Together with our scientific and societal partners we are working on new tools that empower citizen collectives in different ways. These tools might help them understand the preferences of their members, test the resilience of the rules within the organization or support decision-making processes. We are either creating new scientific tools or digitalizing existing tools, also to compile extra data sets.
The Preference Explorer, previously known as the DCE (Discreet Choice Experiment), is a tool for measuring preferences that would otherwise remain hidden. Participants are presented with a number of scenarios in which they must choose between two or more hypothetical options. These can be anything: products, organizations, policies, medications, etc. These options have different characteristics such as price and quality.
The advantage of the Preference Explorer over a survey is that participants have fewer questions to answer, while we can draw more conclusions from the data! In addition, people generally find it easier to indicate their preference between two options with different attributes, rather than indicating how important they think each individual attribute is. There are several useful results that can be obtained from the Preference Explorer. We can see which attribute participants consider most important, and also how much more important they find it. Questions such as how much money participants are willing to pay for a particular attribute can also be explored. Measuring multiple outcomes for different groups of people is also possible. Click on the following hyperlinks to view the manual, the published article and the Ecopower article accompanying the tool.
Citizen collectives often operate between market-based and public solutions and their form of governance is based on self-regulation and self-control. Therefore, deloping a set of rules is can prove to be a challenging and cumbersome task. In turn, it can be quite difficult to accuraley assess the impact of these rules. By using the Resilience Scanner you can see how the rules of your citizen collective impact the inner workings of the group. In order to use this tool the Zelfscan needs to be completely filled in.
The tool only requires three inputs:
By providing this data the participant of a citizen collective can change certain variables regarding the inner workings of the collective. After doing so the tool will run several thousands of simulations and provide a report on these changes and how they affect the collective.
The tool simulates the decision-making process within citizen collectives, by using vignettes that can be adapted to different scenarios. The tool can explore the effects of different interventions on similar groups or different groups with the same interventions and might be useful for understanding the dilemmas faced by participants and their decision-making processes. Players make decisions in rounds, anonymously selecting the number of hours to invest and viewing individual- and group returns before moving to the next round. Administrators can pre-set the phases and number of rounds and monitor the gameplay in real-time. There is currently a functional, yet non-automated version of the tool.
The Impact Identifier is built on the Theory of Change (ToC) model, it empowers citizen collectives to understand and track their societal impact, aiding citizen collectivesto identify how their activities lead to desired outcomes, enabling them to refine their strategies accordingly. The tool will also contribute valuable data for research on the change mechanisms employed by citizen collectives, offering insights into their role as enablers in societal transitions. Additionally, the tool will help collectives structure their activities more systematically, improving their capacity to communicate their impact to external stakeholders such as governments and investors, thus enhancing their intermediary function. There is currently a functional, yet non-automated version of the tool that needs further fine-tuning to the specificities of citizen collectives and ECCO.
The Community Power-Enhancer is created by our cooperation partners Energie Samen and DuurzaamDoor. Although the tool was created with energy communities as a target audience, it was tested by a diverse group of citizen collectives during the CollectieveKracht Onderzoeksdag, which all indicated it was valuable and applicable to their community. The tool helps citizen collectivesidentify the strengths and weaknesses within the organisation, and to think about possible actions and next steps. The current analogue tool will be made useful for research by developing an additional step that allows to record the conclusions of the discussion, making this also available for follow-up conversations by the practitioners.
The Life-Cycle Modeller combines the analytical capabilities of simulation models and LLMs. Capable of processing specific input parameters and generating actionable recommendations for designing and managing CCs, the tool will be designed to support practitioners in designing, implementing, and optimizing civil society initiatives, managing conflicts, and ensuring inclusivity. Digital assistance spawns an enhanced capacity for organizing effective and sustainable initiatives, fostering greater community engagement, and ensuring that transitions are inclusive and equitable.
The Pluralizer tool supports CCs in future engagements around tensions and conflicts that arise in transitioning fossil-fuel based energy, place-based community development, and housing systems. This tool will be developed with the CCs and based on inputs from the participatory action research as well as the multi-criteria mapping. Through the Pluralizer, CCs are able to benefit from the knowledge generated in this research and develop their own insights on how to engage with transition tensions and conflicts in, among, and between CCs.
The Community-Led Action Planner provides CCs with potential designs and implementations of action plans , enabling them to tackle local issues in collaboration with other stakeholders. Through this method, the community researchers conduct research within their own community (i.e., with those who share the lived experience that is central to the research), primarily through (participant) observations, digital storytelling, and interviews. The research results are regularly discussed with each other and the facilitator and collectively translated to relevant outputs. The community-led aspect of this method emphasizes that members of the community can take leadership in research that pertains to their lives.
This tool visually represents the identified values in a "Values Map," where the collective can see how their values connect to specific goals and actions. CCs can compare their values with those of similar collectives, helping them understand where they align or differ from others. In a next step, they could engage in scenario-building.
The Civic Engagement Tool has the form of a serious game, whereby data collection is embedded within the gameplay itself. The decisions made by players, their interactions with the game environment, and their performance metrics can all be captured automatically by the game system. These can be behavioural data such as choices made, paths taken, time spent on decisions, and performance metrics (e.g., scores, completion rates). In addition to a survey where participants reflect on past experiences or hypothetical scenarios, in the game, participants engage in simulated environments that mirror real-world contexts, providing contextual understanding of decision-making challenges and outcomes. This allows for exploration of decision-making in complex situations and varying contexts. In our project we will study the contexts of a collective aimed at labour market participation and at housing. The serious game also allows us to diversify in the contexts in which the game is used.
This tool is inspired by existing community mapping methods like Maxico and Deep Mapping. It maps perceived assets, personal values, and place values, drawing on design-driven research and literature on place-based development and sense of place. The tool integrates mapping of personal values (hedonic, egocentric, altruistic, environmental) with inner SDGs and perceived place assets, building on the Place Value Identifier. It serves practitioners in place-based development, while educating stakeholders on personal values and place assets to foster collaboration and new narratives for the future.
Drawing from the findings of the brochure and catalogue developed throughout the project, a Mobiliser Tool will be developed to allow participants to envision multiple paths for expanding mobilisations. We will deploy a futuring technique that allows participants to explore different scenarios for (mass) mobilisation and anticipate key hindrances to their efforts, as well as assessing which capacities or infrastructures would be needed to do so.
The Motivation Mapper will designed to assess the motivational impact of CCs over time. This tool will be developed iteratively during the longitudinal field experiment, with input from Buurkracht and other collectives, ensuring its applicability across diverse contexts. The tool will enable CCs to gauge the initial motivations and shared identity within their community before launching a collective. This will provide a clear starting point for understanding community dynamics. The tool allows CCs to track changes in motivation, shared identity, and polarization over time, helping collectives to assess the effectiveness of their initiatives and make data-driven adjustments to their strategies.
The Public Value Creator will be designed to facilitate the co-creation of public value by fostering effective collaboration between CCs and local governments, and simulate real-world scenarios, allowing players to experiment with various strategies and approaches to develop successful co-creative partnerships. The game is played in teams, each representing different stakeholder groups. Each team has distinct roles, resources, and objectives, mirroring real-world conditions. Players must navigate challenges, build trust, and achieve mutually beneficial outcomes while balancing the interests of various stakeholders. The game is set in a fictional city that represents typical urban neighbourhoods, each with unique challenges (e.g., crime, housing quality, social care, healthcare). The game reflects different phases of CC's lifecycles and provides real-time feedback on the impact of decisions, illustrating how actions affect public value, stakeholder satisfaction, and long-term sustainability. Metrics include community trust levels, public value created, resource efficiency, and stakeholder engagement. Success is measured by how well players achieve public value, maintain strong partnerships, and address community needs. Scores are influenced by factors such as inclusivity, responsiveness, resource management, and the extent of mutual learning and trust-building. The game concludes with an evaluation phase where players review strategies and outcomes, gaining insights into effective practices and areas for improvement. Game outcomes are fed back to researchers and the CK platform, to be reused by other CCs and researchers.
This tool has the form of a serious game designed to enhance mutual understanding and collaboration among CCs, local governments, and non-participants. It features a digital simulation environment where participants can experience the roles, responsibilities, and challenges of other stakeholders. The game simulates real-world scenarios, where power dynamics and interdependencies are strong, facilitates empathy and perspective-taking by allowing participants to step into the shoes of others, visualises stakeholder interests, and highlights potential conflicts or alignments, aiding decision making and fostering shared responsibility. The game is developed through a co-creative process involving CCs and local governments to ensure relevance and practicality. It serves as a learning and behavioural change tool, helping participants to understand each other’s perspectives, reducing conflicts, and improving collaborative efforts. The game is accompanied by comprehensive documentation and guides on how to use the game, incl. training materials and instructions for facilitating workshops and interpreting results.
The Creative Competences Roadmap includes an evidence-based menu of creative competences that strengthen the innovation capacity of CCs and overcome corresponding issues (dependence on few key innovators, continuity, shaping transition with governments). CCs can use this tool to identify and self-monitor which competences they have, and thus could also potentially offer to other CCs, and to identify which competences they miss. For each competence, the CCR tool includes a pathway CCs can take to develop that specific competence; ranging from learning from other CCs to following an (online) training or workshop which are based on existing (co-)design toolkits. This includes a ‘menu card’ of creative competences and (previous) practices that are essential for CCs and civil servants to collaboratively work on innovation and to set off sustainability transitions.
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