Citizens conclude evaluation of FP5 projects with declaration on the City of Tomorrow
A unique initiative, which saw a group of ordinary citizens from Europe assessing the results of EU research projects, has come to a close with the issuing of a declaration on the City of Tomorrow. The EU funded project RAISE was behind the initiative. The full name of the RAISE project - Raising citizens' and stakeholders' awareness and use of new regional and urban sustainability approaches in Europe - provides a clear picture of what was intended. The 26 participants (one from each Member State and one from Romania) were asked to evaluate the acceptance and practical usability of EU research results on urban sustainable development. While the area of research addressed was fairly narrow, the Commission's scientific officer for the RAISE project, Eric Ponthieu, was confident that it will be repeated as it has been a success. 'We represent ten per cent of the richest people in the world and we are the least sustainable so far. Now is the right time to take action. There is a pressing need to change our every day mobility habits, we have to impose restrictions on individual car use and make the sound use of land the prime objective of urban planning,' reads the declaration. The participants looked at projects in four research areas and then developed ideas of their own: urban governance; sustainable transport; sustainable built environment; and cultural heritage. On urban governance, the panel concluded that the citizen's voice must be heard in both the old and new EU Member States. Trust can only flourish if it is mutual. Desmond O'Toole, Ireland's representative in the initiative, emphasised that one of the first things that the Commission must do is to change the way it presents things. 'Do not talk in technocratic language,' he advised. While Mr O'Toole praised much of the research that has been done, he noted that those people who are not in the mainstream, and do not necessarily have access to the Internet and other sources of information, have 'not been addressed with the fervour with which we'd like'. Mr O'Toole was also one of several participants to indicate that this project will not end with the finalisation of the declaration for him. It is the job of everyone to go back into their local community and to agitate for more participation by citizens in urban governance, he said. Marika Mirti, a columnist and graphic designer from Slovenia, also promised to continue her involvement in EU affairs with the words 'I will not stop here'. 'Research in the future should not just look for a technical fix, but should also look at socio-economic factors - at what people's motivations are for using a form of transport, and what would change habits,' she said, summarising the work of the panel on sustainable mobility. Speaking on the sustainable built environment, Nuno Gouveia, an architect from Portugal, said that 'We do like what the research projects have been doing, but feel that we as the citizens lack knowledge.' An important recommendation was that recycled spaces must become more important than new ones, and he also called for research to find new ways of disseminating information on sustainability. Better communication would reduce conflict between decision-makers and citizens over new policies on, for example, urban sprawl. The final speaker from the panel on 5 December was Ilze Gabrane, an administrator from Latvia. She focused on cultural heritage research, and underlined that results should be disseminated in a more participatory manner. Indeed, this was Ms Gabrane's first involvement with the EU, and the experience had made her and her co-panellists realise little they know about what is happening in the EU, she said. Having looked at EU research projects on cultural heritage, Ms Gabrane said that Europe has a lot to be proud of, but is not doing enough to preserve it. She called for more attention to be paid to intangible cultural heritage, such as language, and claimed that most EU research in this area had been quite one-sided, dealing with technicalities above all other issues. In a recommendation addressed directly at the Commission, Ms Gabrane called for funding for the re-application of existing results and knowledge. 'We think that they're not used to their full extent,' she said. She also made a case for more cooperation between the Commission's Directorates-General, and in particular those dealing with research, and with education and culture. Although what happens next on the part of the Commission has not yet been formalised, Mr Ponthieu suggested not only that the exercise may be repeated in other areas of EU research, but that the initiative should be used to encourage local governments to adopt an approach to decision-making that ensures the participation of citizens. Mr Ponthieu also promised to use the declaration in the selection of content for the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), which is currently under discussion. 'We are still in a position to include the impact of citizens in the programme,' he said. The RAISE project also has another six months left to run, in which time it will work to disseminate the declaration to the widest audience possible, and to inform them that the approach worked.