Participatory engagement and social research: methods toolkit

6 Methods in detail

The following section provides further details of all of the methods listed in Table 3.

6.1 Archival and historical approaches

Summary:

A community or stakeholder group’s response to a new development or intervention rarely emerges in isolation. Reactions to new initiatives in the present are likely to be informed by experiences with them in the past, both positive and negative. It is therefore worth looking to the development or intervention and environmental history of a locality, to understand if there are issues which may have arisen with previous initiatives that could inform societal impacts from future ones. Understanding the history of an area can also help to identify the risk of ‘development / intervention fatigue’, whereby communities may feel they have had to take on too many development or interventions in the past.

Recommendations:

• Archival and historical approaches are a valuable tool for putting local experiences of infrastructure and development into context;
• These methods may be especially helpful in building a good understanding prior to community or stakeholder engagement for situations where there is a history of controversial developments or interventions;
• Caution ought to be exercised, however, not to assume that positive experiences in the past will translate into support in the present.

Potential use:

This technique is of most value for producing a stakeholder map, gathering contextual information, identifying and/or predict potential impacts, and; determining a preliminary list of impacts; and carrying out baseline analysis.

Details of use:

Understanding local history and context can of course be incorporated into interviews or focus groups with communities and stakeholders; however looking to historical and archival material (e.g. news reports, old environmental impact assessments and environmental statements, historical population data) may give a more systematic understanding of how previous developments or interventions have impacted a locality.

A first step is to set a time horizon over which previous developments or interventions and their social impacts will be considered (say, 30 years). The next step is to consider sources of information that are available. These include (but are not limited to): (a) local newspaper reports, which may be available online for recent years; (b) newspapers, environmental assessments and socio-economic data, which may be available either online or in physical copy in local libraries and archives; and (c) the accounts of key local informants and stakeholders, who may have memory of previous developments or interventions and the reaction to them. Key points can then be noted qualitatively from the available material, and turned into a chronology of activities in the area over time showing key infrastructure projects and events that indicate the impacts these have had on an area.

Information gathering can be structured round a series of simple questions: what happened? When? What was the local reaction? What were the social impacts? Who was affected positively? Who was affected negatively?

Advantages:

As above, responses and indeed social impacts do not happen in isolation. Looking to the history of an area can give a fuller sense of potential social impacts, and can give insight into the kinds of concerns a community may have. If undertaken using news sources and/or documentary and archival material, a good understanding of the local context can be gleaned prior to extensive engagement with communities and stakeholders (bearing in mind Vanclay (2012) and the assertion that the act of doing an SEIA can itself be a social impact).

Issues to consider:

Positive – or indeed negative – experiences with developments or interventions in the past should not be taken to mean that communities or stakeholders will respond the same way in the present. The impacts of new developments or interventions are complex, and past experience is only one of a number of factors that may give insight into likely impacts in the present. For example, if a developer and operator have a history of working in the locality but is deploying a ‘new’ technology (for example an oil and gas operator moving to carbon capture and storage), it is especially important not to assume that trust, goodwill or ‘social licence’ will be transferred to a new development.

Use in practice:

Historical and archival-type approaches have been utilised for a breadth of energy and infrastructural-related developments as a means of understanding communities’ and stakeholders’ attitudes in the present. These have included, for example, cooperative siting of geological disposal sites for nuclear waste in Cumbria, UK; and understanding fishers’ attitudes to sub-seabed carbon dioxide capture and storage in Tomakomai, Japan. In the latter case, by looking to old newspaper reports from the locality, it became apparent that fishers had had previous negative experiences with pollution from a paper mill and port expansion in the locality. As such, it was realised that fishers were likely to have additional concerns about developers introducing a new development (carbon dioxide storage) into the marine environment which could be perceived as a ‘pollutant’. Accordingly, additional care was taken to communicate environmental monitoring data to fishers and to maintain good dialogue with the fisheries cooperative in order to acknowledge and respect previous history of environmental pollution in the locality.

Links to further information:

Mabon, L, Kita, J and Xue Z (2017) ‘Challenges for social impact assessment in coastal regions: a case study of the Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project‘ Marine Policy 83: 243-251:

6.2 Citizens’ juries

Summary:

A citizens’ jury is group of people brought together (in person or online) to learn about, discuss, and deliberate a particular a policy topic. The jury usually takes place over a number of days, involving 15-25 people. For SEIA, citizens’ juries may present a good opportunity to thoroughly explore a range of issues which relate to impact; and would work best if used early on in the process.

Recommendations:

• Very valuable for in-depth exploration and discussion of issues
• Present a rare opportunity for a variety of experts, stakeholders and community members to meet and share ideas and deliberate
• Time-consuming and intensive, requiring excellent facilitation

Potential use:

Most valuable for carrying out baseline analysis and predicting impacts, as citizens’ juries are best used to explore important issues in depth.

Details of use:

The intention when designing a citizens’ jury is to allow community members to be able to hear and speak about issues that affect them; and to prioritise the understanding of non-experts. They are most effective used early on, when a wide range of outcomes are available and before decisions have been made; where there is a genuine desire to effectively engage and to draw on citizen expertise and assistance; and if they are appropriately resourced and facilitated.

Jury members should be chosen to be broadly representative of the wider community, in terms of demographic and attitudinal factors. They are presented with wide-ranging information, sometimes from ‘witnesses’ – key speakers on different aspects of the topic. These witnesses can include academic experts, policy-makers, stakeholders representing particular organisations, and people with different experience of the topic. The ‘evidence’ is intended to be balanced, informative, and to help members understand the topic. The members have the opportunity to discuss, debate, ask questions, and attempt to reach a collective set of decision or recommendations. The sessions are facilitated by someone independent, who tries to ensure that all views have been heard.

During the sessions, there is an information phase, when members are provided with different sources of information, usually from a range of experts. This can include speeches, information packs, and the opportunity to ask questions. Then there is a deliberation phase, where facilitators help small groups discuss their views in light of the information received, and the views of other jurors. The aim is for members to be able to provide a judgement or recommendations that can be used for decision making or policy.

Citizens’ juries have been used to feed into policy decisions, providing input on community perspectives on a topic. They would be more unusual for SEIA, but could provide an opportunity to spend time hearing about a particular proposal, or consider in depth how the different impacts might be felt throughout a community.

When using a citizens’ jury, the scope, boundaries, and framings of the jury need to be determined, including what will be debated, what information will be provided, in what form are outcomes needed, and what will be done with the recommendations produced.

Advantages:

A citizens’ jury presents an opportunity to consider issues in-depth, and to ask questions of experts. The provide an opportunity for key stakeholders, policy-makers, campaigners, decision-makers and members of the community to come together and share and deliberate ideas, with time and space for informed discussion about complex topics. Examples show that diverse groups of participants can work together, develop solutions, and build consensus, and participating in a jury can be enjoyable and engaging for members, and they may learn and develop their views during the process.

Issues to consider:

Timing is key; a citizens’ jury can lack purpose if there is only a narrow set of options to be discussed, or some key decisions have already been made. It may be difficult to find suitable expert witness (with the time to spare), and ensure quality and balanced evidence is presented. Jurors need to be representative of the wider community (both in terms of demographics, and their views and beliefs), and be able to work well with others. They need to have the time and energy to commit to the process (and may need to be paid to lessen barriers to participation). Facilitation is key, creating a fair and balanced context, allowing members to have meaningful discussions, and ensuring inclusivity, and with skills in mediation, communication, and organisation.

Use in practice:

A citizens’ jury has been used as part of Scotland’s Climate Assembly, deliberating on actions to take to address climate change. They have been used in a variety of other contexts also:

Scotland’s Climate Assembly Research Report

Links to further information:

Scotland’s Climate Assembly

Research for Climate Exchange which used citizens’ juries to explore public responses to wind farms

6.3 Community Events

Summary:

During the course of project or policy development, it is likely that a developer or government will hold events within the community to raise awareness of the project or policy. These events may include, for example, drop-in sessions (where representatives are present in a location over the course of several days to answer questions about the project or policy); ‘town hall’ meetings (presentations followed by question-and-answer sessions); or information boards/panel exhibitions. Although these events are likely to be geared towards informing or consulting with communities, with the aim of building support for a development or intervention, they also provide a useful opportunity to undertake additional SEIA activities by gauging community reactions and/or areas of likely concern.

Recommendations:

• Community events offer an opportunity to incorporate SEIA activities into ongoing engagement, and are recommended for situations where the risk of ‘participation fatigue’ among community members is high;
• Combining SEIA and engagement activities is particularly desirable at the earlier stages of a development or intervention (albeit once initial relations of trust have been developed), as a way to more systematically gauge participant reactions and feed these back into the project or policy development process;
• Consideration should however be given to the dangers of making community members feel they are being ‘observed’, or to creating confusion between communication and SEIA activities.

Potential use:

Community events can be useful for gathering contextual information, identifying and/or predict potential impacts, and setting up governance structures with stakeholders.

Details of use:

Researchers can attend community events to get a sense of how the community reacts to proposed developments and the kinds of questions and concerns that are raised. This may be done through passive observation of how citizens interact with the developer, for instance noting the topics discussed and questions asked, and producing a narrative description based on field notes thereafter. Alternatively, it may be possible to combine community events with more active socio-economic impact assessment activities, for example asking attendees to fill out a short survey questionnaire to gauge their attitudes to the development or intervention or undertaking short (e.g. 5-10 minutes) conversation-type interviews with attendees to understand their attitudes towards the development or intervention.

Advantages:

One of the main advantages of presence at community events is that it can reduce the time pressures – and hence the risk of research fatigue – for community members. Especially if the community events are held at an early stage of the development or intervention, combining community events with socio-economic impact assessment activities can allow potential community concerns to be identified – and acted upon – at an early stage of development or intervention development. Furthermore, reflecting the argument of Vanclay (2012) that social impacts may only become apparent as a development or intervention moves towards deployment and starts to feel more ‘real’ to communities and stakeholders, it may be the case that observing and interacting with publics in a developer or policy-led setting which is likely to go into detail on the practicalities of a development or intervention (as opposed to a researcher-led setting such as an interview) can give a more genuine insight into how community members may respond to a development or intervention as it nears deployment.

Issues to consider:

Just as community events themselves need to be planned carefully, the incorporation of researcher presence at community events needs to be considered carefully. Extreme caution must be exercised not to give community members the impression that they are being ‘studied’ or ‘observed’, especially if there is little prior engagement within the community and/or if community trust is already low. Some developers may also wish to retain a greater degree of control over community events, and may be apprehensive about the presence of researchers who may be viewed as introducing additional questions and raising additional concerns among community members.

Use in practice:

Mabon et al (2015) attended community engagement events in Benderloch, Argyll, Scotland as a means of researching community perceptions of the QICS experimental carbon dioxide releases in Ardmucknish Bay. As a new and potentially contentious experiment taking place adjacent to a small community, project there were concerns that social scientists interviewing community members could induce further anxiety. Nonetheless, given the ground-breaking nature of the experience, it was considered important to understand community responses in a systematic way. Accordingly, researchers attended public information sessions and produced field notes based on passive observation.

Link to further information:

Mabon, L, Shackley, S, Blackford, J, Stahl, H and Miller, A (2015) International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 38: 18-25:

6.4 Focus groups

Summary:

Interactive sessions, bringing together a range of community members to explore views and perceptions of impacts. May use a range of tools to elicit ideas about impacts.

Recommendations:

• Useful to generate discussion and share ideas and learning; with the potential to reach consensus among participants
• Careful facilitation to manage the discussions is required; careful selection of participants to try and allow balance and representation is required.

Potential use:

Focus groups are useful for identifying and/or predicting potential impacts, developing enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable, and producing impact management and monitoring plans.

Details of use:

Focus groups have become well-used to assess opinion for marketing and testing policy ideas; they are applicable to impact assessment as they give a chance to explore and discuss different ideas. They are often thought of as ‘group interviews’, but the dynamic that can be generated between respondents, and the potential to share ideas and learning, makes them more than just a way of interviewing multiple people at the same time. While the discussions with others can be useful, there is also the need to manage and facilitate those conversations, ensure they stay on track, and that certain voices don’t dominate. Focus groups normally have eight to ten participants, and it can be challenging to manage a discussion to make sure that everyone is heard, and no one overshadows anyone else. Larger numbers of people can become involved than with, for example, one-to-one interviews, but care needs to be taken in the invitation and selection of participants, to try and ensure that multiple perspectives and groups are represented.

Advantages:

Focus groups can be useful for fostering discussion, sharing between participants, and encouraging communication and debate. They can be used to evaluate different options and weigh up the importance of different factors, and explore the reasons behind perspectives. The format is relatively familiar, and people may feel more comfortable than being interviewed individually.

Issues to consider:

The value of the data generated may depend on the facilitation, and the techniques used to encourage discussion. Some participants may not feel able to speak freely in front of others, and there is the danger that some voices may dominate. The scope of the sessions is significant; are options for discussion open or more closed? If participants are asked to provide input ideas that are already well developed, then the value of the sessions – and on the opportunity to invite meaningful and genuine participation – will be lessened. Focus groups are appropriate as a way to generate information, with limited opportunity to ask questions or for two-way discussion about potential impacts.

Use in practice:

The Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM), which is a joint initiative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), recommend using focus groups for socio-economic impact assessment.

Focus groups were used to understand responses and behaviour to climate change, sea-level rise and coastal management, as part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Agency project in the US. The group dynamics in the sessions helped to understand complex issues, but needed careful planning and management.

Interactive sessions formed part of the ‘Public dialogue on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment’ carried out by Sciencewise and the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Links to further information:

The Associated Programme on Flood Management report on using focus groups for social impact assessment

US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Agency development or intervention

Sciencewise, ‘Naturally speaking’ report

6.5 Landscape Immersion

Summary:

This method encompasses sessions where participants are asked to walk around the proposed development or intervention site, and note their feelings about the seascape and/or landscape. They are then asked to do the walk again imagining the development or intervention in place. This is a hypothetical exercise – participants are asked to imagine what the landscape would be like with the development or intervention in place.

Recommendations:

• This method is very valuable for making a development or intervention seem real and considering impacts in the places where they will be experienced.
• It is time-consuming, and unlikely to be able to include a large number of people.
• It may be best used to identify key issues, which can then be explored further with participants through other methods.

Potential use:

This method is most suitable for generating a baseline of data. The information generated can be very rich and detailed, and can help to capitalise on local knowledge and lived experience. It can also be useful for identifying and/or predicting potential impacts.

Details of use:

This method of assessment usually has at least two stages. Participants can be asked to go on a favourite walk, or to be out in the area where the proposed development or intervention would be located. They are asked to note their feelings about the seascape and/or landscape as they go. This can be in the company of a facilitator. Participants are then asked to do the walk again imagining development / intervention proposal in place. They are asked to note all feelings and the frequency of feelings from each walk. This is a hypothetical exercise – participants are asked to imagine what the landscape would be like with the development or intervention in place. It is important that the exercise takes place in that landscape and is not a photo montage looked at on a computer or in a consultation session removed from the setting. So, while participants are asked to imagine the change brought by the development, they do not have to imagine or remember what it is like to be in that place. It is also a repeated exercise, the first walk is undertaken as usual, the second with, for example, the imagined turbines, so there is direct comparability built into it.

Advantages:

Meaningful data, generated in situ, which gives a real sense of the meaning and value of the particular place in which the proposal is planned.

Issues to consider:

Time intensive; a lot of commitment may be needed from participants (which may exclude those who are not able to commit this time – such as those with work or caring responsibilities) and those who are not able to get out into particular spaces (such as those with disabilities).

Use in practice:

This method was used in a study about responses to proposed onshore wind turbines from nearby residents from the local community. Participants were encouraged to walk about in the landscape, describing how they used it, the meanings associated with it, the value that it held for them, and then to envisage a new development in the location.

Links to further information:

Haggett, C., Coleman, R., and Hodges, J. (2015) 'Environment, Imagination and Aesthetics: a new environmental impact assessment for natural Scotland' in Griffith, D. (ed) Imagining Natural Scotland, published by Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage

6.6 One-to-one interviews

Summary:

This method involves community members or key stakeholders and aims to gain in-depth information or understanding. Interviews can be structured or more open-ended, allowing for either specific responses or free-flowing discussion. The format is likely to be familiar to respondents, and there is a valuable opportunity to explore meaning, value, and gain rich and interesting data.

Recommendations:

• Very useful for exploring issues in depth, allowing participants to speak in their own words, and understanding what matters
• Time consuming to conduct individually, so unlikely to include a large number of people
• Care needs to be taken in the selection of interviewees, to try and capture a range of opinion and representation of different interests

Potential use:

This method is appropriate for stakeholder mapping, identifying and/or predicting potential impacts, gathering baseline data, and developing plans for enhancement and mitigation with members of a community and key stakeholders.

Details of use:

Interviews are very common tools in a wide range of contexts, and can be used for SEIA to provide an in-depth understanding of the issues, the relationship between topics, and the strength of feeling about different ideas. They can generate a great deal of information, which is likely to be very rich, interesting, and meaningful.

Interviews can be conducted in person, online, and over the phone. It can take some time to organise and arrange this; and the analysis of interviews can be time-consuming. Decisions need to be made about the amount of structure to the questions. Open ended questions give more opportunities for respondents to express themselves, but make analysis more complex and data harder to compare; more structure increases comparability and ensures the same topics are covered, but may miss things of interest to particular respondents and constrain some of their responses. Some interviews might be conducted to explore issues (and therefore be open-ended); others to confirm findings previously found (and therefore include greater structure). Depending on the amount of structure, there may be the opportunity for the respondent to ask questions, but this is not really a two-way discussion; rather, a way of finding out what matters to the interviewee.

Advantages:

Interviews can provide detailed, valuable, and meaningful information, giving a rich insight into the context and the issues that matter. There is the chance to explore things in depth, and to really find out about what matters to respondents. The one-to-one aspect may mean respondents feel more comfortable talking than in a public setting. Exploring ideas with someone, asking questions and actively listening to their responses is a way to show respect for their perspective and a willingness to understand and capture it. Interviews provide the opportunity to speak to particular people of interest (key community members or stakeholders).

Issues to consider:

Conducting multiple one-to-one interviews can be time-consuming, and will generate extensive data that will take time to analyse. It may only be possible, therefore, to interview a limited number of people. Interviewees need to be selected with care, if they are intended to be representative of wider community interests or particular groups or organisations; and multiple interviews may be necessary to generate data from those with different perspectives. There is no chance for interviewees to interact or deliberate with others, or to share ideas; and there may be less transparency about the discussions than with focus groups or at public events.

Use in practice:

Research conducted by UCL explored the role of social impact assessment in understanding and addressing key issues in planning in London. Interviews were used with community members to identify the key issues and challenges that they were facing.

Links to further information:

The UCL report, Social Impact Assessment in London Planning

6.7 Ongoing Advisory Panel

Summary:

A group may be formed to work alongside development processes in a development or intervention, and meet at regular intervals to provide input, hear about progress, and feed back their views. Panels are often made up of key stakeholders and representatives from the community, and the key point is the ongoing nature of the involvement.

Recommendations:

• Very useful to provide opportunities to share information and receive feedback at different stages of the development or intervention, and to provide ongoing input and involvement.
• Provides two-way interaction and the chance to share views and perspectives.
• Panel members may not be representative of a wider community, so need to be chosen with care; and the role and responsibilities of the panel should be agreed at the start.

Potential use:

One of the key aspects of an advisory panel is to set up governance structures with stakeholders, develop enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable, and produce impact management and monitoring plans.

Details of use:

An ongoing advisory panel, made up of community members, and key stakeholders, may represent a useful way to provide information, explore issues, and develop ideas. It may have a different scope at different steps of a development or intervention. Early on, a panel can help to establish or shape frameworks for the processes that will follow and establish shared goals. Later, a panel may have a role in considering and evaluating particular impacts and may also be valuable for monitoring and for maintaining contact with a community.

A panel is likely to be a small group of people who provide different perspectives, interests, or expertise, or who represent different local community groupings and organisations. The panel may have a role in both speaking for the community, and in feeding back information about a proposal to the community. They can represent a range of interests and concerns, and explore impacts from different perspectives. There are valuable opportunities for two-way discussions, exploring ideas in depth, and trying to reach a consensus. These discussions may also mean that panel members share ideas, learn from each other, and develop a fuller understanding of the relevant issues.

The key aspect of such a panel is that it is ongoing, providing a consistent point of contact and source through which to discuss developments and progress. Such a process values the input of the members, and the interests they represent, and seeks to develop productive relationships with them.

Advantages:

A panel can be very useful as an ongoing process to keep community members in touch with progress. They should be relatively easy to convene, and use familiar procedures. A panel can help participants to understand the development or intervention, and elicit their views at different stages, and can help to build trust with members and credibility for the development or intervention and the decision-making processes.

Issues to consider:

A panel usually involves a small number of members, so care needs to be taken in selecting the membership, to try to ensure representativeness for the larger community. Ideally, a panel would include spokespeople for all groups who might consider themselves affected by a development or intervention. The ongoing nature of a panel is its greatest asset, but some community members may not be able to participate on an ongoing basis due to time commitment. The role of the panel, how and when it will have input, and the responsibilities of those involved, needs to be clearly set out and agreed at the start, so that appropriate expectations (for both members, and the wider community) are in place about the part that the panel will play. There will be some logistical and organisational effort required to keep the panel going, and some cost involved in this. It is also important that members are representing fairly their wider communities or organisations, and that regular contact and feedback is maintained; with discussions and decisions open and visible where possible.

Use in practice:

An example of using a group of local people throughout a development is the Middelgrunden offshore wind farm in Copenhagen Harbour. This was a high profile project, and the largest in the world at the time of construction.

Links to further information:

The report on the Middlegrunden Offshore Wind Farm

A report on different approaches to community engagement methods, including advisory panels

6.8 Participatory Appraisal

Summary:

This focuses on the participants and allows them to express themselves in ways which are meaningful to them. It generates rich, meaningful data, and treats participants as experts in explaining and understanding the lived experience of their communities.

Recommendations:

• Can be used for the different stages of an SEIA, but particularly appropriate at early stages when gathering contextual and baseline data.
• The responses generated can be very full and rich, and it may be useful to identify which are most important through other methods (such as a survey based on the data generated).
• Extensive data may be time-consuming to generate, and may not easily translate into decision-making.

Potential use:

Participatory appraisal can be used when it is valuable to explore issues in depth, but is also appropriate at other times (for example, when exploring options for mitigation). It can therefore be used for reducing a stakeholder map, identifying and/or predicting potential impacts, and developing enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable.

Details of use:

Rather than starting with expert definitions of the issues that matter, participatory appraisal uses consultation with community members to determine this. This approach is focused on exploring peoples’ perceptions, values and beliefs, and designed to allow participants to express these in their own words. Emphasis is placed on the use of tools and techniques that are highly visual, and potentially more inclusive than approaches that rely solely on use of the written (or even spoken) word. Non-directive questions are used to encourage discussion in ways that do not impose external opinions, but allow participants to say what, how, and why matters to them and their communities. Analysis tends to be minimal because there is desire to ‘give voice’ to the participants and allow their views to be heard without too much interpretation and synthesis by others.

The aim of this approach is to eliminate barriers in participation, where potential respondents may not feel able to respond in appropriate ways, and include the views of as many different people as possible.

Advantages:

Rich, meaningful data, which focuses on the understandings of community members. This focus on them is a key part of respecting communities, attempts to build trust, and genuine and meaningful engagement.

Issues to consider:

Participatory appraisal can be time-consuming to conduct: sessions can last all day, although certainly can be shorter, and require expert facilitation to guide respondents through the process. Sessions are likely only to involve small numbers of people. They are intended to be accessible for those who do attend, but responses may have to be verified with other community members. Some data may not be easy to translate into feedback which is useful for understanding impacts of a development or intervention.

Use in practice:

A series of projects on Mapping Tranquillity explored what the concept of tranquillity is, what it meant to people, and where it can be found. This research used participatory appraisal to explore value and meaning with participants, and then translated it into a series of maps showing areas that were more or less tranquil that other places. The Participatory Appraisal approach allowed the exploration of a complex concept in way that was accessible and engaging for participants.

Similar approaches have been used for a range of projects exploring community views and values such as research on communities and neighbourhoods.

Links to further information:

Information about Participatory Appraisal from Involve, a UK public participation charity

Information about the Tranquillity Mapping development or intervention

A project using Participatory Appraisal with communities in North East England

6.9 Public Dialogues

Summary:

Public dialogues create opportunities for face-to-face (in-person or online) conversations between community members, experts, and key stakeholders. Sessions can use a range of tools to exchange and explore issues in depth, allowing time for discussion and reflection. For SEIA, they can be used to provide information, share ideas, explain values, and how these influence perceptions of impacts.

Recommendations:

• Very valuable for in-depth exploration and discussion of issues.
• Present an opportunity for a variety of experts, stakeholders and community members to meet and share ideas and deliberate.
• Time-consuming and intensive, requiring facilitation and management.
• For SEIA, they may present a good opportunity to thoroughly explore a range of issues which relate to impact; and would work best if used early on in the process.

Potential use:

Public dialogues can be useful to identify and/or predict potential impacts, develop enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable, and as part of impact management and monitoring plans.

Details of use:

Public dialogues can be a form of open policy making, allowing community members to become involved in the processes of decision-making. All contributions are valued and respected, and there is the opportunity to discuss the things that matter to people. The notion of a ‘dialogue’ is that there is two-way discussion and engagement: decision-makers and the public can listen to and learn from each other.

There is a range of tools and prompts that can be used to generate discussion, for example using maps of the places under discussion, photographs, and photo-montages of proposed developments. These can be used to explore the types of things that matter, and the way in which changes might be experienced. The responses collected can be analysed and interpreted to inform decision-making, with great understanding of the factors and issues that matter most.

Advantages:

The rich data generated can be very valuable in understanding the impact of development or change on things people value and factors that contribute to this impact. There is an opportunity for mutual learning; community members can interact with key stakeholders and designated experts; who may themselves gain a greater understanding of the context on the ground.

Conducting a public dialogue is about process as well as the outcome (data generated). The respect for different views, and providing the opportunity for them to be heard is about valuing local people in decision-making about developments or interventions that may impact upon them and their community.

Issues to consider:

It is important to try and ensure that there is a good balance of community members, in terms of demographics, roles, and views; ensure that there is the opportunity for a diverse range of community members to participate (this may include payment to try to remove barriers to participation). Dialogues will involve small numbers of people and so cannot be assumed to be representative of the population as a whole. Dialogues need to be structured and run in ways that allow a broad range of perspectives to be heard, using tools that encourage discussion, and which manage any contradictory or strongly held views. Appropriate questions need to be asked, and participants need to feel valued. There are time commitments involved for those attending, and in structuring and managing the dialogues. The very rich data which is likely to be generated can be complex to feed into decision-making.

Use in practice:

The Sciencewise project for Marine Scotland, ‘A Two-Way Conversation with the People of Scotland on the Social Impact of Offshore Renewables’ used extensive public dialogues, over an extended period of time, and using a variety of different tools. The project demonstrated the value of engaging community members in open discussions and generated important data about the social values that people use when consider positive and negative impacts from new developments.

Links to further information:

A Two-Way Conversation with the People of Scotland on the Social Impact of Offshore Renewables. Collingwood Environmental Planning and Sciencewise

6.10 Public Meetings

Summary:

A meeting for a large group of people, usually with presentations from a panel, with the opportunity for community members to listen, ask questions and give comments. A public meeting may be useful to share information, and to have a public and visible presence in the community. Decision-makers can hear directly from members of the community.

Recommendations:

• Useful early on, to provide information, and to establish a visible presence in a community.
• Best applied as part of a series of methods, as unlikely to capture detailed information about potential impacts.
• Needs strong facilitation and structure to avoid getting off track or being dominated by particular speakers.

Potential use:

Useful to engage with stakeholders and community members early on, to inform them about a development or intervention, and how they can be involved in the assessment process. Useful as part of ongoing engagement and periodic review, to maintain a connection with the community and continue to listen to local knowledge and experience.

Details of use:

Public meetings are a well-used and familiar forum through which to deliver information and invite comment. The event can be widely advertised, and can be open to all who are able to attend. The meetings can be a visible way of having a presence in a community, and to that extent can be used to show respect for that community, but they are unlikely to generate rich or detailed data, or be collaborative. The visibility of a public meeting is perhaps its strongest asset; and they are more transparent than other methods (such as data collection with individuals or small groups of people only), and minutes or notes of the proceedings can be captured for those not able to attend and for future reference.

Advantages:

A public meeting can be open to all, and even those who do not wish to speak can come along and listen. The procedures and format are familiar. Meetings are a good opportunity for a large number of people to engage and participate at the same time, and everyone can hear what everyone else has to say. There is an opportunity to provide information, and to be seen to be doing so, actively and visibly engaging in the host community. Members of the community can see and meet key stakeholders, and learn about proposals and a range of potential impacts. They can then deliver opinions directly to those stakeholders, ask questions; and learn from the questions asked by other community members.

Issues to consider:

Information can be given, but there is little opportunity for two-way discussion, debate or building consensus, and there is limited chance of creating a constructive dialogue. Strong facilitation may be required to create an open and neutral environment, and to prevent loud voices from dominating. Time limits and clear procedures for speakers may be needed: there is the chance that emotions may be running high, and some participants may feel discouraged from contributing. Meetings are likely to be one-off events, and attendance for participants will be dependent on timing (during the day will exclude many who are working; evenings may be difficult for those with caring responsibilities).

Use in practice:

Public meetings regularly form part of a range of methods used by developers when engaging communities about proposed wind farms.

Links to further information:

A research study for ClimateXChange documents a range of methods used by wind farm developers, including public meetings.

6.11 Scenario Mapping

Summary:

Scenario mapping provides the means to discuss and explore different options, giving participants the opportunity to consider how these might affect the things that they value. Scenarios can be used to explore trade-offs between different factors in a range of situations, with various criteria presented to assess the different options presented.

Recommendations:

• Useful for understanding values, priorities, and potential trade-offs between different impacts
• Visual nature makes this method interesting and engaging
• Requires careful planning and facilitation.

Potential use:

Scenario mapping is useful for identifying and/or predicting impacts, developing enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable, and produce impact management and monitoring plans.

Details of use:

Scenario mapping encompasses a range of tools to imagine and explore different options for the future: what a development or intervention might be like, what impacts it might have, how a community might change (both positively and negatively). They often use very visual methods, maps, pictures, photos, and allow participants to annotate, add objects, colour-coding, and other means to visualise and engage with different options. The implications of different scenarios can be discussed, and used as a way to explore what matters to people: what they value, what should remain the same, and what is amenable to change. The principal factors that influence perceptions can be identified, and there is the opportunity for shared learning and discussion between participants, and generating consensus around different options.

Advantages:

Scenario mapping provides visual tools which are interesting and engaging; and can be a very useful basis for discussion, exploring why certain scenarios are preferred, and drawing out ideas around meaning and value. The different scenarios and options that are presented can be made to be realistic, allowing participants to envisage changes, and think through their implications. Part of these discussions will be about trade-offs between different factors, which can be useful to inform planning, and to make participants aware of the constraints and difficulties associated with real world situations. They can involve collaboration between participants, who can bring forward their own ideas, and provide an opportunity for them to have some meaningful input.

Issues to consider:

The extent to which the process is collaborative and participatory depends to an extent on the scope of the scenarios. Very limited choices and options can limit discussion, whilst options presented may not feel realistic or include ideas that participants would have valued. Allowing participants to provide their own input into how a community should develop may give richer and more meaningful data. Careful planning is required to develop the scenarios, and skilful facilitation is needed to explore them with participants. It is also important that discussions about scenarios are well managed, and that they are not dominated by particular loud voices. Groups of participants can discuss the scenarios together, and so more people can be involved than with, for example, one-to-one interviews; but care is needed in selecting participants to ensure a balance of views and representation.

Use in practice:

The Sciencewise project for Marine Scotland, exploring community responses to marine renewable energy developments used scenario mapping as part of the discussions. The scenarios were detailed and allowed participants to engage with them, generating data about the key values that matter when a change is proposed in a community.

The community consultation for the Tiree offshore wind farm used scenario mapping to explore different options. Four potential scenarios relating to the operations and maintenance activity were developed, each of which had varying implications for any associated onshore development. These were discussed to identify and explore the potential environmental, socio-economic and health/wellbeing impacts.

Links to further information:

A Two-Way Conversation with the People of Scotland on the Social Impact of Offshore Renewables. Collingwood Environmental Planning and Sciencewise

Tiree Onshore Scenario Mapping

6.12 Secondary data analysis

Summary:

Secondary data analysis broadly refers to the re-use or further analysis of existing data, as a means of gaining insight into a topic by making use of research and data collection that has already been undertaken. Secondary data analysis can refer to quantitative data (e.g., censuses, surveys) as well as qualitative (e.g., interview transcripts).

Recommendations:

• There may well already be a wealth of data on a community from governmental and research organisation sources;
• Drawing on this data can give insight into the contours of a community, and potential socio-economic impacts, without subjecting the community to additional intrusion or fatigue;
• However, it is important to recognise that data collected for a different purpose may not answer all the questions needed for a SEIA, and/or may be out of date.

Potential use:

Secondary data analysis can be used for stakeholder mapping, gathering contextual information, baseline analysis of impacts, and identifying and/or predicting potential impacts.

Details of use:

It may well be the case that a socio-economic impact assessment is not the first piece of social research that has been done in or about a community. Official data, e.g., from censuses, can give insight into trends such as employment, deprivation, ageing, housing; whereas research projects on renewable energy or on related developments might also exist. SEIA practitioners may be able to access this data and undertake further analysis, over and above the purposes the data was originally collected for, to understand potential impacts from an offshore renewables development. To undertake secondary data analysis, it is necessary to (a) work out what is available (e.g., online government and socio-economic data portals; inventories of existing/completed research projects on university websites); and (b) work out what you want to know from this data. This can often be an iterative process, i.e., sometimes we need to see the data itself in order to get a sense of what we might be able to learn from it.

Advantages:

Making further use of existing data can give insights into trends and potential issues within a community, without placing additional burden on the community to provide additional information. The risk of ‘research fatigue’, or of inducing concern about the possible impacts of the development or intervention, can therefore be reduced. This may be especially valuable at early stages of project development, as it can identify possible messages and engagement strategies that are likely to be effective, and/or issues that the community may be concerned with.

Issues to consider:

It may be difficult to access existing data if it contains personally-identifiable information (e.g., addresses, dates of birth etc.) due to data protection legislation. It may be even more difficult to access qualitative data, such as interviews and focus groups, if they contain personal opinions or similarly sensitive content. It is likely that the conditions of use will have been set out at the time the data was collected, and data collected by universities and research organisations will also be bound by research ethics. If access is required to specific types of data, it is preferable, if possible, to negotiate and agree this before the data is collected, so that information about data-sharing can be built into privacy notices and participant consent forms.

Use in practice:

A good example of how existing data sets can be re-used to give further insight is the Scottish Government’s work in ‘Mapping Flood Disadvantage’ (2015), which connected indicators of deprivation (income, education, health, employment etc.) collected by Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics with flood hazard maps produced by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. By linking neighbourhood assessments of what might make a community less able to respond to stresses and pressures from one dataset, with physical risk assessments from another dataset, the project was able to create a fuller and richer insight into how flooding under climate change will affect society than may otherwise have been available.

Links to further information:

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation – social and economic data indicators for Scotland at neighbourhood level

Economic and Social Research Council UK Data Service – repository of social data available from publicly-funded research projects

Scottish Government (2015) Mapping Flood Disadvantage

6.13 Social media analysis

Summary:

Social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, offer publicly available insight into emerging issues of concern, and the key people involved, as a new development emerges, and can be monitored in real-time to track a debate. Social media can also give insight into the sense of place and identity more generally, and help to identify socially and culturally meaningful landscapes.

Recommendations:

• Given the digitisation of communication and society more generally, a socio-economic impact assessment ought to consider how digital platforms can inform public and stakeholder opinion;
• Social media platforms may provide early warning signs of arising issues and can allow responses to the development or intervention to be monitored post-deployment;
• It must not be assumed that visible opposition online translates into real-world opposition, or that those with most influence and visibility online carry the same visibility offline.

Potential use:

Social media analysis can be used in stakeholder mapping, gathering contextual information, and identifying and/or predicting potential impacts.

Details of use:

Digital forms of communication are taking increasing prominence in daily life. Accordingly, social media is becoming a platform through which communities and affected stakeholders both learn about – and express their views towards – new developments in a locality. Opinion-shapers such as environmental NGOs are also very adept at utilising social media platforms to draw national (or in cases global) attention towards localised developments. A good example of how social media can affect public perception of new offshore energy developments is the Eastern Iburi Earthquakes in northern Japan in late 2018 and early 2019, where a former Japanese Prime Minister claimed on Twitter – without an evidence base – that subsea carbon capture and storage projects in Japan were responsible for earthquakes.

It is important to understand the different kinds of data that can be gleaned from different platforms (see Table 6).

Table 6: Data gathered through social platforms

Facebook

• Types of public data available: Comments, opinions, photographs.
• Target audience: Local residents or locally affected stakeholders, usually in 30+ age bracket.
• Insights gained: Understand local opinions, reactions and points of contention.

Twitter

• Types of public data available: Opinions, reach, reaction.
• Target audience: National and global (also local), usually with interest in overarching issues e.g., climate change, sustainability, social justice.
• Insights gained: Understand regional/national stakeholders who may have interest in issue.

Instagram

• Types of public data available: Photographs.
• Target audience: Local residents and visitors.
• Insights gained: Socially and culturally meaningful land- and seascapes, community relations with coast and sea.

Social media can lend itself to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. At the very early stages of a development or intervention, it is possible to qualitatively note and group comments posted to gauge initial reactions and emerging themes; or identify key opinion-shapers in a community. Twitter posts and Instagram images may be coded for content or tone, and the number of posts/number of ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ can be counted to give descriptive statistical trends to show attention in an issue over time or to identify arguments/people who are able to gain the most traction. Simple analysis of this nature can be a powerful tool, and can be undertaken via standard statistical packages such as Microsoft Excel. For larger data sets and/or more complex analysis, programmes such as NodeXL can offer deeper insight into networks between posters and trends in data over time.

Advantages:

As above, digital forms of communication are becoming ever more prominent in shaping societal relations, and are also a source of information for communities and stakeholders. As such, social media analysis is likely to be an important component of understanding how communities respond to issues, and thus of carrying out a socio-economic impact assessment, in a digitised world. Additionally, viewing debates on social media that are in the public domain offers a non-intrusive way to make sense of how an issue is discussed within a community, as well as to identify potential opinion-shapers across multiple scales. Tracking reactions in real-time can also be done remotely, at low cost, across the course of a development or intervention.

Issues to consider:

Issues will play out on different platforms depending on the audience and the characteristics of the local community. For each development or intervention it is therefore vital to identify early on where (if at all) the key debates are happening, bearing in mind that different audiences may be engaging on different platforms (e.g. Facebook tends to attract a more local audience in upper age groups; whereas Twitter is favoured by NGOs seeking to exert national or global influence).

Whilst social media can give a valuable insight into how a development or intervention is affecting a locality, it is important to remember that the most prominent voices online may not necessarily represent the views of the majority. Moreover, coordinated campaigning can give the impression of large-scale opposition, which may not be matched by the reality. It is also important to consider ethical issues around viewing public comments which, even though they are made in the public domain, may not have been intended for widespread readership. Caution ought to be exercised when re-presenting or passing on comments in reports and presentations so as to preserve posters’ anonymity.

Use in practice:

Beedasy et al (2020) (see link below) used Twitter data to analyse publics’ responses to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. They used this analysis, which involved a mix of manual qualitative analysis, machine learning and social network analysis, to make sense of the themes that were being discussed and also who was accessing the information. Their findings suggested strategies for helping communities to access information and stay informed in response to environmental changes.

Links to further information:

Merry MK (2014) ‘Broadcast Versus Interaction: Environmental Groups’ Use of Twitter’ Journal of Information Technology & Politics

Ahmed W (2019) ‘Using Twitter as a data source: an overview of social media research tools (2019)’

Beedasy, J., Samur Zúñiga, A. F., Chandler, T., & Slack, T. (2020). Online community discourse during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: an analysis of Twitter interactions. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 51, 101870.

6.14 Structured Consensus-building processes

Summary:

Structured consensus-building processes is an overarching term for a range of techniques which can be used to elaborate consensus between stakeholders, including communities, on priority issues. Typically, these approaches have the aim of aggregating opinions across a group of participants, and may produce numerical or narrative outcomes. Structured deliberative processes, such as Q-Methodology, Delphi and focus conferences, may involve respondents completing ranking or scoring exercises individually, and/or working collaboratively to deliberatively come to understanding and consensus on the priority aspects of an issue. During the process, participants may receive information from expert sources or from people from different positions in order to inform their judgements.

Recommendations:

• Structured consensus-building provides a useful means of identifying potential common ground for issues where a number of divergent perspectives exist;
• Structured consensus-building actions may also be helpful in situations where a limited amount of ‘baseline’ data exists on which to understand social impacts or key issues to the local community;
• Qualitative and narrative insights emerging during the deliberative process may be as valuable to a socio-economic impact assessment as the final consensus or recommendations attained.

Potential use:

This method is useful in identifying and/or predicting potential impacts, developing enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable, and produce impact management and monitoring plans.

Details of use:

Structured consensus-building processes have at their core the aim of identifying areas of consensus or agreement in situations where there may be a number of subjective viewpoints. Whilst different approaches are available, common characteristics are (a) the use of a systematic process to elicit responses; (b) the role of a facilitator in keeping the process moving forwards; and (c) the presence of a final output which reflects the consensus of the group as a whole.

In Q-Methodology, participants are asked to rank a number of statements from those they most agree with to those they least agree with, usually using a large template and a series of printed cards. This process may be done individually or collaboratively as a group, with a facilitator asking participants to narrate and justify their choices and (if the sorting is done collectively) to ensure all participants are in agreement on the final sort. If participants undertake their rankings individually, the sorts can be statistically analysed to identify common themes and identify areas of greatest agreement and disagreement.

In Delphi method, participants are again asked to score or rank statements individually, and to justify their answers. A facilitator then summarises the answers and justifications, and allows the participants to comment on and discuss each other’s anonymised responses. Participants then undertake further scoring and ranking rounds, under the logic that their views will converge towards a consensus as a result of facilitated deliberative interaction.

In a focus conference, participants receive information from a range of expert speakers, potentially representing different viewpoints on an issue, and then work collaboratively to discuss the key issues and produce a position paper outlining policy and practice recommendations. A critical part of this process is that all participants agree on the final text and recommendations.

These approaches are generally conducted with smaller groups of respondents (20-30 people) to allow for fuller interaction. Delphi methods tend to involve expert respondents, Q-Methodology may involve either experts or publics, and focus conferences tend to involve a cross-section of people representative of the local or regional population. It is also worth noting that for each of these approaches, the discussions and dialogue which happen during the process can yield insights that are just as valuable, if not more so, than the final outcome.

Advantages:

Structured consensus-building processes are especially useful when researchers want to understand the variety of subjective viewpoints on an issue, and identify areas or courses of action of common concern to all participants. These techniques can identify priority actions to be addressed through community benefit agreements, for example, or help to assess the likely social impacts of a development or intervention in the absence of previous analogous developments in the area or baseline socio-economic data. Looking carefully at the process as well as the outcome may also point to areas of contention or disagreement within the community and/or between stakeholders, and hence give developers an indication of issues where caution may need to be exercised to avoid inflaming existing tensions.

Issues to consider:

Structured consensus-building approaches are both time and resource intensive to undertake effectively. Facilitating processes in order to elicit responses and facilitate discussion, without prompting or influencing respondents, requires skill and training. Statements and questions need to be prepared beforehand and tested/piloted to ensure they are understandable and cover the fill range of issues at hand. Recruitment and selection of participants also requires good knowledge of the local context and/or the technology in question to ensure the appropriate range of knowledge and interests is covered.

Use in practice:

A good example of a consensus conference is the conference held in Moray, Scotland in 2012 for the SiteChar sub-seabed carbon capture and storage research project. Approximately 15 participants from the surrounding area were recruited for two weekend-long events, during which they heard from energy and climate change experts from academia, government and industry and took part in facilitated discussion sessions to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of CCS as a climate change mitigation technology for their locality. The participants together co-wrote a position paper on CCS, in which, based on their deliberations, they identified a series of questions and recommendations for further research, development and deployment of CCS in Scotland.

Specific to offshore renewables, Ellis et al (2007) conducted a Q-Methodology study with 71 people to understand societal responses to proposed offshore wind developments off the coast of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Through statistical sorting of responses, they were able to identify four idealised discourses representing attitudes towards offshore wind: those willing to rationalise globally and sacrifice locally; those who were aware of climate change but sceptical of developer motives; those who enthusiastically embraced wind energy; and those with a pragmatic stance to energy who prefer to consider each site-specific project on a case-by-case basis.

Links to further information:

Ellis, G., Barry. J., and Robinson, C. (2007) Many ways to say ‘no’, different ways to say ‘yes’: Applying Q-Methodology to understand public acceptance of wind farm proposals, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 50:4, 517-551,

Kaiser, M., Brunsting, S., Mastop, J., Zimmer, R., Shackley, S., Mabon, L., and Howell, R. (2015) ‘CCS acceptability: social site characterization and advancing awareness at prospective storage sites in Poland and Scotland’ Oil and Gas Science and Technology 70 (4): 767-784

6.15 Surveys

Summary:

Surveying encompasses a wide range of activities which may be undertaken to get a sense of people’s views towards an issue. Surveys generally involve issuing a standard set of questions to a large group of respondents, allowing opinions, attitudes and perceptions to be assessed across a population. Surveys can provide insight into community and stakeholder attitudes at a single point in time, or may be repeated periodically to track changes in attitudes over time.

Recommendations:

• Survey-based approaches are valuable for high-level insight into social impacts right across the span of a development;
• Surveys are a valuable first step in identifying groups of people likely to have concerns over social impacts;
• It is vital not to underestimate the expertise required to set up a survey appropriately; and to follow up survey results with deeper enquiry into why certain trends emerge.

Potential use:

Different types of survey may be applied right across the span of a development or intervention, especially for carrying out baseline analysis, identifying and/or predicting potential impacts, and developing enhancement and mitigation plans to ensure impacts are acceptable.

Details of use:

Surveys can be administered in a number of ways, including: online, via post, via telephone, or face-to-face. They can also solicit both qualitative and quantitative responses. Surveys may ask people to respond to questions across a scale, or ask them to choose between different outcomes/options. Surveys can also ask open-ended questions where respondents can provide free text/spoken responses. Surveys may also include graphical or text-based material to give respondents information about the topic before they provide their answers. This can be a useful way to test how people respond to different communication strategies. There are a number of stages to consider when using surveys:

Step 1: Determine the target sample. Understanding the target sample a critical first step, as it will determine the delivery method and also the kinds of questions which will be asked. For example, is a sample required that represents the demographics of the local population, or is the survey open to anyone locally who wants to contribute? Is the focus on a specific group of stakeholders (e.g., fishers) or a specific section of the public (e.g., older people)?

Step 2: Understand how to reach the target sample. If a sample that is representative of the local demographics is required, or to target respondents via telephone or post, it may be beneficial to work with a market research company who have access to such information and will be able to help to develop the survey, recruit respondents, and collect the data from them. If trying to reach a group of people who might not be easy to contact directly, then it might be helpful to enlist the help of intermediary organisations (e.g., fisheries cooperatives, community groups) to help disseminate the survey.

Step 3: Understand the delivery method. As above, surveys can be delivered in a number of ways. Depending on the target sample, a different delivery method may be appropriate. Online surveys have the advantage of being relatively cheap to run once set up and will also produce data in digital format which may allow for faster and easier analysis. Dissemination via email and/or social media, as well as publicising links to the survey website, can support good participation across the population. However, online surveys may be less suitable for connecting with harder-to-reach groups, such as elderly people and those on low incomes, who may not have internet connectivity. It is thus important to spend time thinking about who the target sample is, and how best to reach them.

Step 4: Clarify the issues to address and design the survey accordingly. After identifying the target sample and your means of reaching them, it is important to pause and reflect again on what exactly what is required from the survey. This will be dependent on the stage of the SEIA process and will inform the kind of information that is collected and how it is collected. For instance, at an early stage, gaining a broader understanding of the issues that matter to the community and stakeholders may be important, in which case a series of Likert-type questions (e.g. providing responses on a scale of, say, 1-5) supported by some free-form questions where people can input words of their choosing may be more appropriate. At a later stage, it may be more valuable to gain a fuller sense of what the community or affected stakeholders want to know, and how they want to communicate, in which case including graphical or textual stimuli as prompts can help to identify appropriate engagement strategies. As a development moves closer to deployment, and community benefits agreements and similar become important, then Discrete Choice Experiments, whereby respondents are asked to choose between different scenarios, each of which contains a number of variations or attributes, may help to make sense of communities’ preferences.

Step 5: Analyse and interpret the results. Surveys produce a vast amount of numerical and textual data, which can be analysed in a number of ways. It is therefore important again to remain focused on the aims of the survey, and ensure the analysis matches this aim. For example, descriptive statistics might show different preferences by demographic or socio-economic characteristics such as age and income, and these differences can then be tested statistically via correlation analysis. Open-ended comments may be harder to analyse numerically, but can give deeper insight into respondents’ viewpoints, especially if the same comments and issues are raised repeatedly. In any case, what is vital is to use the outputs of surveys as a starting point to understand the reasons why people may oppose or support a development or intervention.

Advantages:

Surveying allows a larger section of the population to be reached in comparison to interview or focus group-based approaches, and hence may give a fuller insight into how the community or stakeholder group feels about the development or intervention. The numerical outputs produced by surveys also allow trends to be more easily identified and visualised, which may help to identify particular demographic or socio-economic groups who might have concerns over, or be disproportionately affected by, a development.

Issues to consider:

Although surveys allow a broader sample of the population to be engaged in comparison to interview or focus group-based approaches, this breadth may need to be traded off against depth of insight. In other words, while surveys may help to identify attitudes across the population, they may be less effective in explaining why particular groups of people have concerns or feel disproportionately impacted by a development. Moreover, evidence from previous energy research suggests that surveys may not be so effective at gauging social attitudes towards new and potentially unfamiliar technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage, hydrogen production, wave and tidal energy), as people may not feel informed enough to be able to form an opinion. Finally, whilst it can be tempting to view surveys as a quick and easy way to gauge public and stakeholder opinion, survey design requires significant thought in order to phrase questions appropriately and extract the right information from respondents. Collaboration with professionals, either from academia/research organisations or market research companies, is therefore strongly advised.

Use in practice:

the Energy Policy Research Group at the University of Cambridge have run annual surveys on public attitudes to energy for a number of years. These allow changes in public attitudes to be tracked over time, and also allow additional topical questions to be inserted in some years in order to collect additional information on relevant issues.

Links to further information:

US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2013) Guide to Survey Design and Implementation

Example of Discrete Choice Experiments for energy issues

6.16 Tours and field trips

Summary:

This method encompasses visits to other developments or interventions or communities for citizens, key stakeholders, and other interested parties, and can include opportunities for discussions with those who have experienced similar potential impacts (both positive and negative).

Recommendations:

• Valuable to visualise and experience impacts, and to build connections with other communities.
• Worth considering as part of a suite of methods, as numbers who can participate will be limited.

Potential use:

Most useful for identifying and/or predicting potential impacts by seeing and learning about development or interventions in action.

Details of use:

Visits by community members to other locations which have a similar development or intervention can be very valuable as a means to actually see new infrastructure in place, rather than trying to imagine it. Being in a place and taking into account the surroundings can help to understand the size and scale of impacts, as well as the potential for negative impacts to be minimised. In addition, being able to meet and discuss the development or intervention and any positive and negative impacts that have been experienced, rather than just imagining, hypothesising, or worrying about them, can be very valuable.

Advantages:

Tours and trips can provide a valuable and interesting way to envisage a development or intervention and gain from the experience of other communities. They can reduce concern by making choices more familiar. There is also the opportunity to share and discuss ideas with others on the visit, and foster communication and build rapport with other community members and stakeholders. Such trips may be interactive, with the opportunity to ask questions and explore impacts in depth, and a novel way to think about a development or intervention. Building connections with another community, and sharing ideas and experience, can be very useful and reassuring.

Issues to consider:

The number of participants may be limited; host communities may not have capacity to accept many visitors, and only those with the time and resources may be able to attend. There are logistical and organisational issues to consider. It may take a lot of time, effort, and cost to arrange a trip. Visits are likely to be one-off, although ongoing contacts may be formed with community members. Visits need a host community with the time and willingness to share their experience with visitors; and impacts need to be translated into the community in which the development or intervention is being proposed. Some imagination will be required, and some impacts will not be the same.

Use in practice:

Research has demonstrated the value of communities sharing experience and knowledge about hosting energy projects about what projects are actually like, what has worked well, and what could be improved. Visits and making connections with people in different communities proved to be valuable when considering large offshore projects, community energy schemes, and partnerships with commercial energy projects. For example, communities on islands off the east coast of the US organised visits to proposed and existing offshore wind farms to understand impacts and the role of community benefits.

Links to further information:

Site visits enabled diverse stakeholders to meet repeatedly and exchange information and experiences. See ‘Engaging Communities in Offshore Wind Case Studies and Lessons Learned from New England Islands’ (2015)