This autumn, PREP4BLUE is continuing its webinar series titled "Planning for Citizen Participation in Mission Ocean & Waters."
Over three one-hour sessions, participants will learn how to design a project, work package, or programme of activities in alignment with the citizen engagement targets of the EU Mission: Restore Our Ocean and Waters By 2030 (or Mission Ocean). The webinars are designed as bite-sized, targeted sessions that will equip the audience with key information and knowledge of where/how to access more details or expertise. The schedule for the autumn 2023 series is below.
The webinar series is aimed primarily at anyone applying for Mission Ocean funding under Horizon Europe. It will also be of interest to current Mission-funded projects, as well as those working on citizen engagement in marine and freshwater-related activities across the NGO, industry, research, community, citizen science groups, and local government sectors.
The European Commission's ambition in relation to citizen engagement with Mission Ocean falls under a handful of clear themes. Each of the webinars in this series is structured around one of these themes. Overall, the series will equip the audience with the knowledge required to orient project proposals and restoration, anti-pollution, and other related activities towards the Mission's targets in relation to citizen engagement.
PREP4BLUE is a Horizon Europe project (grant no. 101056957), funded by the European Union.
Questions: email
Webinar Series Schedule
Webinar 1: Community Based Social Marketing for Mission Ocean: An Introduction
REGISTRATION: PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Date/time: Tuesday 24th October, 16.00 CEST, Online
Details:
This webinar will introduce the theory and methods of Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM). Mission Ocean policy documents and Horizon Europe Work Programmes make consistent reference to the necessity of taking a "whole of society" approach and integrating citizen participation into Mission activities at every level. A key aspect of this will be to influence positive behaviour change. For Mission-funded projects, this will need to be done in a disciplined, measurable way.
The cornerstone of sustainable and healthy communities is behaviour change. Sustainability requires that individuals and businesses engage in diverse actions, such as reducing pollution, increasing water and energy efficiency, increasing voluntarism, and protecting native species. Research demonstrates, however, that the traditional approach of using ads, brochures, or websites to encourage behaviour change simply doesn't work. A new approach, CBSM, is being used effectively by public and private organisations around the globe.
This webinar will take examples of CBSM being used as a tool across marine and freshwater-related initiatives to discuss how integrating this approach into Mission Ocean project proposals will help to achieve the Mission's ambitious goals in relation to coastal and river ecosystem restoration and pollution elimination, based on a leveraging of citizen activity in support of the Mission.
About the trainer: Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Community-Based Social Marketing
For over three decades, Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr has been working to incorporate scientific knowledge on behaviour change into the design and delivery of community programs. He is the founder of community-based social marketing and the author/co-author of three books on the topic. One of these books, "Fostering Sustainable Behavior," has been recommended by Time Magazine and has become requisite reading for those who deliver programs to protect the environment. Doug is also the author of the Fostering Behaviour Change Minute newsletter, which is read weekly by nearly 20,000 subscribers. His work has been featured in the New York Times and he is the recipient of the American Psychological Association's inaugural award for innovation in environmental psychology and the World Social Marketing conference's inaugural award for contributions to the field of social marketing. He is a former Professor of Psychology and currently an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University in Canada. More than 75,000 program managers have attended workshops on community-based social marketing that he has delivered internationally.
Webinar 2: Citizens' assemblies and deliberative processes for Mission Ocean
REGISTRATION: PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Date/time: Tuesday 7th November, 9am CET, Online
Details:
NOTE: This webinar is scheduled at 9am CET as we are working with a 12-hour time difference for our facilitators. Although this is early for the Atlantic coast, the recording will be forwarded to all those registered after the session. Please do register if you are interested, even if you may not be able to attend on the day.
At the core of Mission Ocean's citizen engagement targets is a commitment to trialling innovative democratic processes and organize citizen assemblies to engage coastal, riverine, lake and inland sea-dwelling communities in the decisions and activities that affect them. Establishing citizen assemblies for Mission Ocean and creating an EU wide network of such processes is a key upcoming challenge of the Mission. This is reflected in the Mission Implementation Plan and yearly Horizon Europe Work Programme call topics.
In this two-part webinar, participants will learn the practical aspects of implementing citizen's assemblies and other deliberative processes within the context of a research project. Drawing from a recent example of such a process, the webinar will cover:
- Best practices for citizens' assemblies
- How long a process takes from beginning to end
- Budget
- Gaining political/institutional buy-in
- Finding participants and ensuring inclusion
- The kinds of activities undertaken in each session
- What to do with the result
- Following all this, we will reflect on the specific challenges that Mission Ocean presents for such processes (multiple languages, stimulating basin-level activity and networking, whether to link to other processes or starting from scratch?).
These webinars will be useful to those writing proposals for projects with a strong participatory element aligned with Mission Ocean targets. It will also be of interest to any group or initiative that engages citizens in marine and freshwater activities.