Citizen Participation
The Citizen Participation Network includes researchers, citizens, and practitioners working in a range of policy fields in Scotland, and is open to anyone interested in related issues. For more information, or to join our mailing list, please contact: oliver.escobar@ed.ac.uk.
In the last decade there have been increasing efforts to encourage direct citizen participation in governance. Scotland and the UK have not been an exception to this global trend. Ideas and practices of civic participation, community engagement and public dialogue can be found in policy arenas as diverse as local government, the NHS, urban planning, and science and technology. However, despite all the work and experimentation on the ground, there seems to be a lack of spaces for cross-cutting dialogue between different areas of practice, as well as between practitioners and researchers. This PPN working group aims to provide that kind of space by:
* fostering dialogue and knowledge exchange;
* building a network that cuts across disciplinary boundaries and policy silos;
* creating a platform for practice-led collaborative research.
PPN Citizen Participation Series 2012
Following suggestions made during our conversation-café in September 2011, the new series will cover topical areas such as online participation, Scottish community councils, engaging 'hard-to-reach' groups, and public dialogue and deliberation.
As usual, a range of researchers, citizens, policy makers and practitioners will kick off the conversations by sharing short 'stories of practice.'
Past series: April-June 2011
The topics in this miniseries responded to questions from our agenda-setting conversation-café in January 2011:
• What is the point of citizen participation?
• Is it legitimate? Who is accountable?
• What can we learn from international experience?
In keeping with our ethos of practice-led dialogue, the series featured panels that mixed practitioners, policy makers and academics from diverse policy areas. They shared their views briefly, as a stimulus for open conversation.
This page was published on 2 December 2011