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WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE 2005
Policy-making
Despite a promise, made in September 2005 by a senior official at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), to provide a response to the Nanojury's provisional recommendations "in the short term", this has neither been fulfilled, nor its absence explained.
The Sciencewise programme, funded by the DTI, has supported some projects that move away from the crude application of off-the-shelf citizens' juries or other simplistic upstream engagement techniques and towards processes that respect citizens' rights to shape participatory processes.
Jurors
A majority of the members of the Nanojury has joined Right 2 B Heard (R2BH), which includes people from those communities who often experience oppression in society or are excluded from decision-making. Its core membership consists of around fifty members from the UK, other European countries and India who are keen to work in solidarity with each other and others marginalised from power.
At two meetings of the network in Cumbria (February 2006) and Edinburgh (June 2006), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, participants reflected on processes such as the Nanojury and agreed on two initial aims for R2BH. The first aim is to provide opportunities for participants in processes, such as citizensí juries, to work on an equal footing with facilitators to achieve greater social justice by improving the accountability of decision-makers; The second aim is to foster alternative principles of participation from those that currently dominate professional practice.
Facilitators
The Nanojuryís facilitation team joined jurors at the two R2BH meetings to reflect on what they learnt in the Nanojury and other similar processes. One practical outcome were two new initiatives called Community X-change.
Two community x-changes undertaken in 2006-07 - one carried out with the European Commission and one under the Sciencewise programme - are meant to address some of the key weaknesses of the approaches used in the Nanojury and previous processes.
Members of R2BH have expressed a commitment to keep pressing for better processes of participation with the aim of bringing about better policy-making and the common good. They have also sought to strengthen links with other organisations, such as Involve and Participatory Practitioners for Change. Some scientists and decision-makers have also expressed this wish. If you are interested in being part in any of these initiatives please contact the relevant organisation or Email R2BH at office@r2bh.org.
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