Project Results Project Update

PREP4BLUE Toolbox for Citizen Engagement

Public mobilisation and engagement are crucial elements of the European Commission’s Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030’. There is a wealth of approaches that facilitate this engagement including co-production of knowledge, citizen participation, activation and training, hackathons and citizen science initiatives. 

With so many different approaches, it can be challenging to maintain an overview of methodologies, let alone choose a method to use among the many possibilities. To support this, PREP4BLUE partners from Nordland Research Institute and MaREI have developed a Toolbox for Citizen Engagement that maps the different ways in which participation can be facilitated and offers guidance on choosing an approach for different situations. 

The toolbox is aimed at stakeholders including funding authorities, European projects under the Mission, individuals and organisations working on citizen engagement and the wider R&I community. 

The toolbox includes a review of the underpinning theory and typology of citizen engagement approaches, an explanation of key terminology, a three-step framework for managing citizen engagement and, examples of tools and advice on aligning activities with the Mission. 

The toolbox is available to all Mission stakeholders and can be downloaded for free by clicking on the button below. 

NOTE: This is an evolving document and will be added to as PREP4BLUE progresses, making use of feedback from Mission Ocean project participants and other users, until final delivery in 2025 (2022-2025 development and piloting’ phase 1), when the toolbox ought to be available for deployment in the second phase of the Mission (2026-2030 deployment and upscaling’ phase 2)