Community Participation in Planning: Learning and Skills Framework Erasmus Project

Project Title

Community Participation in Planning: Learning and Skills Framework

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Community Participation in Planning (CPiP) was a two year collaborative project involving Ulster University (UK), Community Places (UK), the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), to explore how communities, in the broadest sense of the word (e.g. ‘interest’, ‘place’, ‘practice’, and ‘learning’), can be more meaningfully involved in local area planning (physical development) and community planning (public service delivery). CPiP was funded through the European Union’s (EU) Erasmus+ programme, supporting education and training activities in order to foster quality improvements and innovation across a range of sectors.

Background/Context:
The last few decades have witnessed a significant period of local government modernisation and public sector reform across Europe. Countries like the UK, Portugal and Italy have been grappling with ways to engage local communities in planning processes that shape spatial visions and the delivery of public services in urban places. Bound up in these changes is the acknowledgement that citizen participation is fundamental to democratic governance. This change has consequences for current planning practices/processes, on one side, and for local communities and stakeholders, on the other. The diverse range of state and non-state actors need appropriate skills and competencies in order to effectively participate, collaborate and co-design interventions to improve social, environmental and economic well-being outcomes in places and enhance people’s quality of life. These changes demand stronger participation of local communities, young people and other stakeholders in the deliberative processes for planning public services and place-making functions.

Project Objectives and Outcomes:
Community Participation in Planning (CPiP) was particularly interested in exploring the concept, application and teaching of participation and engagement in contemporary planning processes. At the core of the project was to understand how different ‘communities’ participate in ‘planning processes’ that shape how places evolve and how public services are designed and delivered.

Working with European partners and communities in each partner’s local geography, the CPiP project objectives were to:
– Develop a shared understanding of participation operating in different planning systems across the partnering European countries.
– Explore how communities of interest, place, practice, and learning can be more meaningfully involved in planning processes e.g. local area (spatial) planning and community (or integrated public service) planning.
– Co-design and test different ways of empowering stakeholders to shape local services and place-making functions, through learning during the project, in order to deliver better outcomes.
– Share ideas and exchange good practice and learning amongst the range of participants involved in the project – and to share this learning with others.
– Enhance the quality and relevance of the learning offered in higher education modules by informing curriculum development and innovative approaches on engagement in planning processes.

The project outputs involved generating:
– A Learning Report and an accompanying Participatory Skills Framework, available on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and on CPiP’s website, which shares the learning captured from the project, and offers insights into new ways for approaching participation/engagement, and, finally, the Skills Framework which provides a valuable open resource as a toolkit for practitioners, communities and students.
– New and/or redesigned teaching modules by the academic partners of CPiP to advance curriculum development, and explore teaching approaches to enrich the learning about community participation taught on planning related programmes/courses. When possible, the details of these modules will be made available on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and on CPiP’s website.
– New learning and teaching materials, aligned to the above modules, to enhance the student experience and those communities engaging in local projects linked to CPiP.

The project outcomes were to:
– Enhance the capacity and skills of planning practitioners to develop and maintain participation
– Develop the skills of ‘communities’ to engage in participation processes around place-shaping
– Advance greater interaction and learning between planning practitioners and ‘communities’

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 234832 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER & Country: UK

Project Partners

• POLITECNICO DI MILANO
• Community Places (NI)
• UNIVERSIDADE DE AVEIRO