Benefits Of Public Involvement Research Articles

Accessing the environment: Delivering ecological and societal benefits through knowledge integration – The case of water management

Recent ‘soft engineering’ approaches to river management have fostered the call for river research and management to be application specific, inclusive of those who possess knowledge which is not traditionally scientific and to provide users with their democratic right to be involved in decision-making processes. The benefits of public involvement in river management and research have been widely publicised, although uptake of public participation at the prescribed higher levels (which account for both ecological and societal benefits, and include knowledge production and decision-making by ‘non-certified experts’) is rarely evident. It is suggested that this may be caused, in part, by the difficulty of, and lack of guidance on, how to integrate diverse knowledges, perspectives and needs. This project builds on an associated study which identified organisational issues in implementing high-level participation for river management. The focus of this paper is a study located on the River Derwent, Northumberland, UK, which aimed to examine the role of integrating different types of knowledge for a reach scale problem in order to gain holistic perspectives of water management needs which consider both social communities and ecology. The merits of the approach were considered for improving access to the fluvial environment for the participants and researchers concerned. The study examines the role of integrating traditional river research methods (hydraulic modelling) with experiential knowledge in order to both answer ecological questions in river management, and deliver societal benefits through processes of social learning. As well as identifying the controls on levels of participation, the process opened up the decision-making and management processes to ‘non-experts’. Participants improved their own access to their fluvial environment through an understanding of localised river processes and an increased confidence in a knowledge which they had deliberated and validated through the process of co-production. The study demonstrated that heterogeneous knowledge types are necessary for holistic system understandings, that knowledge integration processes need to be reflexive, and that motives for knowledge integration should be both pragmatic and normative.

Using web technology to increase levels of public participation in planning

Concerns to ensure public participation within and in support of planning have been a durable and extensively debated topic since at least the early 1960s. The rationale for academics and policy-makers to agonise over this issue, and the merits or benefits of public involvement in planning, have also been roundly discussed during the intervening years. There has, of course, been considerable recent academic attention focused on the qualities of participation within the UK planning system (Irvin and Stansbury, 2004; Baker et al., 2007; Parker, 2008; Bailey, 2010; Brownill and Parker, 2010); and given the Coalition government's expressed desire to 'put (power) into the hand of local people' (DCLG, 2010), it seems that in a new political era this interest in public engagement shows no immediate signs of diminishing (Allmendinger and Haughton, 2011; DCLG, 2011).In the current political climate, and with a growing emphasis on participation that contrasts sharply with the reality of low and declining levels of engagement in a digital age (Feezell et al., 2009; Evans-Cowley and Hollander, 2010; Evans-Cowley and Griffin, 2011), this Viewpoint seeks to explore current technological innovations used in community involvement within planning. Specific regard is given to the use of social media (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Bebo and MySpace) which is founded in a Web 2.0 environment and which provides a platform for enhancing levels of social collaboration or two-way communications (O'Reilly, 2005; Pascu et al., 2007; Batorski and Hadden, 2010). Drawing on Beierle and Cayford's (2002) conceptualisation of both 'process' and 'outcome' participation methods, this Viewpoint seeks to highlight the extent to which the use of web-based techniques can generate new spaces of participation and overcome established patterns of exclusion - an issue that assumes a particular importance given the UK Coalition government's stress on participatory democracy and neighbourhood planning (DCLG, 2011).Evaluation of processOne of the process goals of the participation process is to engender quality deliberation (Beierle and Cayford, 2002): 'quality deliberation' is characterised by the ability to engage with various actors and participate in well-reasoned debates which take place in the context of reciprocity and mutual respect (Smith et al., 2009). Dryzek (2009) argues that quality deliberation also promotes the capacity-building of those privy to arguments presented during the planning process which ultimately leads to more informed, representative decisions.It could be argued, therefore, that a Web 2.0 'networked' interface is well-suited to facilitate deliberation, giving actors the opportunity to discuss, listen and reflect on various issues (Orr, 2007; Chadwick, 2009). The quality of online deliberation has been researched by Smith et al. (2009) in the context of an online forum debate with results suggesting that online deliberation enhanced capacity-building attributes as evidenced by the shiftin policy preferences of the participants, over and above those in a control group who were exposed only to 'hard copy' information. Furthermore, Meijer et al. (2009) suggest that online discussion can be used as a 'digital thermometer' or listening device, increasing the sensibility of local governments, particularly in respect of the 'hard to reach'. This provides another means of access to those communities who may lack the social and financial capital to navigate the planning system.Beierle and Cayford (2002) also identify 'responsiveness of the lead agency' as being significant in successful 'processes' of public participation, with two-way communication from government and organisations seen to be particularly important to members of the public. In this sense, social media provides new platforms for the government to be responsive to its electorate. There is a strong correlation between the potential of these new media platforms to respond to calls for the 'opening up' of local planning to increase democratic control by bringing 'others' into the decisionmaking process (Ellis, 2011). …