we will provide more information about this, including about the ways to get involved.

Research behind this work

Everything you read on these pages is based on research and piloting processes during which CC-DEMOS together with a number of experts tested the various participation formats and activities. Below, you will find short summaries of the projects. If you want to learn more, follow the links to reports that provide in-depth descriptions. 

Facilitating dialogue between citizens and farmers

The involvement of farmers is crucial for reversing the decline of pollinators. Food production depends largely on pollination, but whereas some farming practices negatively affect pollinators abundance and diversity (e.g. monocultures or the use of pesticides), many agricultural practices can support healthy insect pollinator populations. Moreover, farmers experience a lot of pressures linked to markets, environmental change and administrative burden, making it difficult for them to transition to more protective approaches. At the same time, terms such as food citizenship capture the growing public interest and concern with the way food is produced, with health and environmental concerns being particularly prominent. This pilot project tested co-creation processes that could bring together citizens and farmers to discuss these issues and to develop local interventions supporting pollinators. The aim was to propose more inclusive and fairer adaptation strategies, foster mutual understanding and support, and create a context for establishing new relations between citizens and farmers. Most of the events took place on farms, where citizens could observe and experience directly the issues linked to food production and pollinators and discuss these with farmers and entomologists. 

Engaging young citizens and beekeepers

A project with young environmental educators and activists focused on capacity building in environmental advocacy and citizen science. Working with a peer-to-peer approach, young experts experimented with methods and workshop formats and ways of engaging different groups (from school students to youth NGOs’ members). During these activities young people had an opportunity to explore the issue using systems thinking, co-create ideas following theory of change approach and learn about citizen science. The overarching purpose of these activities was to ground the learning in the everyday life of young people, including their activities, interests and concerns. 

Prototyping for pollinators

CC-DEMOS runs an annual makers-in-residence programme, hosted at the JRC Makerspace in Ispra, Italy. The Makerspace is a pioneering facility within EU institutions, designed to facilitate citizen engagement, citizen science and Do-It-Yourself movements. The residences aim at developing prototypes, workshop designs or artworks that are based on themes from European Commission policy priorities. Five makers engaged with the theme of 'pollinators' during the first (2020-2021), third (2024) and fourth (2024) residencies.

• an interactive, educational simulation of a virtual ecosystem that allows users to observe the interactions between pollinators and flowers.
• a co-creation workshop in the form of a filmmaking training. The process of developing videos was used as a framework for articulating different values, concerns and ideas of participants connected to the decline of pollinators. The outcome of the workshop was a series of short videos that provide future scenarios imagining the potential impacts of pollinators decline.
• a workshop format focusing on discussing the co-existence with pollinators in urban environments, together with an open-source toolkit for developing an insect hotel and a ground nesting unit for pollinators.
• a close-up photography kit, including instructions and code for taking augmented reality selfies with pollinators and 3D scanning tools.
• an educational land art installation combining natural and digital elements to offer an interactive learning experience. It consisted of several ‘stones’, each of which presents some information about pollinators. As participants move from one stone to another, they develop their own pollinator landscape using the frottage technique. 

Engaging urban citizens through museums

Perhaps surprisingly, urban areas can be hotspots for pollinators due to the diversity of plants growing in private and public green spaces. The diversity of urban spaces also offers many nesting habitats. However, pollution, use of pesticides, exotic plant species or preference for ‘tidy’ natural areas are among the things that threaten urban pollinator populations. Moreover, many people are uneasy about close coexistence with insects and disconnection from nature among urban populations is high. So, how can people and pollinators best share urban spaces? This project focused on co-creating local interventions for pollinators following this question. The project explored the potential role of museums as spaces of engagement and tested the use of virtual reality tools as support to participatory processes and included methods inspired by arts and prototyping. 

Acknowledgements

None of this work would have been possible without the hard work and commitment of many colleagues, external experts and institutional partners. As CC-DEMOS, we're extending our warmest thanks to all our collaborators! Last but not least, we'd like to also thank all the citizens who participated in the pilot processes. Thanks to your time and effort we can now bring this topic to many, many more people!