This is a CTP of initiative: Living Labs - Laurea (Finland)
This critical turning point (CTP1) developed around the challenges to engage residents in the Sharing and Caring project of the Laurea Living Lab Network. It was a critical turning point for the Sharing and Caring project since it resulted in not achieving certain goals within the project: so it was an important decisive moment that to a large extent determined how the rest of the project developed. It also showed a more general challenge: the living lab researchers realized that it is easy to set targets to engage residents in a living lab project, but it is hard to realize it in a project. Also more participants in a project does not automatically mean that you have a more useful form of resident’s participation. Based on this CTP the living lab researchers learned a lot among others how to improve their resident’s participation managements in future projects.
This project is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Environment, and has a number of focus points. Firstly, it aims at promoting residents’ interest and participation in the development of their neighbourhood. Secondly, by getting the residents’ cooperation it hopes to create a networking model for regional development. Lastly, it aims to develop efficient means for stakeholder cooperation including residents, developers, communities and companies. The activities of the project take place in the Espoon Keskus neighbourhood of the city of Espoo. The three focus points together form the main objective of establishing a local model for urban development which empowers residents to participate in city planning.
A variety of actors were made part of the Sharing and Caring Networks project with the aim that each actor (residents, governmental organizations and entrepreneurs) could bring along their own set of skills and knowledge. The main goals of the Sharing and Caring Networks project were developed around the interest and participation of residents, hence residents were important participants in this project. Residents were also naturally the ones most affected by the urban development of the Espoon Keskus residential area. Espoon Keskus is considered an area under development, with some socio-economic problems. The Sharing and Caring Networks project focuses on the way this area can be improved and be made more liveable. The part the residents played in the workshops was to produce inside knowledge of the neighbourhood and by doing so, give the process of the urban development a user-centred direction.
However, this proved a difficult task for the Laurea Living Lab. This CTP concerns the difficulty the Laurea Living Lab had with acquiring residents’ engagement for the project, and thus having difficulty with finding key actors for the project. The reason residents were not as participatory as hoped for had various reasons according to the interviewee. The repercussions of the low participatory grade of residents was a problem because key actors were needed to make a change with the project.
Among the 46 actors were several students and four researchers of Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Espoo. Additionally there was the Department of Urban Planning, Social Services and several NGO’s operating in the area. These actors were important as they all brought a specific set of skills and knowledge to the workshops. Residents however, especially played an important role as inhabitants of the Espoon Keskus area.
This CTP developed as the need for cooperation with residents became part of the project. The context in which the Laruea Living Lab was operating at the time was from a dependent position. This was a vulnerability that was able to make the CTP happen. Getting the residents interested in the project and the development of the Espoon Keskus area was the first goal of the Sharing and Caring Networks project. The role of the residents was to be part of this group of 46 actors, and share their ideas on urban development with the other actors. The resident group was expected to have around 20 active participants, acquired via contacts at volunteer organizations. If this stage was completed successfully, a network for regional development could be created, which was the second goal of the project.
For the project, 20 active residents needed to be found to participate in the workshops. The participation of residents was on a voluntary basis, which led to the Living Lab being dependent on their cooperation. Via volunteer organizations, specific residents were targeted for meetings in the community centre. But due to this dependency the consequences of not getting any residents to collaborate was a high risk. The residents later proved to be really hard to find and to convince. The neighbourhood, Espoon Keskus, was a low-income neighbourhood with some social economic problems; the interviewee explains. These characteristics of the Espoon Keskus area affected the way residents viewed the project and the researchers. Residents were busy with their own daily business and/or were wary of the intentions of the project.
This CTP is centred on the problematic co-production between the Laurea Living Lab in multiple ways. First of all, finding participants was not easy. The Laurea Living Lab attempted to find places where suitable respondents came together, like the community centre. Secondly, when found, it was difficult to convince residents to participate, as well as to make appointments with them. Setting up these appointments was challenging as meeting times needed to be specially adapted to the residents’ schedules. And thirdly, when appointments had been made, some residents still backed out of the meetings. This whole process was time consuming which left little time to find new respondents.
The starting point of the Sharing and Caring Networks project was the decision of the Espoo city council to re-develop the Espoon Keskus area which was taken in 2010. This led to the establishment of the Sharing and Caring Networks project and the creation of its goals. The other related events that led to the forming of this CTP mainly consist of the initial project planning back at the start of the project in 2013. When developing the Sharing and Caring Networks project, it was found important to involve the residents of the Espoon Keskus area, as it was their neighbourhood that was being re-developed.
Between 2010 and 2015, the following related events were important around the formation of this CTP:
The contestation in this CTP involved the hesitation of residents when asked to cooperate in the Sharing and Caring Networks project. It was the intention of the Laurea Living Lab to invoke interaction between all kinds of actors, each bringing their own knowledge and skills to the table. The role of the residents was important because it was their neighbourhood that was being re-developed. Therefore the Living Lab anticipated on more participation from the residents’ side.
This CTP involved the Living Lab and the residents, as it was the Living Labs’ task to recruit residents for the Sharing and Caring Networks project workshops and interviews. There were no other actors involved or affected by this particular CTP. Once participating in the workshops, the Living Lab felt that residents especially could have a refreshing look on development issues within their neighbourhood. As the project progressed, it became clear that the residents were not that interested in the project. This put pressure on the project, as it was centred on them. As previously mentioned in ‘co-production’, even if residents agreed to come, they would not show up at the workshops, the interviewee mentions. ‘’First of all, finding them [residents willing to participate and engage in the development activities] wasn’t easy, and the second thing was that when we found them, they said the project was important and they’d consider it. But they did not come.’’ As the goal was to find 20 residents willing to actively work on the development of the project, it became harder and harder to meet this criteria. Residents turned out to be only superficially interested in working on the project, and 15 people eventually collaborated with varied commitments. This CTP affected the goals (as mentioned under ‘contents’) of the project, as well as the goals the Living Lab had. The contestation mainly lies in the lack of residents to support the Living Labs’ activities and the Sharing and Caring Networks goals in general (as these goals were mainly centred on the residents’ participation).
As mentioned earlier, the Laurea Living Lab anticipated on the participation of at least 20 active residents at the workshops. By targeting a key contact of a volunteer organization, and asking him or her for five other contacts, this figure of 20 active residents was thought to be met by a form of snowball-sampling. A number residents was destined for the interviews, and a number to participate in the interviews. The difficulty of attracting residents for interviews and for the workshops proved to be more of a hassle than thought, and made this CTP unforeseen. Especially since the project impacted the residents’ neighbourhood, it came to a surprise that the interest was this low. The interviewee explains; ‘’Even though over time, the number of participants increased, it did not increase as easily as we thought. (…) They had very good reasons to come [to the interviews and workshops] because the area was waiting for the construction work, and new apartments would be built. This meant their [the residents’ houses] were going to be demolished.’’ The residents had a good reason to come and to influence this, but there was not enough interest.’’ Even though the residents not reacting and withdrawing themselves from the project came as a surprise, the Laurea Living Lab quickly came to realize that it was a troubling situation for the project. The interviewee explains how they tried to evade this CTP from developing further by making it considerably easier for residents to participate. ‘’We were worried about it [not getting enough residents to participate], and we did a lot of things to reach them. We tried going to the places where the people are, where they have their hobbies and meet. We changed the meeting times and adapted to their schedules.’’
Although the participation of residents increased later in the project, the increase did not align with the additional effort that was being put into reaching these residents. From these statements, it can be concluded that Living Lab researchers, to some extent, anticipated on more collaboration from residents within the Espoon Keskus neighbourhood.
From this CTP, the Laurea Living Lab has taken a few notes for the future. The interviewee explained, if the Living lab would be involved in a similar project, the collection of residents would have been handled differently. Firstly, the Living Lab would approach volunteer- or resident organizations that work with residents on a professional basis. This is because the interviewee feels that residents have a more trusting bond with these organizations and be more willing to collaborate with the Living Lab. This was not explicitly mentioned by residents, but felt by the researchers. Also looking for residents in recreation areas could be more successful, where residents feel more at ease and willing to talk. Secondly, instead of relying on volunteer organizations to refer residents to the Living Lab, the Living Lab would rather ask for mailing lists and contact information in order to contact these residents directly.
Lastly, an important lesson was drawn from the low number of residents that collaborated in the interviews and workshops. Even though the number of 20 active collaborating residents was not met, the Living Lab researchers noted that in fact, a bigger number of residents did not automatically mean more (and more useable) content. The interviewee elaborates on this matter by mentioning another researcher talking about this; ‘[When talking about the number of residents] It does not matter, it starts with one voice, and even that one voice is important. It does not matter if there are not that many residents, it is all about the quality of the content'. The interviewee herself adds to this; ‘In the moment, we were a bit afraid that the number of residents was not enough and if this is going to work. How should we do this next time? But eventually, we had this nice idea that we should not point out the urgency to the residents. We should not send a kind of invitation and convince them to participate. They should understand themselves that it is important for them.'
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