Lessons Learned per Actively Participating

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Milestone 1

• Keep in mind the local context to answer local needs and specificities;
• Attract different stakeholders in order to have a diversity and complementarity to obtain inputs as complete as possible;
• Plan the stakeholders carefully to ensure that the right people, stakeholder groups and organisations are in the room;
• Organise carefully the workshop phases for successfully meeting the objectives and for engaging all participants;
• Be careful of possible competition of other events happening as the same time in the same city or on the same topic;
• Use dialog for initiating collaboration among private landowners and municipalities;
• Bring researchers from ‘non-conventional’ areas related to Deep Sea Mining;
• Involve all interested stakeholders;
• Recruit participants based on their interest, research, business or experience related to the workshop topic;
• Offer an incentive for citizens in order to attract people to attend at the workshop;
• Find a topic which will attract different stakeholders.

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Milestone 2

• Provide a good incentive and personal benefits to motivate people to attend the workshop(s) and processes;
• Use using storytelling to describe the challenge with clear and concrete examples;
• Explain the challenge in an inclusive, strategic and broad manner for involving all types of participants;
• Define a clear triggering question highlighting the issue and goal to be addressed at the workshop;
• Use diverse communication channels (e-mail, telephone, face-to-face and word of mouth) for recruiting participants;
• Define the initiative's broad goals from a policy, social / cultural, economic, technological perspective;
• During the recruitment phase, ensure the methodology has been clearly explained and understood, to avoid misunderstandings during the event;
• Focus the challenge with relevant examples for the participants and related to their daily lives;
• Define the date, finalise the workshop topic and have communication material two months ahead;
• Focus the workshop and the RRI presentation on a topic relevant for the participants and related to their daily lives;
• Promote the involvement of public authorities on local, national and European levels;
• Raise awareness of the general public on the environmental impact of offshore installations at all stages (building, exploitation, dismantling);
• Contact directly the person to recruit via e-mails or telephone;
• Address a specific subject that concerns multidisciplinary stakeholders;
• Invite additional stakeholders and communities to join the MARINA knowledge sharing platform and direct them to the results and materials related to Deep Sea Mining;
• Present the Mobilisation and Mutual Learning and RRI approach;
• Define a workshop triggering question that is short, clear and easily understood by all stakeholders;
• Consider personal e-mails as the recruitment mechanism because it has been proven by far the most effective recruitment mechanism;
• Make marine issues visible and understandable to the public;
• Identify motives for policy makers and implementers to participate in the workshops as they are reluctant in participating;
• Explain RRI and innovation tools and how to embed them in policy agendas as participants find it useful;
• Run awareness campaigns so that the issue problem is clearly understood by all stakeholders;
• Be aware of the motivational factor that workshop participants may feel because they like the fact that an interdisciplinary group representing all society's niches is invited to brainstorming for resolving the problem;
• Be aware about the participants motivations to attend a workshop such as to learn from others participants;
• Perform an analysis of publics' behaviours before engaging the public engagement;
• Use audience targeted communication for all types stakeholders to engage them;
• Raise citizen and business awareness about the environmental protection and sustainability;
• Motivate to receive ahead of the workshop and on time the participants' action ideas and to attract participants from all stakeholders’ groups;
• Be aware that policy-makers are not easy to engage unless they see a specific benefit that fits their agenda;
• Start planning at least 4 months in advance the organisation of a workshop as it is very time consuming task;
• Carefully consider the workshop's duration as many participants think that a one day-long workshop is too long;
• Prepare a concise information corpus for participants;
• Inform in a wider manner all societal actors about the issue.

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Milestone 3

• Create a relaxing but effective work experience and joint decision-making with the world café methodology;
• Send a personalised and direct (e-mail or telephone) invitation to ensure a better buy-in of targeted participants;
• Allocate sufficient time for discussions and to involve all participants interests and ideas;
• Allocate more time for group discussions during workshops;
• Adopt participative methods tested in MARINA in other initiatives including stakeholders;
• Attract participants by sending invitations via e‐mail, followed by phone calls;
• Present the topic approached from the beginning of the workshop;
• Offer a clear explanation of the methodology used to be as clear as possible to the participants;
• Use methods for involving the active participation of the public by giving them the opportunity to express their opinions;
• Offer a clear explanation of the methodology used in order to be as clear as possible for the participants;
• Use methods that offer to the participants the opportunity to interact and to have open discussions;
• Explain the participatory method used to the participants as clearly and in a shorter time;
• Choose a familiar methodology for participants;
• Use a method that gives the opportunity to all participants to express their opinion;
• Moderate the workshop with an experienced facilitator to avoid "Groupthink" and the "Erroneous Priorities Effect";
• Explain at the start of the workshop the different phases that participants will go through;
• Continue to engage the stakeholders for knowledge exchange after the workshop;
• Make the workshops highly participatory and interactive;
• Give the participants sufficient time to present themselves and their work/field of interest, in order to facilitate connection and co-operation after the workshop;
• Plan an in-depth and varied engagement with stakeholders at all stages of the projects;
• Adapt the presentation of projects information to the specific needs of respective stakeholders groups;
• Help participants become active in the workshop by helping them understand the importance of the Marine Hot Topic;
• Adapt the workshop methodology to the local culture;
• Remember that apart from being scientists, teachers, policy-makers, they are all citizens of coastal cities who want to care for the environment as a private person;
• Assign participants to a specific table according to gender, type of organization/institution, type of expertise in the field, main interest in general to ensure multidisciplinarity;
• Multiply events where researchers from academia and industry exchange with a broader community to enhance this community and its visibility;
• Ensure that participants can exchange knowledge and meet new people;
• Look for participants open to dialogue, but who don't usually interact with each other;
• Start with a roundtable process so that everybody know each-other, and everyone can share their personal perspective of the subject;
• Hook RRI abstract subjects to a topic related to participants lives and has interests in it;
• Recruit participants by telephone to ensure a great effectiveness of recruitment;
• Workshops may participants convince about RRI, but doesn't tend to help them in the concrete application of RRI in their daily work;
• Adapt the workshop schedule and structure according to the specifics and program of the stakeholders you want to attend;
• Invite stakeholders to provide their feedback about workshop;
• Choose a suitable method for the number of participants and the specific of the workshop;
• Present and explain the method used;
• Encouraged all the participants to work on all the solutions during the session;
• Engage stakeholders from different sectors of activity;
• Choose a method which will produce a large amount of data on a topic in a short time;
• Invite and encourage different stakeholders to participate at this kind of workshops;
• Create the opportunity to network and discuss, in order to identify the key marine and societal challenges for the Wave Energy Sector;
• Make a clear presentation of the debated issue and its current status;
• Stimulate and ensure open dialogue among the attendees;
• Use of different communications platforms/technologies to communicate with stakeholders and make data accessible;
• Use new communications channels and IT technologies as opportunities to engage with communities;
• The SDD dialogue is a rigorous and efficient participatory methodology, but also time-consuming, leaving no time for the interpretation of the presented ideas in terms of their RRI dimensions by the participants during the workshop;
• Ask participants' to state their workshop expectations because experience shows that some find the workshop and its participatory method intriguing, others were interested In how to develop a shared vision, some had an interest in being inspired and build networks;
• Identify and invite the right number of participants representing all necessary science fields to create a viable action plan;
• Participant recruiting is time-consuming and must be planned well in advance of the workshop;
• The reversed science cafe method motivates participants to express their opinions and views in a structured, inclusive, yet open manner;
• Participatory workshops provide good opportunities for better discovering developments and problems of the studied industry;
• Enable workshops participants to create networks and communities of interest to further research and identify solutions for the studied issue;
• Engage participants via emails and phone calls, since it has been proven as the most effective means of recruitment;
• Be aware that it is challenging to persuade people to participate in workshops;
• Use both phone and email for citizen recruitment;
• Establish transparent, efficient and effective democratic mechanisms amongst all involved and throughout all the phases to create trust;
• Keep the workshop's duration short and engage an experienced facilitator;
• Involve politicians and municipality representatives in workshops to increase its effectiveness;
• Email and telephone were the best communication channels for promoting the workshop;
• The SDD method was evaluated as very well structured, inclusive, productive, scientific, interesting and dynamic;
• The education of young people and the use of exchange programs between schools will lead to active citizenship respectful of the environment;
• Plan well the participant groups so that all stakeholders are sufficiently represented;
• Promote the workshop through websites and a poster campaigns;
• Push for multi-stakeholders' representation and input from all relevant actors;
• Bring people and particularly the young on location where they can have transformative experiences that they will seek to relieve throughout their lives;
• Engage young potential "citizen scientists" in schools to promote the issue at hand;
• Achieve positive engagement with all types of local stakeholders including relevant government agencies, local businesses, regulators, NGOs, CSOs, researchers and citizens;
• Clarify from the start of any process or workshop all terms and acronyms so that all participants from various backgrounds understand them;
• Explain clearly the workshop methodology and how the outputs will be used at the beginning of the workshop and include some warm-up activity;
• Engage researchers with the industry for the development of appropriate technologies since there is a discrepancy between the academia and the industry needs;
• Raise awareness among pupils and students about environmental protection through informational programs as well as promote the specific sector as a means of employability;
• Learn about participatory methods and how to use them;
• Help the participants with examples to understand how to embed RRI principles when discussing a sector and societal challenges;
• Choose well the workshop methodology to allow participants contribute to the discussion and to strengthen the links among them;
• Ensure the comfort of the room (space around the tables, temperature, light etc.) to reduce the stress and fatigue of the participants and to improve the results. Provide some small "gift" or surprise them somehow, to create a friendly environment for the discussion;
• Define a clear agenda and respect it, but do not hesitate to be flexible and modify the schedule to reach the final results;
• During the recruitment phase, ensure the methodology has been clearly explained and understood, to avoid misunderstanding during the event;
• Participants do not subscribe gladly to the platform, they don't have time and/or willingness to learn using another tool;
• During the recruitment phase, ensure the methodology has been clearly explained and understood, to avoid misunderstanding during the event;
• Ensure you have some big institution's newsletter to disseminate your workshop for recruitment and spreading of the results;
• Use new participatory methodologies to attract participants;
• Take into consideration that despite participants' willingness to participate, often practical barriers impede their attendance in participative workshops;
• Consider having virtual discussions to help some stakeholder groups (e.g. citizens) to attend participatory workshops and events;
• Be flexible with the methodology adopted in order to finalize the process, even if not in the way you planned;
• Choose your methodology considering your audience;
• Dedicate the needed time to discuss and clarify the methodology and the agenda with the facilitator - and among the organizing group;
• Define the length of the workshop according with your foreseen audience and local habits;
• Involve students when possible;
• Stream only the most crucial sections of the workshop, disseminate the streaming agenda;
• Provide a synthetic, max 5 pages, info pack about the topic before the workshop;
• During the recruitment phase, ensure the methodology has been clearly explained and understood, to avoid misunderstanding during the event;
• Send an official invitation letter signed by the director/president of the institute organizing the workshop to facilitate the recruitment;
• Apply different participatory methods during the event to maintain a high level of attention.

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Milestone 4

• Ensure that all voices have an equal footing in the debate during the workshop;
• Allocate time for every participant to present his/her own idea and to discuss it in plenum;
• Give all participants the opportunity to discuss and generate ideas;
• Allocate time for every participant to present his/her idea and to discuss it in plenum;
• Take measures to develop and further enhance the engagement and cooperation between different stakeholders;
• Request the participants to state their ideas in the form of action statements in order to “push” them to think in practical terms;
• Make an inventory of innovations and tools, and facilitate collaboration and networking for the development of biotechnologies in France;
• Focus on the concept and its tools when explaining RRI to participants;
• Enable each group to take the floor to present their results;
• Put in place a multi-stakeholder dialogue to efficiently reduce plastic pollution;
• Find moderators with experience on methods used for event moderation;
• Use a method that encourages participants to work together in order to have an interactive group;
• Have proactive public participation from stakeholders, in particular from government and industry;
• Encourage and promote marine involvement for all stakeholders;
• Promote best practice cross sectorial stakeholder engagement processes through webinars;
• Collect participant's post-workshop feedback focusing on the added value workshop points: the participatory method, the topic, the action plan, the common vision, the future participation options;
• Encourage researchers to voice their opinions on marine issues in the media focusing on economic, environmental and social needs to enable the uptake of new technologies;
• The society believes that RRI will never be in full effect without strong political will;
• Multidisciplinary research considers the sustainability vector is key;
• Create a friendly and relaxed workshop atmosphere for participants to have lively and open discussions;
• Plan well the workshop so that participants provide their ideas in an active way;
• Avoiding "Groupthink" and the "Erroneous Priorities Effect": taking measures for the protection of the authenticity of all ideas;
• Provide the participants with the legislative aspects related to the topic. If possible ensure the attendance of an expert;
• Encourage the production of socially and environmentally acceptable solutions and services with the science education of business and industry professionals;
• Have business and industry professionals consider producing socially and environmentally acceptable marine bio-based goods and services;
• Consider ethics when dealing with the legal frameworks to assure marine biotechnologies sustainability and social awareness;
• Develop new methods of governance for engaging citizens through public awareness and politics;
• Develop more partnerships with the Media and NGOs in order to reach bigger audiences;
• Develop and organize more actions, in order that different stakeholders meet and discuss their ideas more often and get used to think outside their boxes;
• Increase knowledge on deep sea minerals occurrences and their economic;
• Increase awareness in the use of raw materials and their importance on our society;
• Identify what are the society's perceptions and knowledge gaps for consideration in future planning of Deep Sea Mining research and innovation initiatives;
• Develop a network of common interest;
• Promote the meaning of the term "renewable energy systems";
• Try to obtain clear actions from people from different areas of interest, but targeting the common vision;
• Focus on RRI issues by prompting participants to talk more about how researchers can be enrolled in all actions generated and how other stakeholders can be useful to researchers;
• Push for adjust rules to allow open access to relevant sector research results;
• Improve efficient communication, generate plural debates and disseminate reliable data and information to convert vision into reality;
• Achieve success through multi-stakeholder engagement and consensus;
• Open access, i.e. giving free online access to the results of publicly-funded research data will boost innovation and increase the use of scientific results by all societal actors;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: a) simple, short title; one line describing the idea and one-two lines (minimum) explaining and clarifying the idea;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: b) think who would be responsible for implementing the proposed action and how to engage the person or organisation;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: c) timing (when could such an idea be implemented);
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: d) resources (how would the idea be implemented);
• Claim for an alignment between legislation and the changing scientific situation and technological innovations;
• Promote local communities and their traditions for societal relevance of the scientific outputs;
• Consider the best way of collecting votes for the purpose such as the number of votes available for each participant, the rounds of votes, etc.

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Milestone 5

• Develop a stakeholder engagement plan;
• Engage local communities in awareness raising event;
• Define a clear plan for the future engagement of the workshop's participants to keep the community active;
• Create decision-making processes that are participative, transparent and allow for public deliberation;
• Check carefully the voting process of the actions, to avoid selfish or non correct behaviours which could distort the results;
• Translate workshop results in something short and friendly in short time and disseminate among the participants and others, not to loose momentum;
• Check carefully the voting process, to avoid selfish or improper behaviours, which could distort the results;
• Encourage the production of socially and environmentally acceptable solutions and services with the science education of business and industry professionals;
• Have business and industry professionals consider producing socially and environmentally acceptable marine bio-based goods and services;
• Consider ethics when dealing with the legal frameworks to assure marine biotechnologies sustainability and social awareness;
• Develop new methods of governance for engaging citizens through public awareness and politics;
• Develop more partnerships with the Media and NGOs in order to reach bigger audiences;
• Develop and organize more actions, in order that different stakeholders meet and discuss their ideas more often and get used to think outside their boxes;
• Increase knowledge on deep sea minerals occurrences and their economic;
• Increase awareness in the use of raw materials and their importance on our society;
• Identify what are the society's perceptions and knowledge gaps for consideration in future planning of Deep Sea Mining research and innovation initiatives;
• Develop a network of common interest;
• Promote the meaning of the term "renewable energy systems";
• Try to obtain clear actions from people from different areas of interest, but targeting the common vision;
• Focus on RRI issues by prompting participants to talk more about how researchers can be enrolled in all actions generated and how other stakeholders can be useful to researchers;
• Push for adjust rules to allow open access to relevant sector research results;
• Improve efficient communication, generate plural debates and disseminate reliable data and information to convert vision into reality;
• Achieve success through multi-stakeholder engagement and consensus;
• Open access, i.e. giving free online access to the results of publicly-funded research data will boost innovation and increase the use of scientific results by all societal actors;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: a) simple, short title; one line describing the idea and one-two lines (minimum) explaining and clarifying the idea;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: b) think who would be responsible for implementing the proposed action and how to engage the person or organisation;
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: c) timing (when could such an idea be implemented);
• Generate ideas for actions during the workshops by having: d) resources (how would the idea be implemented);
• Claim for an alignment between legislation and the changing scientific situation and technological innovations;
• Promote local communities and their traditions for societal relevance of the scientific outputs;
• Consider the best way of collecting votes for the purpose such as the number of votes available for each participant, the rounds of votes, etc.

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Milestone 6

• Increase environmental and science education to promote societal understanding and participation;
• Create training programs targeting SMEs and investors by focusing on enablers and barriers;
• Follow up with the participants with periodic workshops using the same methodology;
• Exchange with star chefs on new products from the transformation of marine resources to provide the opportunity to make the audience aware a wider audience;
• Develop new tools and infrastructures of research on marine resources, particularly in inaccessible depths, but also for monitoring the marine environment, stocks of biomass or still unwanted algae;
• Raise awareness and spread information about marine biotechnologies to the different groups of stakeholders;
• Raise awareness on aquaculture in the Azores;
• Develop societal awareness about water and advantages of use of renewable energy sources in general and offshore wind farms in particular;
• Promote researchers qualifications to find new bio applications for products answering societal needs;
• Develop new model of governance for marine biotechnology development including the engagement of the society;
• Build a network to report challenges to politicians to put marine biotechnologies on the national agenda as an economic and sustainable opportunity;
• Implement training and guidance for careers around marine biotechnologies to reduce marine pollution;
• Involve citizens in the political/technical systems;
• Promote public engagement actions to raise awareness to the urgency of deep sea mapping;
• Create links among participants for future partnerships and develop a network of common interest;
• Use public-private partnerships as a new economical instrument;
• Raise public awareness regarding the benefits of renewable energy by promoting the renewable energy methods;
• Promote and develop responsible and sustainable tourism in a changing environment;
• Use rational the natural resources, with maximum economy;
• Education is the most important aspect that can accelerate social change and climate change mitigation;
• Engage participants to apply RRI principles in daily work and daily life;
• Open data for all interested stakeholders;
• Inform and educate wider society of the impacts, challenges and potential solutions for coastal protection;
• Follow-up on motivated participants of how that used the knowledge obtained in workshops for third private and professional projects;
• Succeed with public engagement through science education and open access in policy;
• Make scientific information reliable and easily accessible to citizens and stakeholders;
• Create procedures for an open access to data and data exchange, to allow for multiple feedbacks from end-users and policy-makers;
• Disseminate widely local and regional regulations and type approvals since the businesses often have significant knowledge gaps;
• Business stakeholders are mostly interested on the policy agendas;
• Science & Education and Open Access have a vital role in achieving success in the development of sustainable tourism ventures within Marine Protected Areas;
• Consider the impacts of any activity before consenting which may require the deployments of monitoring technologies to facilitate monitoring and impact assessment;
• Coordinate all activities related to policy, planning and regulation in the best possible way to reduce conflict and help meet environmental, economic and social objectives;
• Use citizen observatories through mobile phones to report pollution sites and inappropriate environmental behaviour;
• Educate citizens about the value of the sea in their daily lives is necessary to raise ocean awareness and literacy;
• Provide Open Access to data for a proactive response to societal challenges;
• Develop information exchange systems between government, industry and the universities.

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Milestone 7

• Develop real-time information systems, training activities and incentives to share knowledge and information for avoiding tendencies of local governments and businesses to downplay negative consequences;
• Follow-up with all participants and monitor results regularly and engage them in post-workshop knowledge sharing and networking through an online platform;
• To measure success, define clear and achievable objectives;
• Develop new collaborations for new means of communication;
• Make regulations for developers and investors for securing more liveable areas in harbour transformations;
• It's necessary a good collaboration and interaction between civil society, policy makers, researchers, business sector and citizens, in all the Black Sea coastal countries;
• Develop efficient monitoring systems and assess the environmental impacts of best/worst policy practice;
• Be aware that only about half of the participants are likely to use the knowledge gained at the workshop;
• Involving customers ranked the most favourable cluster with specific actions including the adoption of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) business model;
• Build capacity through education by developing local and national programmes for secondary schools and outreach programmes through citizen projects utilising real-time data from monitoring equipment;
• Try to engage volunteer groups/stakeholders who use the specific environment on a regular basis;
• The participants did not follow-up on the platform as they declared they were willing to do: there are too many platforms, they get lost or do not have time to explore another one.

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Milestone 8

• Raise awareness among the general public to make informed choices and have an active social participation to further push the new initiatives;
• Coordinate collaborative activities and tools to push RRI forward;
• Train policymakers through communication tools and adapt legislation to facilitate the creation of a dynamic knowledge-sharing mechanism;
• Organise regular follow-up workshops by involving more decision makers to anchor change;
• Embed governance in legislation through accountability to ensure the sustainability and to address societal challenges;
• Provide tax reductions or other benefits to businesses for massively applying environmental protection legislature and procedures and for making use of innovative technologies;
• Use the media and science mediators to make society aware about research and innovation results;
• Promote a greater participation of general public in projects financed by European funds to help filling the gap between science and society;
• Equip urban open areas for open debates where local communities can meet frequently in order to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Aarhus convention to develop sustainable decisions in a collective and legal manner;
• Increase the impact of projects' results thanks to open access;
• Scale up research and bring responses to sustainable development of offshore wind farms with Science education;
• Implement program of innovative research in relation to the effectiveness of the constructions of towers and generators to ensure sustainable development of renewable energy;
• Put in place a certification label of projects to draw guidelines for the sustainable development of marine biotechnologies;
• Train educators and information relays on marine biotechnologies to develop them in the field of marine pollution;
• Promote the reinforcement of policies and adoption of coherent legislative frameworks to develop marine biotechnology;
• Educate policy-makers to science to reinforce policies and adopt coherent legislative frameworks of economic competitiveness and sustainability of offshore wind energy;
• Train and convince policymakers, implementers, and investors to develop biotechnologies;
• Engage all interested stakeholders in harbour development;
• Involve citizens in public consultations and decision–making processes for local and national/ EU regulations;
• Attract private investments and develop national projects;
• Communicate broadly and raise wide awareness about the specific initiative to anchor change;
• Improve marine education provided in medium and higher education;
• Disseminate information about opportunities, threats and risks on the studied topic;
• Create higher awareness on technological achievements from challenging and cutting edge successful projects to attract skilled people to work in the sector;
• Create a seafood producers organisation in France to reduce the gap between the producers and consumers;
• Focus on Science Education in sustainable development and marine resources management as a critical part of local culture and coastal tourism;
• Ethical issues are highly important in maintaining the sustainable operation of the vessels while safeguarding the environment;
• Raise awareness and embed RRI into educational curricula;
• Facilitate fruitful discussions and widely disseminate conclusions to third parties;
• Ensure the policies are socially inclusive and are widely known;
• Use of technology as an instrument to both monitor the regulations and to disseminate data in near real-time;
• Create platforms where industry and academic leaders can disseminate accurate and influential information which can be accessible by the general public;
• Plan periodic meetings on the same topic, with old and new participants, to create ownership of the process, intensify the effort and ensure follow-up;
• Involve a multitude of stakeholders and implement actions as widely as possible, even globally, in order for adopted policies and solutions to be as relevant as possible, resulting in more support to implement the changes by all sides;
• Use your participatory event as a flywheel to organize other similar events.

See also...

Stakeholder Engagement