Citizens’ Deliberation

Deliberation means “consultation” or “consideration”. A deliberation process involves people coming together under fair conditions, exchanging views and arguments, weighing them up and learning from each other. Joint decisions should not be based on majority voting, but on convincing arguments that are discussed together in a process of understanding.

In the Ariadne project, citizens are involved from the very beginning and throughout the entire course of the project on issues related to the electricity transition (2020-2023), transport transition (2020-2026), heating transition (2023-2026), distributional effects of climate policy (2023-2026). There is a continuous alternation between citizen events, such as the online discussions and the citizen conferences, and Ariadne research phases. The focus is on a common understanding of the challenges and solutions of the energy transition.

In order to ensure the greatest possible diversity of perspectives, citizens are recruited for the citizens’ deliberation in three different ways:

1. Citizens are invited on the basis of a random draw. For this purpose, people from all over Germany are drawn at random from the population registers and receive an invitation by post. Interested people can register and will be placed in the lottery pot for participation.
2. Citizens are contacted via selected multipliers (e.g. clubs and associations) and can register if they are interested. These also end up in the lottery pot.
3. Interested citizens from the first Ariadne citizens’ celiberation (2020-2023) are given the opportunity to take part in the citizens’ deliberation again. These also end up in the lottery pot.

The 150 participants will be selected on the basis of various categories, e.g. age, gender and educational background. In this way, we want to ensure that as many points of view as possible are represented in the Citizens’ Deliberation.

In the Ariadne project, the citizens’ perspective plays an important role from the very beginning, since the results of all participation formats flow directly into the Ariadne research. The overall result is that the project provides policymakers with options for action that both reflect the results of scientific research and are endorsed by society.

Please contact ariadne@ifok.de for questions about the participation formats.
If you have general questions about the Ariadne project and research, please write to ariadne-presse@pik-potsdam.de.

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The dialogue between society and science was initiated by online discussions in November 2020 where participants discussed the problems and goals of the energy transition, and what is important to citizens in its implementation. The results were incorporated into Ariadne research and further deepened in co-creation workshops between science and citizens to identify focus areas for further research. In the next step, Ariadne researchers developed policy action packages which were discussed and evaluated at the citizens’ conferences in November 2021.

The results of these conferences were incorporated into Ariadne’s further research work. Participants’ assessments of the policy instruments discussed were integrated into the further development of policy options to maximise societal viability. The policy pathways were presented at the citizens’ summit on 24 March, 2023. They form the basis of orientation for policymakers, combining their expertise on the impact of the instruments with citizens’ values and perspectives. They provide orientation knowledge for political decision-makers, combining specialist knowledge on the impact of the instruments with the values and perspectives of citizens.

Online discussions

In November and December 2020, a total of 88 randomly selected citizens from across the country formed nine panels to discuss their key concerns around the transformation of the transport and electricity sectors. In each session, people from a particular city or region met digitally to investigate the diverse goals, priorities and needs, as well as the challenges, concerns, conflicts and hurdles involved in shaping a climate-friendly transport and electricity sector. Of particular importance were the underlying values and norms of the participants – why are certain goals or challenges particularly important, and how can we jointly deal with different priorities and needs? The focus was thus on participating citizens and the Ariadne researchers getting to know and understanding each other.

The online discussions were recorded by the Ariadne team, and the citizens’ positions were subsequently structured into argumentation maps that identified the main points of the discussions and sorted the corresponding arguments into pros and cons. The aim was therefore not to determine the majority positions of the citizens, but to create an orderly overview of as diverse a range of opinions as possible. As an introduction to the discussions, the participants were each given a brochure in advance with information on climate-friendly electricity supply²German only and climate-friendly mobility³German only.

The discussions on transport were divided into three main areas with a total of 16 topics. The power transition discussion also had three focal points with a total of 20 topic areas. On the basis of these overviews, Ariadne researchers reflected on what was particularly important to the citizens and integrated this into their scientific work. These citizens’ positions were summarised in a report⁴German only.

Co-creation workshops

The Ariadne research reflected the citizens’ positions gleaned from the online discussion panels in joint conversations and then incorporated them into the various work packages on the transformation of transport and electricity. One-day workshops were then held for both topics in spring 2021, bringing researchers and citizens together in direct exchange to clarify open questions. Participants from the online discussions were invited and assembled into a group of around 20 people per topic. Each group reflected the regional and demographic diversity of the participants as accurately as possible.

During the workshops, the Ariadne researchers introduced their research approach on the objectives and problems from the discussion rounds, and the answers they are working on. Participants were able to comment and ask questions, but scientists also had the opportunity to verify whether they had understood the citizens’ positions correctly or how, from their point of view, conflicting arguments or goals could be resolved. The scientific community calls this collaboration between researchers and non-scientific participants “co-creation”.

Citizens’ conferences

In two conferences in November 2021, citizens were presented with policy paths for implementing the electricity and mobility transition. These paths were based on the focal points of the online discussions and the results of Ariadne research. Around 50 people from across Germany came together to reflect on how different policy measures would impact individual lives and communities, and to evaluate policy options for climate protection. The conference was attended by participants from the previous online discussion groups (s. Regional focus groups) and randomly selected citizens from all over Germany.

The main aim of these conferences was to shed light collectively on the effects of various measures, to record the assessments of civil society, and to explore possible areas of agreement on specific policy options despite differing values. Exploration modules⁵German only were used to start the discussions. The results of the citizen conferences were summarised in reports.

Online deliberation

Following the citizens’ conferences in November 2021, Ariadne researchers used the discussion results to further develop policy options for the electricity and transport transformation. These were explored in greater depth with citizens in a total of four virtual meetings in January and February 2023. For the transport transition, various personas were used to illustrate the effects of a CO₂ price and different reimbursement options on various sample households, for example. For the electricity transition, an Ariadne citizen scenario, developed by Fraunhofer IEE, was presented. This stimulated discussion around implementation issues such as the acceptance of wind turbines in forests, or the financial participation of municipalities in the expansion of wind and solar energy. In conclusion, the participants developed core messages for the electricity⁶Only available in German and transport⁷Only available in German transformation, which were presented at the citizens’ summit in March 2023.

Citizens’ summit

Upon completion of the conferences, the citizens’ evaluations and assessments of the proposed policy alternatives are incorporated into Ariadne’s further research work. The advantages and disadvantages of the instruments identified and discussed will be merged into possible pathways to achieve climate neutrality in the transport and electricity sectors. The policy paths were presented at the citizens’ summit on March 24, 2023. They provide orientation for political decisionmakers on expert knowledge of the impact of the instruments combined with the values and perspectives of citizens.

Key messages and results from the Ariadne citizens’ deliberation process

The results from the deliberation, and the resulting core messages, have been summarised on posters for the Ariadne citizens’ summit.

In addition, the values discusses in the regional focus groups during the autumn of 2020, together with the results of the accompanying research, were presented in an exhibition at the citizens’ summit.

Reports on Citizens’ Conferences

The evaluation of the citizens’ conferences shows: People are both willing and able to discuss complex challenges in a differentiated manner and negotiate solution options together. This requires a well-structured dialog.

Report on Online-Discussions

From public transport to grid expansion, from electricity costs to jobs: people across Germany have been discussing the expansion of renewable energies and the mobility of the future. The report on the online discussions shows what moves them and how Ariadne is continuing to work with these perspectives.