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The literature on responsive regulation argues that citizens should be involved in regulatory practices to avoid capture between regulator and regulatee. It also argues that including citizens can add an important perspective to regulatory practices. However, we know little about how citizens' perspectives are brought into regulatory practices. This paper draws on existing qualitative research to compare and analyze four cases of experimental participatory regulation in Dutch health care, focusing on the theoretical assumptions that citizen involvement (a) prevents capture, and (b) stimulates the inclusion of new perspectives. Our results show that involving citizens in regulation can increase transparency and trust in regulatory practices and familiarizes regulators with other perspectives. It is, however, up to the regulator to work on deriving benefits from that involvement—not only the practical work of organizing participatory regulation, but also the conceptual work of reflecting on their own assumptions and standards. We do find evidence for weak forms of capture and argue for the need to extend capture to involve multiple actors. We reflect on these results for theory development and regulatory practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen science, i.e. citizens' involvement in research activities, is achieving an increasing re-levance across disparate scientific domains. However, literature is not consistent in arguing citizen science's attributes and implications when large-scale projects are concerned. The paper systematizes extant scientific knowledge in this field and identifies avenues for further deve-lopments through a bibliometric analysis and an interpretive review. Various approaches to citizen science are implemented to engage citizens in scientific research. They can be located in a continuum composed of two extremes: a contributory approach, which serves research institutions' needs, and an open science approach, which focuses on citizens' active participation in knowledge co-creation. Although contributory citizen science paves the way for participatory science, it falls short in empowering citizens, which is central in the open science approach. Interventions aimed at enabling citizens to have an active role in co-creating knowledge in a perspective of science democratization are key to overcoming the understanding of citizen science as a low-cost model of scientific research and to boost the transition towards an open science approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, swimming pools have been a source of inequity when it comes to the distribution of recreation services in the United States. Many of the problems that correlate with the inequitable allocation of recreation resources including public swimming pools began with ideas about race, geography, poor planning practices and faulty policymaking (Rothstein, 2017). Moreover, one of the primary outcomes of engaged, inclusive planning is equity in the provision of recreation programs and facilities. In this essay, we offer a summary of key legal cases that help address questions related resource allocation related to public swimming pools. Finally, we present a short case study on the Winston Water Works Project in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This case illustrates the power of grassroots level advocacy, engaged community planning, and policymaking that protects the recreation infrastructure in a community and moves the needle of social justice toward equity. Our principle interest in this paper is in the equitable provision and distribution of aquatics programming and facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Guidelines for patient decision aids (DA) recommend target population involvement throughout the development process, but developers may struggle because of limited resources. We sought to develop a feasible means of getting repeated feedback from users. Methods: Between 2017 and 2020, two Swiss centers for primary care (Lausanne and Bern) created citizen advisory groups to contribute to multiple improvement cycles for colorectal, prostate and lung cancer screening DAs. Following Community Based Participatory Research principles, we collaborated with local organizations to recruit citizens aged 50 to 75 without previous cancer diagnoses. We remunerated incidental costs and participant time. One center supplemented in-person meetings by mailed paper questionnaires, while the other supplemented meetings using small-group workshops and analyses of meeting transcripts. Results: In Lausanne, we received input from 49 participants for three DAs between 2017 and 2020. For each topic, participants gave feedback on the initial draft and 2 subsequent versions during in-person meetings with ~ 8 participants and one round of mailed questionnaires. In Bern, 10 participants were recruited among standardized patients from the university, all of whom attended in-person meetings every three months between 2017 and 2020. At both sites, numerous changes were made to the content, appearance, language, and tone of DAs and outreach materials. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the participative process. Conclusions: Citizen advisory groups are a feasible means of repeatedly incorporating end-user feedback during the creation of multiple DAs. Methodological differences between the two centers underline the need for a flexible model adapted to local needs. Plain English summary: Decision aids are paper or electronic tools that help people make medical decisions. They have been shown to help with shared decision making between patients, their loved ones, and a health professional. When we create decision aids, we try to involve patients at each step, traditionally using focus groups. However, new approaches are needed because focus groups take a lot of time and money. We developed a new method of involving people eligible for cancer screening and used this method during the development of four decision aids at two centers for research in primary care. Two of the decision aids were for colorectal cancer screening (one in French, one in German), and one each for prostate and lung cancer screening. We recruited people aged 50 to 75 interested in improving health information materials from community organizations and among standardized patients from local medical schools to form citizen advisory groups. Standardized patients act as patients during teaching sessions and exams. Some people took part in face-to-face meetings to give us feedback on the materials, while others responded to questionnaires and gave feedback by mail. The same participants gave feedback multiple times as we made improvements to the decision aids. The citizen advisory groups provided us with repeated, meaningful input during the development of decision aids. We think they allowed us to create better, more patient-centered decision aids, while using fewer resources than traditional focus groups. Other researchers who develop decision aids may want to use a similar approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contractual agreements are becoming increasingly important for city governments seeking to manage urban development. Contractual governance involves direct relations between the local state and different public and private actors and citizens. Although abundant literature exists on public–private partnerships related to urban development projects, agreements made between citizens, interest organizations and market parties, such as Community Benefits Agreements remain under-explored and under-theorized. While it may seem that the state is absent from contemporary forms of contractual governance, such agreements remain highly intertwined with government policies. The central aim of this paper is to better conceptualize Community Benefits Agreement practices in order to build understanding of how contractual governance caters for direct end-user involvement in urban development, and to yield insights into its potential as to render development processes more inclusive. Based on academic literature in planning and law, expert interviews and several case studies in New York City, this paper conceptualizes end-user involvement in urban development projects and innovates within urban planning and governance theory through the use of two new concepts—project collectivity and the image of a fourth chair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Community engagement is seen as key to citizen‐centred and sustainable healthcare systems as involving citizens in the designing, implementation and improvement of services and policies is thought to tailor these more closely to communities' own needs and experiences. Organizations have struggled to reach out to and involve disadvantaged citizens. This paper examines how if, why, and when low‐income citizens wish to be involved. Methods: For this qualitative realist case‐study, 19 interviews (one dyad) were held with (20) low‐income citizens in two Dutch municipalities. Additionally, the results were discussed with a reference panel consisting of professionals and citizens to enrich the results and to ensure the results had face validity. Results: The results showed four different ways in which low‐income citizens wished to be involved: (a) in a practical/volunteer way; (b) as a buddy; (c) as a lay expert; (d) not involved at all. The factors affecting citizens' interest and capacity to participate include citizens' own experiences of the services they access and their personal situations, e.g. their mental or physical health, extent of financial crisis, family situation, home environment. None of the interviewees was currently involved, but all had ideas for improving health(care) services and policies. Citizens' experiences of the services they accessed acted as a motivator for some to be involved as they wanted to ensure others would not have the same struggles, while for others their own needs and an apathetic system remained too high a barrier. To enable involvement, citizens need continued support for their own health(care) and financial situation, better communication and accessibility from services, practical support (e.g., training and bus passes) and recognition for their input (e.g., monetary compensation). Conclusion: The study shows that citizens' experiences of the services they accessed influenced if and how they wanted to be involved with health and care services. Despite the fact that all participants had shared solid ideas for improving services and policies, they were hindered by a bureaucratic, impersonal and inaccessible system. Organizations seem to underestimate the required investments to reach out to low‐income citizens and the support required to ensure their involvement. Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in Study: Citizens as well as PPI organizations were members of the reference panel who helped formulate the research questions and recruitment strategy. The local reference panel also helped to interpret and refine the initial findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-production initiatives rely on citizens' contributions to create better public services. Although the existing literature has frequently focused on citizens' motivations to join co-production activities, few studies have investigated how and why citizen involvement might change during the co-production process. The article offers new insights about engagement in co-production by analysing a design initiative in Brussels, Ilot d'eau. Throughout the initiative, the four citizen collectives elaborated a specific decentralised stormwater system project that would be shared among the respective households. Even though each collective followed the same methodology, only two of the four projects reached the co-construction phase. The paper reveals how changes in citizen involvement in the process are impacted by the methodologies of interaction used and the citizens' previous experiences in co-production. Furthermore, by examining the premature withdrawal of two of the four collectives from the initiative, the study shows why some of the changes occurred. In particular, the ambivalent role played by the local municipality during the development of the initiative together with the mediation of the organising team emerge as key determinants influencing citizen involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies and explores key elements for planning and implementing citizen involvement in the area of waste management and circular economy in cities. The analysis has shown that institutions responsible for waste management regard strategic planning, inclusivity, transparency, continuity, and resources as particularly important for reaching the objectives of citizen involvement. However, not all of the four analysed cities have applied these elements to the same extent, due to e.g. a lack of a strategy for citizen involvement, or limited personal and financial resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the concept of participatory democracy developed in the early 1970s has come back into fashion to revitalize the public involvement in political decision-making processes. Public participation in forest policy has been fully conceptualized by the scientific community in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but in many contexts, the practical application remains unfulfilled. The aim of this study is to identify and analyse the participatory techniques used in the literature to increase knowledge and facilitate its transferability into forest policies and strategies. A literature review was carried out to offer an overview of the participatory techniques adopted in the decision-making process. At the end of the literature review, 24 participatory techniques were identified based on over 2000 publications. Afterwards, the participatory techniques were assessed using seven indicators (degree of participation, type and number of participants, type of selection, time scale, cost, and potential influence on policy). The results showed that the type of actors involved in the participatory technique is a key variable for the complexity and usefulness of the process, while the number of participants influences how information is disseminated. The Correspondence Analysis highlighted that the participatory techniques can be divided into four groups: the first group includes those techniques with a high degree of participation (i.e., collaborate) and a contextual high potential influence on policies (e.g., citizens' juries and wisdom council); the second one includes techniques with a low degree of participation (inform) and influence on policies (e.g., social media, adverting, surveys, and polls); while the third and fourth groups consist of those with a medium–high degree of participation (consult or involve), but a variable type of selection and number of participants, and consequently of time and costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new approaches to the delivery of local public services include co-creation. In this paper, we focus on two local public service delivery actors: local governments and civil society. Our objective is to identify different types of co-creation in social innovations and the relevant drivers and barriers that account for the success or failure of co-creation processes at the local government level in Slovakia, focusing on the fields of welfare and the environment. The main findings of our analysis are that co-created innovations are mostly initiated by non-governmental actors, and that most local governments have neutral or even negative attitudes to co-created innovations. We provide a positive case study, in which the local government was open to co-creation, and public services were provided in an alternative way. Our study uses a qualitative approach and is based on original survey data from our own research, conducted mainly within the 'Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments' (LIPSE) research project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses political rationalities positioning residents in decision-making in the context of #housing2030 project in Warsaw, Poland. The paper applies a governmental approach, a policy analysis tool reconstructed (on the ground of existing studies) by Greg Marston and Catherine McDonald (2006). As reported in the article, two political rationalities were identified: (1) public participation designed in the context of local communities and neighbourhoods and (2) public (tenant) participation designed in the context of neoliberal governance in housing. It was found that in the case of the #housing2030 project, the contradiction of political rationalities leads to an incoherent vision of public participation in housing policymaking and to some residents (social tenants) being treated differently. The article argues that this contributes to the micro-practices of social scepticism and distrust on the part of tenant organisations and urban movements towards the #housing2030 project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches that are transdisciplinary and participatory can help to address complex socio-ecological issues by integrating multiple disciplinary perspectives while taking into account the different needs and experiences of community members and other stakeholders. Despite this promise, such approaches are rarely applied within the scientific community, as researchers and public actors often lack the training, practice and reference cases required to handle the working relationships and translations of terminology, ideas and values across multiple bodies of knowledge. A case study described in this manuscript depicts a group of researchers, artists and citizens consciously engaged in the construction of a transdisciplinary process as part of a 40-day 'citizen science' experiment focussed on assessing soil fertility in the urban area of Milan, Italy. The group drew from recognised scientific approaches, applied agronomic methodologies, artistic practices and technological tools, integrating them into a hybrid process of collective and participatory inquiry. As a quantitative outcome of the experiment, a dataset of bio-chemical parameters was generated, which was enriched by agronomic interpretations but also by artistic and reflective materials. Importantly, the process developed transdisciplinary and participatory skills, as it created a potentially replicable procedure of engagement, analysis and presentation for use in other citizen science settings. This article presents the context, the multiple objectives of the research and the applied approach and its timeline. Described in detail are the process of designing and conducting the experiment by involving an extended research community—including both junior and senior researchers—in progressive steps. Quantitative and qualitative results are provided. The findings are meant to contribute case material and methods to inform the advancement of transdisciplinary research approaches within the scientific community as well as examples of ways to transcend the boundaries of science to include artists and community stakeholders. The aspiration is to inform and inspire concrete application of transdisciplinary and participatory methods in concert to address complex socio-environmental challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging active citizenry in public policy decisions using participative and collaborative processes is increasingly recognized as a critical step in implementing the open government concept. In this paper, we examine challenges and success factors as well as specific instruments and good practices in implementing participatory and collaborative governance in different governance contexts. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the approach adopted for the development and implementation of long-term strategies in Lithuania and Finland, we specifically focus on institutionalization of participative and collaborative processes along the policy-making cycle. The findings suggest that the most serious challenges associated with transitioning from 'old' to 'new' governance modes can be expected in countries associated with classical bureaucracy and legalistic institutional culture. In particular, such systems create internal and external pressure to focus on outputs as proof of results, which often trump efforts to enhance learning and consensus-building. Lessons learned from "Finland 2030" and "Lithuania 2030" suggest that institutionalization through leadership, clear responsibilities, a wide consensus within the society and administrations, and permanent stakeholder involvement platforms, is crucial to enable cultural change. The paper proposes a participative and collaborative governance maturity model that could be applied for benchmarking countries or policies. • The paper presents a collaborative and participative governance maturity model. • Institutionalization matters for the longevity of open governance. • Organizational culture is key to collaborative and participative governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accordance with the European Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability towards a Toxic-free Environment, the European Commission plans to phase out persistent chemicals, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), except for uses classified essential for society. Until now, empirical research on what is considered an essential or non-essential chemical use has been lacking. Furthermore, as such criteria are bound to be subjective, different parties can have different views. In this study we explored which uses of persistent chemicals citizens from seven EU countries consider (non-)essential for society. As EU citizens are directly impacted by policy decisions based on (non-)essentiality criteria, we also investigated the influence of emphasis on the consequences of banning vs. allowing persistent chemicals, the association with demographics, and of having heard of persistent chemicals or PFAS prior to the study. We found substantial variation in essentiality ratings within and between use categories and between countries. Uses related to safety were frequently considered essential, whereas uses related to recreation, household, and personal care were frequently considered non-essential. Emphasis on different consequences did not influence essentiality ratings. Gender, age, education, and political orientation were to some extent associated with essentiality ratings. People who had not heard of persistent chemicals or PFAS prior to the study rated uses of persistent chemicals less frequently as non-essential or essential. Our findings offer insight into EU citizens' opinions on (non-)essential uses of persistent chemicals, and provide empirical input to the scientific and public debate on framing the concept of essential use. [Display omitted] • This paper explores citizens' views of (non-)essential uses of persistent chemicals. • The study is based on a citizens' survey conducted in 7 EU countries. • We found large variation of (non-)essentiality ratings within and between countries. • Chemical uses related to safety were frequently considered essential. • Uses related to recreation, household, and personal care were frequently considered non-essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of the environmental issue influences the planning process, affecting multiple factors and elements of the urbanity. For this reason, the challenge of sustainability requires an integrated approach in order to cope with all critical aspects of planning practice. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), as a tool directly connected to the planning process, represents a great opportunity to explore different kinds of knowledge presented in planning theory, proposing a new integrated way in order to overcame practical separations and divisions. This paper analysed the contributions of three main theoretical fields strongly related with the SEA practice, setting the ground for further research and innovations based on the integration among different elements developed within theoretical debates. These theories are the evaluation in planning which is the main background for environmental evaluation, decision making theories that represent the "working place" of the SEA and, finally, the citizens' involvement which is the key to producing and to sharing knowledge between planning and environmental processes. The word "integration" acquires a core role to systematize different knowledge and skills. In doing this, the participation to public decision process can help the decision maker to produce environmental accountability, but it is important to clarify in advance each element or variable that affects planning and the SEA process. Overcoming divisions means to know well what is the role of each part, emphasising the potentiality rather than deficiency of all affected subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the process and findings of an extensive research project with the aim of investigating present initiatives and approaches within the area of community resilience and citizen involvement. The paper specifically addresses which emerging sociotechnical approaches can be discerned within these initiatives. The discussion is structured within three categories of potential voluntary engagement; organized volunteers, semiorganized individuals, and "nonorganized" individuals. The empirical material assembled in the research project is contrasted with contemporary international research literature regarding sociotechnical means for enhancing community resilience. Swedish approaches, as is noted in the Conclusion of the paper, are primarily focused on consuming information in the pre-event phase, rather than on producing information and engaging in collaboration in the response phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pursuing person-centredness and cost containment in long-term care, policy makers and academics stress the importance of public participation and co-production with communities. When citizen involvement is interpreted as increasing their ownership over local care arrangements - either meant literally or as a sense of being in control - it potentially affects the roles of professional and community actors beyond a mere redistribution of responsibilities. While the issue has become a core concern in both policy and academic debates, not much is known about what it means for professional care organizations when profound strategic influence of citizens is pursued. This paper draws on 18 months of ethnographic field work, studying representatives of a professional care organization negotiating the design and delivery of services with inhabitants of a small town in the north of the Netherlands. Looking at attempts to transform a 'traditional' professional care home into a joint initiative of professional and community actors, I focus on how the various actors involved draw different symbolic boundaries between what they see as 'professional' and 'community' domains and their corresponding roles. As such notions are malleable and change over time, I explore how their evolving meaning affects - and is affected by - the degree of actual ownership that citizens experience over local care service delivery. The case study reveals some of the complexities of attempting to achieve higher levels of community ownership over activities traditionally dominated by professional organizations. On one hand, a substantial boundary shift took place by opening up space for citizens to negotiate issues that were initially decided for them. Still, it was a common reflex for organizational representatives to impose barriers when citizens actually tried to exert influence. Although boundaries seemed to be shifting, they did not disappear; professional actors struggled to reconcile 'letting go' to enable meaningful participation, with 'staying in control' to meet organizational requirements. Some dealt with this tension by clearly demarcating the domain in which citizen involvement was deemed possible and desirable. Others instead engaged in blurring organizational boundaries by - actively or passively - involving citizens in adjusting 'internal' policies and processes to accommodate local needs or preferences. These two approaches resembled different ways in which the organization's relation to citizens was characterized. When emphasizing citizens' role as client-consumer or volunteer _for_ the organization, they were granted less strategic agency than when portraying them as 'equal partners' in designing and delivering local care services. This study sheds light on how different perspectives on community engagement evolve and interact when attempting to transform the relationship between professional care organizations and the communities they work with. It shows how such attempts can potentially lead to fundamental questions about who defines the boundaries of the professional organization and how far citizens' strategic agency can go. Whereas the current paper focuses on how actors redraw and give meaning to such boundaries during the start-up of a joint initiative, future research is required for investigating how such dynamics evolve as the initiative matures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In this conceptual paper, we reflect on the emergence of citizens as active participants to care integration within Western, highly professionalized care systems. We explore how this development challenges established ways of conceptualizing and practicing integrated care. Ranging from professionals' alignment with lay caregivers to citizens taking up formal ownership of services, citizen participation is often presented as a new frontier for care integration. Still, scholarly insight into the organizational implication of integration with and by citizens (instead of 'merely' for citizens) remains limited. Theory/Methods: First, we select and review key publications in the field of integrated care, analyzing how citizens and communities are positioned within the process of integration. Second, we draw on literature on citizen involvement to analyze the tension between the logics by which professional services are organized and the rationale(s) for involving citizens. We draw on our own empirical studies and examples from the literature to illustrate the areas in which such tensions surface. Findings: First, we discuss three reasons why citizens' role in integrating services deserves more attention within the field of integrated care. These include (1) citizens' life-world perspective, enabling them to contribute to the normative frameworks that guide service integration by prioritizing which issues 'matter' at the local level or for particular user groups; (2) citizens' ability to identify whether the efforts of multiple organizations and professionals give rise to barriers to service access and quality at the individual user level; and (3) citizens' prominent role as 'lay' providers of care, who are at risk of being ignored or marginalized when integration is approached as a predominantly professional or managerial endeavor. Second, we explore how these three incentives for involving citizens can be at odds with professional or managerial principles that often dominate how services are organized and integrated. We discuss five key areas of competing principles or perspectives--each potentially legitimate when considered in isolation--that become increasingly salient and require careful consideration when citizens assume a more prominent role in processes of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The central tension in local government in Australia and elsewhere is often characterized as between that of its democratic and service delivery roles. The democratic role of local government is to reflect, through elected officials, the values and aspirations of citizens. To maintain their electoral mandate, elected officials seek to be as responsive as possible to citizen values and aspirations. This role emphasizes the importance of elected officials as actors in the system of representative government. Local government's service delivery role places a different set of demands. Here the focus is on efficiency and effectiveness, a rather narrowly defined private sector view of ensuring that citizens get the best value for money for the services that they receive. The tension between these two roles can be contrasted as one pulling in the direction of being able to do as much as possible for citizens, whilst the other emphasizes doing as little as possible as fast as possible. This tension is not easily resolvable if characterized in this way. This paper draws on public value as a framework for characterizing the role of the public sector and, in particular local government. It posits that the values and aspirations of citizens are not just to be 'received' and 'responded to' by elected representatives as in the traditional model of representative government, but should be engaged with, shaped and informed through enabling participation of citizens in decisions which affect them. This approach changes the roles of local authorities and citizens and strengthens, rather than diminishes, representative government. Through innovative citizen participation both citizens and elected representatives are engaged in a discourse that continually shapes and reshapes the others values and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A lack of fine-scaled socio-perceptual information hinders integrated UGI planning. • PPGIS can generate this information, complementing ecological and statistical data. • We reveal multiple ways multifunctionality planning may be enhanced. • PPGIS can support city-wide, district and site-level UGI planning across scales. Urban green infrastructure (UGI) planning is a new approach to planning that aims to develop multifunctional networks of green and blue spaces designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services, and thereby, to improve quality-of-life in cities. However, moving current practice in urban green space planning towards the UGI planning approach will require higher quality information about a wider array of ecosystem services than currently measured and more spatially detailed social valuation methods. This paper explores the added value of public participation GIS (PPGIS), a relatively new type of survey for obtaining social values, as a tool for UGI planning. We do this by surveying real-life assessment tools for CES used in the case study city of Berlin and comparing the results of these with those of a PPGIS survey conducted in the city. The discussion centers on application of PPGIS results for UGI planning, focusing on their potential for enhancing multifunctionality at different spatial scales. At the site-level, the tool can help target conflict and less valued areas for redesign and management, as well as identifying particularly loved park features for protection. At the district- and city-level, we found potential for improving representativeness and accuracy of expert-based assessments, identifying coldspots and difficult-to-map functions, correcting deficits and increasing understanding of functional synergies. Outside of enhancing multifunctionality assessment, PPGIS may also support implementation of other defining principles of UGI planning, such as connectivity of green spaces, integrating urban green infrastructure with other infrastructure and ensuring collaborative, socially-inclusive planning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become a truism that the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) is necessary and must help guide technological developments. Numerous ethical guidelines have emerged from academia, industry, government and civil society in recent years. While they provide a basis for discussion on appropriate regulation of AI, it is not always clear how these ethical guidelines were developed, and by whom. Using content analysis, we surveyed a sample of the major documents (n = 47) and analyzed the accessible information regarding their methodology and stakeholder engagement. Surprisingly, only 38% report some form of stakeholder engagement (with 9% involving citizens) and most do not report their methodology for developing normative insights (15%). Our results show that documents with stakeholder engagement develop more comprehensive ethical guidance with greater applicability, and that the private sector is least likely to engage stakeholders. We argue that the current trend for enunciating AI ethical guidance not only poses widely discussed challenges of applicability in practice, but also of transparent development (as it rather behaves as a black box) and of active engagement of diversified, independent and trustworthy stakeholders. While most of these documents consider people and the common good as central to their telos, engagement with the general public is significantly lacking. As AI ethics moves from the initial race for enunciating general principles to more sustainable, inclusive and practical guidance, stakeholder engagement and citizen involvement will need to be embedded into the framing of ethical and societal expectations towards this technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conflict arises when some groups interpret a siting as a pos sibility while others see it as constituting a risk. The actors involved are faced with various problems regarding decision- making. What, for the government, can be a solution to an environmental problem can be seen by the people living in the area in question as a threat to their health and immediate environment. This article discusses the possibility of creating a dialogue between various actors involved in a siting conflict. It is stated that the dialogue should be democratic and based on knowledge: siting has political dimensions, and therefore it is important that citizens have the possibility of participating in the decision-making process. In addition, by allowing sev eral different perspectives to influence a siting decision, more knowledge is created about the proposal. In conclusion, the paper gives some general advice concerning how such a dia logue can be brought about. A dialogue can fail, but the chance of a good solution increases if a dialogue is encouraged to proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on the process and findings of an extensive research project with the aim of investigating present initiatives and approaches within the area of community resilience and citizen involvement. The paper specifically addresses which emerging sociotechnical approaches can be discerned within these initiatives. The discussion is structured within three categories of potential voluntary engagement; organized volunteers, semiorganized individuals, and “nonorganized” individuals. The empirical material assembled in the research project is contrasted with contemporary international research literature regarding sociotechnical means for enhancing community resilience. Swedish approaches, as is noted in the Conclusion of the paper, are primarily focused on consuming information in the pre-event phase, rather than on producing information and engaging in collaboration in the response phase.

Innovations in technical, financial, and social areas are crucial prerequisites for an effective and sustainable energy transition. In this context, the construction of a new energy structure and the motivation of the consumer towards a change in their consumption behaviours to balance demand with a volatile energy supply are important issues. At the same time, Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs) in renewable energies sources (RESs) have proven to be an essential cornerstone in the overall success of energy transition. Indeed, when consumers acquire ownership in RES, they become prosumers, participating in the phase of production and distribution of energy. Prosumers provide benefits by (1) generating a part of the energy they consume, (2) reducing their overall expenditure for energy, and (3) receiving a second source of income from the sale of excess production. Supporting Consumer Co-Ownership in Renewable Energies (SCORE) is an ongoing Horizon 2020 project with the aim of overcoming the usage of energy from fossil sources in favour of RES, promoting the creation of energy communities (EC) and facilitating co-ownership of renewable energies (RE) for consumers. SCORE hereby particularly emphasises the inclusion of women, low-income households, and vulnerable groups affected by fuel poverty that are as a rule excluded from RE investments. In this framework, the main goal of the present study is to illustrate the general procedure and process of EC creation. In particular, this paper focuses on the description of the methodological approach in implementing the CSOP model which consists of three main phases: the identification and description of selected buildings (preparation phase), the preliminary and feasibility analysis phase, and finally the phase of target group involvement. SCORE first started in three pilot regions in Italy, Czech Republic, and Poland, and later, with the aim of extending the methodology, in various other cities across Europe. In this study, Italian pilot study sites were chosen as a case study to develop and test the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Community engagement is seen as key to citizen‐centred and sustainable healthcare systems as involving citizens in the designing, implementation and improvement of services and policies is thought to tailor these more closely to communities’ own needs and experiences. Organizations have struggled to reach out to and involve disadvantaged citizens. This paper examines how if, why, and when low‐income citizens wish to be involved. Methods For this qualitative realist case‐study, 19 interviews (one dyad) were held with (20) low‐income citizens in two Dutch municipalities. Additionally, the results were discussed with a reference panel consisting of professionals and citizens to enrich the results and to ensure the results had face validity. Results The results showed four different ways in which low‐income citizens wished to be involved: (a) in a practical/volunteer way; (b) as a buddy; (c) as a lay expert; (d) not involved at all. The factors affecting citizens’ interest and capacity to participate include citizens’ own experiences of the services they access and their personal situations, e.g. their mental or physical health, extent of financial crisis, family situation, home environment. None of the interviewees was currently involved, but all had ideas for improving health(care) services and policies. Citizens’ experiences of the services they accessed acted as a motivator for some to be involved as they wanted to ensure others would not have the same struggles, while for others their own needs and an apathetic system remained too high a barrier. To enable involvement, citizens need continued support for their own health(care) and financial situation, better communication and accessibility from services, practical support (e.g., training and bus passes) and recognition for their input (e.g., monetary compensation). Conclusion The study shows that citizens’ experiences of the services they accessed influenced if and how they wanted to be involved with health and care services. Despite the fact that all participants had shared solid ideas for improving services and policies, they were hindered by a bureaucratic, impersonal and inaccessible system. Organizations seem to underestimate the required investments to reach out to low‐income citizens and the support required to ensure their involvement. Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in Study Citizens as well as PPI organizations were members of the reference panel who helped formulate the research questions and recruitment strategy. The local reference panel also helped to interpret and refine the initial findings.

In this paper, a comparative analysis between the main political citizen attitudes before the crisis in Iceland and Spain is carried out. After a brief review of political and economical antecendents, it was concluded that in Spain, as well as in Iceland, the key explanatory factors of the deep economic imbalances are located at the institutional sphere. The excesses are related in both cases to political clientelism and to diverse corruptions practices, in such a way that even the alarming signs that preceded “the official date” of the economic crisis, no convenient measures were adopted in time. In this context, the crisis has played a catalyst role, accelerating the demands aimed at achieving a better performance of the democratic system in both countries. Distrust in politicians and in political parties, as well as in other formal institutions, has not been translated neither in lack of confidence in the democracy system per se, nor in poltical apathy. Moreover, the discontent has been in both cases translated into both formulae of more political informal participation and of a greater support to more direct democracy, though through differents channels and with different results. In the discussion, diverse hypotheses are explored in order to explain the main findings in the comparative analysis. On the one hand, some of the variables associated to small-states literature are taken into account, in order to argue the main differences found out between the Spanish and Icelandic cases. On the other, diverse hypotheses from the political science literature are considered in search of a plausible explanation of the major parallelisms found.

Although, it is understood that public participation is fundamental to the planning process, practitioners struggle with low levels of participation from the general public, but especially participation as it pertains to race, gender, and class. Transportation planners, practitioners, and scholars have had difficulty in selecting an appropriate public participation model to help solve the problem. This paper expands the relevance of the public participation models by introducing the Public Participation Process (PPP) Model to help in the understanding and implementation of citizen participation in transportation decision-making. Previous literature have models of public participation, but this theoretical model goes beyond other public participation models by integrating an additional step and an outcome of public participation in order to gain a fuller picture of evaluating and measuring effectiveness of public participation outreach efforts. Key elements of the PPP Model include six steps: Inform; Access; Listen; Engage/Involve; Standing/Influence; and Influence-Policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do members of professional care organizations make sense of plans and policies to better engage citizens and communities? When translating these into daily practices, how do they deal with established role expectations and organizational and professional requirements that limit their room to maneuver? This paper presents initial findings of an ethnographic study of two professional care organizations seeking structural involvement of citizens and communities in providing and governing older people's services. Scholars of integrated care generally treat civic actors as external to the care system that needs to be integrated. These civic actors are positioned as the ones benefitting from well-aligned professional services, instead of being actively included as organizational actors in integrative efforts. This study looks at the 'boundary work' taking place at the intersection of professional care and community involvement, with professional actors being stimulated to engage citizens across boundaries that are simultaneously shifting. Initial findings show how management level actors employ rhetoric strategies to blur boundaries between 'community' and 'professional' domains when inviting citizens to participate. Simultaneously, professional caregivers sometimes experience limited 'space' for this community participation. On multiple levels within and beyond the organizations' boundaries, established role expectations and professional and organizational frameworks are renegotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plain English summary Decision aids are paper or electronic tools that help people make medical decisions. They have been shown to help with shared decision making between patients, their loved ones, and a health professional. When we create decision aids, we try to involve patients at each step, traditionally using focus groups. However, new approaches are needed because focus groups take a lot of time and money. We developed a new method of involving people eligible for cancer screening and used this method during the development of four decision aids at two centers for research in primary care. Two of the decision aids were for colorectal cancer screening (one in French, one in German), and one each for prostate and lung cancer screening. We recruited people aged 50 to 75 interested in improving health information materials from community organizations and among standardized patients from local medical schools to form citizen advisory groups. Standardized patients act as patients during teaching sessions and exams. Some people took part in face-to-face meetings to give us feedback on the materials, while others responded to questionnaires and gave feedback by mail. The same participants gave feedback multiple times as we made improvements to the decision aids. The citizen advisory groups provided us with repeated, meaningful input during the development of decision aids. We think they allowed us to create better, more patient-centered decision aids, while using fewer resources than traditional focus groups. Other researchers who develop decision aids may want to use a similar approach.

Watershed governance has historically been administered by natural resource experts and is often inaccessible to citizen stakeholders. Although many advocate for deliberative democracy as a pathway toward natural resource sustainability, others remain skeptical due to perceived tradeoffs. Environmental deliberative democracy (EDD) serves as a conceptual synthesis of collaborative principles. This research compares the social, economic, and political discourses in two Wisconsin watersheds (Geneva Lake in regulatory compliance and Green Lake, which is deemed state impaired) and posits that EDD community compatibility is enhanced by public trust in expert capacity and accessible watershed education resources. A mixed methodology is used to analyze quantitative data from citizen surveys and qualitative interview responses. Findings affirm that proactive watershed management frameworks are stronger when not prompted by environmental crises. Management programs created reactively with a specific agenda have a comparable structure with citizen involvement but have a limited capacity, scope, and potential for sustained success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies and explores key elements for planning and implementing citizen involvement in the area of waste management and circular economy in cities. The analysis has shown that institutions responsible for waste management regard strategic planning, inclusivity, transparency, continuity, and resources as particularly important for reaching the objectives of citizen involvement. However, not all of the four analysed cities have applied these elements to the same extent, due to e.g. a lack of a strategy for citizen involvement, or limited personal and financial resources.

Over time, one of the causes that led to the progressive reduction in the public space quality is the massive diffusion of private cars. The characteristics of quality, safety, and accessibility should be indispensable for the public space, and these needs should be met through targeted interventions, with particular attention to the integration between urban planning and mobility. Therefore, in this article, we study the public spaces criticalities to promote soft mobility. A methodology is proposed for the definition of the public cognitive framework. The methodology is based on three different phases: the urban context analysis, the analysis of the perception of space by the user, and some preparatory solutions for the subsequent design phase. Technical analyzes are based on on-site observations, measurements, data processing, and thematic maps. On the contrary, the perception phase is based on the direct involvement of citizens through a survey. The methodology is applied to the case study of the San Bartolomeo and Casazza districts of the city of Brescia. The results show a strong connection between the urban spaces geometric characteristics and their perception by users, useful for the design of a public space weighted to the needs encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]