Amineh Ghorbani, Associate Professor at TU Delft and expert in institutional data modelling and analysis, is part of CollectieveKracht’s Sciencelab and one of the researchers using monitor data. She explains that the movement of citizen collectives is fundamentally about learning - from experience, from yourself, and from others. The best way to understand others’ experiences is through systematic data collection. 'The movement of citizen collectives is all about learning. Learning from experiences, from yourself, and from others. And the best way to understand others’ experiences is by documenting them through data collection.'
Why is it important to collect data on citizen collectives?
'Building a large database of citizen collectives is not an end in itself. The goal is to be able to provide meaningful advice to collectives, and for that the monitor is crucial. For example: to what extent should the municipality be involved in an energy cooperative? What is the ideal balance between the harvest and the time investment for volunteers in a community garden? Using data from the monitor, we can learn how successful collectives address these questions and provide targeted advice.'
By mapping the movement of citizen collectives, the monitor creates greater visibility and awareness among relevant stakeholders. Isn’t this also an important reason to participate?
'Yes. And also: the more collectives participate in the monitor, the stronger your evidence is for engaging with such stakeholders. For example, you can say to the municipality: ‘Look, data from more than three hundred initiatives show that we need this much funding to get started successfully.’ That’s a much stronger case. In addition, we researchers also use this data to advise parties beyond citizen collectives. For instance, we have helped ensure that energy cooperatives are now recognized at the EU‑level. For this, we referred to data showing that energy collectives together constitute a significant player with a future. To become part of the policy agenda, citizen collectives need to be visible. The monitor is an important tool for achieving this.
Can you give a concrete example of such advice to citizen collectives?
'With colleagues, I analysed data from more than a hundred community gardens in Germany to find out which rules and agreements are most effective at preventing conflicts and helping the gardens endure. We used the data to build a simulation: an imaginary garden, similar to the computer game Sim City. In this Sim City garden, we could change different specifications and rules to test how they affected the chances of success. We then tested the simulation with two real community gardens in The Hague and Rotterdam. We collected their data and created a Sim City version of each garden. We examined which internal agreements would help these gardens remain sustainable over time. For one of the gardens, the simulation showed that a specific set of agreements was crucial. For example, it was counterproductive to enforce strict punishments if someone did not spend enough time in the garden. It was also important to establish clear rules for conflict resolution. Without these rules, the initiators would likely encounter serious problems. When we later visited the garden to share our results, we unfortunately found that the simulation had been accurate: the initiators had stopped maintaining the garden due to insurmountable conflicts. The reasons for these conflicts were exactly what the simulation had predicted.'
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A simulated community garden (fictief voorbeeld)
Source: Amineh Ghorbani
What is the role of the Citizen Collectives Monitor in this?
'For this simulation, we use data from 123 German community gardens. This allows us to advise similar gardens, but to support unique collectives in other sectors, we need more data. Without data from the monitor, we cannot accurately predict which agreements work best for different collectives. The more data we have, the better we can provide reliable, tailor-made advice to all citizen initiatives for effective governance of their projects.'
Can every collective really learn something from such general data? Each collective is unique, with its own characteristics and challenges, right?
'Exactly! There is no one-size-fits-all solution. That is precisely why we need more data: to be able to predict all possible scenarios. With a large amount of data, we can explore ‘what-if’ scenarios for any conceivable or unique situation. What if we woke up tomorrow and energy suddenly became free? Or what if municipalities were suddenly required to be shareholders in energy cooperatives? With enough data, we can simulate and explore any imaginable scenario.'
How can collectives access this kind of advice now?
'Our ultimate goal is to develop a freely accessible tool that supports citizen collectives in decision-making, based on data from the monitor. At the moment, we already have working prototypes of such a tool, which collectives with some knowledge of simulations could use. With funding from the ECCO project, we plan to develop a user-friendly version in the coming years.'
Author: Mickey Steijaert