Recently, ALFAwetlands team made an additional important step to initiate knowledge co-creation processes in some of the Living Labs in ALFAwetlands. This is a part of establishing a solid fundament for building local, collective capacity to successfully implement wetland projects, across European cases and contexts.
The Co-creation and inclusive Wetlands restoration is the ALFAwetlands Work Package 2, led by Stockholm University.
Benefits of ALFAwetlands´ co-creation process
ALFAwetlands co-creation process provides information on the objective, background and recommendations for each specific areas involved into this project. These activities focus on how to prepare for the workshops and an overview of the workshop design.
Guidance for setting up local co-creation processes
The document summarizing this process titled “Guidance for setting up local co-creation processes” was developed recently. This document provides the framework on how to prepare for the workshops and an overview of the workshops design. It is also complemented with detailed descriptions of the workshops and training events.
The document includes also appendices with templates for formalizing relations with local stakeholders and potential workshops participants. Priority is to strength the capacity
Priority is to strength capacity
The main aim of this process is to strength the capacity to take action, not to undertake or implement wetland restoration per se. The ALFAwtlands work on co-creation focuses on the development, testing, evaluation, and final refinement of a multi-step dialogue. This process has been designed to help actors build a comprehensive understanding of the social-ecological context around each wetland restoration case.
While the Living Labs are primarily for testing and evaluating the method, the co-creation process also offers an opportunity to investigate options for different ways of undertaking restoration or management of wetlands (individual or embedded in larger landscapes).
Role of the project coordinators
The role of the project coordinators is to facilitate the multi-step dialogue process and track process and learning outcomes. As the work is partly exploratory, some details of this process will be worked out in the following steps.
ALFAwetlands has completed the first co-creation process (Öland LL), proving a detailed series of workshop designs and evaluation frameworks. These were presented and discussed at the workshop during the Annual ALFAwetlands meeting in Toulouse.
The co-creation workshops focus on the following three main questions:
- How can a social-ecological systems framing change the problem formulation and the perceptions of solutions?
- How does attention to care and emotions (through place-based methods) change the perceptions of other actors and alternative solutions/management options?
- How does scenario work change problem formulation and the perception of solutions? Does a focus on motivation and emotional rationale for different choices help evoke agency?
Each question is the subject of the separate workshop hold by Living Labs partners. The workshops are complemented by follow-up activities, including interviews and surveys for evaluation.
Conclusion
ALFAwetlands co-creation process is a fundamental tool for successful implementation of this project. The process helps to build more complex knowledge base in Living Laboratories involved in this project.