The Citizens’ Sounding Board
A Citizens’ Sounding Board is being used to discuss and prioritize concrete scenarios for transformation in the mobility and energy sectors. The project is overseen by Prof. Hans-Liudger Dienel from the Chair of Chair for Work, Technology and Participation (ARTE) at TU Berlin. Participants in the project will being by reacting to concrete mobility scenarios developed by Nagel et al. at the Chair of Transport Systems Planning and Transport Telematics.
How do we involve citizens in decision-making so that social transformation processes are successfully initiated and embedded in the long term? The Citizens’ Sounding Board project aims to find answers to this question with the help of around 75 citizen participants. The board is made up of participants of the Berlin Climate Citizens’ Assembly, which was created via a process of random selection by ARTE and its offshoot, the nexus Institute. Senior citizens and young people are approached to take part in the board by the Senior Research Group at TU Berlin and the mobility projects in Berlin high schools, respectively.
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The members of the Citizens’ Sounding Board discuss, comment on, and prioritize transformation scenarios. This participatory and democratic process gives the scenarios more weight. The transdisciplinary citizen science approach increases the chances that the scenarios will be implemented because the measures are embedded according to the needs of users as well as application considerations. In addition to concrete recommendations, the project also raises awareness of the challenges of the energy and mobility transformation and encourages citizens to take a solution-based approach to address the problems in their lives.
The Citizens’ Sounding Board has been designed to run until the end of 2023, but if successful, it will be made more permanent. The first phase on mobility will be followed by an evaluation of scenarios in the area of energy efficiency in buildings.