Lessons Learned per Workshop Organisation

Milestone 1

• Keep in mind the local context to answer local needs and specificities;
• 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;
• Attract different stakeholders in order to have a diversity and complementarity to obtain inputs as complete as possible;
• Offer an incentive for citizens in order to attract people to attend at the workshop;
• Find a topic which will attract different stakeholders;
• Be careful of possible competition of other events happening as the same time in the same city or on the same topic.

Milestone 2

• Provide a good incentive and personal benefits to motivate people to attend the workshop(s) and processes;
• Present the topic approached from the beginning of the workshop;
• Use using storytelling to describe the challenge with clear and concrete examples;
• Use diverse communication channels (e-mail, telephone, face-to-face and word of mouth) for recruiting participants;
• Present the RRI concept with clear examples;
• Address a specific subject that concerns multidisciplinary stakeholders;
• Present the Mobilisation and Mutual Learning and RRI approach;
• Be aware about the participants motivations to attend a workshop such as to learn from others participants;
• Contact directly the person to recruit via e-mails or telephone;
• Provide enough time for the presentation of science outcomes and sharing knowledge from research point of view;
• 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;
• Start planning at least 4 months in advance the organisation of a workshop as it is very time consuming task;
• Be aware that policy-makers are not easy to engage unless they see a specific benefit that fits their agenda;
• Carefully consider the workshop's duration as many participants think that a one day-long workshop is too long;
• Define a workshop triggering question that is short, clear and easily understood by all stakeholders;
• Motivate to receive ahead of the workshop and on time the participants' action ideas and to attract participants from all stakeholders’ groups;
• Consider personal e-mails as the recruitment mechanism because it has been proven by far the most effective recruitment mechanism;
• Identify motives for policy makers and implementers to participate in the workshops as they are reluctant in participating;
• Explain clearly the MARINA project goals;
• Use keynote speakers to introduce the topic for example specialists, but their speech must be in simple language and avoid using difficult terminology;
• Define the date, finalise the workshop topic and have communication material two months ahead;
• Prepare a concise information corpus for participants.

Milestone 3

• Allocate more time for group discussions during workshops;
• 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;
• Offer a clear explanation of the methodology used in order to be as clear as possible for the participants;
• Use a method that gives the opportunity to all participants to express their opinion;
• Make the workshops highly participatory and interactive;
• Allocate sufficient time for discussions and to involve all participants interests and ideas;
• Consider carefully legislation and cultural differences between project participants in the discussion prior to the project proposal to avoid possible understanding of feasability barriers;
• Moderate the workshop with an experienced facilitator to avoid "Groupthink" and the "Erroneous Priorities Effect";
• Adopt participative methods tested in MARINA in other initiatives including stakeholders;
• Explain at the start of the workshop the different phases that participants will go through;
• Attract participants by sending invitations via e‐mail, followed by phone calls.
• Send a personalised and direct (e-mail or telephone) invitation to ensure a better buy-in of targeted participants;
• Present the topic approached from the beginning of the workshop;
• Use methods for involving the active participation of the public by giving them the opportunity to express their opinions;
• Create a relaxing but effective work experience and joint decision-making with the world café methodology;
• Engage stakeholders from different sectors of activity;
• 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;
• Adapt the workshop schedule and structure according to the specifics and program of the stakeholders you want to attend;
• 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;
• 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;
• Stimulate and ensure open dialogue among the attendees;
• Push for multi-stakeholders' representation and input from all relevant actors;
• Plan the programme to encourage as much opportunity for interactions between participants;
• Collaborate with your local partners, which can be great allies;
• Help participants become active in the workshop by helping them understand the importance of the Marine Hot Topic;
• Use role play and "Decide" game to integrate difficult concepts in workshop discussion;
• The reversed science cafe method motivates participants to express their opinions and views in a structured, inclusive, yet open manner;
• 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;
• Implement RRI in real situations, with many participants proposing many actions;
• Look for participants open to dialogue, but who don't usually interact with each other;
• Choose a suitable method for the number of participants and the specific of the workshop;
• Email and telephone were the best communication channels for promoting the workshop;
• 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;
• Involve politicians and municipality representatives in workshops to increase its effectiveness;
• Achieve positive engagement with all types of local stakeholders including relevant government agencies, local businesses, regulators, NGOs, CSOs, researchers and citizens;
• The SDD method was evaluated as very well structured, inclusive, productive, scientific, interesting and dynamic;
• Ensure you have some big institution's newsletter to disseminate your workshop for recruitment and spreading of the results;
• Stream only the most crucial sections of the workshop, disseminate the streaming agenda;
• Keep the workshop's duration short and engage an experienced facilitator;
• Use both phone and email for citizen recruitment;
• 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;
• 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;
• Plan well the participant groups so that all stakeholders are sufficiently represented;
• Promote the workshop through websites and a poster campaigns;
• Explain clearly the workshop methodology and how the outputs will be used at the beginning of the workshop and include some warm-up activity;
• 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;
• Clarify from the start of any process or workshop all terms and acronyms so that all participants from various backgrounds understand them;
• Present and explain the method used;
• Encouraged all the participants to work on all the solutions during the session;
• 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;
• Provide as much information as possible to the subject before the workshop;
• Recruit participants by telephone to ensure a great effectiveness of recruitment;
• Define the length of the workshop according with your foreseen audience and local habits;
• 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;
• Send an official invitation letter signed by the director/president of the institute organizing the workshop to facilitate the recruitment;
• 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;
• Involve students when possible;
• Apply different participatory methods during the event to maintain a high level of attention.

Milestone 4

• Let different perspectives on the subject, which will lead to a common background for further discussion;
• 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;
• Allocate time for every participant to present his/her own idea and to discuss it in plenum;
• Request the participants to state their ideas in the form of action statements in order to “push” them to think in practical terms;
• Ensure that all voices have an equal footing in the debate during the workshop;
• Find the best way to incorporate the multi-disciplinary element into the organisation of the workshop;
• Capture the content in a way that is more free-flowing which is later interpreted by the workshop team;
• The SDD method allows for integrating contributions from individuals with diverse views, backgrounds and perspectives through a process that is structured, inclusive and collaborative;
• A structured participatory method like SDD helps participants converge their opinions towards a common vision and a common action plan;
• Give tight bounds to participants about the shape of the contributions they have to provide, so they will not have other option than provide what is needed;
• Avoiding "Groupthink" and the "Erroneous Priorities Effect": taking measures for the protection of the authenticity of all ideas;
• One day is not enough for SDD;
• 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;
• Use a method that encourages participants to work together in order to have an interactive group;
• Find moderators with experience on methods used for event moderation;
• Try to approach of potential participants and their engagement in convergent discussions with the future topic of the event;
• Give participants more time to contribute to the ideas at other tables;
• Enable each group to take the floor to present their results;
• Check the discussion and gently but firmly ask the participants not to lose focus on the final purpose, to speed up and keep up with the timing or not to go too deep or too specific.

Milestone 5

• Use the SMART action format to ease the follow up of the workshop;
• Have a discussion phase that is long enough for all participants to be fully aware of all the implications of the proposed ideas without extending the duration of the workshop;
• Ensure that all participants stay until the end of the workshop to have coherent results;
• Try to obtain clear actions from people from different areas of interest, but targeting the common vision;
• Ensure that the process of co-generating an action plan is concluded during the workshop;
• 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;
• Allocate a good part of the workshop for creating a clear common action plan;
• 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);
• Ask the participants to obtain in advance the necessary authorization from the Institutions they represent, to propose actions during the workshop.

Milestone 7

• To measure success, define clear and achievable objectives.

Milestone 8

• Coordinate collaborative activities and tools to push RRI forward;
• Disseminate information about opportunities, threats and risks on the studied topic;
• Use your participatory event as a flywheel to organize other similar events.

See also...

Workshop Definition & Execution