Toolkit protocol: Assembling the team
Most likely you will not develop and implement the engagement process on your own. Even for small processes that aim to engage a handful of participants, the implementation is quite complex and requires the organisers to take on many different roles - not to speak of the diverse technical and scientific expertise that might be necessary to bring in during the activities. That's why it is so important to have a team of dependable collaborators, though not all people have to be part of your core team, as some will only support at certain stages of the process.
Below we describe the main profiles, which during the pilot workshops turned out to be particularly important. Think of these as roles rather than as individuals, and that the team as a whole should have people who are together able to cover some or all these needs. It might very well be that an artist will also lead your communication campaign and that an entomologist is a great facilitator. You can also use the Sustainability Competence Framework to think through all the various conceptual competencies.
Below, you can find descriptions of the key profiles that will be relevant for organising and running a participatory process
It is tempting to think that anyone can facilitate co-creation or deliberation meetings. But it is one thing to moderate a meeting with colleagues at work and quite another to facilitate a co-creation process with citizens on a sensitive topic. Facilitation is a profession, and so it is highly recommended to work with someone who is an expert in this domain, has experience and knows the techniques. It is also important to be aware that there are many facilitation techniques out there and they all have their benefits and downsides, with specific methods being more appropriate depending on the aims of the process. You can read HERE more about how different facilitation approaches contribute to the achievement of different goals. This is a mandatory team member in any citizen participation exercise.
It is not easy to coordinate the process and pay attention to what is happening around every discussion table, to collect the inputs from participants, make sure there is enough hot coffee and you don't run out of flipchart paper. Some of these things might seem like details, but they are important for smooth running of the process. For this reason, it might be very useful to have on board assistants - both to help with the logistics but also to help with writing down the account of what is happening. The latter will be very helpful in bringing together the results of the process and might be necessary for writing a final report - for instance to be sent out to participants or local decision-making body as part of follow-up.
A collaboration with a creative professional might give an enormous boost to your process. Whether you decide to include an artistic element like a performance or an exhibition, or to carry out prototyping session, creative professionals will be familiar with such processes and will be able to support you with their development and implementation. Beyond that, they can bring a big dose of imagination, which can make a process one-of-a-kind and as such something attractive and memorable to your participants. To understand what this means in practice check out Blueprint 1 and Blueprint 4. You can also find inspiration in the Makers-in-Residence programme run by CC-DEMOS, where many of the prototypes developed focus on pollinators. This is not a mandatory team member, and their inclusion will depend really on the type of process you develop.
Whether you work online or in-person you will likely depend on some technical equipment, including digital platforms and tools online. For running processes online, you always need a technical moderator who know ins-and-outs of the tools you work with and will be able to perform smoothly the tasks like opening breakout rooms, sharing content or making sure participants' connection problems are quickly resolved. For in-person events, you might be using computers, projectors, audio equipment... - never assume these things will run smoothly. Especially when you carry out your activities in 'unusual' locations - like farms, parks, wildlife centres that are not readily equipped - you might face some challenges.
We already mention this role with respect to communication, but it’s important to make reference to them again as in many instances they are indispensable, especially if you will be working with specific citizen groups like farmers or beekeepers. The reference person will be your first point of contact, will tell you who to meet and talk to, may convince others to participate or support you, will be the source of knowledge about history, meanings, relationships, issues, concerns, allowing you to get an initial understanding of the context. Finally, they can identify people who can help you out with the implementation of the process – e.g., pointing out to those who own specific equipment. Their involvement also very much depends on the type of recruitment process you are implementing. For example, for random selection and sortition, this is not really required.
Participatory processes are not about communicating things to citizens but about developing something with and by citizens. Nevertheless, having on the team someone skilled in communication might in many ways determine the success of your initiative. First, even before you start the process, the right communication might be crucial to give it visibility and make it recognisable, which in turn might help a lot with recruitment. Even if you use sortition, people will be more likely to say ‘yes’ to participation if they already heard about the process and understand its importance. During the process you might want to update the larger community about it - bearing in mind that too much attention and public pressure might make participants uneasy and reluctant to work. After the conclusion of the process, it is also extremely important to be able to communicate the results effectively - both to the decision makers but also to the fellow citizens. While this expertise is is not mandatory for some types of citizen participation exercises, it is nonetheless generally highly advisable as a team member.
You should also work with an entomologist - but possibly also botanist or an ecologist - someone who understand the scientific aspects of pollinators and pollination. As previously noted, science plays an important role in this issue, and it is also likely that citizens will have many technical questions - you will need someone who will be able to answer them. This is also someone who will be important for organising activities like the >guided tour. Participants can also be attracted by the opportunity to speak to an expert. This is especially so with experts who are known either nationally or in a particular community. To identify experts for collaboration, you can get in touch with a university or a research centre, local municipality or a thematic NGO – even if they don’t work directly with the right people, they should know the experts and might help you establish the first contact.