Research

Research partnerships

  • The Global Citizens’ Assembly Network (GloCAN) is a research collective that generates actionable insights to inform policymakers, funders, process designers, advocates and the wider community of practice designing, implementing, and evaluating global citizens’ assemblies.

    The Network was founded in 2023, after the launch of the evaluation report of the world’s first Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

    Through the European Climate Foundation, Iswe is supporting the first phase of GloCan’s research programme, focusing on the governance of global citizens’ assemblies. A series of eight papers summarise key research findings.

  • Dr. Farsan Ghassim at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford, is providing oversight into establishing a global citizens’ assembly connected to the UN. This consists of meetings, seminars and papers produced in the run-up to the UN Summit for the Future in September 2024, including a conference held in July 2024.

    The research seeks to explore global governance institution building, strategies for legitimacy building and measuring impact. This process brings together academics from the university, GloCAN, and beyond.

  • Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. This includes discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and a focus on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, climate and health and infectious diseases. Iswe has worked with Wellcome to explore options for citizen engagement across their work in community engagement and, in September 2024, we co-authored an options paper on how to include health agendas in a permanent global citizens' assembly.

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Research Papers

  • Tim Davies & Kristophina Shilongo (Connected by Data), Claire Mellier & Rich Wilson (Iswe Foundation)

    This report explores how global citizen deliberation, particularly drawing on the concept of a global citizens’ assembly, could and should shape the future of artificial intelligence. Drawing on an extended design lab of in-depth interviews and workshops that took place in mid-2024, it presents a series of options for bringing the voices of those affected by AI development and deployment into decision-making spaces, through processes that can deliver informed and inclusive dialogue.

Report / September 2024 / Published by Iswe Foundation & Wellcome Trust

  • Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation, briefing 30, Claire Mellier and Stuart Capstick, July 2024

    This briefing highlights some of the key design features that need to be got right – in particular, regarding who gets to decide what the CA is about and what happens as a result of CAs. This briefing is based on a CAST report: CAST Guidelines: How can citizens’ assemblies help navigate the systemic transformations required by the polycrisis?

Briefing / June 2024 / Published by Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation

  • Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, Bénédicte Apouey, Hazem Arab, Simon Baeckelandt, Philippe Bégout, Nicolas Berghmans, Nathalie Blanc, Jean-Yves Boulin, Eric Buge, Dimitri Courant, Amy Dahan, Adrien Fabre, Jean-Michel Fourniau, Maxime Gaborit, Laurence Granchamp, Hélène Guillemot, Laurent Jeanpierre, Hélène Landemore, Jean-François Laslier, Antonin Macé, Claire Mellier, Sylvain Mounier, Théophile Pénigaud, Ana Póvoas, Christiane Rafidinarivo, Bernard Reber, Romane Rozencwajg, Philippe Stamenkovic, Selma Tilikete & Solène Tournus

    Summary

    Launched in 2019, the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) tasked 150 randomly chosen citizens with proposing fair and effective measures to fight climate change. This was to be fulfilled through an “innovative co-construction procedure”, involving some unspecified external input alongside that from the citizens. Did inputs from the steering bodies undermine the citizens’ accountability for the output? Did co-construction help the output resonate with the general public, as is expected from a citizens’ assembly? To answer these questions, we build on our unique experience in observing the CCC proceedings and documenting them with qualitative and quantitative data.

    We find that the steering bodies’ input, albeit significant, did not impair the citizens’ agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. While succeeding in creating consensus among the citizens who were involved, this co-constructive approach, however, failed to generate significant support among the broader public. These results call for a strengthening of the commitment structure that determines how follow-up on the proposals from a citizens’ assembly should be conducted.

Paper / June 2022 / Published by Nature: Humanities & Social Sciences Communications

  • Dr Catherine Cherry (Cardiff University), Dr Stuart Capstick (Cardiff University), Dr Christina Demski (Cardiff University), Claire Mellier (Iswe Foundation), Lucy Stone (Our Common Climate), Dr Caroline Verfuerth (Cardiff University)

    Summary

    National net-zero targets require ambitious policy and have implications for the way people will live over the coming decades. To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, or sooner, requires active participation across civil society.

    Citizens’ assemblies on climate change are a promising means by which citizens can be placed at the core of a democratic decision-making process to develop or advise on policies. In this report we show that a diverse cross-section of citizens can come together with minimal prior understanding and conclude in favour of farreaching climate policies, often going further than polls or politicians’ assumptions about public opinion suggest is possible. All the same, there is no single way to run a citizens' assembly on climate change: the ways in which they are designed has an important influence on assembly outcomes and recommendations.

    In this report, we present an in-depth analysis of the Climate Assembly UK (CAUK), focusing on: a) the design of the process including its structure, scope and framing; b) the deliberations that took place and the underlying values surrounding how to achieve net-zero that they revealed; and c) assembly members' wider perceptions of climate change, derived from follow-up interviews with CAUK participants. We next examine the similarities and differences between the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (CCC) and the UK approach; we also focus on the CCC's consideration of 'consumption’ and question the extent to which this allowed citizens to address the underlying and systemic drivers of unsustainable consumption. Finally, we explore the diversity of local and regional processes within the UK, emphasising their ability to galvanise action despite limitations surrounding the ability to achieve wider public engagement or specific policy recommendations.

Article / July 2021 / Published by Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations

  • Johnny Stormonth-Darling & Canning Malkin (Iswe Foundation), Alexandra Parsons (Wellcome Trust), September 2024

    This paper explores how health could and should fit into a permanent global citizens’ assembly. It shows how persistent inequities could be tackled, while improving the prospects of everyone, in terms of health metrics and beyond them. It provides practical suggestions for the infrastructure we need and purposeful motivations for why we need it.

Report / September 2024 / Published by Iswe Foundation & Wellcome Trust

  • Vicki Cardwell (Good Help)

    Good Help is public service transformation movement. Good help builds hope, agency and enables people to take control of their lives. Our mission is to make Good Help the primary way we support one another. We use our knowledge, networks and skills to help more people benefit from Good Help. We are made up of frontline practitioners, public servants, charities, foundations and government agencies.

    Despite waves of reform, reoffending rates in England and Wales have remained persistently high for the last 15 years. We argue that the objective of rehabilitation services should not only be to support people to live free from crime, but also to fulfil their potential.

Discussion Paper / 2021 / Published by Good Help