Manifesto

Civic Innovation: an opportunity for a changing world

Civic Innovation (CI) is key to collectively finding new, creative and exciting ways to constructively confront the transitions and challenges which lie ahead of us. However, in order to unlock CI’s full potential we need to heighten its role on public and institutional agendas, raise awareness and grow its support at the grassroots level.

To this end, Colaboratorio IC are putting forward a series of measures to promote Civic Innovation, and this is our call to action for you to join us. With your signature you can help us to put these measures into action and facilitate a wide range of meetings, gatherings and work groups.

We live in times of great change and uncertainty. Due to the scale, complexity and urgency of the challenges we have ahead of us, current institutional, technoscientific and market systems are being overwhelmed or falling short, and we are faced with unavoidable transformations and transitions in every aspect of our lives. These demand new ways of relating to one another, coexisting, and producing as a community which must go beyond traditional, established ways of organising. We need constructive and engaging solutions which are the fruits of a collective intelligence, of collaboration among various types of actors and sectors, and of melding knowledge, skills and diverse experiences.

In light of this, Civic Innovation offers a great opportunity. It springs from the active involvement of civil society – the people and communities directly affected by and invested in local issues – to co-produce meaningful, creative solutions adapted to their needs and realities, and those of every territory. This is innovation based in collectively seeking solutions in every possible form (services, products, processes, policies etc) which improve lives and the environment. Those proposals which work well can be scaled up, or even transferred into other environments. In addition, CI is enriched and strengthened by open and transversal democratic participation, much like other forms of innovation in fields as wide-ranging as social action, the environment, health, education, culture, economy or technology.

Civic Innovation has grown and matured over time, and continues to demonstrate through its myriad forms an effective capacity to identify and overcome obstacles. However, CI must shed its outdated perception as merely an exceptional or emergency response, and gain widespread acceptance as an integrated, everyday practice both within and outside of institutions.

We are at a turning point in which Civic Innovation must unlock its full potential by becoming more visible and recognised, as well as growing its grassroots support. CI needs to have a stronger presence on both public and institutional agendas while, at the same time, keeping touch with civil society’s concerns, needs and life plans.

To this end we are sending out a MANIFIESTO! proposing the following urgent measures:

1. Boost interconnection and support for the Civic Innovation ecosystem. Promote cooperation among organisations and individuals, appropriately scaled to their territories and skill sets. Set up collaborative and distributed governance for the ecosystem, which will pave the way for different forms of participation and levels of involvement.
   
2. Connect, mobilise and raise awareness of the abundance of agents within the ecosystem, valuing and nurturing the value which diversity of experiences and backgrounds brings to the table (formally organised and non-organised civic movements / public administration / education and research centres / businesses and professionals). Cultivate dialogue, meaningful relationships, transversal alliances and collaborative processes from a place of mutual trust and acknowledgement.
   
3. Bring Civic Innovation closer to society as a whole, seeking out groups of interest and targeting specific audiences. Highlight CI´s socially transformative and cohesive potential by involving the media, institutions, prominent social figures, businesses etc in its promotion. Publish practical, illustrative and motivational examples which foreground the involvement of people and groups who may not typically be associated with frameworks such as CI.
   
4. Bring Civic Innovation into all realms of the public and political sphere via strategies, plans, and specific measures. Combine it with other forms of innovation such as Social, Open, Public, Cultural and Digital. Achieve recognition of its uniqueness within current Science, Technology and Innovation Systems as a much broader principle than Citizen Science.
   
5. Foster the growth and implementation of laboratories as a flexible, foundational framework to underpin the development and coordination of Civic Innovation. Strengthen their role as focal points in research and innovation in order to encourage participation, experimentation and co-production. Draw attention to their value as flagship meeting spaces which catalyse the development and mediation of relationships and processes, as well as facilitating and sharing the new practices and methodologies they create.
   
6. Create a distributed, federated network of associated laboratories and intermediaries which act as connecting nodes within the ecosystem, developing joint action and intertwining relations, locally (in neighbourhoods, towns, villages and cities), and on regional, national and international levels. This will combine specialised, high-profile laboratories and agents with other, more local and community-oriented laboratories, such as libraries, cultural or community centres, schools and universities, health clinics, media offices, employment offices, sports centres, and so on.
   
7. Foster co-production and the shared use of infrastructure, tools, methodologies and common resources, following the logic and principles of free, open access to knowledge and technology. Carry out training and stewardship programmes which promote the sovereignty of individuals and communities while enabling collaborative networking.
   
8. Provide collaborative support for specific projects which can be co-produced by a variety of individuals and adapted to different contexts. Work towards common goals by responding to specific needs and urgent projects, joining local issues and objectives up to higher, macro-level institutional frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030.
   
9. Incorporate Civic Innovation into the educational system, from primary school all the way up to university level and beyond, in order to develop transferable, universal skills and to train new change agents. Create educational programs and school subjects which combine learning and practice by carrying out research and projects connected to the challenges faced by specific communities.
   
10. Develop a professional framework built around Civic Innovation, rooted in skillsets which facilitate relationships, processes and projects. Identify working profiles, and use them to develop training programmes and materials which will allow people to gain the required technical, personal and professional skills.
    
11. Make a commitment to renew, transform and empower the public system. Move towards a more open, supportive and empathetic network of institutions. Uphold and support experimentation with regards to new modes of governance, participation and public-social collaboration, and involve civil servants as key players within the innovation ecosystem.
    
12. Set out an assessment and reporting system in compliance with the principles and indicators of Civic Innovation. This will not only allow for the measurement of impact and accountability, but also for comparative analyses which contribute to the ongoing, wider progress of the ecosystem itself and those involved in it, as well as any future proposals. Such a system could also be incorporated into, or be used alongside, assessment tools in other fields.
    

This MANIFIESTO! is being launched by Colaboratorio IC, a collective space dedicated to facilitating connection and action, which is made up of a diverse plurality of actors committed to placing Civic Innovation on public and institutional agendas, as well as constructing its ecosystem from a transversal and multidisciplinary perspective.

In order to achieve this, we are looking to involve more people and organisations in Civic Innovation who can contribute in different ways, along with institutions and entities whose responsibilities and skills relate directly to innovation.

We invite you to support this movement by signing the MANIFIESTO! We also ask you to share it among your own network of trusted friends and, if you want to go even further, join a meeting or a working group and help to make a real, lasting impact.

WILL YOU ANSWER OUR CALL?

WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER !