16 Jul WATER-MINING, CIRSEAU Cluster hold hands-on workshops at ECSITE Conference
The WATER-MINING Project together with the CIRSEAU Cluster projects, had the pleasure of facilitating a pre-conference workshop titled “Making Waves: Tools and games for stakeholder engagement on water, sustainability and the circular economy” on 5 July 2024 as part of the ECSITE Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The workshop was jointly organised by the CIRSEAU Cluster working groups on stakeholder engagement and communication to demonstrate and evaluate the tools for stakeholder and citizen engagement developed within the five H2020 projects.
Photo: ECSITE
Participants dove directly into a hands-on workshop that began with a short introduction to the CIRSEAU Cluster, presented by WATER-MINING’s communication leader, Nicole Heine from DECHEMA e.V. Following this, participants were introduced to stakeholder engagement techniques using a World Café format.
Here, they explored various approaches to engaging with their targeted groups of interest, utilising the frameworks provided by Living Labs, Competency Groups, and Community of Practice concepts. Additionally, participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas about the challenges they encounter in their field of work and brainstorm solutions.
As the pre-conference workshop progressed, attendees played the WATER-MINING PlayDecide card game, developed by ECSITE, where they could assume specific roles and view the obstacles surrounding wastewater management and desalination plants from different perspectives. There was significant interest in using the game’s framework for other topics related to stakeholder engagement.
Furthermore, the pre-conference workshop showcased how augmented reality and visualisation tools can help engage a younger audience. These tools were presented by the WATER-MINING and ULTIMATE projects, allowing participants to chase hidden items and find solutions to the issues presented in the games.
Photo: ECSITE
The final two workshop sessions demonstrated how to assist stakeholders and practitioners in long-term planning towards the realisation of their sustainability visions and support citizen awareness and societal change towards the sustainable use of resources.