Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PHOENIX (The rise of citizens voices for a Greener Europe)
Reporting period: 2023-02-01 to 2024-01-31
The Green Deal is a major challenge for EU and a crossroad between the different streamlines that compose it (energy, circular economy, protection of biodiversity, farm-to-fork chains, etc.) and an extensive range of other policies directly touching the daily life of citizens. Thus, efforts are needed to involve the most significant number of social groups and stakeholders by deeply debating the different policies related to EGD and how they are being modified in the present conjuncture. Compensations and incentives can also increase the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of such policies and the commitment of citizens to contribute to higher degrees of sustainability.
PHOENIX addresses the complexity of aligning socio-institutional approaches, behaviours and lifestyles with the central goals and the desired changes engendered in the vision of EGD. When dealing with environmental topics, PHOENIX identified six main challenges that could threaten Democratic Innovations' full transformative potential. By connecting a multidisciplinary group of 15 partners from different parts of Europe, PHOENIX builds on a rich, consolidated tradition of participatory processes and refined deliberative methodologies successfully experimented in different policy-making domains linked to environmental transition patterns.
Elaborating on the lessons learned, PHOENIX designs an iterative process to enrich Democratic Innovations to address specific topics of EGD. A portfolio of sound methodologies and tools combines them, augmenting their quality of deliberation and the capacity to foster the readiness to change of different actors.
The methodologies and tools will be tested, monitored and assessed in 11 pilots in 7 countries, covering various socio-cultural and environmental contexts and administrative levels. Finally, PHOENIX supports the methodologies' mainstreaming, scalability and adaptability, leveraging an inter-pilot dialogue grounded on evidence-based results and building collectively a series of Policy Recommendations.
PHOENIX addresses the complexity of aligning socio-institutional approaches, behaviours and lifestyles with the central goals and the desired changes engendered in the vision of EGD. When dealing with environmental topics, PHOENIX identified six main challenges that could threaten Democratic Innovations' full transformative potential. By connecting a multidisciplinary group of 15 partners from different parts of Europe, PHOENIX builds on a rich, consolidated tradition of participatory processes and refined deliberative methodologies successfully experimented in different policy-making domains linked to environmental transition patterns.
Elaborating on the lessons learned, PHOENIX designs an iterative process to enrich Democratic Innovations to address specific topics of EGD. A portfolio of sound methodologies and tools combines them, augmenting their quality of deliberation and the capacity to foster the readiness to change of different actors.
The methodologies and tools will be tested, monitored and assessed in 11 pilots in 7 countries, covering various socio-cultural and environmental contexts and administrative levels. Finally, PHOENIX supports the methodologies' mainstreaming, scalability and adaptability, leveraging an inter-pilot dialogue grounded on evidence-based results and building collectively a series of Policy Recommendations.
PHOENIX's second year was strategic for achieving its goals and broader impacts, especially in relation to some main topics (energy transition, farm-to-fork, circular economy) that the 11 piloting territories are discussing, also moving from some "entry topics", that appear more attractive to citizens in some specific area (such as fire prevention and soil regeneration).
The 2nd year’s work grafted to the 1st year’s results, marked by extensive research to analyse the 11 pilot territories and generate a database of Sound Practices of Democratic Innovations (D2.1) to ground the further stages of DIs' enrichment and their capacity to support the implementation of the EGD transition path. The WP3, in collaboration with the 8 local partners in charge of bridging PHOENIX withy the 11 local territories, elaborated 11 specific configurations of Democratic Innovations, named “the Tangrams” and characterised by a systemic perspective that interrelate different participatory channels, methodologies and tools to generate Enriched Democratic Innovations (EDIs) that can better support the implementation of the EGD transition pathway. Every Tangram was analised and then approved or reshaped by the respective Territorial Commission of Co-design (TCCD), a mixed body structured in each pilot territory, designed to involve citizens and stakeholders in the co-creation and co-design of participatory and deliberative methodologies, tools and ICT instruments to be used, as well as in the monitoring and evaluation of each pilot-test. During 2024, 9 out of the 11 scheduled TCCD were structured. They started discussing their composition, rules and roles in order to enhance diversity of participants and the presence of socio-territorial vulnerabilities, and test their capacity of co-designing pilots, according to a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, which include all project activities, particularly the assessment of the TCCDs and the piloting of each Tangram. These plans, which embed several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), will help to measure the project's main impacts and describe the PHOENIX codesign approach to developing the evaluation plan as a shared space with civil society.
During Year 2, three TCCDs started shaping their pilot’s methodologies and tools, and one pilot performed its central activities (a Citizens Assembly in the city of Szeged), due to the need of anticipating an impending electoral act. An inter-pilot dialogue also started, to connect all the TCCDs, in order to stimulate their maturation through dynamics of cross-pollination among the piloting exercises. While shaping its supporting platform, PHOENIX also committed to networking with other projects, in special with Real-Deal and Share Green Deal, the Democratic Odyssey and the new Support Office for EGD. To ensure the quality of outcomes, a Joint Advisory Board was established with the twin project REAL_DEAL (funded by the same call, under GA nº 101037071): it involves academics and civic organizations active in complementary domains.
The 2nd year’s work grafted to the 1st year’s results, marked by extensive research to analyse the 11 pilot territories and generate a database of Sound Practices of Democratic Innovations (D2.1) to ground the further stages of DIs' enrichment and their capacity to support the implementation of the EGD transition path. The WP3, in collaboration with the 8 local partners in charge of bridging PHOENIX withy the 11 local territories, elaborated 11 specific configurations of Democratic Innovations, named “the Tangrams” and characterised by a systemic perspective that interrelate different participatory channels, methodologies and tools to generate Enriched Democratic Innovations (EDIs) that can better support the implementation of the EGD transition pathway. Every Tangram was analised and then approved or reshaped by the respective Territorial Commission of Co-design (TCCD), a mixed body structured in each pilot territory, designed to involve citizens and stakeholders in the co-creation and co-design of participatory and deliberative methodologies, tools and ICT instruments to be used, as well as in the monitoring and evaluation of each pilot-test. During 2024, 9 out of the 11 scheduled TCCD were structured. They started discussing their composition, rules and roles in order to enhance diversity of participants and the presence of socio-territorial vulnerabilities, and test their capacity of co-designing pilots, according to a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, which include all project activities, particularly the assessment of the TCCDs and the piloting of each Tangram. These plans, which embed several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), will help to measure the project's main impacts and describe the PHOENIX codesign approach to developing the evaluation plan as a shared space with civil society.
During Year 2, three TCCDs started shaping their pilot’s methodologies and tools, and one pilot performed its central activities (a Citizens Assembly in the city of Szeged), due to the need of anticipating an impending electoral act. An inter-pilot dialogue also started, to connect all the TCCDs, in order to stimulate their maturation through dynamics of cross-pollination among the piloting exercises. While shaping its supporting platform, PHOENIX also committed to networking with other projects, in special with Real-Deal and Share Green Deal, the Democratic Odyssey and the new Support Office for EGD. To ensure the quality of outcomes, a Joint Advisory Board was established with the twin project REAL_DEAL (funded by the same call, under GA nº 101037071): it involves academics and civic organizations active in complementary domains.
The innovation potential of PHOENIX relates, primarily, to its capacity of bridging the lessons learned from consolidated typologies of DIs and their best practices, with the creation, testing and consolidation of specific tools that can extend, enroot and mainstream new effective participatory and deliberative processes in the face of EGD challenges. The Enriched Democratic Innovation emerging from the 11 Tangram configurations aims to improve and scale up the quality of deliberation (with special attention to digital solutions), maximize the inclusion of a diverse range of citizens and increase trust-building among citizens, institutions and science.
In the second year of activities, grounded on a large analysis of more than 100 best practices and on a careful study of the different participatory cultures and conflicts related to the EGD in the 11 pilot contexts, PHOENIX tried to elaborate – in connection with the 11 territorial Commissions of co-design – its different participatory and deliberative settings (Tangram) tailored for the different territories and their diverse administrative scales. We also analysed different practices trying to advocate for (or “staging of”) the perspectives of absent or silenced actors (as future generations or other-than-humans), to embed them in some Tangrams, to test their significance for improving the quality and pluralism of deliberation in relation to the discussion of the EGD transition pathway. With the help of a pool of environmental psychologists, the research activities also started reflecting on tools that will be tested for increasing the potential of the social construction of community bonds, augmenting the cognitive heuristics for trust development and combining individual and group-based dynamics to deepen the “readiness to change” of participants in DIs’ experiences. In the shaping of piloting formats, emphasis is also being devoted to their capacity of shaping, consolidating and scaling-up multichannel participatory systems composed of a diverse range of DIs, to verify that such an approach is able - in the longer term – to optimise the contribution of citizens' involvement to the implementation of EGD framework and several Sustainable Development Goals.
In the second year of activities, grounded on a large analysis of more than 100 best practices and on a careful study of the different participatory cultures and conflicts related to the EGD in the 11 pilot contexts, PHOENIX tried to elaborate – in connection with the 11 territorial Commissions of co-design – its different participatory and deliberative settings (Tangram) tailored for the different territories and their diverse administrative scales. We also analysed different practices trying to advocate for (or “staging of”) the perspectives of absent or silenced actors (as future generations or other-than-humans), to embed them in some Tangrams, to test their significance for improving the quality and pluralism of deliberation in relation to the discussion of the EGD transition pathway. With the help of a pool of environmental psychologists, the research activities also started reflecting on tools that will be tested for increasing the potential of the social construction of community bonds, augmenting the cognitive heuristics for trust development and combining individual and group-based dynamics to deepen the “readiness to change” of participants in DIs’ experiences. In the shaping of piloting formats, emphasis is also being devoted to their capacity of shaping, consolidating and scaling-up multichannel participatory systems composed of a diverse range of DIs, to verify that such an approach is able - in the longer term – to optimise the contribution of citizens' involvement to the implementation of EGD framework and several Sustainable Development Goals.