The RAISE guidelines describe the citizens conference process and outcomes, with the aim to illustrate how to implement this citizens' participation approach at EU and local level. In a nutshell, the RAISE approach gave the opportunity to a panel of European citizens selected randomly from each Member State to meet and:

1. learn more about the goals, outcomes and future impact of EU urban research on their daily life and society as whole;
2. to discuss their questions and ideas with leading European researchers, experts and policy makers;
3. to contribute to a Citizens Declaration detailing what the panel's members believe to be achievable and desirable to implement in the domain of urban sustainable development research;
4. to present their Declaration in a final conference at the European parliament in Brussels.

This approach can be replicated at EU level, to involve new panels of European citizens to discuss other EU science and policy fields whose outcomes would be relevant for the future citizens' life, and at local level, to spread the messages of the European citizens' declarations and discuss with local citizens how EU funded research activities may help to face local sustainability challenges.

Who should use the RAISE Guidelines ?

• Citizens networks and Civil Society Organisation who are interested to promote citizens conferences on science and society issues
• EU policy makers and institutions who are interested to raise awareness of citizens on EU science and policy issues
• Local policy makers who are interested to trigger a public discussion of local sustainability agendas with the citizens, based on EU research and policy inputs

Download RAISE Guidelines