Lessons Learned for Structured Democratic Dialogue Methodology

• Provide the high-tier governance from governmental bodies for local initiatives to have the biggest impact;
• Push for Sustainable Tourism policies to improve coastal and marine ecosystems, minimise pollution and create economic growth by combining efforts at national, regional and local levels and creating green funding schemes and incentives;
• Improve governance by defining a shared and common vision by involving citizens and business networks for clean and green industries to attract tourists and investments;
• Enhance coastal and maritime tourism by adapting to demographic changes, while maintaining the original vocation and atmosphere of the coastal cities;
• Moderate the workshop with an experienced facilitator to avoid "Groupthink" and the "Erroneous Priorities Effect";
• Establish cooperation among diverse stakeholders (researchers, innovative businesses, politicians and citizens) even when it's challenging;
• Mobilise stakeholders early in the process to develop viable and sustainable business models;
• Make urban planning and tourism development collaborative and democratic by involving citizens and business in envisioning urban futures and resolve negative environmental impacts;
• Educate planners, civil society leaders, business industry to be more collaborative, responsible and exert place-based leadership;
• 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;
• Engage the public, involve governance bodies at various levels to generated ideas with ethical components, are sustainable, inclusive and of social justice;
• Joined stakeholder involvement produces ideas with integrated and holistic focus requiring synergy and collaboration;
• Develop efficient monitoring systems and assess the environmental impacts of best/worst policy practice;
• 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;
• Organise carefully the workshop phases for successfully meeting the objectives and for engaging all participants;
• Define a clear plan for the future engagement of the workshop's participants to keep the community active;
• Define a workshop triggering question that is short, clear and easily understood by all stakeholders;
• Ask participants to state their workshop expectations because experience shows that some find the workshop and its partcipatory method intriguing, others were interested In how to develop a shared vision, some had an interest in being inspired and build networks;
• Focus not only on high-level ideas, but also on required research and innovation actions needed to execute them;
• Explain the workshop topic in an inclusive, strategic and broad manner for involving all types of participants;
• 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;
• Develop a common vision and an action plan with a more narrow focus combining development milestones and follow-up workshops;
• Follow-up with all participants with the results regularly and engage them in post-workshop knowledge sharing and networking through an online platform;
• Communicate broadly and raise wide awareness about the specific initiative to anchor change;
• Organise follow-up workshops by involving more decision makers to anchor change;
• Consider personal e-mails as the recruitment mechanism because it has been proven by far the most effective recruitment mechanism;
• 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;
• Define SMART common vision and actions towards a specific goal and project;
• Make sure that funding will be secured for action plan execution and workshop follow up actions;
• 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.

See also...

Workshop Methodology