NEB Compass self-assessment – Step 4/6 – Principles

WORKING PRINCIPLES – PARTICIPATORY

Participatory process

How much participation happens in the project?

The Working Principle Participatory process entails community involvement in the project’s design, decision-making and implementation

The objective is to move towards equal relations, empowering local communities to manage processes, initiate self-governance and guide future actions over the longer term.

Read more about the ambitions

To Consult

Information • Dialogue • Consultation

A project at ambition level I has participation ranging from information sharing about the project to consultation feeding into decision-making. The information flows from the project owner to its audience and then back.

Example
A project to redesign the open spaces of the Weimar Bauhaus Campus (Germany) has paid special attention to integrating the various requirements of the students, the project users, by organising weekly consultations to transparently share information during the construction process
Possible guiding questions
  • Does the project keep stakeholders informed? How?
  • Is there an awareness of who might be excluded from the project? If so, who?
  • To what extent will the project allow stakeholders to contribute?
 

To Co-develop

Exchange • Joint project steps • Co-creation

A project at ambition level II engages stakeholders as key partners and advisers, collaboratively defining and co-creating project rules and objectives. Ideas emerge gthrough dynamic exchanges, with information co-designed in interactions on an equal footing.

Example
A co-design process to imagine the future of the Rivalta Ducal Palace (Italy) set up participatory processes going beyond traditional consultations and involving members of the public alongside a wide range of stakeholders and experts. A parallel co-design process between policymakers and researchers informed the process.
Possible guiding questions
  • Will the project process stakeholder input? How?
  • Does the project aim to collaborate with stakeholders? How?
  • Does the project reach out to those who are excluded from their activity? How does it plan to do so?
  • Is the project interactive? Does it offer opportunities for encounters or discoveries? How can participants interact with the project?
 

To Self-govern

Partnership • Joint action • Community • Self-governance

A project at ambition level III aims to enable stakeholders to negotiate and engage in tradeoffs with powerholders at all stages of the project’s lifecycle (design, management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation) and empowers the community to make decisions and govern the project.

Example
BArkki’s Learning via Participation Model (Finland) aims to enable children to make a positive change in their environment and democratize the urban design process. The most striking result after the programme is that some children decided to keep on ideating, building models, presenting designs and seeking funding to implement the ideas in their surroundings. They used the knowledge they acquired to present their ideas to policymakers and received political and monetary support for a project.
Possible guiding questions
  • Does the project empower and sustain grassroots initiatives beyond project implementation? How?
  • Does the project aim to allow stakeholders to take (legal) ownership? How
  • Do the project owners aim to make themselves redundant, enabling a community to take agency? In what way?
  • What measures does the project take to include those affected by a design and ensure representation in decision-making?