Situating organisational learning and public participation: Stories, spaces and connections

Abstract

This paper gives one of the first in-depth ethnographic accounts of organisational learning in a public participation organisation, the UK Government-funded Sciencewise programme. It develops the concept of "organisational spaces", highlighting the often diverse spaces found within organisational networks, and positing a co-productionist relationship between these different spaces and the kinds of learning processes that occur. The approach taken affirms the significant and active role of space in organisational learning processes, in a science policy context, as well as demonstrating the importance of connections between different organisational spaces in enabling more transformative learning processes. Two

Institutionalising reflexivity? Transformative learning and the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

“…In other words, the contribution of informal spaces to reflexive transformation is hard to monitor -but it is possible to recognize that these spaces are important and to encourage them (see Pallett, 2018). Ultimately, different forms of learning exist and what matters is the process leading to the decision of keeping to do things in the same way (e.g.…”

“…Crucially, however, transformative learning is not easy to monitor: while some spaces of learning are formally delineated, learning also takes place in 'shadow spaces' that are more implicit and informal (e.g. Pelling et al, 2008;Pallett, 2018). We further discuss this tension between formal and informal spaces and how they contribute to transformative learning in section 3.…”

Public Participation in the Social Science: A Systematic Literature Review

“…as a source of innovation, and limiting cultural or organizational settings (Brown & Kyttä, 2014). Another scholar explained that in the UK, science wise is a government-funded body whose goal is to promote and support the practice of public dialogue (local deliberations with community members) (Pallett, 2018). Other scholars describe public participation and its relation to appeal rights in planning decisions on major inland wind farms in England and Denmark (Armeni & Anker, 2020).…”

Developing the Public Participation Field: The Role of Independent Bodies for Public Participation

“…Even a well-known IBPP such as the Danish Board of Technology is not scrutinized to the same degree as the deliberative design that made its success-the citizen conference (see, for example, Joss, 1998). With this article, we would like to contribute to the small family of studies to date that have started to look at the organizational functioning of IBPPs and their impact on public participation practice (Chilvers, 2012;Lewanski, 2013;Pallett, 2015Pallett, , 2018, by specifically comparing the respective effects of the CNDP and the BAPE. Due to their longevity, these are two wellpositioned and still-operating organizations that influence the public participation field in their respective national contexts.…”