Tag Archives: participatory budgeting

‘Mainstreaming Participatory Budgeting’ event, #PBmainstream

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The content of these posts has now been moved here: https://bruceryan.info/resources/mainstreaming-participatory-budgeting-event

Individual pages can be accessed via these links:

  1. Tweets of anticipation and excitement
  2. Welcome and overview of the day: Oliver Escobar
  3. The Scottish context – local governance review and public service reform: Professor James Mitchell
  4. Evidence to date: Dr Angela O’Hagan
  5. Q&A with James Mitchell and Angela O’Hagan
  6. Examples of PB mainstreaming
  7. Group discussions: Mainstreaming PB is a transformation, not a process. What do we need to do to ensure it is a success? Anthony Zacharzewski (Democratic Society)
    • What is needed for councils [and other public bodies] to transform internally?
    • What is needed for communities to be ready to participate?
    • What us needed to create strong and trusted processes and spaces?
  8. Plenary session: Way forward: what will we commit to get from here to our ambition?
    (Tweets from this item are in the previous section.)
  9. Closing remarks: Claire McPherson (Scottish Government)

So what has Bruce been up to recently?

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Part of an occasional series of posts to try to show that I don’t lie around all day! This post covers the time since we got back from honeymoon in early September.  

At Napier

  • Working with my colleague Wegene Demeke on the initiation of a project to investigate some aspects of participatory budgeting (PB) in São Paulo [Wikipedia], Brazil. We’re particularly interested in whether and how PB benefits the very poor. This is going to be fun, not least because neither Wegene nor I speak Portuguese, but we have some excellent partners at the University of São Paulo.
  • Working with the Prof on a funding bid for some networking events. That’s ‘networking’ in the sense of connecting humans, not ‘plumbing‘! The bid has been submitted but we won’t know whether we’ve been successful for a while, so watch this space!
  • Taking part in a follow-up to research by the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) on community councils.
  • Marking courseworks for an undergraduate course.
  • Drafting an idea for some public engagement/democracy work. Again, watch this space!

Elsewhere

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Some thoughts on a seminar by Professor Brian Detlor

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I had the privilege of attending two seminars by Professor Brian Detlor last week. The first of these, at iDocQ 2018, recounted Brian’s work on Digital Storytelling. However, this post is about my reaction to his seminar to the School of Computing on Promoting Digital Literacy: A Social Lab Approach.

This post is the first of two – the second will be an attempt to crystallise my thoughts about e-voting that bubbled up after Brian’s seminar. However, for now, this post is an attempt to show why Brian’s seminar was such a positive experience for me, but it is not an attempt to record all that Brian said. My reactions are in blockquotes. Continue reading →