DECIDO wants to enable the effective development of evidence-based policies through the inclusion of citizen’s point of view. Efforts will be made to facilitate the active participation of local actors in the generation, analysis and use of data within the policy-making life cycle by introducing co-creation activities. In this way, solutions will be co-created together with businesses, municipalities, citizens and public authorities.
Broadly speaking, co-creation is a very broad term with a wide variety of applications. It could be briefly explained as any act of collaborative creativity that is jointly experienced by several people/stakeholders. In DECIDO, co-creation could be considered as a holistic approach in order to develop a new way of understanding, creating, communicating, collecting feedback, evaluating and involving stakeholders in public policymaking. The participation of relevant actors in the policy-making process through co-creation, where citizens (e.g. citizens, businesses, NGOs, civil servants) and public organisations work together, helps to improve citizens’ trust in public authorities as well as to increase the legitimacy of the policies. In other words, DECIDO wants to promote the effectiveparticipation of stakeholders, from policymakers to citizens, in the policy life cycle.
This approach will be set up and implemented in 4 pilots (Italy, Finland, Spain and Greece) for disaster risk management: floods, fires and power outages. All pilots will involve potential users (including civil servants, citizens and businesses) in different phases of policymaking, from agenda-setting, the design and implementation of the policy, to the evaluation of implemented policies. For this purpose, the proposal is to organise two rounds of co-creation sessions in each pilot, involving around 150 potential users in the co-creation and evaluation of policies/activities (by providing additional data), as well as, about 100 users in co-creation and feedback provided in the platform. This leads to a twofold expectation, on the one hand, the involvement of local actors in (1) the methodological part, (2) the identification of needs and priorities, and (3) the generation of data. Whereas, on the other hand, involving citizens and businesses in the co-creation of the tools, thus increasing trust and boosting the perceived legitimacy of the authorities.