The CIPAST consortium

The CIPAST platform strongly takes into account a rich context of recent initiatives, studies and research pro-grammes in the fi eld of participatory processes at both European national and cross-national levels. With the principal instruments of its networking activity such as workshops, training sessions, discussions lists, newsletter and website, CIPAST gives priority to involve the various actors coming from the civil society.

The consortium is fi lled with European organisations which have signifi cant experiences in the use of partici-patory procedures in scientifi c and technological issues. They belong to different families of experienced actors in that fi eld and are already structured in different European networks. CIPAST meets partners from three ranges:

• from parliamentary offi ces:The Rathenau Institute (RI), Den Haag, the Nether-lands; The Danish Board of Technology (DBT), Copen-hagen, Denmark

• from science museums and Science Shops: La Cité de sciènces et de l´industrie (CSI), Paris, France; Deutsches Hygienemuseum (DHMD), Dres-den, Germany; Citta della Scienza (IDIS), Naples, Italy; Bonn Science Shop, Bonn, Germany

• from academic institutions which are engaged in the analysis and the socio-political evaluation of participative procedures: CSI, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France; CEVIPOF, Sci-ences Po Paris, France; Centre for the Study of De-mocracy (CSD), Westminster University, London, UK; INRA/TSV, Paris, France; INSERM, Paris, France; Sci-ence-society interface, University of Lausanne, Switzer-land

CIPAST is co-ordinated by Roland Schaer, la Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris, France. r.schaer@cite-sciences.fr

CIPAST has been awarded fi nancial support by the Eu-ropean Commission through the contract No. 013518 in the framework of “Coordination Action”; programme “Structuring the European Research Area”

If you want to learn more about the CIPAST platform, the CIPAST consortium and its activities, please visit the

website www.cipast.orgor contact Norbert Steinhaus, norbert.steinhaus@wilabonn.de

CIPAST aims at fostering citizen participation by exchanging know-ledge and experience. The transfer of knowledge and expertise is accomplished by tools like newsletters, website and a discussion list. But the heart of work is the implementation of a case-studies’ based corpus of training tools: ‘CIPAST in Practice – Doing Public Participation’.

CIPASTCitizen Participation in Science and Technology

The CIPAST Database

The CIPAST consortium decided to set up a database as a tool for actors involved in science and technology. It identifi es key persons or institutions that may concretely contribute to promote the development of participatory procedures in science and technology in their country. It also gives an overview of several past or ongoing participatory processes. In addition the database provides statistics on the kind of actors and thematic fi elds represented. The following three lists are available for the public:- reference institutions with more than

33 records from 16 countries- reference institutions’ addresses- participatory processes with more

than 140 records from 21 countries

If you are interested to be listed in the da-tabase please fi ll the database registra-tion forms on the CIPAST website

CIPAST in Practice

The developed training package pro-vides two different and complementary elements: fi rst a suggested model of a training workshop, based on experi-ences from accomplished workshops; and second elementary sets for teaching and learning which are based on ‘real life case studies’ and which can be used and re-assembled by potential users. The given tools are completed through information resources about designing participatory procedures experts, litera-ture and additional experiences.The case study model was fi rst tested in a workshop in Dresden 2006 and then revised for a second workshop 2007 in Procida (Naples), Italy, taking into ac-count that it is necessary to involve the participants in active problem solving activities. You can ask for a free copy of CIPAST in Practice or use it online at the CIPAST website.

The studies, experiences and proposals that the CIPAST network intends to share and develop are based on two phenomena or two major trends in our societies: On the desire to renew and enhance the democratic dialogue and decision-mak-ing processes in contemporary society and on the need to perform a social as-sessment of the technological innovation processes that continuously transform the ways in which our societies operate.Therefore training for public participation in science and technology has to be considered as a multiple objective aim: as training activity before (and for) the implementation of a public participation initiative but also as an offer to get in-formed about public participation in general.