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HomeExploring the role of museums in engaging citizens to address the decline of wild pollinating insects
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The decline in numbers and diversity of wild pollinating insects has significant consequences for human societies and biodiversity in general due to the role of insects in plant reproduction. To successfully address this issue, all actors in the society need to be involved, including citizens. Within the framework of the EU Pollinators Initiative, the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy has been collaborating with Directorate-General for Environment within the Science and Technology for Pollinating Insects project to investigate innovative strategies to engage citizens around the issue of wild pollinating insects decline. This report introduces the work developed as part of this project in collaboration with experts and museums in two European countries. The collaborations aimed to develop and test tools and methods based on co-creation to examine their potential in addressing urban biodiversity issues. The role of digital tools (virtual reality) has also been tested for their potential to attract new audiences and for their role in dialogue based participatory processes. Collaborations with museums were crucial as they allowed to explore the potential of cultural institutions as places to engage citizens in this thematic domain and others in the future. Museums have been selected for this pilot due to a growing trend towards expanding their offer beyond the purely educational approach. Museums are becoming more inclusive, critical and socially responsible spaces aiming to promote citizen participation and dialogical approaches, allowing the experience of citizens merge with the established scientific knowledge. As such museums are progressively becoming, ‘safe spaces for difficult conversations, creating opportunities for citizens to engage with controversy in socio-scientific topics. Due to their transdisciplinary nature and an emphasis on sensory, aesthetical and emotional experience, they are also seen as perfect locations for methodological experiments in citizen engagement. Overall, the strategies employed were successful in engaging participants in the topic, demonstrating that citizens are able to co-produce knowledge and deliberate on how to act on pollinator conservation. However, the study recognised that a greater focus on developing local institutional collaborations is needed; when it comes to digital tools, their use needs to be careful and well-framed and, importantly, the participatory exercises require the presence of thematic experts to provide specialised knowledge and guidance, when such is required from participants.
- Published:
- Personal author(s): Tokarski, M ; Dias Leite, S ; Martinho Guimaraes Pires Pereira, A ; Vecchione, E ; Corral, S ; Herrera Gonzalez, J ; García Hernández, D ; Arija Bartolomé, L ; Benito Mateo, C ; De Vera Hernández, A ; Markevičiūtė, K
- Themes: Environmental research , Environment policy and protection of the environment
- Subject: biodiversity , citizen science , civic engagement , digital technology , environmental education , museum , pollinator , public awareness campaign , research report , scientific cooperation
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| ISSN 1831-9424 | ISBN 978-92-68-18737-1 | DOI 10.2760/64598 | Catalogue number KJ-NA-31-990-EN-N |
- Released on EU publications website:
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