Climate change and digitalisation are the major challenges of the 21st century, calling for adequate governmental responses across all levels and arenas. Although a successful transition to a green and digitalised economy promises more sustainable, inclusive and digital societies, the policies that are put in place to achieve these goals may also harbour various risks – such as the creation of new cleavages both among and within countries and the exacerbation of socio-economic inequality and political exclusion. Scholars and authorities, moreover, are alert to the possible tensions and synergies between tackling climate change on the one hand and regulating digital technologies on the other. Digitalisation comes with enormous energy demands and may involve the intensive use of natural resources, but it can also provide ‘smart’ solutions for an environmentally friendly economy, enhance awareness about climate change and support the coordination of multiple government authorities in responding to natural hazards and disasters. Increasingly, therefore, attention is paid to the possibility of mutually aligning the two transitions and the importance of an effective political context for facilitating such a ‘twinning’.
The ‘twin transition’ poses both a unique challenge and an opportunity for systems of multilevel governance (MLG) such as the European Union (EU). The EU is regarded as a driver of both sustainable and digital transformation. Yet its complex and differentiated system has been associated with such political ills as unaccountability and blame-shifting, scarce institutional visibility and low citizen engagement, depoliticization, technocratic policymaking, and excessive executive dominance. Concerns about inclusion and equality also persist. If the twin transition is to take place at all, it must be just, inclusive and democratic, and it must be rooted in a cohesive and secure society – or, in the words of the Commission’s recent Strategic Foresight Report, “[t]he twin transitions will be fair or will not be”. The success of the twin transition therefore hinges upon finding ways to open up the EU’s MLG system to inclusive and democratic participation. RECODE MLG investigates co-creation as a process that can precisely achieve this objective. By proactively involving multiple actors, including policymakers, stakeholders, citizens and volunteers in a collaborative endeavour across different levels of government, and cutting across various policy domains, co-creation garners valuable yet often untapped resources from across societies to identify both problems and solutions related to the twin transition. RECODE MLG combines a scholarly analysis and practical application of co-creation in order to explore how co-creation fosters cooperation across governmental levels and civil society, builds trust and engages traditionally marginalized groups, thus ensuring that the twin transition is democratic - and therefore both effective and legitimate. This will help to determine the resilience of European societies against serious challenges in the years to come.
The overarching goal of RECODE MLG is to promote a just, inclusive and democratic twin transition, by advancing actionable knowledge of co-creation to help policymakers at all levels develop and implement effective, legitimate and better informed policy within the MLG system of the EU.
By bringing together the very latest research on multilevel governance, twin transition and co-creation, and experimenting with co-creation labs, our project will construct a conceptual model of MLG-co-creation that goes beyond the state-of-the-art and which will provide a practical co-creation manual along with specific and scientifically tested policy recommendations and a documentary film to guide the participation of citizens and stakeholders to move towards climate neutral digitalized societies.
